A new Friend

I have been promising to set the cards to one side and do something else for a while now but somehow time has just slipped by and I have had nothing very much to show for it. I was forced into action by the fact that over at my Flickr group Art N Soul, the last challenge had finished and everyone was waiting for me to set a new one!

I have been meaning to have a go at creating one of these lovely strange ladies since Sue Roddis did some examples in the March issue of Craft Stamper.... so here I am four months later finally getting round to it!

Meet REELA COTTON!!!!

Reela was made from card and her body was done by tearing a lengthways strip from an A4 sheet of paper and folding in half, then tearing several strips about 1-2cm from another sheet of card, folding in half, positioning centrally round the 'spine' and glueing. To give the body some strength, I then applied a layer of gesso. Once dry I used Red, Sienna and Sap Green acrylic paints over the body and wiped with a baby wipe. I stamped a bit of text using grey Stazon and random dots using Crushed Olive distress ink and then cut out the body shape.

I packed OH off to the local Coffee Shop to get me a wooden coffee stirrer and he duly arrived back, cappucinno encrusted mouth but clutching the precious stirrer!

I painted it with sienna acrylic paint and stamped a bit more text onto it.

Reela's face was done by stamping onto some cotton fabric, sponging with the previously used baby wipe and sticking onto mountboard. The coffee stirrer was glued into place and then I found some fabric wings in my stash. The same text stamp was used on the wings and the stained baby wipe still damp was wiped over them randomly before I stuck the wings onto the doll.

Some pins for her 'hair', a few buttons and a wooden heart shape finished the project .... oh and a very old Silko wooden cotton reel!

Mixed Media Monday's theme this week was 'Past Loves' - not old boyfriends but things that you used to like doing and haven't done for a while...... and me making messy with gesso, paint and inks is definitely something I haven't done for a long time................ and I'd almost forgotten how much I enjoyed it!