last autumn light

While taking these pictures of Milo the other day I could almost feel that I might have caught the last autumn light. Although it is still kind of warm around here the air has changed to crispy/chilly and the last leaves on the trees will fly down to earth very soon.

Little Milo certainly is the autumn-type (clearly, with that hair) and dressed to climb the highest trees, collecting all his finds in his tiny basket and trying not to loose his beanie.

He is a 45cm custom doll already heading to his new home.
Have a beautiful weekend!
XOX

PS: for more info about custom spots please send a message to vivi-rosalie@web.de or pm me via facebook

For dollmakers: tutorial about needle-felted doll heads

The head of a doll is probably the most important part for a dollmaker.

It starts with finding your "look" which involves to get very deep into facial features, proportions, studying all kinds of doll (and human) heads., browsing through anatomy and art books and the like. All of this leads to understanding how to create "the" face expression that you are aiming for. Once you have a clear picture in mind of how the doll should look like the hard work starts and it takes a while until imagination has become reality. It took several months in my case since I've started to needle-felt my doll's heads beginning of this year. 



Here is the result of my needle-felting journey  - developing my "look" took me several months.
Those of you who follow me on facebook have seen this little guy already - he's the one with the golden curls from yesterday's post

During this process I sometimes wished to have a tutorial or ebook or something - but there wasn't any.

Don't get me wrong - there is plenty of books dealing with this topic since the technique (and also the idea) is not new but I missed a modern and fresh touch.

 

This is why I decided to share my knowledge with you and started working on a step-by-step tutorial/ebook about needle-felting doll heads.

It will be available in my etsy shop beginning of 2015 and I hope it will support you to create the doll head of your dreams.

Have a great weekend!

 

XOX

Antje

From the heart

I don't know how many times I went back to my studio to hold Lilly in my hands and gaze at her little face. She taught me to be patient during the hours of felting and how to rely on feeling instead of seeing. I just lost myself completely in sculpturing her cheeks and defining her proportions. And suddenly I saw it all needs to come from the heart and if you follow your voice within everything will come to you.

 

 

She means so much to me because she has shown me that I can do it. I can do things I never thought I could and all I need for this is already there.

This is the one thing I promised myself while Lilly came to life:

from now on I will follow my heart and trust it will show me my way.

 

If you, too, have the feeling you didn't listen enough in the past (like me) just go ahead and do it now.

It's never too late to make your dreams come true.

xox

YAY!

Yes, yay! I couldn't resist to show you a snap shot of Lilly, my first 50cm baby doll with a completely needle felted head! This is the first time I scultured a head like that and I never thought I could do this!

 

 

 

I planned to use aquamarin for her eyes but the semiprecious stones didn't pass the safety tests for children so they had to go. Lilly has now felted eyes like all my dolls. So, enough with experiments here  - I'm going to keep that for my future dolls since I just love the look

 

xox

back in my studio

I finally made my way back to my little studio and immediately lost myself in needle-felting the head of this little girl.

 

 

 

She's going to get a curly blonde mohair wig and blue eyes made of aquamarine or crysoprase - I can't wait for the gemstones to arrive and see how they look on her! The idea to use gemstones as eyes as been on my mind for quite a while since nothing beats the shimmer and color of these...

xox

Summer in the city

yes, summer has finally arrived around here...

we had quite a few very hot days which is kind of unusual since we normally live under a constant cover of grey clouds and rain. So people just drop everything and spend as much time outside as possible, the whole city is buzzing, the strand of our river is crowded and you can see lots of kids playing in the water- 

best time of the year is here!

But sometimes you just need to take a deep breath without being surrounded by tons of people and that's why I did a little bicycle tour the other day where I shooted these pics of Leni. We found a daisied place and just enjoyed sitting there under the trees and let the sun kiss our skin...live is good!

xox

The real me

Those of you who still love Sex and the City as much as I do might remember Carrie Bradshaw stumbling and falling in front of a thousand cameras during a Dolce & Gabbana runway show - same thing happened to me recently (this is a metaphor - of course I don't have anything to do with D&G - unfortunately...).

So, things have changed unexpectatly and quite dramatically for me in the last couple of weeks since a business-related and quite important episode in my life has come to an end (when I don't make dolls I'm a psychologist btw...). The whole thing has turned my life upside down - you know, all sorts of emotional states and what not...but I'm a lucky girl since I'm blessed with a great family and some really awesome friends - and I own all SatC seasons!
So, let's see what Carrie did: she stumbled, she fell, faced her fears and picked herself up.

Ok: stumbled - yep, fell - yep, faced fears - check - picked myseld up - mmhh, not yet accomplished...you see, I'm still in that "peel-myself-off-the-ground" phase which is a good thing for both our home and my health since I'm renovating like crazy (you should see our kitchen after all this cleaning, painting, furniture polishing) and have started a really amazing vegan diet. The latter is actually quite a change since I never had anything to do with this type of lifestyle before but this guy has revolutionized vegan food and created incredible recipes - highly recommendable!

Matcha tea powder and Attila Hildmann's bestseller "Vegan for youth"

While I'm currently busy with my reset/find inner balance/rebuilding home program my dolls need to wait patiently for me to get back to them. I haven't touched wool or fabric for weeks and obviously all ideas and plans are in the back at the moment. But I started to redecorate my little studio today and got the feeling that I might get back to dollmaking very soon.

tiny flowers in my studio

 

 Here's a studio glimpse - a tiny boquet from our balcony, my book shelf and "Quilt Roads" from Kaffe Fassett - one of my all time favorite designers. Just looking at one of his books with those beautiful pictures of his magnificent quilts immediately puts a smile on my face...

And in case you end up stumbling: "The real me" season 4 episode 2....

xox