It's Monday....

full circle again ...already.... it's another Monday! Sheeeeeesh.... how do the weeks fly by so quickly? Sometimes it makes a person feel sort of slow... dragging along in the wake or the dust ...

And, yet.... this week I have had plenty of extra hours in my day because Mr. BumbleVee flew away last week to visit Daddy Snowbird in Palm Springs. I'm back in the throes of winter.... the temps are back down to -10C... dipping to -17C by tomorrow...and ... it's snowing. One of my exercises today will include shoveling...

I didn't have to bother with regular suppers... or tidy...or any of that.... not that he cracks the whip or anything, because he's much too soft to do that.... but, more because I like to run a tight ship most days. It's a lot easier to keep up with things than to try to get out from under ...

It probably had a bit to do with upping the ante in the workout regime. This week I'm going to hit it harder but not take as long at it. Cardio is getting much better... strength too... I feel a bit stiff the day after ... especially first thing in the a.m...but even that wears off quicker each day now.

I'm bopping along with the last 10 Pounds Bootcamp guy.. I love Tommy! he's too funny... or watching X-weighted.. giving the participants a bad time for being such wimps or for cheating on their nutrition and diet... but, always picking up plenty of useful info as far as exercise and nutrition are concerned. These are probably Canadian shows.... Vancouver being the site for one of them. The Dog Whisperer gets a look too while I'm doing the treadmill..... I was hoping for measurable results and I suppose if I had taken proper "before" measurements and actually written them down I would know what my results actually are. I'm just guessing as I can't really remember for sure what the measurements were...but...I do know my pants fit better. Good enough. I'm definitely stronger...I am waving around bigger weights now... and doing lots of stretches afterwards. A long muscle is a strong muscle... one of our fav sayings when I was doing massage therapy. Don't just strengthen without stretching..... otherwise it bulks up (not necessarily visibly) but, also shortens the musculature... making things prone to injury.

For photo of the week I'm posting a couple that Mr. BV sent me...becuz they are so darn cute.

These are from a "living desert zoo" which is in the Palm Springs area. .. . I love this first one... ...














this looks like a lot of work just to be able to get a drink of water doesn't it? ...









whew...he made it!
these guys definitely need to keep up with stretches... otherwise
...... it could get pretty dry... and they definitely wouldn't be able to reach the little green fronds on the tall trees....

pretending....

a sunny, (not warm but at least it's always sunny) quiet day...... and I'm playing with flowers. We won't see any live greenery outside for months yet, but, I can always pretend in here with silk and moss.....

Months ago I saw a great arrangement at the silk flower shop, but it was a whopping $289.00... ouch! I love those places. Don't love their prices. It takes me ages to look at and touch every single thing...I can easily spend well over an hour just amusing myself.
Waaaay in the back of the shop was a discount table...usually full of junk. Really...just junk.. and they still expect to sell it I guess. However, on this particular day..they also had 6 of the exact vases my arrangement was in (by then I was referring to it as "my arrangement") ....














... lo and behold, they were marked down to $40 each....but,.... there was a 1/2 price sign on them as well! Hah! snapped one up right away for $20 .... then bought a few bits and pieces resembling my arrangement...and off I went.










Things have been sitting around for months ...as they usually do ....

Today I have time on my hands.....and all of a sudden I found myself wearing a flower designer hat. There are always lots of hats around here to try on....some fit better than others.....

Got the greenery and flowers in the vase the way I like them and added some moss to the spiral crevice....



























.... but ... it needs one more tall stem or something at the back right side... and a bit more shaping and organizing to get it more how I want it.... almost recreated "my arrangement"... very much as I remember it in my mind's eye.... ... and mine cost a grand total of oh....about....... $47 ......

It's not quite complete ...but, I like it already. I even like the price tag.

new hobby...

I'd like to share this recipe with you if you don't know about or don't often visit my food blog.
A very easy and very tasty cabbage soup... goes great with a chunk of toasted home made bread.... which I would also like to share with you. Well, not the actual bread... just the recipe...unless you are in the vicinity...then, by all means, please drop by for a taste. It's getting close to lunch time though...so hurry, or I'll have scoffed the last of it!












oh,....and, ... this bread!!











I made two lovely big loaves...one plain and one with fruits and nuts.... sorry, no pic of the plain! Hah! gone already.... it was ever so tasty.

