Steampunk Tutorial for Flora

WOW!  Thanks s much for the wonderful response to this version of Flora.  I have written a tutorial of how I made her though she is really very true to the original pattern.  If you are interested, you can access the tutorial here.

Another Flirty Flora!

OK.  I know I am getting carried away but I am having fun with her.  This time she has gone Steampunk!  I have raved in the past how much I love Ranger products and anything designed by Tim Holtz - especially his inks and Sizzix dies.  They really lend themselves to grunge and Steampunk.  Here is a list of the products I used:

Hat: Purchased hat with Grunge board flourish and keyhole painted with Distress Crackle Tarnished Brass

Face: Glossy Accents hold her eyelashes on!

Parasol: Mini birdcages cut from grunge board, top is a gear from the big gears die

Trim on dress shoulders and boots is leather cut with Irongate die Grunge board wings at her chest. the heart locket is colored with Perfect Medium and Perfect Pearls.

Vintage piece at the waist is held on with chains from the Lace Chain set as are the Lock and key in her hand.

Skirt top layer center is the large gears with smaller gears all around cut from 2 layers of bonded fabric. Middle and bottom layer is stained with Tea Stain and Walnut Stain inks.

The Base is painted with Dabber and the top is embossed with the Gears embossing folder and colored with Tea Dye and Walnut stain inks.

Her boots are painted on with Dabber Espresso and the gold accents are grunge board as are the soles of her shoes. Her legs are striped fabric - Navy and tan.

Here are some more pics.  Back and side view.  A closeup of her boots (really pleased at how these came out) and Her face.  I need a very small watch sprocket to hang from her choker and my wonderful husband has give me some old wind-up watches to deconstruct.  I am sure I will find what I am looking for.  But for now, she is done.  Now to finish a commision piece for a wedding then on to the next new pattern - this one a Male!

 

 

 

Flirty Flora Goes Trick or Treating

First, big thanks for all the wonderful comments on Flirty Flora.  Like all the new dolls I design, I like to make them over a few times to see how the pattern translates and to make sure I can follow my own directions.  I am really enjoying Flora.  The hardest part of this pattern is stuffing the skinny legs and arms.  This version substitutes a decontructed silk mum for the fabric hair - two of the flower rounds were used for the top of the head.  Her arms and legs were striped with ribbon wrapped around and glued in place.  No worry about matching stripes!  I cut her legs are orange with black ribbon stripes and her arms are black with orange ribbon stripes.  The black and orange fabrics were glittered so I used stickles to glitter the ribbon.  Her headpiece was a pic I deconstructed and stuck in the top of her head.  Cardboard was used for the base - again I forgot to buy more wooden bases.   I also didn't cross her legs and I almost like her pigeon-toed pose better! The pattern will be available on CD from Dollmakers Journey and Designer Doll Patterns.  It will be available as an epattern from Fabric Addictions. So watch these sites for her availablility.  I think she is a versatile pattern and can't wait to see what can be done with her!  Thanks again for all your kind words.

Altered Cigar box

I have a very dear friend who had a birthday and I wanted to make her something.  We had been making flowers with dies, punches and stuff and I thought she could use a place to store them so I altered a cigar box.  This is the lid.  It is covered with embossed, sanded, painted and inked paper.  The plaque in the center is chipboard covered with Metal tape, embossed and painted gold then highlighted with Aztec Gold Gilder's Paste.  The little flower bead at the bottom is the knob to open it.

The sides were ebossed with a swirl design and Inked.  The shell banding is a Martha Stewart punch colored with Gold paint dabbers.  The flowers are also a Martha Stewart punch and inked with Distress Inks.  The corners are covered with more metal tape.

I covered the inside with drawer lining paper that was gifted to me.  It is the perect colors and also scented.  My friend loved the box.  Of course it was a belated gift, but I hope it was worth the wait!

Seasons Book

Covers.  The front has T!m Holtz fragments with
elements from the seasonal pages.  The spine
is covered with lace.  Since each page is a version
of the dress form, I put them in the seasonal
colors on the back cover.

Since I finished the Girly Girls book, I have been wanting to make one of my own design so I set out to make one that was more like an book and not accordian fold but still used the envelopes for the pages.  I came up with this design (second try but still not perfect). I made envelope type pages that could hold tags that would have the name of the season on them since there is no words on each page.  The pages are made from cardstock.  Since there wasn't a flap on the side to form the spine, I added one to each of the pages.  I also made the space between the pages 1/4" so the book would close, but I like my pages chunky!

Each page features a die cut from the T!m Holtz Sewing Room Sizzix Die and "dressed" for the season.

I started with Spring since that is my favorite season.  Flowers are punched whti MS punches as is the robin on the left page.  The flowers are mulburry paper and were a gift from my friend Tery.  The green dress form has an embossed overlay that was done as a test form Flirty Flora's base.  Could also have been another alternative to the modeling paste!

The backgrounds of the summer pages are stamped, embossed then inked.  The left has music, the right lace.  The right dress form is some lovely paper from a stack Once Upon A Time.  The corners are a Sizzix die as are the leaves.  The butterfly is T!m Holtz die, Cuttlebug embossing folder and cut from vellum.  The dress form with wings(T!m Holtz die) was inked then covered with lace and a fabric flower die cut was used for the skirt.  The roses are from Sizzix and Dienamics dies.  The purple butterfly is the new 3 part EK Sucess punch cut from Vellum on a TH fence treated with Crackle.  The smaller butterflies are from graphic45 Steampunk Debutante papers. 

Autumn has punched leaves, the base on the left is the T!m Holtz branch tree.  Rosettes from Sizzix dies as are the pumpkins.  The spray of leaves is the new T!m Holtz strip die.  The dress form on the right is covered with mulberry leaves also a gift from Tery and the twine on it is actually silk unraveled from a jacket.  I just inked the backgrounds a little - the papers are from the Luxery Stack.

Winter pages.  Martha Stewart snowflake punches.  The skirt is one of the new EK Success Quilling punches.  The pine trees are embossed, inked then cut from a T!m Holtz embossing folder.  the pine sprays are a Uchida punch.  The flowers are sizzix die cuts from a sizzix die cut from metallic papers. 

The tags from the book.

Finally! New Doll and Pattern

I had an inspiration and decided to make a doll from the original sketch I did for the Hoffman Challenge.  I am calling her Flirty Flora.  I really enjoyed designing her - she looks harder than she is!  The pattern contains two costuming versions - the petal skirt for those who like to sew and the scalloped skirt for those who don't! I also offer two hairstyles and two base styles.  The base on the Petal Skirted Flora is a wooden plaque with an embossed top.  The second version is made from Cardboard and is on the Scallop Skirted Flora.  I didn't have any more wooden bases when I got to her and didn't feel like getting in the car and driving, so I thought I would improvise.  Hope you like her.      There are 57 pages of directions (25 just for her face!) with 150+ photos and illustrations.  The patterns are being reproduced and should be available shortly.  Will let you know where and when.

Just incase you were curious, here is the original sketch.