More Black and White

I was in a B & W charm swap back in September; I posted a pic of the charm I made here. I received the lovely group of charms back and worked on putting them on a bracelet.

Well, I loved how it all turned out that I could not resist signed up for Amber Dawn’s Black and White charm swap as well. So this is what I made for this swap.

My packaging, I ran across these great little clear boxes with a white rose on top. So adding the black tissue paper with the charm and card inside, just completed the package.

So they are all boxed up and ready to be mailed to the hostess.

Off to work on more good stuff.

It is done – Her coffin

For my frozen charlotte doll. I took one of the small ones and bloodied up her arms and legs, gave a little wound on the head and chest. I drew the outline for the size of the coffin needed. Cut out the glass for each side. Added spider web black paper to the bottom piece. Taped each piece and soldered. I attached the doll to the bottom piece. Then soldered each piece together. I am thinking on stamping R.I.P. at the bottom of the coffin.

I added two jump rings to the top and instead of the usual link chain I threaded some orange ribbon through and then worked on added each Halloween charm from the charmster group swap. I tied a knot through each jump ring on the charm. So they would stay in place.

Wire wrapped the ribbon in the back so I can just slip it over my head and wear it.

Yeah. What a great time of year.

Halloween will be upon us shortly

Now that Art and Soul is behind me. I have been working away at all of my Halloween charm swaps I’m in.
This first one is for Michelle Cummings Halloween/Autumn charms.

The next ones are for the charmsters group I am in. Could not decide so I made a couple different ones.

I see a pattern here. Everything soldering. Oh, so many good things you can do with it. My idea book is filling up.
I have an idea for using a small frozen charlotte doll to go with all my Halloween charms. I have mentioned it to a few people and one of the comments I got was ‘oh that’s morbid’ thanks Mic G , Michelle Geller. For those who know me it’s not like me. I just want to give the doll a proper burial, hint hint. It is Halloween time. I’m hoping to have time to work on this in the next few days. So stay tuned.

Enjoy the day everybody.

Dolls Galore

Wow, those little baby dolls are popular. I only have about 22 of them left that come with the limbs.
Let me show you something I did with one. I found these butterfly wings at Michaels a few weeks ago in these great Fall colors. So I made a doll butterfly and attached it to my collage piece. The doll was just the right size for those wings, ok so maybe they are big but it works for me. The words ‘Awaken your inner child’ seemed to go with the flying doll.
More fun dolls. I won this small lot of dolls with bonnets/hats. They all have legs except for that one that lost its foot. The size is between 2” and 2 ½”. The arm area has predrilled holes. I have a few I can sell. If interested email me, mmerrill_20@hotmail.com.
I have another lot I won that has these tiny little frozen charlotte dolls. They remind me of those Polly pocket dolls for kids. These are all about 1 inch tall.

So if you are interested in any of these great dolls, email me mmerrill_20@hotmail.com

More great finds to come.

A couple more goodies came and other stuff

Though they might not know it but when the frozen charlotte dolls and such are packaged in news paper, German newspaper, it will make for a great background on collages, Extra bonus. Oh my golly do I have a bunch of it.

My other great buy were these vintage ledgers. The one on the left is a huge three ring binder type.


Great text and pages in each of them.


I also wanted to share this with you. While heading over to the Sheraton for yet another class at Art and Soul this was my view at the stop light. Those rainy days in Portland can get dreary but you get great rainbows like this one.
Ok, so taking pictures while at the wheel of a car isn’t really safe, though I was not moving at the time. Hence the clear photo of the rainbow. Some times you just can’t pass up a photo opportunity.

Spend time doing something you enjoy. :)

While Art and Soul went on,

the mail brought some great goodies. They arrived last Tuesday or the notice that they arrived came. I had to go to the post office and sign for them. Oh the joy and anticipation.

I had purchased some German dolls and doll heads. I’m sure you have heard, there are several people over in Germany on these digging expeditions at these old doll factories that went up in ruins. The German dolls I won are the bisque dolls that have the drilled holes on the side were the arms and legs would go. All of them have great facial detail, cute little baby dolls. I had contacted the seller and asked him to tell me more about the dolls he finds. He heads to Thuringia once a month on his digging expeditions at the old doll factories for about 8 - 10 days. He comes away with all sorts of different doll treasures.