Susan at 29 Black Street finds some of the best bread recipes. I'm fairly new to bread making. As a matter of fact, I just tried my first loaf a year ago, so was a bit tentative at first, but now, have almost decided that bread making is my new hobby. I've given several different types a go during the year; a fav was Tuscan Peasant Bread from a recipe that she linked to. Oh, is it good. ... I love that bread. A lovely chewy firm crust. I make it and tweak it (add fruit, or perhaps sun dried tomatoes, olives..etc) once or twice a month. When she posted this one... I was convinced it would be equally as good. It definitely is... and as usual...I can't figure out how come I was ever nervous to try bread making! It's easy and so much fun. Oh,... and did I mention tasty?











one of the reasons I must. do. the. treadmill.

...... daily........... and, who cares? especially if the reward is home made bread. Yep, old dogs can learn new tricks...especially for cookies...or, in my case... a slice of lovely bread.

body parts......

Monday..... photo a week day! And... bet that title drew you in right? .... well, it isn't what you think....

Every doll maker has one of these.....a box of body parts..... and most have a lot bigger box than this. I am not very prolific in the doll making department...not prolific in any department when it comes right down to it, so it is a tiny box, but I do have one. (I have a separate one for bear, dog and other animal parts) ... It's kind of gruesome. We save all the experiments.. or half done things. I do it so that I can refer to them later...or try to do something with them at a later date if I stump myself midstream or if I get totally disillusioned while trying to accomplish some technique.











heads, legs ...arms..

I have been trying to sculpt a face that is sort of flat with not too much detail so that I can glue cloth over it and then do a face with watercolour pencils. I have not tried painting a face with brushes and paints, but want to try that some day too....just too much fun stuff to try and not nearly enough hours in a day..or motivation to get started any earlier in my days...










anyway.... too much detail and it is verrrry difficult to get a piece of fabric glued onto it ... I want to figure out a way to be able to get fabric onto a face... with no wrinkles evident at the chin or neck area.... so that I can get a great head onto a nice body...with a long neck in the body of the doll. That darn chin area. Unless you have a monstrous chin and a neck that goes straight down from it... it is tough. But... I persevere...

...so, after listening to my complaints and a bit of cursing..... Mr. BumbleVee said... "why don't you try a sculpted cloth face like I know you have done... and put a nylon over it like that other doll maker does"? HuH?... this guy. Honestly, he knows more about doll and bear making than I do...because he remembers every word I ever say to him about it. Whereas, I generally forget what I say the moment I say it. But, does he mean like Lisa Lichtenfels? .... geeez...he sure has a lot of faith in my doll making abilities. She is a legend for heaven's sake!

this is the picture on the cover of her book. She is amazing. Needless to say I will never be in her class...but, the idea was a good suggestion.













I just used one of the old poorly sculpted heads for practice. Stretched a nylon over it and needle sculpted it along the nose and enough to hold it in position. Used a twist tie at the back to hold it tight. It's just a practice head....... then, put on three coats of gesso so that I could get a smooth stable face to draw on. I didn't think the nylon would even soak up anything..nor did I think it would stay in position.














If I do one later as a "real thing"...I would definitely be doing a lot more stitching on more areas to define them and also to make it hold in perfect position. I didn't really like the roughness that was still present after the gesso...so tried lightly sanding the surface... but, was afraid to wreck the nylon...and it did rough it up in a few spots...so just decided to go ahead and draw on a face. I still had a bit of roughness...and I just don't really like the feel of the stiff surface.














It is a bit difficult to make the dry pencils look as nice or as soft as I want...and wetting it down.. sometimes I got some streaking...so I was tentative ... didn't want to wreck it even if it was only an experiment... maybe I'll try a bit more colouring and use a Q-tip to smudge it a bit more..... to soften some of the hard lines I still see.











Hahahha...this chunk of blue Tibetan lamb fur gets a lot of use... it is used for modeling on many a face... and it looks good on all of them. who knew blue hair could look this good?













...on this close up you can see a bit of what I mean about the surface being a bit rough still. I think... maybe more sanding...then add another coat or two of gesso and the surface would be smoother. But... it still is difficult to get good results with pencil crayons. However.... maybe painting ....if I could figure out how to do that.... might be the answer. However, for the doll I want to get done within the next few months.... I might have to go back to methods taught by a couple of dollmakers..... gluing a tight weave fabric over sculpted faces.

