Visit A Whimsical Bohemian for other One World One Heart participants.

For this part of the ride, you’re visiting me (Eva Buchala, Lady Artisan) here in Texas. It’s been a balmy 60 to 70 degrees here in San Antonio for the past several days and most of us South-Central Texans are happy to be in shorts again! Take your jackets off, kick your shoes off and dangle your feet over the sides of the carpet as you join me for some bookbinding and sculpting fun. We’ll be servin’ up some ribs, tamales, chili and refreshing iced tea (sweet or unsweet, your choice) for refreshments.

Rules for the giveaway are simple:

1. Leave one comment on this post to receive an entry into the drawings (yes, that’s plural).

2. Make sure your comment includes your name and contact info so I can find you if you win.

3. Wander around and check out my other posts, Flickr, my website, etc. Feel free to leave comments on other posts, too

4. Send your comment in before midnight CST on February 14 (Happy Valentine’s Day!) so you’ll be included in the drawings.

5. Enjoy yourself! Don’t forget to pick up your snacks before the Magic Carpet heads off to it’s next location.

Entry into the drawing must be submitted before midnight Central Standard Time on Sunday, February 14, to be included. I will be drawing the winners (yes, that’s plural) on the morning of Monday, February 15, and announcing them during that day. I’ll probably use a random number generator this year.

Now to the good stuff–the giveaways. I’m offering up four leather matchbook notepads (refillable) and one Sheepicle–a small sculpted sheep, this one is ready for Valentine’s Day. I will randomly (of course) pick a winner for each item and post that information on Monday, February 15. If the winner of an item doesn’t respond by midnight on Tuesday, February 16, I will choose a new winner for that item. On to the items:

First up are the matchbook notepads. I came up with this idea one day looking at the smaller pieces of leftover leather from making books and wondering what I could do with them. I’d seen the matchbook notepads on Etsy, usually for promotional purposes, but thought it might be neat to have a nice, mini leather notepad to carry in a purse, pocket or bag (I’m always searching for note paper in my purse). The downside to making a matchbook notepad out of leather is that the materials cost way too much to sell them as inexpensively as the paper ones, of course. Plus, I can’t make one without wanting to carve, decorate, dye, etc., so the time involved would be a bit more. Solution? Make them refillable. So, paying more won’t matter because you can simply get one and refill it over and over.

The first matchbook is a cute little Piggy on a Spring green background. The notepad is made from hand-dyed leather and has a cute little pink piggy brad on the cover with two matching pink brads in the back. Filled with 16 pages of scrap drawing paper.

The second matchbook is Patriotic. This one sports a white start with red dots on it gracing a deep blue background. Again, the leather is hand-dyed and the brads on the back for this one are red stars. Paper inside is also scrap drawing paper, 16 pages.

The third matchbook is this Little Black Notepad–a simple and classic black leather with lovely little pearl hearts trimmed in gold (not real pearls, not real gold, just in case someone wondered). The paper included is 16 pages of scrap drawing paper.

The final matchbook I’m giving away is a perfect Valentine’s item, although it’s never out of style to carry your heart with you. This matchbook is a thicker leather with a hand-carved heart on the cover, dyed red on a pink background, the back sports two sparkly, glittery red hearts for brads. The paper inside is, once again, 16 pages of scrap drawing paper.

And the final giveaway item this year is a little sculpture in a series I’m calling the Sheepicles. This little guy is terribly cute and he’s holding a heart that says “Love” on it. It’s called “I Heart Ewe” and is a hand sculpted sheep in air-dry clay. I painted it with black, white and red artist acrylics. He’s looking forward to sharing his love with you…

Leave a comment. You’re welcome to tell me which item you’d prefer if you win but I can’t guarantee to accommodate everyone.

If you like the Sheepicle here, don’t forget to stop by the Art Dolls Only blog where the team is giving away 17 (yes, SEVENTEEN) doll and art items. I made a Sheepicle for that giveaway as well called “Smooch.”

Comments are moderated for those posting for the first time so if you don’t see your comment right away, it probably still needs to be approved.

Venus on the half shell.

Well, she’s completed! And looking as lovely as can be expected for a large, purple monster with a rather interesting concept of fashion.

I did end up using my commercial artist acrylics rather than attempting the paint making myself. I’m still not sure how the egg tempera is going to handle once I have it made so it’s definitely going to be reserved for experiments at first.

