Putting life on "Vacation Mode"...

Our life is pretty good.  I'll be the first to shout this from the roof tops.  

But today I put our life here in a holding pattern, desperate to escape for a spell.  

The count-down is accomplished. 

Bathrooms scrubbed, dishes clean, floors swept,

Etsy "vacationed", bills paid, mail held,

neighbors notified, tenants reassured,

cat re-assigned, trees watered,

truck cleaned, bags packed,

and sheets changed

for the night we return, to a clean house,

rested minds, refilled hopes, 

and a new year.

Have a wonderful Yule, and may you enjoy

a lovely, prosperous, and creative 2012!

I think I found it...

Having studied other cloth doll types of the same era, and making lots of Non-Izzie Dolls with Izzie-like bodies to experiment with feet/hand/arms/torso/head shapes, I've drawn one that suits me.  She's a little plumper than a real Izzie, and I've got more dinking around (technical term) to do with the foot and hand pattern, but  I think I've found the basis for the one I want to work with.  They'll bear a family resemblance to Izannah Walker Dolls, but with a difference.

Change was evident throughout the history of Izannah Walker's dolls: part of the wonder of her dolls was how they evolved over decades.  I like to think we're making long-distant cousins of those first little ones.

Doll makers owe Dixie Redmond a huge debt of gratitude for making these dolls and their history available for online study.  If you're ever tempted to try your hand, I highly recommend Dixie's beginner-friendly, printable e-book, or even better, the online workshop when she next holds one. 

I guess this one will be (once she's finished) Izzie #9...
and the first JDConwell IW inspired doll of 2012.
Here's to a great new year.

Do you have a favorite photo site?

I'm planning to have use a photo site to upload things to, for easy access and for storage, as well as for using on Ebay auctions.  Is there one you like best?  If so, why?  What do you like most and least about it?  The one I'll use will have to work with Ebay, but I think the only other consideration is ease of use.

What say you?

New URL for this blog!

I spent a while trying to decide how to make the blog more relevant to the art business...the gardening and dog news are fun, and there will still be posts on that, but for the most part, it's become an art blog, more than anything else.  So what to do?  Scrap it and start over?  (My inner child hollers loud,  "But whyyyyyyiiiii???")

So I compromised and changed the URL.

Did you know you could do that?  Go to settings, then publishing, then change the url right there in the little window.  I'm sure I will have issues lining things out...but I'm convinced it was the best way to go.  If you are reading this from your normal Follow link, then it's all good.  (And if you change yours, let me know, and we'll work together to see the sum-total of effects!)

The husband asked me why change it, if it'll possibly domino or cause problems.  He's good for questions like that.  I told him I have a whopping total of 95 Followers.  With a ginormous audience like that, any damage is gonna require one helluva butterfly effect to cause a ripple in a bathtub.  Besides, I went to a few blogs that link to mine...sure 'nuf, the link goes right on thru.  Guess we'll see.

The thing is, I'm aiming for a goal, made up of little parts.

First, to eventually eliminate the website that costs money and serves very little purpose.  It did originally serve to let me check the box in Business 101 that says: Create an Online Presence.  Not so much.  More like checking the box that says: One More Site to Maintain.  Time to renew, noooo thank yew. 

The second part is tied to the first: streamline time spent online.  There are a handful of blogs I follow belonging to people I consider friends.  (You know who you are. xoxoxo)    I value that connection!  But the majority of the blogs I follow are more like keeping up with what's happening.    Having a business blog instead of a website allows me to visit those valued friends, post new dolls, and check the "art news",  all in one place.

The third part is less measurable, but maybe most important.  I must disconnect my sense of self-worth from the presence or absence of feedback!  Changing the blog to a business-related one gives me a little distance, the way no visitors to your house is different than no visitors to your store.  It's easier not to take it personally.  Those friends?  Their comments touch me, because they go out of their way to stop and Say Hi, and it makes my day and gives me energy. (more xoxoxo's!) But what wastes my day--and way too much energy--is worrying when I talk to the "empty room".  The blog is only a blog, and the presence or absence of commentary in no way reflects my self-worth.  I've assigned myself to write this one thousand times.