This bunch isn’t like the frozen charlotte dolls you usually see. These are small doll bodies that if they had their arms and legs they would move. While in my communications with the seller he brought up the arms and legs that go with these dolls and said he would include some for the dolls.
So to my surprise there was this stash of 60 pairs of arms and legs included. So generous and I am thankful for his generosity. Oh such great finds. Dainty little arms and legs.
Can you imagine going on digging expeditions and uncovering these tiny little treasures?

When put together this cute little doll comes alive at just over 2 inches tall.

My other goodie was these frozen charlotte doll heads. The smaller sized heads are solid and don’t have a hollow head which is easier to drill the hole at the top.


These would be great to do something with for Halloween. The decapitated doll heads, they are going to roll. They range in size from 1 inch up to 3 inches.
If you are interested in either of these dolls, send me an email: mmerrill_20@hotmail.com

take care, until next time.

M^3

Art and Soul – Part 2

On to the paper and painting.

I took the Thursday night class from Tracie Lyn Huskamp and Marylin Huskamp - Yummy Fused Paper. All I have to say is I now have a new use for all those small scraps of paper, fabric, ribbon and such that I just can’t seem to let go of. For all of you out there Steam a Seam 2 is now the answer, that and an iron. I added a cut up post card to make it a little collage.

My Sunday class was one that I added to my selection back in August. Riding the Paper Trail, taught by Deb Trotter, gave me a new outlook on tissue paper. Again something I always have excess of. We got to work on two pieces.
The first one was just free flow with layering tissue paper and then placing the images and final touches of the piece.
The second piece we used different kinds of handmade papers. Though before placing them down we worked on the layout and placement of all our pieces.
My Monday class I was able to buy from Shari French, who had to cut her trip short to fly to her little sisters Wedding. Bedazzled butterfly box with Stephanie Rubiano
Mine is a little different than how other people did theirs. My photo is not of a little girl in a dress. It is of me at the age of 8 in my ballerina outfit. The full photo showed me posing for my mom as I was twirling around our living room.

I went and scrambled through the on site store to find something for the photo to stand on. It all fell into place when I found these great little letter cubes. I had some extra frozen charlotte dolls so I came up with the words ‘let them dance’. These little dolls are good for all sorts of stuff.

Though I did see fellow charmster, Christine Hendry and her mom, use pictures of their cute kitty cats. Great idea.

Still more to come.

Art and Soul Whirlwind – Part 1

Wow, with a week long schedule of classes I am grateful that I had not gotten sick before, during or after the event. I was able to enjoy every minute of the inspiration and creativity flowing at every turn.
So for my first class I took Beverly Gilberts ‘Beads on Metal’. I’ve worked with metal and beads before but not together in this way. I made a pendant.

Then used a couple of the techniques I learned in Nina’s class to create a necklace for it.

So on the back I stamped in the saying ‘we don’t make mistakes, we just have learnings.’ Which just fit especially during this week of classes.

The wire wrapped ribbon and stringing beads that make up the necklace were techniques I learned in Nina’s class.
I am working on a pair of earrings to go with my pendant necklace, though not quite finished.

Days 2 and 3 I took Nina’s Step into the Story class. Oh my, loads of techniques she showed us. Great group of ladies, several of my charmster buddies and I also got to meet the lovely Cindy Dean. At these retreats it is great when you get to meet the people behind their blogs you read.
So back to my creation. With all the techniques I learned I went ahead and put several of them into my piece.

The Nina knot is all along the necklace, with a couple of bezels, a cocoon bead, honeysuckle bead, the pussy willow wrap, a few dangly pearls from my grandmas.

Then the focal piece I changed out the original bezel with this stamped copper piece I did which reads Live Your Best and then the key hanging from it is stamped with the word Life, from my Tim Holtz collection. So the words read ‘Live Your Best Life’.

More to come.