Venus' Face

From the head down…the hair is a fuzzy yarn I had on hand. Like fabric, I’ve become entranced with yarn in all it’s many forms, but especially the really soft-looking stuff. I’ve even taken up crocheting again, although it’s on the “hobby” list so I don’t usually have much time to do any. The eye is an acrylic doll eye (I think it’s Tallinas). The bathing suit was sculpted on and then painted.

Side view.

From the side, you can see her saggy belly, hanging just a bit over the teenie bikini bottom. She definitely likes to draw attention to herself. The yellows and reds came straight from the tube but the purple had to be mixed by hand because I didn’t have any purple paint in my stash. Funny thing is that I realized I don’t even have a good set of primary colors on hand. I managed to scrounge up a small bottle of violet and had several blues so I picked on and did a bit of mixing before finally coming up with a dark, purplish blue. Once she was painted and I looked her over, I realized she was still too blue so I did a wash of violet over her to give her the deep purplish look.

Back of the beauty

My kids were tickled that you could see her butt hanging out of her bikini bottoms. And, they’re hard to see but she does have a tiny set of wings under all that hair.

So, when she was all finished up and had hair, I finally decided on a name–Venus. Because I got this mental image of my purple bathing beauty on a clam shell looking like a rather silly version of the Birth of Venus.

Striking a pose

Original nose and mouth...kinda small and out of place.

Once again, I forgot to take a photo of my original sketch but, after looking at that tiny little nose again, I just knew I needed to go with my original idea of big, fat smiling lips and no nose. So I scraped the nose and mouth off and started that part over. My first try at her new lips were waaaay too huge so I had to tone it down a bit. I finally came up with something I liked, including her rather extreme overbight.

New facial features...as in, really big lips.

This will be the first doll I’ve made that required so much painting. Usually, I only have to paint the head hands and feet and the rest is cloth over a wire armature wrapped in batting. But after taking a class with the very awesome Susie McMahon (something I still need to do a write-up on), I’ve taken more of an interest in painting my dolls.

She needs a name, too...

Here's the lovely and not quite finished bathing beauty.

Now, let me just give some background to this. My husband and kids were hanging around the dining room/kitchen one day (can’t remember what we were doing) and I started singing the Purple-People Eater to my kids, figuring they would like it. Of course, my memories not what it used to be and I started mixing up the lyrics with Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini. As you can imagine, it made for some interesting and even sillier lyrics than the songs normally have by themselves. To top it off, my husband was convinced that the Purple-People Eater sang, “Why’s everybody always pickin’ on me?” during the song.

Side view. You can see her wings, three-fingered hand, saggy butt...

Which is how the Purple-People Eater wearing an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini and wondering, “why’s everybody always pickin’ on me?” was born. As you can see, she’s still a work in progress. She needs hair (probably sculpted although I might use some yarn/fiber), ears (holes poked into the sides of her head), and I haven’t decided if I will give her a tail yet or not. And she needs to be painted, naturally.

Back view

The other thing I’m not sure about is her expression. When I look back at my original sketch (I didn’t think to take a photo of it so I could post it here), I made her with a big smile on her face, really fat lips and a couple of fangs. No nose either. The one I’ve done has a pretty human looking nose and a little mouth that’s down-turned because I figured she’d be sad/embarrassed since everyone is picking on her. I was even thinking of making her cheeks very rosy. But when I look at the sketch, I think she might be better with a smile, so I may change that before I finish her up.

Close up of her butt and wings

The painting may end up the being the biggest challenge for me. I recently decided to take a little more control of the various paints, pastels, etc. that I work with and bought pigments so I could mix my own artist paints/colors. I now have “the fear” of getting in there and actually mixing up some paints (acrylics or egg tempera are two types I’m looking at). Maybe I’ll take some photos while I’m playing, as one site put it, studio alchemist. Then I can share my disasters and, hopefully, some successes as well with the paint mixing. Hmmm, I may have to just pull out my artist acrylics from the box they’re in (waiting to be sold) just so I can finish this doll by the deadline.

The front of my lovely bathing beauty to be.

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Not sure how any of these are going to look when it’s all said and done but that first one is pictures of my Storkop dolls. I have plans for at least a dozen more of them.