So, changing the URL to one more relevant, along with the Doll House where the actual listings will happen) is part of my business goal strategy.  (If you fail to plan, are you planning to fail?)  The blog will eventually serve as a website, a storefront, AND a platform for exchanges of art talk. 

For now, the blog is serving as an excuse NOT to go wash that load of laundry.
Hope you have a fabulous weekend,
and make something beautiful while you're at it.

Painted faces...

With regard to my last post, I finally got the sculpts where I wanted to paint.  Still not "there" yet, but I like them.  Now to give them arms and legs.  The clothes I'm waiting to sew when we're in Phoenix.  I like having some embroidery or hand sewing...this will give me more than enough!

My apologies for the bad photography...I thought this old trunk tray would make a good backdrop, but it's dark and created more contrast than I wanted.  Oops.  Lesson learned.

On Humility, Mr. Miyagi, and New Izzies.

PLEASE NOTE THE NEW URL.  (Thanks.)

I'm trying out a revised version of Dixie Redmond's Izannah Walker doll pattern, the one I got when I took her class last summer.  I made the following four dolls from her original pattern, (although one of them had a styrofoam head, so only her body was from the pattern) and learned a lot.  Here are those dolls (last two sold on Etsy, first two did not.) 

So those are Izzies #1 thru 4.  I waited a while to make more...not on purpose (I don't think), and then the bug got me and I had to try again.  Of course, initially, I did what I tend to do--which is get all excited and think I'm finished after the first attempt, which is "pretty good".  But the sad showing one of my dolls is making on an Ebay auction prompted me to get over myself and really take stock.  Nothing throws cold water on an ego like Zero Bids and this being my first time to put anything on Ebay...well, you get the picture.

So I looked at the dolls at that stage, and realized I had done what my art teachers warned about...I drew my version of a tree rather than a real tree.

Ah so, grasshopper...now it is time to
Go back.
Look closely.
And this time...SEE. 

My muse, instead of the floaty-fairy kind my writer friends all seem to have, is a stunted, grouchy, Mr. Miyagi sort of fellow.  He basically made me understand that the reason my doll isn't selling on Ebay was that she was one of my first two dolls.  But Mr. Miyagi...my other two sold for over $200 each!  Doesn't that prove I did great?  His answer: Tell that to the Watchers on Ebay. 

Hard on the ego, but true, none the less.  Then he asked me (please don't send for the guys w/ white coats...I promise I'm okay): Do you want an army of these little dolls, unsold, sitting around the house?  My answer of course was no, to which he replied "THEN STOP PHONING IT IN."  A most un-Miyagi construct, isn't it?  But I knew exactly what he meant.

So I spent another several hours, adding, subtracting...reshaping the already thrice reshaped. (I never get to use the word thrice...isn't it cool?)  Then another several hours, from breakfast to lunch yesterday. 

The revision I made to Dixie's pattern is in the head shape--a thinner neck, which I will later re-thicken, along with some basic changes in the shape of the head/face pieces.  The Revised Revision of the sewing pattern will need still more changes, but I have these four to a place that satisfies me.

They're not "there" yet.  But I'm closer.  

I didn't phone it in: I really looked this time.  

So Mr. Miyagi...back off a while. 

Besides, an army of little Almost Izzies sitting around might be kinda fun.

Yule at the House of Conwell

I don't go too heavy on the decorations, for several reasons.  First, the hubs is only willing to alot (cheerfully) a certain amount of year-round space to storage.  Second, our family is too far and too spread out to come see us over the holiday season, and few of our friends are willing to travel this far out to visit.  That's not as pathetic as it sounds.  Or maybe it is, but oh well.  I'd throw a party if I thought it would help, but we barely remember how to throw parties.  Third, and maybe most salient: what goes up, must come down. 

