Quote of the week

I played my sister's records of the soundtrack up and down and to this day I still adore the songs and the dancing in the movie. And oh man, I was desperately in love with Treat Williams back then.
I also remember haircut discussions only too well, so here you go.

Berger: Whaddaya say, Pop?
Mom: Whaddaya say, what?
Berger: Nothing, Ma, nothing. Pa?
Pop: Ya need money, get a job.
Mom: Money? You're talking about money? What do ya need money for?
Berger: Nothing, I just need it.
Mom: Who is she?
Berger: Who is who?
Mom: The girl.
Berger: What girl?
Mom: Who's the girl?
Berger: There's no girl. What are you talking about?
Mom: You can tell us everything. We understand everything.
Berger: What are you talking about? There's no girl. I need some money, that's all.
Mom: You need money. Tell us the truth!
Berger: What are you talking about, telling the truth?
Pop: Goddammit. Every time you come home, there's trouble. Why don't you clean yourself up a little bit? Why don't ya get a haircut? Get a haircut and I'll give you the money. You don't even have to pay me back.
Berger: You give me the money if I get a haircut?
Pop: Try to do something to make us happy.
Berger: You'd give me the money if I cut my hair?
Everyone is yelling at the same time.
Mom: Gimme your pants!
Berger: My pants are clean!
Mom: Gimme your pants!
Berger: Why? They're clean, for Christ's sake!
He's following his mother into the kitchen when she gives him a sign.
Mom (softly): How much you need?

Hair, USA/Germany, 1979

The Great Flapper or How Christie got a new outfit - Part 3, Jewelry and shoes

Welcome back to Christie's story!
This time I am going to tell you about her jewelry and her shoes.

Actually the jewelry was the easiest part to do in the whole project.
I knew I wanted to give her long necklaces, so I just had to look in my stash if I had beads in the right colors that I could use with the seed beads. As it so happens, I had green and yellow crystals. In fact I tried all-crystal necklaces first, but I didn't really love them and after getting a no on that from my personal advisor as well, I went for a combination of crystals and seed beads. That was much better, also because the necklaces sit better that way.

In my stash were also smaller crystals in green, so I made a little chain stitch bracelet with them, and just look at that big stone she's wearing on her finger!
Newer dolls often have a hole in their hand where the ring is missing, so I had to cover that up.

I felt that dangly earrings would not go well with the fringe on the headpiece, so even if I love them, I settled for simple golden studs instead which are headpins that I put in the ear holes.

Christie's makeover was almost finished, how exciting! Little did I know how long she still had to wait.
I have big feet, but I don't have as many problems to find shoes as this lady.
There aren't that many Supersize outfits and the shoes are even harder to find individually. When I missed out on the one pair I found for sale, I had to figure out something else.

My first thought was polymer clay. Maybe I could make the soles from clay and bead the top. I had some old clay and decided on a dry run. I put Christie's feet on some paper and drew the outlines, cut out the templates, pressed them onto the clay and started cutting around.
I believe in recycling and have paper scraps around for notes, my to do lists, and stuff like this. I have a tip for you. Don't use paper with a tax return form printed on it. The print will end up on the clay. Of course it will. Doh. After all this was only a dry run, though, so it didn't matter.
I lightly pressed the soles onto Christie's feet for the shape. That didn't look too bad for a first try. I put them into my toaster oven and waited when I suddenly heard a weird sound. I can't even describe what the soles had turned into. It was a burnt and gooey mass with bubbles. I have no idea if it had been the oven that hadn't been used in a while - although I did wipe all the dust off - or the old clay or both. Time and temperature had been right. Oh well.

I had to get some new clay and use the other oven.
I had been optimistic after making the new soles, things didn't quite work out the way I wanted them to. I had my soles which had kept the shape of the feet pretty well, I had the heels, now I just needed to come up with an idea for the top.
Poor Christie leaned against the wall for weeks. My next doll project, still without head then, kept her company while receiving one garment after the other. They were an odd pair and a little sad to look at.

Finally I knew it was now or never. I sat down with my clay, the soles and Christie and tried to mold a shoe onto her foot that I could get off afterwards. Don't forget that again I had a whole doll attached to that foot, too. As Christie's waist is a little loose, she moved and wriggled a lot during the process. The lady has no patience at all!
I tried and tried, and when one thing worked, the other went wrong. The thought of having to do the same for the other foot drove me to take drastic measures. I broke the soles in two and tossed them.
But now what?
I can't believe it took me that long to realize that I could knit the shoes from wire and beads. T-strap shoes with a wire crochet heel. See, sometimes I just need time to come up with something!

And here she is now, in our 20s inspired hallway where she took up residence (no way she would have fit into my doll cabinet). Every time I come out of my flat, she makes me smile standing there and smiling at me.

You have missed the first two posts? Find them here!
Part 1, The Dress
Part 2, The headpiece

Will you be back for my next doll project? It's very different from the first two, but was just as much fun (and there were no shoe problems at all!).

