Something finally finished

I have to say that I haven't been as active with my creation as I would like to have been this month, especially in light of my March Motivation challenge. Amongst a whole bunch of other things that have occurred I have been diagnosed with PTSD.
I've probably had it for ages, but the pieces just fell into place. I am feeling somewhat out of sync with the world and this is having a flow on effect of muting my muse.
Nevertheless, I have finally completed my first customised doll!

I originally intended making clothes for her, but as this seems to be the major stumbling block to the completion of quite a few other dolls I decided to use clothes I had accumulated in the process of buying lots of dolls and being given dolls.
The top and skirt are from Liv dolls and the leggings are Barbie, as are the shoes. The bracelets and bag are probably Barbie in origin.

The necklace is a micromaille byzantine with a polymer clay bdsm pendant, all made by me.

Her face has been repainted by yours truly and her hair tidied up. The colour is original, and I love it to bits. Her face mold is gorgeous and I would really love to find some more of her.

I gave her a new body, as the original had these really cool green and pink legs, but they didn't really work with her look. She now has a pre-Swapping Styles Fashionista body.

So today we had a bit of a photoshoot, and then I had some fun playing around with the shots. They aren't the best, but we didn't use a proper set up, just a window sill in my living area.

She is so sweet looking, with this dark edge. She was actually inspired by a fellow artisan who has fabulous pink hair and a rocking style.

I've had a lot of fun customising her, and I'm so glad I finally finished something!

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Nearing the Two Week Mark

Nearly two weeks have passed since I started my March Motivation Challenge. Whilst I haven't achieved as much as I would have liked, I have made some headway in a couple of areas.

I have begun repainting six dolls... yes, I said six. There is a really good reason for doing so many at once, especially the shading and detailing parts. Each doll requires only a tiny amount of paint, and it is really hard to mix one doll worth of paint. You also need to allow drying time between the layers of paint. So by doing multiple dolls you can use the paint more effectively and give yourself some drying time.

The current girls on the repaint merry-go-round include one doll that I have repainted multiple times and not been entirely satisfied with. There is also a gorgeous pink haired lass, who is on her way to gothdom. Another doll has revealed an evil side, and is kind of spooky to look at.
So here are the girls

Take into account they have no pupils, nor detailing to their irises. They also all need eyeliner and eyelashes. It always amazes me how they reveal a personality as you begin to paint them, they tell you what they want to become.

If you look in the background of the photo you can see brushes suspended in the air. They are hanging from my new favourite 'tool'. It is a round basin with a wire mesh insert that you put water in, and at the top is a spring type thing that you can push the brushes in to. This is so much better for the bristles of the brushes, and the little wire mesh bit helps you clean the brushes better, and helps to hold an 'bits' down the bottom leaving 'cleaner' water at the top.

It is branded as Montmarte and I picked it up at a bargain shop for less that $10. It really is a cool gadget and it has really helped me a lot.

Hopefully things will now settle in my corner of the world and I can get more creativity underway.

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The Challenge is not the Creativity

At the end of the first week of my Creativity challenge I realise that the challenge is not being creative, it's finding time to be creative.
It seems every time I decide to do something like this the universe conspires to make it as difficult as it can. Children get sick, or suspended from school. My depression rears its ugly head and all sorts of other events suddenly occur.
Some days the last thing I feel like doing is hauling out my stuff to play around. I cannot really leave things lying around, my children have sticky fingers... not the honey type either. Things vanish. My little one is endlessly fascinated by all things belonging to mummy and 'borrows' them. When asked where they have gone she will reply with phrases such as 'I put it down somewhere' or 'I can't remember'.
I have this great long list of things to do, conveniently located at LazyMeter.com, but do not seem to be making much headway.
Next week will be different, I will make sure of it, even though my LazyMeter is full of appointments as well!

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Wow, I suck at Challenges

Barely a week of March has passed and I'm already struggling with this challenge! Although in fairness my life is not being easy to get along with. It isn't a complete bust... yet.
So loyal readers, can you send me some positive creative type vibes? Then maybe I can knuckle down and actually get to some creating!

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Day 2 and 3 - something different

I missed a day of blogging, but not a day of some kind of creative pursuit. I frankly am not doing as much as I would like to be doing, but weekends are never a good time in my house!
On Friday I spent some time fiddling around with PCStitch. It is a computer program designed to help you create your own cross stitch and embroidery patterns. In recent times I have used grid type designs to make polymer clay canes, so cross stitch patterns work well.
I have a friend who has an Eclectus Parrot and I wanted to do a cane of one, so I found a couple of pictures and had a bit of a fiddle.

I think I like the second one better, although it has more colours and squares, meaning it will be more complicated to create... woot... a challenge!
Today I didn't think I was going to get to anything creative, until my house guest and bestie decided she wanted her nails done. That's creative... right? So first I applied her first set of fake nails, and then she decided that the pretty french tip wasn't enough and wanted them bright yellow. Who am I to argue! LOL Then she wanted sparkles, but couldn't decide on which sparkles, so we chose two. So now she has awesome looking nails!

Not to be outdone I did my nails too. I was just going to paint them, but then I decided to go with fakes as well.

Now I never said that being creative meant making jewellery or playing with polymer clay!
Let's see what tomorrow brings!

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Day 1 - Here we go

The first day of March has come and gone, and did I do anything creative? Yes, I did. However it wasn't really anything that can be shown.
I designed a necklace for a competition, ergo I cannot show it. It is a secret.
I also removed the paint from the faces of several dolls ready to repaint. Naked doll faces are not all that interesting, unless you are like me.
My house guest claimed I hadn't done anything creative, but I beg to differ. It is part of my creative process, therefore it is being creative. Hopefully soon I will have something interesting to show.

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