Table Ornies

Aren't these cute? These are table ornates, as I said before....ornies seem to be the primitive word for a room decoration. Prims are getting to me.

I want my own Raggedy Ann ornie...'whine'...C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

Scrooge

Long day in the studio again. I'm so into getting my space organized.....there is no stopping even for lunch!

Anyway, I'm relying on a saved post. I had hoped to have it for a soft sculpture or Christmas but now is a better time than any. Enjoy.

Lisa Juris of Day Dream Weaver Dolls

Materials needed:

Iron
Freezer paper
2 tiny black seed beads for eyes
flesh colored fabric for body and arms ( I prefer velour)
Christmas print for jacket and scarf
(a fat quarter ought to do it for both jacket and scarf)
3-inch piece of flesh nylon sculpting skin for head
tacky glue
3-inches of wire gold or silver
stuffing
sculpting needle
2 quarter inch buttons
matching thread
mohair (white)
Small piece of interfacing
Black permanent marker
Tweezers,forceps, or whatever you use to turn tiny doll parts
Knitting needle or chopstick



Body:
Trace body piece onto freezer paper, cut out, iron onto wrong side of flesh. This is a template, so you will need to sew before cutting out. Make sure to leave an opening for stuffing. Turn right side out and stuff firmly. Whipstitch opening closed and lay aside.

Arms:
Trace the arm template onto freezer paper, cut out, iron to wrong side of fabric,
Sew, and then cut out. Stuff the arms firmly and whipstitch the openings closed. The middle finger of the arms does not always come out as far as the other two fingers. Don't worry about that part. Now that you have the arms and body ready, take the two buttons and start by sewing them on the outside of each arm, I like to secure mine really tight before attaching them to the body. Once you have the button as tight as you want on the first arm, start sewing it to the body taking many stitches in and out of the button. Next, attach the other arm repeating the same steps. Once the arms are on, keep taking stitches back and forth through the button- holes and the body. Once it is secure tie off.




Jacket:
Trace the jacket piece on to freezer paper, iron onto a folded piece of fabric, I prefer a bright Christmas color, it is scrooge after all. You want to cut out two on folded fabric.
Next, turn the two pieces right sides together, pin and sew using a quarter inch seam. Do Not finish the neck line. This jacket will be pulled over the body, so do not worry about leaving an opening.

Scarf:
Cut a 6-inch by 3-inch strip of the print you used for the jacket. Sew down the long end of the fabric. Turn right side out, and use your pinking shears to cut the ends, so they do not ravel. Lay this aside for later.

Dressing the doll:
Make sure that you dress Scrooge before you attach the head. The sleeves will be a tight fit, but I guarantee that the jacket will fit. Just be gentle and keep pulling the arms. I used a long 12-inch pair of tweezers that I bought at a doll show last year. Keep pulling until you have the hands through the sleeve opening. Adjust the seams so the jacket lies straight.

Head:
The head is made of a 3-inch piece of flesh colored nylon fabric. Tie off the top, stuff semi-firmly and take a gathering stitch around the bottom. Push onto the neck and tighten the circle, taking stitches in and out of the neck to secure the head onto the body. Face:

Face:
Now comes the fun part. Take your sculpting needle and matching
Start at the back of the head, take a small stitch indenting where you will be placing the eyes, repeat for the other eye. Tie off and clip in the back. Glue the little black seed beads in the eye holes. Next you will sculpt the face. Working with nylon is easiest to achieve the affect of an old wrinkled man. You want him to be grouchy looking and my tip is to just keep making stitches until he looks the way you want him to. When you are doing his nose. Start next to the eye, and making long stitches down the side, until you achieve a long nose. Make indentations on each side of the head until you have shaped his face to your desire. Make a stitch under the nose to make the illusion of the mouth, and a wrinkled chin underneath.