Next, let’s look at other art dolls I’ve made:

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And now we’ll check out my dolls that are in progress (and could potentially never be finished but don’t tell anyone I said that):

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Now you may be wondering why I didn’t do a little more homework on this gallery plugin before installing it. Truth is, I’ve used this gallery plugin before (it was an older iteration so I’m still figuring out what updates have been done on it). And I liked it so I figured I would probably still like it.

Book time! This first set are books made from various fabric, decorative papers, or mixed materials (leather spines, polymer clay embellishments, etc.).

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My leather bound books, mostly handcarved, although one of them was made from a pair of vintage ladies gloves in a size XXX-Small (I’m not even sure my kids could’ve worn them).

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And, finally, I leave you with my currently most prolific category, books made with polymer clay covers (I was quite surprised when I started to adding these images in and realized there were so many).

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That’s all for the picspam/trial run of the gallery. I’m in the midst of writing up a post that shares my how-to for tea-staining and distressing paper (something I love to do for my books). Hopefully I’ll get that posted in the next couple of days.

Pierre with the suitcase base--a miniature mint tin

One idea I had for Pierre’s accessories was a suitcase. Mainly because I have these little tins (I don’t remember where I got them from) that were the perfect size for a little suitcase for someone Pierre’s height. I believe they were probably promotional mints/tins at some point in their lives but I, of course, won’t be using any of them for that.

Side of tin to show size and design

The size of the tin is about 2″ tall, closed. The first thing I did was take the tin apart, thinking it would be easier to cover if the tin were separated (I’ve covered tin before with polymer clay but it wasn’t one of my favorite pc projects so I didn’t do them very often, but we always took the tins apart to cover them with clay). In retrospect, the whole thing probably would’ve worked better if I’d left it together and just covered over it, as is. I used leather for the case (the same skiver I mentioned in an earlier post that I got from Rio Rondo).

The tin, separated and ready for covering.

Notice the leather strip above the tin pieces with the brass brads on either end. That’s the handle. I took a strip of 2 oz leather and wrapped it with some of the skiver with the underside out so it looks like suede. I used brown leather which is a bit darker than I like (it’s almost as dark as the black leather) but all of the skiver from Rio Rondo is veg tanned so it can still be worked.

Checking how the handle looks on the case.

Here’s a better picture of the handle. I did a little test run with it on the case to make sure it would fit and look in proportion. I think it ended up looking pretty good.

Top of suitcase, ready for covering

Next part of the project was to cover the two sides of the suitcase with the leather. I debated trimming and cutting the leather so that it would fit very neatly on the cover but kind of liked the idea of the corners being a little bunched as part of the design. This is probably another thing that I’ll do differently if I attempt this a second time. It was too difficult making the overlapping areas consistent so it all ended up a bit too haphazard looking to me.

The sides after covering them.

This all from the same leather. The dark brown is the leather side of the skiver and the light brown is the underside, which has a suede look, of course. I can’t remember why I decided to add the brown suede, I think just as a design element, to make it match the handle. Of course, covering it is one thing. Expecting the tin to go back together with an extra layer of leather on it was a whole other matter. I actually realized, while covering the two sides, that I would probably have a problem getting the tin to cooperate with added thickness on the sides. It definitely didn’t work–the hinge portion didn’t move properly and the front edge couldn’t overlap like it had before (big surprise).

I tried a couple of different hinge options, none of which worked. The miniature hinges I have were either too small or too large. I made holes in the leather and metal and inserted brads but they made the suitcase too flimsy/loose at the hinge. I finally decided that leather would make a great hinge and added yet another layer of leather to the case at the bottom.

Leather hinge at the base of the suitcase.

Works like a charm and it definitely reinforced for me the idea that keeping the tin in one piece and just covering with leather would be a better mechanical design for these miniature suitcases. I used another strip of leather on the inside to strengthen the hinge (it’s hard to see in this picture because of the hot spot).

Inner hinge and inside of suitcase

As you can see, it’s not finished yet. I have some silk from a decorative pillow I used to own. It’s a creamy yellow color and I think it will be perfect to line the inside of the case. That’s my next step. You can also see the handle attached here.

Suitcase from the back.

My mother wrote up a nice little blog post about Pierre and the miniature journal I made for him on her blog, Artists & Crafters Supply Community (July 23, I can’t find a permanent link for the post). Also, don’t forget to check out the ADO Traveling Doll Project Blog, with posts by all the participants of the project sharing on their experiences working on these dolls.