But I do have a few odd collections, one of them I collect for the hubs.  I've always collected for him, with or without his permission, because he's just not a collections kind of guy.  So between the nutcracker soldiers (we are a military family), the vintage toys, and the elves, I have enough to keep the Bah Humbugs away, but not enough to require a storage unit and a week to put it all out.  Our tree is three feet tall.  Maybe next year, when I have grandkids here (only six hours away...oh. my. goodness.) I'll push for a big tree, but for the last few years, this little tree has worked fine.  I have to put mini ornaments on it, and save the larger of the kid-made ornaments for the pine garland over the entertainment unit...but it's a cute little tree.

The "husband's collection" of nutcracker soldiers, along with the beer steins his brother got him when stationed in Germany.  I like that they're standing under a copy of the Constitution.

The Elf Shelf.

Toyland.

Our tiny tannenbaum...

So while I have three reasons for not making a ginormous display, I have one really good reason for dragging it all out every year, even if the hubs barely looks at it.  I love to revisit all the things my kids and I made together over the years.  The ornaments Josh and Renee made in first grade, with gap-toothed pictures of themselves, Jason's art-class masterpieces.  The technicolor reindeer Casey painted the year Phil and I met.  I have a felt campfire I made back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.  The little paper spiral of smoke is long gone, but the little logs and flame are still there, literally hanging by a thread.  The ghost of Christmas Past comes alive, smiling sweet memories for me every year.  I make everyone new handmade ornaments every year, for the Ghost of Christmases Yet To Come.

I don't think it's too early to wish everyone a wonderful season of Holy Days.

On Old Farmhouses, and Stuff.

Wouldn't it be cool to have an old restored farmhouse to live in?

Phil and I often pick out old houses when we drive in the country, ones that we'd want to live in.  We go for the long, wrap-around porches, the old ranch-style one stories that are common down here in hot country.  Houses up north call for two stories so you can stay warm at night upstairs, but down here, it's all about big windows and lots of them, with shade all the way around the house.

How I would love a country kitchen like this... 

As much as I love looking at the country decorators' art, the antique finds, the primitive homes revived from a century ago, I've noticed an overkill in which every old cabinet, every basket, every over-the-door shelf is full of...stuff.  Not useful stuff, but arty stuff made to look old.  There are names for that kind of stuff...ornies, bowl-fillers, and my perennial favorite: tucks. 

I gotta ask: is this how those people really lived in the "olden days"?  Did they really cover every flat space with look-pretties that serve no purpose but to collect admiration and dust?  I think if you handed some old farm lady a "tuck" and told her it was to sit in her dough bowl and look pretty, she'd look at you like you were nuts.

Sure, the wealthier folks had a fancy room or two so they could express and impress, but the rest of them had a USE for everything that sat on a table, basket, or shelf. In its purest form, "Folkart" was making useful things beautiful. 

I don't think the process works in reverse.

Of course, there is another extreme--the Shaker sort of "Thou Shalt Have No Look Pretties" esthetic, bare and period to the point of austerity.  Some go so far as to hide all things modern--dishwashers, fridges, and TVs--in specially built cabinets. I can only imagine what a pain in the tookus it would be to live in a house where no Modern Things are allowed out in plain sight.

Some day, if and when we ever really settle in a place, I'll hope for wood floors, architecture that allows me to pretend the house is old (if indeed it isn't) and a common sense approach to Stuff.  There will be Look Pretties, there will be Old Stuff out for the sake of enjoying Old Stuff.  But the tables will be covered in books, cell phones, bills, and other odd bits of our daily life, just like they are now.

If you can't say anything nice...

...don't say anything at all.  

I'm all out of nice today, 

but I'm working hard to correct my frame of mind.  

So I figured I'd post a picture that makes me smile, 

and wish you all a lovely weekend.

This is the Schultz, when he was about eight weeks old.  

He'd get so excited about his dinner that his back feet would come up off the floor, 

and he'd balance on his front feet...

that is until enough of the food went from the bowl to his tummy, 

then he'd slooooowly settle back on all fours.  

Wish I'd had a video of it.  :~)