You'll never guess what I was doing this morning...

My DH had a birthday today and always wanted to go on a balloon flight.  So why wait?  Of course I had to go too.............

 







Yes, that's us in the balloon with 4 others and the Pilot at 5:00am

 

Then the sun came up.......

 

 

 

 

 Our Pilot Justin

Everything that goes up must come down...

This was the scene at 4:30am.  That is the moon above.

 

It was very very cold.  Firing up the air was spectacular and warm

The balloon rose really quickly.  And we had to climb into that basket.  Elegant it was not!

Then we had to compete for air space.  That is an ultralight flyer who circled us for a while and then flew over to the opposition - there was another balloon up this morning, but a bit too far away.  And we had the moon and the sun in the sky!

 

 

 

 

Then we finished with a champagne breakfast on the lovely grounds of Peter Lehman Winery.

And drove back home to go back to bed  :-)

 

Fortune Teller Doll

I started this doll in May of 2008.   She was going to be a fairy catcher or Edwardian type of Miss, but she didn't want to be anything like that.  So here we are in 2012 and this little girl is my Fortune Teller Doll!

She has her black stockings and pantaloons and her pose is the same.

 I stole some boots from an vintage doll I adopted and started to plan her costume and create all the paper fortunes.  Each leaf of her skirt has a fortune.  She has over 100 fortunes to tell!!!

The problem with having a paper skirt is that paper is very heavy.....(Think of a ream of paper)   And making all the papers fan out evenly around her hips is tricky to say the least.  But the effect is evident in how cute she turned out.  The fact some of the papers twisted at the back of her outfit is not a problem really.

I really enjoyed making her.  The challenge from the club got me thinking about making dolls again.  As much as I think I don't have time or really want to make dolls - it seems I do.  So perhaps there will be another doll on this site soon.  We'll see how much time I have to create something new in the near future.   Never say never..............

I made a doll!

Last Sunday we had a doll club meeting.  The theme was the Fortune Teller Doll.   I had put my hand up to do some fun fortune telling.  I have Tarot cards and books, I also have Runes and Cat Wisdom cards.  And I read a book many years ago that anyone can do tea leaf reading if they just use their natural intuition.  So how hard could it be to tell some fortunes?  Well it would help to have a Fortune Teller doll.   Now you may not have heard of the Fortune Teller Doll, but they were very popular in Victorian times as a Parlour Game.  The doll has a skirt made of paper fortunes.  A picture is worth a thousand words so here is a picture of my Fortune Teller doll......

The meeting was a hoot!  I kind of dressed the part - but avoided the camera.  Olive dressed up and looked perfect as our Tea leaf reader and so she took to it like a duck to water!  You can see Olive on the far left looking at the show and tell.

Everyone got very excited when this little witch on on her broom appeared in the cup!  Not sure why the witch appeared, but there must have been a little magic happening that day.
Some more pictures of fortune dolls........

Coming soon....

Happiness

courtesy of Ulla Benulla blog

Look what I did!

This is not a very clear pic, because I quickly snapped it with my phone.  This is the mystery doll I created for the Doll Club meeting.  She took me a week to make, only because I knitted her cardi, scarf and hat.  The knitted patterns were actually from the  AK Traditions  kit that I picked up at one of the craft shows 18 months ago.

She has a mask face covered with cotton jersey and her body and limbs are muslin (calico).  Her boots were purchased at last years Hahndorf Doll Show and her little felt bag is hand stitched.

I really enjoyed making her and the doll pattern was a generic offering to the club to see the different types of dolls that can be created from one pattern.  You can just see 2 dolls directly behind mine (sorry ladies) that were also from the same pattern.

Here are Two of the workshop dolls from Susie's Muse class.  (There is also a little Zozie)

These are wonderful and the fact they are painted  figures gives them an art piece distinction.  Now I must finish mine.  I would like to finish a lot of my UFO's this year.  I have lots of bodies and heads and just deciding how to dress them is my stumbling block.

This little challenge doll ended up with a completely different outfit to the original plan, so it is about taking the time to sit down and think it out....................when I get the time..............