Here's Pierre with his walking stick and journal in hand.

So, I have to be honest and say that the traveling dolls have been getting more difficult for me as we get closer to the end of the project. I can’t imagine having more dolls to work on after these last two because I’m reaching a point where I’m stumped on what to add to these dolls since they seem so complete already.

Of course, that’s usually just my first perception as I pull a doll out that’s clothed, wigged, painted, and fully sculpted. What could I possibly add that would mean anything to this figure? That’s the first question I had as I watched Pierre rooting around through the junk in my studio and exclaiming over his many finds. It took me a couple of weeks to realize that there are three things he would benefit from the most–a walking stick (the “terrain” in most studios has to be pretty rough for any doll of Pierre’s size), a travel journal for taking notes, sketching, and keeping track of his thoughts, and a suitcase (for any souvenirs he might pick up along the way). By the time he left here, he had two of those items. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out the mechanics of making his suitcase in time to include it with him, but I’m still working on it and will do a post about it sometime in the near future.

Pierre's walking stick measures approximately 4"

For today, though, I thought I’d share about how I made Pierre’s walking stick. I ran across the coolest wire at Michael’s one day in the floral section (or maybe it was the wedding section), probably a year or so ago. As soon as I saw it, I knew I’d find a use for it one day. It’s a thick wire that’s covered with some kind of paper that makes it look like a vine. Funny thing is that I’ve had it for so long, I kind of forgot about it. I considered a few different options for making a walking stick for Pierre before I finally remembered the wire vine I had.

Wire vine I found at Michael's in the floral department

As someone who’s ingrained the idea of armatures into their brain, my initial idea was to use some kind of armature for the vine because I knew that a single piece of this wire might look great but it wouldn’t be stiff or strong enough to act like a real walking stick. I didn’t have any wood that was thin enough but I found a small metal rod that I thought might be okay. It would end up being more of a staff than a walking stick (the rod was about 5″ tall; Pierre is probably around 7″ tall) but I thought it could still work.

You can probably tell already this is a bad idea because the armature is so shiny

This first stick was a bust for several reasons. First, the metal was shiny silver and every part of it that wasn’t covered by “vine” glinted through the rustic looking “stick.” Second, it really was too tall to work for Pierre. It just didn’t suit him at that height. Finally, it was way too thick because the metal rod was too thick to begin with. Once I’d wrapped three or four layers of vine over it, it looked completely out of place with Pierre. By the time I got done with it, the walking staff stood at 6″ and was around 1/2″ thick.

Pierre with the oversized walking staff

Yep, it looked to me like he needed two hands just to hold the thing, so it was back to the drawing board. I realized that I was underestimating the wire vine I had. It’s not like Pierre would literally be putting his weight on it so it didn’t have to hold up a full-grown doll and the vine was pretty sturdy once it had more than one strand to it, so I started over with a vision of something much smaller in my mind.

Twisting the smaller walking stick to give it strength and character

I think, by the time I finished, it had about four “strands” throughout with a big knob at the top for Pierre to handle it easier. I also put a slight bow in it to give it further character and make it look more natural. I really enjoyed playing with this vine stuff and can think of couple of different possibilities for it (topiary? art doll with vines for arms, legs or body?).

Finished walking stick in use

Next installment will be about the suitcase. I may or may not have it finished by the time I do the post but there’s quite a bit of fiddling to get things the way they should be for it, so there are plenty of pictures of info to fill a post, whether it’s completed or not. Keep an eye out on the ADO Traveling Doll Project blog, too. I plan on sharing the rest of the details there on binding the journal that I made for Pierre.

One last picture of Pierre enjoying his walking stick:

Perfect size for him and it fits his hand so well.

Here's the little guy "holding" a book that I digitally added to the pic.

Except my ability to eyeball and estimate size is sadly wanting. I thought I’d be working a little larger, you know, a couple of inches maybe (hey, track with me here…I already mentioned that my ability to judge sizes is lacking). Two inches is small but not miniscule. And I figure I could hand carve something on a cover that size.

Until I started actually preparing to make the book and measuring little Pierre to see what would be in scale. Did I mention that Pierre is tiny? Yep. The size that looks most appropriate for a travel journal? It measures 3/4″ x 1″ which is small. I’m not clear at all how I’m going to do hand carving on a book this small or what kind of design I can do that would even be discernable at such a size. But, I confess I’m thinking of something that looks like an old style world map. Yep, I’m definitely nuts.

