I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I’m back to work on doll orders while I still have some free time.

Here are a couple of faces for upcoming dolls. I can’t believe I’m on yet another Venus doll! She is clearly the homecoming queen of the Girlaxy.

These two lovely ladies went out to their new home just in time for Christmas. Hope you’re enjoying them Paulette!!

In the meantime, there’s some really important, exciting negotiate-y stuff going on behind the scenes that could make 2009 a big year for the gGirls. Please wish me luck!!

Over and out,
Mother Earth

Introducing: NEPTUNE!!! Who I think is the most thoroughly accessorized rag doll yet! Making Neptune further solidified my belief that 3 is the magic number. I had to do her glasses 3 times and her surfboard 3 times to get them right. At least I only had to do the pants twice.

In case you’re curious, the delay on Neptune was due to her surfboard. I was waiting for some special ordered fabric you can actually PRINT ON WITH YOUR INK JET!!! As exciting as that sounds, it was less than perfect. It wasn’t bad, mind you, the colors just weren’t as vibrant as I would have liked. It would have been fine, but once you held it up to the doll, it just looked drab. So, I went back to hand-stenciling, which was a lot more work, but looked a lot nicer.

Here’s a closer look. I used a really, really thick fusible interfacing to keep it stiff but stuffed in some quilt batting to keep it huggable. The batting helped achieve the quilted look I was going for on the surface. You can just barely see the tip of the little fin poking out there on the bottom.

Still working on Mercury. Stay tuned!

Over and out,
Mother Earth

A little while ago, I completed the very last piece of Uranus by adding her glasses. Now, as I’m finishing up Neptune, it only seemed fair that she should have her sunglasses, too. It took me three tries to get it right. The first pair, an all felt version, just didn’t look right. On her head, it just looked like a big, dumb bow. Upon Craig’s suggestion, I used a shiny silk for the lenses of the glasses. That was closer. But, stupidly, I used the same shiny fabric I use for her hair, so that didn’t look right either. So off to the fabric store!! …where I found a darker, yet still shiny color. Voila! Now I just have to make her surfboard and she is done!!

Even though I did the revisions for aesthetic reasons, having to do it 3 times was great practice for me and GLUE! I don’t usually like to use glue, but stitching wasn’t really an option. Check out my progress:

Shades #1– used craft glue. What a mess. Even my tackiest tacky glue wouldn’t hold, so I had to clip it shut until it dried, making awful indents all over the place. Plus, look at all the gross leftover bits. Couldn’t even shave it off with sciccors!!

Shades #2– resurrected my old friend the GLUE GUN!!! Glue gun glue dries almost INSTANTLY, which can be a pain if you place anything wrong. Still had a lot of messy left overs tho.

Shades #3– Got the hang of the Glue Gun, and the edges are practically clean!!! I think I’ll be using glue guns more often in the future.

Neptune’s 90% complete– stay tuned!!

Over and out,
Mother Earth

Got a bunch of Neptune’s done. Top three cleaned up by Leigh, and the last by Janice.

Thanks ladies!!

Over and out,
Mother Earth

Surfin’ the stars…

The hair on this one was giving me a hard time. Lots o’ eraser marks…

Over and out,

Mother Earth