Tackle that stash - Daisy chain necklace

This week I have another quick project to share, but believe me, in regards of tackling stash it was mighty successful.
I used up all the blue and red seed beads for this, to the last bead. I think I used up all the silver tone metal beads as well although it's possible that some of these are still hiding somewhere because I dropped them once.

Can you believe that I never made a real daisy chain as a child or a teenager? I was too late for the true hippie era and no one ever taught me how to make one.
So when I checked out the daisy chain stitch for my doll project, I knew it would be perfect to use up some beads and make something sweet and girly for the daycare center.
Who knows maybe it inspires the girls to try it themselves? After all I've been told the 70s are back!

The Great Flapper or How Christie got a new outfit - Part 2, The headpiece

Let's jump right in, okay? Today is about Christie's head.
 
Vintage dolls have a neck knob which allows you to move the head sideways. There are smaller and bigger ones and cone shaped ones and whatnot.
Later dolls got neck knobs which allowed to also tilt the head, make it look up or down, this is the kind Christie has.
Out there in the net you can find much more information on the subject and also on the subject of the dreaded neck split and what's the best way to behead a doll. A little hint, it is NOT the guillotine.

Again, I am not a doll artist meaning I have the patience to do repairs of all kind, replace limbs, heads, re-paint faces or more. I try my best to avoid some procedures if possible, and one of them is taking a head off a doll if not absolutely necessary.
As a child I was cooler about that. We had outfits that were impossible to put on a doll if you didn't take her head off first. Yes, my Stacey does have a neck split, but she also has a yellow face and one finger and half a foot are missing. You can tell she was a beloved and played with toy. I'm digressing, sorry.

Have you ever seen a Barbie doll which looks like she doesn't have a neck? She probably had one of those newer neck knobs, maybe even the ones with prongs. My sister and I have seen more than one of those. If a child pulls on one of the heads on such a knob, the neck can break and the knob part comes off. If you put the head back on, it's right on the neck instead the knob. We call them "no-neck monsters" after a quote from "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof".

After all the work with the dress *looking at Ponder who is trying to clean up around his food plate* I didn't want to risk Christie to become a no-neck monster.
A hair cut was out of the question, too. I didn't have a replacement head in case anything went wrong.
And honestly, the copper streaks didn't look very 20s to me, either.
So all that I could do was to put something on her head that had the touch of the 20s, but hid all her hair.
I chose to knit a wire headpiece because knitted wire is flexible enough to shape it if needed. I used golden wire and the bright green beads to pick up the colors from the dress.
The last rows were a little difficult because I had to knit them with the headpiece already on the head, so I could decrease. Not that easy with the whole doll attached to it, I can tell you.

The wire knit "flower" with the crystal center was easier to make, but a bit fiddly to put on. I used the dark teal beads for it to have some contrast.
I had still some peacock feather leftovers. What was funny is that they arranged themselves when I pulled the flower tight. I wish all components would be that cooperative!
Last but not least I added a fringe at the bottom to match the fringe on the dress and voilà!

The last post will be about the jewelry and about big feet. Not Bigfoot, big feet! Just wait and see.

Have you missed the first post? Here it is:
Part 1, The dress

Barbie is a registered trademark of Mattel, Inc. I am not affiliated with Mattel.

Oldies but Goodies - Jasper

Way before I even thought about making jewelry, I hung out in shops where you could buy tumbled rocks among other things (for me it was more the scarfs and incense sticks). I have to admit that I looked down on most of them because they didn't sparkle. There were some nice colors, yeah, but I didn't see their true beauty back then. 
Things have changed over the years. It was at a little village fair where I got my first tumbled rock, a picture jasper. I still have that one, by the way.

This week the Jewelry Artisans Community's Oldies but Goodies Challenge was about jasper. You should have a look because there were more beautiful stones than just these ones.

1 Jewelry Art by Dawn
2 Violetmoon's Corner
3 Cat's Wire
4 The Crafty Chimp
5 MC Stoneworks
 
Today I also have an extra picture. I got this Owyhee Jasper cab many years ago, too. Can you see the mountains in the back, the branch at the top, the lake and the trees? This cab won't go anywhere, I'll treasure it. About time I made something with it, don't you think?

Theme jewelry

When I started making jewelry, I never thought of making theme jewelry, well, not on purpose at least. I didn't even think much about that subject before the Jewelry Artisans Community chose it for this month's blog carnival.

What is theme jewelry? That's jewelry with a theme of course.
What themes are there although it would probably be easier to ask what themes aren't there.
Seasons or holidays. Awareness, of a disease for example. Nature. Animals. Zodiac signs. Birthstones. These are just a few of the popular ones that come to mind.