Like this one...























.. again with the wrinkles..... still have some tweaking to do with the tecnique and the shapes in order to get the desired result.

Happy Heart Day...

She's just little, but Bette brings you big hearted wishes for Valentine's Day....

Just over 3 inches from her little toesies (more like a foot..no actual toes) to the top of her curly head.... and made from a fluffy rayon.

A happy experiment. One time while trying for a pink fluffy bear with an elongated snout, I used this type of fabric, but in a longer pile. When the friend who showed me how to make bears saw it, she said, "OMG! it's a poodle!"..... and, so it became......
I figured out a poodle body, legs and a tail..... and made several ... in all the different colours I could find of the fabric.





















I couldn't find the same long pile in white...so, then I figured why not try for a Bichon? This is she... if you've been to my Picturetrail..you will have seen this pic of her. I have since decided that this would still be good for a poodle...just not the fou fou cut like my original. I have discovered that about 70 percent of poodle owners really dislike the show cut anyway.












Bette and I hope you have a happy day...whatever you decide to do. We're home alone for a few hours as poor Mr. BV had to go to work. Deadlines.... pagh.... but, today I'll clean house, work on a new doll project.... and tonight... we'll have a nice supper and watch a lovey dovey movie he rented yesterday.....oh, and sip a nice wine...and...oh, .... and, and, and..... eat chocolates!

Rose Inchy

This week the theme for our inchy is "roses"....... and of course, tomorrow is Valentine's Day, so all I've been able to think of besides roses is... you guessed it..... hearts. Hey, why don't you give one a try? check out INCHYBYINCH... ...

I looked for small pics of roses... didn't find any I liked... or that were small enough. Finally I took a pic of a rose of my own .... made it as tiny as I could with photoshop... not knowing what I was doing and it took for blo%^&y ever... and still it would not make things small enough for my plan. So...I cropped it and seeing as I couldn't get "gather ye rosebuds" out of my head.... here it is. A couple of tiny hearts cut from some gold paper, watercolour pencils and gold leaf from a pen finish it off....















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We've been pretty spoiled the past few weeks with balmy temperatures....but, Mother Nature always has twists to toss into the mix ... and besides, we do live very close to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.... winter ain't over yet! Not here..... and not for at least a few months. As a matter of fact, we have had 17 inch snowfalls in May. At least it doesn't last very long at that time of year...but, it does put a damper on early spring hopes....














This morning it was snowing lightly... but now the sun is beginning to peek through, so not much more going to happen there for now... time to go out; show my face to the sun and shovel a bit.... soak up some Vitamin D.....














.... and to say hello to Mr. Bun, who has taken up residence under the big spruce tree in the front yard. Probably it is Mrs. Bun ...and I can look forward to some Baby Buns when it gets warmer. For now he/she is happy there's still plenty of snow for camouflage... (click on the pic to see him)... this is about the only time I wish I had a better zoom... not a justifiable expense for only the occasional distance photo.











Here is one of the little guys from a few summers ago... those are tiny pebbles...about an inch in size.. so you can see how puny he was. He would sit still for hours... waiting for Mom to come back at night to play with him. Poor little guy... it is 'my job' to guard them when I find them. I spend hours out there with my broom and boots at the ready (to throw) in case a dog or big bird comes by... I hate to fire up the loud lawn mower because it must scare the bejeepers out of them. Sometimes they move quite a distance overnight...and I have to search for a while to find out where they are so I can weed or work elsewhere in the garden areas...

Tiny, tinier, tiniest....

Magically it's Monday again. The Time Fairy must have been madly waving her wand about ...she really stirred up the fairy dust and hours whipped past. You know what I'm talking about. They show you the little magical clock..with hands just whirring? ... hours, then days whiz past in a twinkling? Yep.. another week just flew.... .... however, having written this few lines.... I now have a great new fairy in mind...hahahhaha.... sometimes saying things out loud.. ( or writing them ) let's you "see" something else..... something you were not thinking about AT all!

Originally, when I realized it was Monday already... I was trying to think what I could post for the once a week photo challenge that Linda is hosting.

...and.......I figured it out. After doing the tiny feet entry a few days back.. ...then carrying on with teensy "inchies" ... I was ruminating about being kind of funny that way.... having a love of tiny things. Then I walked into my craft room and saw this.... A piece of popcorn??

