[p.w. doll] winner, winner

Oh my goodness, it’s fun to give stuff away!

Especially when I get to give it away to someone as nice as……(drumroll)

#3: GINNI!

Congrats, Ginni. Random.org picked #3 as the random number between 1-8 (the actual number of entries for the contest) and YOU are the winner!

I’ll send you your sweet fairy this week, after I confirm your address. Yay!  I’m glad she’s going to a good home.

In other craftastic news, I’m working on finishing up the last of the instructions for the doll.  The last bit is definitely the hardest to explain, so there are a ton of pictures.

I’m also working on the next project: silhouette portraits!

My grandmother had these portraits of her kids hanging in her front entry way and I always loved staring at them. I’m not much of a trend setter( surprised?), so I’ll bet there must be a resurgence in silhouette shots if the trickle-down trend has reached the Michener shores. I scratched my head on how to do this on the computer. I called my dad and asked him if he could give me a Photoshop tutorial. I looked it up on the internets. Then I had a wild idea: it’s possible to do this without fancy photo editing. Duh!

With that in mind, I set out to create a by-hand (mostly) prototype this morning. Craft success. Luckily for me, my #2 gal was home with a fever today, so I could use her as my model. Good thing you can’t see her nose running in this piece. It was gross.

All this and another give-away coming up!

Holla,

Jesse

the p.w. doll + a contest

Here are the first two installments of “How to make your own PW doll.” Click on the image for a pdf.  For the supplies you need, check out this post.

CONTEST UPDATE

Thanks for stopping by,  I’m just tickled you’re here.

To kick things off right and to spread the love, I thought I’d have myself a little contest.

Win this sweet little PW doll just for sayin’ hey in the comments section.

I’ll choose a random winner on Monday.

xoxoxo

-Jesse

Gather your stuff for the p.w. doll

For the PW Doll, you’re going to be combining some crafty techniques to create a needle-felted doll with armature. It sounds complicated but it’s okay. It’s not too bad and I’ll be here to walk you through the steps. I’m going to break it down into several posts.

Today, you’ll need to gather your supplies.  Unless you’re in to needle-felting and making small dolls, I’ll bet you’ll need to run to a craft store. For ease of purchase, I like Pacific Fabrics. They have what I need for small projects like this but are more expensive than other shops. On a recent wool roving purchase a cashier at Pacific Fabrics in Seattle asked me if I knew how much more expensive their roving was. I assured her I was okay with it.

Here’s what you need:

1. Needle-felting needle and foam pad.
You can get remanent foam in most fabric stores.  A 5×5″ square should do you just fine. The felting needle is sharp as hell. Be careful but also know that you are going to stab yourself and it will hurt. There will be far less blood than you expect, but you have to be careful not to get drops of your own blood on your projects. Now, don’t go running off. Buck up and take it for the craft. It’ll only take one or two jabs for you to learn to felt gingerly.

2. Chenille Stems (pipe cleaners).
I despise the brightly-colored pipe cleaners sold in most craft stores, but they will totally work. Get the ones with the shortest fuzz on them. I like to buy the cotton-covered ones but have only found them online. They are so much better because the fuzz is easier to hide when wrapping. Still, the other kind work so don’t stress out.

3. 1″ Wooden bead with a hole.
These are sold in packs. Don’t get the painted kind unless you want the painted kind. Then do what you want. See if I care.

4. Embroidery Floss.
The DMC floss is just fine. You’ll need shoe, accent and hand colors for this project. Go nuts, they’re only like 29 cents. Go ahead, get ten. You don’t have to commit to a colors just yet.

5. Tapestry needles.
They’re not shown here (like you’d be able to see one if it was), but you’ll need it for threading the hair through the bead head as well as placing the anchor floss under the shirt. I’ve never written that sentence before, ” …the bead head as well as placing the anchor floss under the shirt.” I love it when what I say sounds like a line from Beckett (go here if this reference has passed you by. Or just let it pass you by. See if I care).

6. Wool roving.
This is super soft wool fleece which is carded, cleaned and dyed into pretty colors. Folks use it to make yarn by spinning it or use it in needle felting projects, like us. The fibers on the wool catch on the teeny barbs on the needle and mat together, creating a dense fabric after repeated jabbing. It’s pretty freaking awesome how it works. You don’t need much, the stuff goes a long way. I bought nine 1/2 ounce balls in a package for this project. I used less than 1/4 of three balls. Check out your local yarn shop for roving or do a search for “wool roving” or “wool fleece” if you want to order online.

Happy gathering!

Don't adjust your screen

As much as I’d like to think there are throngs of you waiting for me to post my “How To” on the PW doll, my stats show me otherwise. I’m going to savor my lack of fame while I iron out my learning curve. I’ve taken approximately eleventy hundred images for the tutorial and I can’t figure out how to show them without clicking each one into the post. My patience is running thin, friends.

Here’s a sneak peak:

See, one is fine. I can do ONE. But the eleventy hundred will make me cranky.

For your troubles, I plan a give-away once things are ironed out. This little beauty may be yours if you can practice more patience than I.

Off to throw things at walls,

Jesse