New website

Hello everyone! Hope you are enjoying as mild of a spring as we are here in Mississippi. Just wanted to tell you I now have a website: It is:   www.ladywithapast.com. Please check it out!

Miss Fanny

I would like to properly introduce Miss Fanny. The time is 1863, and Fanny is a young girl living in Natchez, Mississippi. Her dress is made of Civil War era reproduction fabric, and her boots are handmade of two colors of leather. She is carrying a handmade cross stitch pillow that she made to commemorate her 12th birthday. Fanny is made of cloth, and her facial features are sculpted of paper clay and painted in oils. Her bonnet is black velvet lined with gold moire taffeta. Fanny is for sale on Early Works Mercantile this month.

Gone to a new home!!

"EXPOSED"

The Craftsmen's Guild of Mississippi, of which I am a proud member, came up with the idea last year for a calendar featuring some of the artisans from the Guild. They called it "Expose Yourself to Craft" The idea was a big hit, and the calendar received national attention. I was very honored to be chosen for one of the "pinups" for the 2012 calendar! All the proceeds go towards funding children's art classes at the Guild, so we all embarrased ourselves a little for a good cause! What we do for our art!!!

Happy New Year everyone! Let's hope 2012 brings us all peace and prosperity! Just wanted to post a few pics of Christmas at Collina. I try to incorporate the dolls as much as possible in the decor. It is so much fun to set everything up, but NOT fun to take it all down!! Now that I've recovered a bit from the holidays, I am back at the drawing board, ready to start creating again. I will be participating in the huge National Doll Festival at the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans July 22-25, and am very excited! My husband hopefully will be participating with me this time, as I have convinced him to start making wonderful doll furniture and displays. He is a great woodworker, having done exquisite restoration work in our old home, and I hope he really enjoys this new venture. For Christmas, I got him three miniature tools to work on doll scale stuff. Most of the furniture and displays will be for dolls around 18-20" (American Girl size) and 12" (Barbie doll) size. It will all be antique reproduction furniture and room settings. We will customize room boxes to your taste in furniture, color, etc., right down to the drapery treatments and bed clothes, such as crocheted spreads, quilts, etc. I'll post pictures of them as soon as we get a prototype made up. Larger versions of these rooms have already been posted; they were my displays for the craft show I did in December.

GONE TO A NEW HOME!!!

"Tanzy" is my latest creation, and I must admit, my favorite doll that I have created so far! It still is amazing to me as a doll artisan how the dolls "speak" to me as their personalities start to emerge during their creation. That may sound silly to non-doll lovers/makers, but it is very real. They actually demand what type of outfit they want, the color, etc. I once sculpted a doll very much meant to be a little girl and it just didn't seem right; then I realized it was meant to be a boy! Tanzy is about 26" tall, and is a cloth body with paper clay sculpted facial features. She has been oil painted, dressed in a 19th c. dress and has antique children's boots. I put her on Etsy tonight! Please visit my Etsy site for other dolls for sale: www.dollartisan.etsy.com.

Well, the big craft show was this weekend, and I am still recouperating! It was stressful but I think it was a good experience. Sadly, I didn't sell as much as I would have liked, but made a lot of good contacts. Everyone loved the display and dolls, but I guess in the current economy, there's not a lot of excess money around for fairly expensive dolls. I sold smaller doll ornaments and doll outfits more than dolls. But, many people came through and saw my work; that is the type of exposure you can't pay for! I just listed four of my dolls on Etsy tonight; my shop is dollartisan.etsy.com. Here's some pics of the display booth.

more pictures of Collina

Office and parlour