Recently, in my studio....

A little Pierrot and his moon.

 

I'm sorry for so many photos of this new Little Mermaid, but I think she must be my most photogenic jointed doll yet, because I can't stop taking pictures.

 Like most of my jointed dolls, she is sculpted in pieces from clay, baked, and then sanded meticulously. She is then painted by hand.

 As with the others of my new Les Sylphides series, her hair is made from un-dyed organic wool, and then hand-stitched to muslin. Her hair is very long, and can be arranged in various ways.

 Her tail is made from three separate moveable sections, and is covered in scales hand-cut from natural Osnaburg cotton. Each section is jointed with waxed cord. The fin at the end is stitched from the same natural cotton and also jointed with cord.

 Her crown is hand-stitched from Osnaburg cotton and stiffened with decoupage finish. The seaweed that waves from her crown and hair is hand-cut from the pages of an antique German book, and then finished with a flexible sealant. The garland of seaweed around her neck is also hand-cut and sealed from cotton.

 Her arms are sculpted from clay and immovable, but from the hips down she is flexible and changeable, as is her hair, crown and seaweed decor.

She is very interactive as a sculpture, in that you can pose her and decorate her in as many different ways as you can imagine. Obviously, I've been having fun with her!

A new series! "Les Sylphides". They are sylphs, sprites, spirits of the air, woodland and water. Each is one-of-a-kind, each hand-carved and baked with an armature of wire for strength, then carefully sanded and painted by hand. Their wigs

are hand-sewn from organic yarn stitched to muslin. Their legs are jointed at the hips with waxed cord and they can be seated in various ways. Les Sylphides now available in my shop The Voyagers on Etsy.

 So, you definitely want to check out the 2012 holiday gift guide at Babiekins Magazine, just out tonight!

Also, on p.36, you can find the lovely story "The Christmas Candle" by Gina Munsey, illustrated by me!

The illustration is also now available in my shop as an 8.5" x 11" print on watercolor paper, just in time for the holidays!

Find it here.

 Well, a lot has been going on in the workshop, and though I have been doing my best to keep the shop well-stocked for the holidays, my hand-painted softies have been selling out fast...like this Red Riding Hood and the Wolf set, which shipped out this week!

 It's hard to keep Q's paws off the softies ;)

 I have been wrapping and shipping daily with holiday orders, and I'm definitely in the spirit now!

 One of the best things about my job is coming up with new things for the holidays, and the latest in the shop is this OOAK 3D version of my original illustration, "The Singer".

It's so much fun to see one of my favorite illustrations translated into three dimensions. I will be translating several more of the most popular illustrations from The Voyagers shop into 3D softies for Club Oceanus in the weeks to come, so stay tuned!!

 When I get up before dawn to work in the studio, Q likes to run into the sewing room first thing to check out what new softies I've made since last she looked.

 She likes to climb onto the bed and give them all a good group hugging.

 She likes to pick out which one she's like me to make for her next.

 

This morning I was up in the dark hours finishing up a special nap pet on request. She asked me yesterday to make her a little alien that cries. 

 She likes to have something to comfort. It's what makes her happy.

 My husband thinks I was crazy to stay up late painting, and wake up early to finish stuffing and sewing, just so she could have a little alien to take to school with her for naptime.

 And yet off she went to school this morning with her little crying alien, happy as a clam.

 

Not a single tear was shed at dropoff today. 

 

Worth it? Yep. 

So, while we will be out of town for the entirety of next week, celebrating my husband's birthday in the redrocks badlands of Moab, I have managed to complete one more soft sculpture to add to the shop.

 My little mermaid one-of-a-kind soft sculpture, with jointed arms.

 She is very sweet, very soft, and compatible with both my previous collections.

 I will be working on designs for future collections while on our little break, and hope to have another full collection online by the end of the first week of November.

Meanwhile, although both collections have sold out almost entirely, this fish and this little mermaid are both still available in the shop.

So, since almost all of my sea creature softies sold out within the first two days, I worked up my second set: Circus Animals!

 

 Sorry to say, however, that the Circus Animals sold out in the first half hour after I put them in the shop.

Needless to say, I'm very happy that my Circus Animals are traveling to a wonderful home with a very special little girl this week!

That said, I'm sorry to have to say that I will not be able to put up a new set of softies in the shop until after our week-long trip to the desert for my husband's 40th. 

We are all taking a step back and remembering our roadtrip roots by taking the Q to Moab for the very first time next week. We'll be staying in a log cabin and  hiking/biking/climbing/exploring our hearts out for the next several days. 

Q will be taking a week off school for this trip, and I know she will miss her new Kindergarten friends, but the geological/archeological/historical/physical lessons she will be learning will be well worth it. I spent many childhood days exploring the redrock badlands of Moab and Canyonlands with my own parents when I was little, and I can't wait to show it all to Q.

I will have a brand new set of one-of-a-kind soft sculptures to put up in my shop within a week of returning from our little vacation. Meantime, watch my facebook page and shop, because I may well have one very special piece ready for the shop before we leave this weekend!

I have been working on a new project for the past few weeks. 

My soft sculptures began with the little Owlie that I posted about recently, a lunch pet that turned into a nap pet in three dimensions. 

Since then, Owlie has been Q's nap pet every day at school, and has traveled home to accompany her to bed in her own room each night. 

When Q began requesting  more softies, I began to sketch...

...and once I begin to sketch, well...

So a new "softie" division of my shop was born. 

The first set I  created was a sea life set. 

Along with making wonderful nap pets, they also make lovely shelf or sofa decor. I have included an option for custom-made softies, and a discount for multiple orders, in case you want to create a collection!

 Q is pretty excited about the whole thing as well. 

Not that she's really all that interested in my shop. 

She really isn't. 

She's doing the happy dance because every time I come up with a new set, she is able to con a new custom softie out of me. So far, in addition to Owlie, she has a custom-made Sparky (after the Tim Burton film Frankenweenie which we saw last week), a custom mini-fish (in Q's favorite colors), and a bunny on the way. 

 Q has been a great sport about helping out with my shop photos, and in the process she has discovered that the octopus from my sea life set makes a lovely pillow. I have a feeling she will soon have her very own octopus nap pillow to use on her school cot. 

The softies have been a huge success with the Q, and a great deal of fun for me. My little sewing machine has been brought out of its lengthy retirement and is now being pressed into hard service in the studio!

I already have several new sets on the drawing board.