Baking Shoes

Work on the new kitchen is progressing nicely but I'm not quite ready for the unveiling yet. Perhaps after this weekend,when we're done painting the ceiling and refinishing the floor. Ah the sweet smell of polyurethane... Bleck!! In the meantime I'm working steadily on my other goal...making enough stock for my upcoming show. So with that objective, today I baked a tray of shoes. Yup...I was baking shoes today. These ladies looked on in wonder as the tray filled...


I love the hair on the far left doll! Can you say extremely bad hair day?! Poor little Alice, the flowers did say that her petals were very untidy. Luckily she had a hair appointment later that day...

Of course there's still the one on the right that's bald... Back to the studio I go. Have a wonderful weekend folks!

Happy Solstice from The Nest!

Happy Litha or Summer Solstice everyone! Celebrate Summer, abundance, and all the wonders of Nature in Full bloom...and raise a glass of honey wine to the Sun! Regular wine is of course very much allowed... :)

I'm sorry to have been so out of touch lately but I do believe I have a good excuse. You see, I am seriously out of my mind. I must be and I'll tell you why. Every year I have a show at my house where I gather a group of local artists and we turn my home into an art gallery for a weekend. This has been going on for some time, and in fact this year will be our 10th anniversary so it's looking to be even more of a production than usual. It's quite a bit of work but I have to say that the results have always been wonderful. Now here's the crazy part. Despite the fact that I know I'm doing this in less then one month and that I have hardly any dolls made in preparation, I am in the middle of remodeling my kitchen! Not just a bit of paint and sprucing up either...oh no. We're talking tear it all out and start from fresh here. What was I thinking?!?! Take a look...

Before...

After...

See?! Now I have been promised that it will all be finished by the end of next week but I'll still have to move everything back in, get the rest of the house cleaned up, and find time to make some dolls all before the show July 18th. No problem, right? Yikes!!!
So there, proof...I must be out of my mind!

I do plan on hosting a fabric swap but I think it will have to wait until after July 18th so plan on coming back to sign up then. And I promise to post pictures of my lovely new kitchen soon....fingers crossed! So if I'm a bit absent in the next few weeks, you'll know why. I'm flying in 20 directions at once and making magic happen. Well, what else would you expect from The Fairies Nest?

Swappin' Fun

Today was the last day of school and now that our traditional last day ice cream sundae party is over, a boisterous board game marathon is going on in the living room...Summer has officially begun!

I recently participated in a fabric swap arranged by Jo at the wonderful Cart Before the Horse Blog. New fabric? You know I'd jump on that, and it was such fun! Each person contributed 20 9"x9" squares from their "stash" and the contributors came from all over the US and as far away as the Netherlands. My package came in the mail today and it was so beautifully packaged that it felt like Christmas opening it up!
Such wonders to Behold...


The gorgeous stenciled bird person was made by Jo, isn't it great?! (If you've never seen the amazing dolls that she and her husband make you should go there right now and give yourself a treat!)

This was such marvelous fun that I was thinking I may have to see if I can host a swap myself. What do you all think, would you be interested in a fabric swap?

Snow White and Rose Red

Way back when, I said I was planning on making the two sisters from the Grimm tale, Snow White and Rose Red, and I have finally finished them. In the original story the two are never described physically except to say that they resembled the rose trees that grew outside their house, "one of which bore white and the other red roses." It's always been one of my favorite fairy tales with the bear bridegroom and the wicked, silly dwarf; and I really wanted to do justice to the sisters that I saw in my head while reading. One had to be rosy and red haired and the other pale and blond and they had to have a German look to their clothes because this is such a distinctly German tale. I think I got it right, but this is just my version...yours might be completely different!

You can find a wonderful annotated version of this story on the SurLaLune site...a great source for fairy tales and their illustrators...if you've never been there please check it out, but make sure you have lots of time because it's a marvelous place to lose yourself for a bit.