Looking back myself I can tell that one or the other theme related piece sneaked into my work early on. The cats were there first. Of course they were, as wire crochet cat head pendants.
After that, however, I can't really remember any theme jewelry. My muse ran wild and it was possible that after finishing it a piece reminded me of a theme, but I didn't plan anything.
That changed when I started bead looming. Suddenly I felt I had all kinds of possibilities not only to pursue a theme once, but to make whole series.
There were animal print cuffs when I needed contributions for our local zoo raffle.
I played with classic fabric patterns like Gingham, Herringbone, Argyle, and Houndstooth.
Floors, tiles, and rugs inspired me.
I created animals like the panda, the unicorn or cats sitting in a window.
Halloween and Christmas items turned up. Art Nouveau. Bollywood. Symbols like the Eye of Horus or a pentacle.

Wow. Until now I didn't even realize how looming changed my style or should I say added to it.

You may wonder why I haven't shared any pictures yet. Well, now we are coming to two series that have become special to me.

One of them are of course the HeatherCats.
For those who really don't know them yet, they are a collaboration of my friend Heather, a New Zealand artist with a whimsical mind, and myself, Cat. Therefore the HeatherCats. Oh yes, and they are cats. Who would have thought, eh?
I transfer Heather's paintings into wearable jewelry. I love them, and I'd love to make the cats in all kinds of color combinations. Some of the designs were so perfect for color variations that I already did them, like the Shadycats for example.
There's no chance I can pick a favorite, either. Heather, another cat lady with three adorable cats called Biskit, Cookie, and Pudding who also fosters kittens, knows exactly the ways how to paint a cat and make you go squee, smile, chuckle or even laugh out loud.
This collage doesn't even show all of them and definitely not all of them yet because I want to make more. If you want to see pictures of the originals, by the way, you can find them with each listing in my shop. Of course you can also visit Heather's deviantART to see not only cats, but also her other work.

The other one is a fairly recent addiction that started with Edgar Allan Poe. I had been wanting to loom his portrait for a while, in a negative space version. Instead a sudden inspiration told me to use the whole photo, but cut down on the number of colors to see what would happen.
When I showed the pendant on my Facebook page, a friend there suggested that there had to be a Tesla pendant as well.
I was doomed, in more than one way. After following another suggestion - Audrey Hepburn - I remembered that Bela Lugosi had been on the top of my list for a long time. I had figured he would become a panel, but now he became a pendant instead. Dracula led to Frankenstein led to the Phantom of the Opera led to Nosferatu. For comic relief Laurel and Hardy sneaked their way in.
Why I was doomed in more than one way, you want to know? I got drawn into classic horror. Beside wire and beads movies are one of my obsessions and now I went back in time. Dracula, The Wolfman, The Invisible Man .... seriously, how do you make a pendant of an invisible man? I'm still chewing on that one. Phantom of the Opera. Freaks. Now that movie poster would be a very ambitious project. I put it on my list. There's so much on my list. Not just looming. What about the wire? My hooks are lonely. I gotta take a break. Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah .........................

Yup. Looks like it is almost time for the Hug Me jacket. With beads, please. Maybe I could loom one. Do you think I could? There's that pattern I really need to make first, though.
Breathe, breathe ..... calm down.
There you go. Doomed, that's me.
Here's a picture of the portrait pendants I got so far. I'm still not sure why I picked a picture of Cary Grant in which he didn't smile, but made one of his faces.

Well, I guess after all that I could say that I am making theme jewelry.
If you want to hear what the other JAC members have to say about the subject of theme jewelry, have a look at the following links. I have no doubt it will not sound as crazy as what you've just read ;-)

Jewelry Art by Dawn
Violetmoon's Corner
The Crafty Chimp
Echoes of Ela

Zibbet finds of the week - I'm learning to fly

To be able to fly by yourself is something many people seem to be dreaming of. I'll be honest, I'm not one of them. I have never been excited about being on a plane, and I don't know what you'd have to promise me to get me onto a balloon ride for example. Although my dreams are often very vivid, interesting, even weird, I seem to prefer train rides to flying of any kind (which may seem really strange to those people who have seen me through the last nine train strikes here in Germany).

Nevertheless I can understand how other people may love that feeling of freedom and being able to touch the skies, so-to-speak.
Today's post is dedicated to a fellow member of my jewelry forum JAC. Kevin, this is for you.
Let's go flying ...

... like a balloon.

Giclee print "It flew away" by Fairytalez 'N Fantasiez

... like a bird.

"Crow in flight" painted pendant by Windy Paints

... like a bee.

Bumble bee baby mobile by Cherry Time

... like a cloud.

Storm photography by Green Goose Gallery

... like an airplane.

Multicolor airplanes card set by We Make You Enjoy

... like a kite.

"Kites aloft" giclee canvas print by Carol Thompson

... like, erm, a pig?

Sepia "Flying Pigs" CD wall clock by Eclectic Skeptic

Don't forget, however ... coming down is the hardest thing ;-)