playing with dolls

French Cupboard is having a altered art party - where you showcase some art that you have altered. I thought i'd show off some photos of some of the necklaces i have created using the old German Charlotte dolls.

blog party & Cecil Brunner

yikes, i'm a little late on the as i almost forgot! Andrea over at Vintage Bella Studio, is hosting a blog party today, called "show what you create". in case you are new to my blog, I create mixed media and jewelry using vintage found objects. i let my imagination take over and i never have a game plan for a project; it usually just sort of happens with these elements. I'm also the newest design team member for Objectsandelements.com. These are a few of the things that i was working on this week:

"Mermaid's dowry"

and

"welcome to the doll house"

thanks to http://vintagebellastudio.blogspot.com for hosting this blog hop.
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and in other news:

i've been dying to snag some good photos of my climbing rose bush while the buds were all open. isn't it amazing? right now the front door is so fragrant. just lovely. i only have a few more days to enjoy before the petals start dropping and my front porch looks like a light snow blossom storm blew by. this rose bush goes all the way to the 2nd floor of the house and occasionally it has been known to grow inside my window! when you get to the top step before opening the doorway, you really have to bend you head with all the flowers that are growing right there. there are a couple of birds who enjoying hanging out there. if i was a bird, i'd probably stay there too!

as promised

So remember these dolls heads i unpacked and told you i was making really cool things with them?

here is a few of the dolls i made using the heads. the bases ranged from rusty bed springs to vintage tea cups, bottles and more! and you thought all i did was go to flea markets......

(click on image for enlarged view)

charlotte doll heads

a package finally arrived today from far away. i couldn't wait to unpack it. it's from Germany, from Thomas! it was an ebay win, a LOT of those highly sought after and coveted Charlotte doll heads. since i am teaching a few classes where we use one of these heads as the focal point, i needed to get some in stock to get ready. i don't know if i'll be selling any of these since i use these alot in my projects. when i am almost ready to leave for Country Living Fair, i'll post some pictures of some wonderful things i have created using these doll heads. until then, you'll just have to be patient!

german dolls

I am sure that some of you have heard about the guy who digs up the bisque dolls from an old doll factory. is it an urban legend, a myth or what? well, i will tell, you that it is a fact. i recently got to purchase some of these percious dolls and they arrived from Germany yesterday. I had heard about this guy a few times and found it very fascinating. recently he had some dolls listed on ebay so i was looking at them. he sells in nice size lots and they bidding wars wage on with these dolls. i have never bid on them before and hadn't planned on doing so, until my husband sat down at the computer and said, "what are those"? he loved the story and got so into that he had me bid on them. now i hate bidding wars , just not my thing, but he kept egging me on to outbid, outbid! so needless to say, i won some dolls. i am thrilled with them. they are so cool and interesting. after winning the dolls, i contacted the seller and asked him to tell me more about how he gets the dolls, where he is from, could i blog about him, did he have photos, etc. (probably thought i was a nut!) So "Thomas the mole" emailed me some pictures and then told me a little about himself.

he is 45 years old and calls his family his 2 dogs (susi and strolch), 2 kitties (krumel and felix) and 6 bunnies (paul, paula, heinz, kurt, otto & oskar). apparently susi and strolch love to go on digs with him. Thomas lives in a small German town called Xanten. He use to work in a factory before he started earning a living digging up dolls. one a month, he drives 510km to a town called Thuringia where he and a good friend will dig for about 10 days or so before heading back home with their treasures. the Charlotta dolls that he digs up are from the time arround 1880-1920, and they are dug out on the area of the old Kister Doll Factoty. I've very much enjoyed my communications with Thomas and appreciate him supporting my enthusiam with photos and personal information about himself!

i will be selling a few of the dolls in my etsy shop, so feel free to inquire about them if you are interested in some before i get them listed.