Gotcha didn't I?











...on closer inspection..................














...not popcorn, but it did become his name.
















here's his cute little bum.....














and...here you can see he really is little....

I was fiddling with some paperclay one day and thought it was a bit tricky to work with..so wanted to see how difficult it would be to try something really small. You know, just to make myself crazy. He was not a piece of cake... as a matter of fact I mistook him for a piece of popcorn several times. Once I almost tossed him into my mouth.... poor little guy. I named him Popcorn...and... he sits beside a tiny box of inchies on the craft table. I will actually put some colour on his eyes and nose some day...... til then, I'll just grin every time I see him.....

Winter inchy

This week Fiona wanted "winter" on our inchies.

There is usually a snowbear somewhere in our yard in winter... the neighbours already think I'm eccentric...but, when bears in toques appear on the front lawn...they know it.

My inchies represent a couple I have built lately....





































here they are in person...













this little guy has big fur coat buttons for his eyes.... sparkly in the afternoon sun.. .....

Hi....

Hahahhah...

I haven't been blog surfing too much in the last few days and almost missed this.... check out Melanie's blog for her "moving back to Australia sale" and giveaway. She plays with beautiful fabrics ....

What fun finding and watching my DVD that I bought after taking a sculpting class with Jack Johnston. I can remember nothing at all from the three day class except making one fun friend that I'm still e-mailing......and I remember that my back was not great at the time so maybe it is the reason I don't recall much... so it's a good thing I have it for reference. Obviously my mind is becoming a sieve... .. oh, well.... just one more thing to add to our list hey?

And, speaking of lists... may I just say that I knew darn well that most women ( especially in my age bracket ) .. were not getting any sleep. Makes me feel better...sort of. .... and, may I also say, LOUD and clear .... YAY US!!! ..not only for making it through our days, but for managing to accomplish as much as we do dammit!! and to actually create things on the side..... we are amazing creatures. Well, many others a lot more so than me...I'm definitely of the somewhat lazy variety. Although sometimes I get a little bumblebee in my bonnet...and then look out....

This week I have been playing with clay and having great fun. I practiced some lips...and silly me forgt to take any pics before smooshing things and just beginning over... for practice. I think I am almost ready to begin a head of the right size... for a doll that I can so clearly see in my mind's eye. Of course, then the magic trick is to bring it to life.....in the real world.

One of the women on Doll Street made the sweetest little fairy shoes...all beaded and lined and absolutely amazing.. just a sec... must find her site...okay, here it is... look at these pretty little things. I left a comment, wondering how she would judge the size of a doll to fit them... and then, my sweetie said..that's easy... just something over X times something over something..and you get the ratio. HUH? ... man... how come some people can just see that sort of thing right away? ... Anyway... now he showed me how to come up with a ratio... hahahha.... then I went around measuring my dolls and checking the size of their feet..and even without knowing any of it..most of them have sort of decent proportions.


























I know for a fact, I do tend to make feet tiny ...because I do like dainty. Above... the Clownesse shoes... and below... my Serenity fairy feet...











But... you can't make them too tiny or they look totally unnatural. I loved making these shoes for my fairy doll... Apoxy Sculpt is great because it sticks like glue to anything... especially fabrics... just work it right onto the foot made of fabric.










My proportions and ratios are not exactly natural with my dolls. I just don't like the look of long dresses on a doll with more or less human proportions. I like much longer legs so that dresses flow or look elegant....

When I made this doll ... back in 2005... with the help of a British doll maker... we had legs almost up to her armpits... oversize boobs and bum and she was glam looking. Just what we were looking for in this gal....a Fair Lady...



























her little booties are too tiny really...but, do look so cute peeking out from beneath her dress bottom...













made with Apoxy Sculpt ... the skewer you see protruding from the heel of one of the feet fits into a small hole in the pedestal..while in her other leg is a long brass tube that fits over a rod protruding from the pedestal... kind of complicated and she does have some movement..but, does stand upright with the arrangement...very tricky stuffing around those skewers and rods....

Where did Tuesday and Wednesday go?