The length is right at 1 inch. I used some tea stained Arches Text Wove scraps from another regular size journal project I did previously.

The width is about 3/4" so the size of the book is actually going to be just under 1" x just over 1"

So, I’m making two books (just in case, plus I can do a different design on the second book and drop it in my Etsy store). I have quite a few lengths of scrap paper, tea-stained Arches Text Wove, from a human-sized journal I did before. These measure at around 1 1/2″ x 19″ so one strip made almost six signatures. I ended up using another quarter of a strip to finish up the last signature and prep some end papers. Each book has three signatures of 16 pages each giving them a total of 48 pages each.

See the pencil at the bottom?

The top four papers are the endsheets. The gold/brown bits are the “boards” and below them are the two text blocks. The boards are made from a thick, acid-free gold cardstock that I have. I laminated two pieces together so it would be stiffer and then cut it down to size (slightly larger than the size of the text block). I have enough laminated cardstock to do several dozen more, I guess.

Haven’t started on the leather yet but I have some skiver that I bought from an online miniature tack company (Rio Rondo Enterprises) and it’s really nice. All veg-tanned, I got a few pieces of natural, a couple of browns and a couple of blacks. I’m looking forward to working with it and may see about ordering a larger piece of the natural next time. The brown is a bit dark for my taste but I know I’ll find something I can use it for.

A collage of the dolls I've worked on to date.

I signed up to participate in ADO’s Traveling Doll Project. Art Dolls Only is a team that I help start on Etsy–we wanted a place for those of us who make dolls for art rather than toys or children’s dolls. The team has grown by leaps and bounds…so much, in fact, that we finally had to limit our membership because it was becoming more than we could really cope with. We wanted a team that’s close-knit where most of us know each other and we feel comfortable working together. And, even more important, we wanted a team that we could promote and advertise for easily. People with a likeminded goal of promoting our dolls, our Etsy shops, and our team.

So far, I’ve participated in a couple of challenges/projects on the team but the Traveling Doll Project is a long-term one, making it a lot more consistant on my to-do list than anything else I’ve been working on (or not working on, as the case may be). Hmm, now that I think about, I never completel my doll for the first project (the Shakespeare Challenge). I have a half-finished Hamlet (who may turn into Romeo) sitting on one of my work tables. Destined to be another blog post in the future….

All the dolls shown in the collage above are the ones that I’ve worked on so far (or are currently at home with me). Pierre, the little guy in the bottom right corner, is presently sitting on my desk waiting for me to make him some accessories for his travels. I did a blog post today on the dolls I’ve worked on over on the Traveling Doll Project Blog so you can read through that for more details: Traveling Doll Project: Dolls to Date.

What else am I not working on that I should be? Well, I’ve got a commission for Michelle of Studio at Crowhaven Farm that I need to actually get into. Michelle is on a team called the Dark Arts Guild that focuses on art of a darker nature and she wants a large art journal for herself with a skull on the cover. This will definitely be a challenge to carve the skull design well, but I’m really looking forward to getting into it. The current design idea:

This is the current design idea. The journal will have two straps with buckles.

I also need to make three miniature books. One for Pierre Heart, of course (a journal–he may have to do a bit of sketching and writing in it before he heads off to his next destination). One for a friend who traded me a bunch of eyes in exchange for a journal for her 24″ wizard. This one will be a spell book of some sort with all kinds of esoteric designs on the cover. The final book is for another friend who collects ball-jointed dolls. She made one of my bjds a lovely elvish, woodland type outfit and I told her I’d make her something in exchange. Well, her doll is musical so I’ll be making him a large music portfolio for holding sheet music. With a Celtic design on the cover. All of them leather and I better cracking on them soon.

Aerwyn wearing the outfit made for her by Nikki

UFO’s–I have entirely too many of them at this point. More than three journals that I started and haven’t finished, and around 10 (yes, that’s right, I said TEN) dolls that I’ve started and haven’t finished. I’m really going to have to prioritize and start figuring out what to get finished.

And finally…

So, if you wandered by my blog last week (any of the five of you who might actually do so) and noticed that it was unavailable, it’s back up. And will hopefully stay that way permanently now. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to speak about the situation but, for now, I’m just happy to have my site (including my blog) back up and available.