Look at this.... Thursday already. Again, the same old question.......what the heck happens to my time? Of course, I do have to listen to my own advice that I often give to others and remind myself... I do keep a tidy house, bake bread and muffins weekly, work out, go for groceries, run errands, cook meals each night and do the cleanup... it all takes time...but, somewhere I must be missing some play time hours. The computer does take up some hours, but, my carpal syndrome has been causing me some grief lately ... so I have been spending less time on it. The typing is not a problem...but, honestly, using the mouse for even half an hour... my hand gets numb. The scary thing is...I already had surgery on it a few years back..but, now, it is getting noticeably bad again, so I am trying to limit my time on here for a few weeks to give it a rest.

I was so sure that I would be back into the swing of things after Christmas but woke up groggy each day with a total lack of enthusiasm for pretty much everything. It seemed I was just going through the motions during my days. Lack of sleep was making me grumpy... like most women... the best gift I could receive would be 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep. It's been so long I forget what that actually feels like. A big rubber hammer could be the answer.

When Linda started the photo a day challenge, it seemed the perfect idea to force me to at least post daily and thus have to think of what to say..what to photograph, etc.. and it worked to at least keep me moving forward for the month. At the same time I figured .. why not link my workouts to a daily routine...and I did that too. I was so hoping I would get a better sleep by working out...and eventually working out pretty hard.... but, so far.. no luck in the sleeping department and I have ramped up the workout pretty good. My limbs are weary...my eyes are more than tired, but at the risk of sounding like a whiner...they have some problems too... ...and, yet, as soon as my head touches the damn pillow.... a million thoughts are racing around in my brain. Mostly thoughts that are not connected to each other at all, but, which somehow spring one from the other like sheep, but not one looks like the other if you know what I mean. I can't seem to find a comfortable position... and ... after thrashing around for two hours or so..I finally fall asleep. I have even been trying Melatonin...it doesn't help me to get to sleep any sooner..but, I do seem to stay asleep for longer at a time. Usually I am awake about every half hour or so.... but, last night actually only woke up twice.... and, this morning I got up and walked out of the bedroom without pulling a Wall-E..... not staggering around and bouncing off doorways.... woohoooo....

If I could get a better sleep pattern going, I feel sure I could be more productive in each day... which I am sure would relate to doing more fun stuff...

I want to get on with making a doll. Want to sculpt a face to be covered with fabric...then colour on the facial features. I actually took a sculpting class from Jack Johnston in June of last year but, for some reason haven't even touched a piece of clay since then. I think perhaps it was info overload or something. Anyway, then I hid my DVD on myself, and couldn't find it. So, yesterday I just gave a face a try on my own... it takes waaaaay too much time and effort when you have no clue what to do... and if you do things bass ackwards you are leaning on completed parts while still struggling with other bits..... sigh.........

Hours later...I had this... but, it is too tiny for my plan... and too much detail really. However, I did something... that's a good start. Then, I found my DVD...so today, I plan to do another.. with instruction. That'll be fun.











A few years ago I made this one...


































My Clownesse... made for a local doll club challenge in which we chose an artist, and made a doll to represent his style... I found a painting by Toulouse Lautrec that I liked... called La Clownesse... and here she is.

I had to resort to quite a soft, stretchy fabric for gluing into all the nooks and crannies. For the new one, I'd prefer a tighter weave fabric to work with ...so will need a somewhat flatter face or at least softly rounded features... with less detail...

Photo a week...

Here I am with a picture of a rabbit on Ground Hog Day. And the reason for the bunny is this.... on the first day of a new month.. before uttering another word... you are supposed to say "rabbits, rabbits, rabbits" ... for luck. I'm guessing it is Olde Englishe wives tale, because our Mom was the one who told us kids about it. ... along with other fun tales. As usual...I forgot til about noon yesterday...and today, I didn't realize it was Ground Hog Day either, til I went to Daisy's site ...hahahha....boy.... I better keep on track so I don't miss Valentine's Day. It ain't that far off!














Our photo a day challenge for the month of January has ended... but, we had so much fun seeing each others pics that we decided to continue a bit longer. We have changed things slightly, in that we will only be posting one per week for our group.. ... not to say I will be posting only once per week ..but, it will free up some time... and perhaps I will laze out on the posting front here and there.
I actually feel like I am more ready to get on with some crafting experiments than I was January first. This challenge was just that.... a reason to have to actually get out and get some pics....the perfect way to ease in to a new year.