Hair, scarf, sign and glasses:
Now you can tie the scarf around his neck, glue patches of mohair on his head. I pulled the hair apart until it was kind of fuzzy. The take your wire and make a small pair of glasses. This is where your knitting needle or chopstick comes in handy, use it to shape the lenses around, so that you have perfect circles. Position them the way you want and glue them in place. Last, glue your Bah Humbug! Sign to each hand, using a straight pin to hold it overnight while the glue dries. You can either attach a thread to his head to hang on your Christmas tree, or attach a pin back and wear him through the holidays. Enjoy.

C&G Design





Words and photos by Dawn,

C&G Design.

Getting There

Yesterday my hubby made my spool rack! How exciting, now I can make use of the space these things were just hanging out in. This one is over the knee wall door. It's a four level rack.

Here is the only 3 foot rack. I must say....the design of this is ingenious. I thought just a curtain like bracket would do but he doubled my space by creating his own brackets. A good thing too....

The cubby's are getting full.....

And some are not so neat right now.

Check out the swim trunks on the wall! Hey, it's a guy thing too. C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

It's Been a Year

Friday was the anniversary of Michael Jackson's death at the age of 50. His estate has continued to profit on his music and his very being.
Dr Conrad Murry is still in medical practise although not allowed to administer sedatives. The doctor is scheduled for a criminal trail in August, as we all know.....he gave Michael the drug the eventually took the star's life. Joe Jackson filed a wrongful death suit on Friday, the last day available to do so. Commenter's say it's not for monetary gain although he is the only one left out of Michael's will, and the only one named on the suit.
I have to say that I hope the right thing in done with this, to many talented performers have died a early death do to the availability of the the doctors writing prescription drugs so easily. There is something so sad about ones life whom lives in the eye of the public, all the time. It must be horrid to have to watch everything,...I mean everything. Who your true friends are and worse, who your kids true friends are....
Rest in peace. C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

I'm Embarassed

All of my studio is done except the knee wall door, my husband is going to design a ribbon holder for me and that will take a little time.
Meanwhile....I'm moving things in.....woo hoo! Look at my 5 drawer dresser..... one.....

two....

three.....

four.....hair and wigs....

and five.....sorry for the blurr, the drawer became farther away from my camera and I'm exhausted, long day today starting with another filling at the dentist this morning, all is well though just tired......and embarrassed.

I must do some of these dolls and get them on Etsy. C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

A New Doll

I picked up this little cutie the other day, I don't believe she is a Bradley doll but if I find later that to be the case, she is a very early one. She wears a silk dress and at one point she had something attached to her left wrist, probably a parasol. The right hand holds her gown skirting. She is a stockinette doll, that is a knit fabric over a molded face and then painted features. Can you believe I had to bargain for her at Goodwill? She wasn't priced and the suggested $5.99 for her..."what." We settled on the in-between price of $2.99. Thank goodness my kids weren't with me, they'd be mortified.

She did have a base, hummm.....maybe a Bradley anyway. C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

A Lightbulb of an Idea

The designer's name is at the bottom of the photo, she can be found on the Internet I'm sure.... Simple and sweet, it's a light bulb. C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

The books....

Most all my posts have been brief lately, that's because I'm very occupied with my studio. I need to get to the garden though, the weeds are scary.
Anyway, here is a small look at some of my books, this shelf will be full by the next day.... And I have the matching one to fill up also.....

This is the good ole' standby, it's placed at the head of the stairs, not to worry all the bookshelves are attached securely to the wall studs.

So far....that's a lotta books! C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

"There is a ginormous bug..."

"Ginormous", that's what my daughter said to her brother when she was 4 and he was 9. We heard the conversation over the monitor, she said it was on the ceiling, then we heard a tiny "Ohh" of discomfort. Madame was sleeping in a top bunk at the time, yes...indeedy, we needed to investigate. Well, having lived here for almost 18 years, I've seen plenty of bats. The night of the "ginormous bug" for example......it flew down the hallway of our mobile home right at me. We figured it came in the house when we let the dog in. I screamed ducked and slammed the door thinking I'd hear a thud against my bedroom door, nope, these mammals can turn on a dime. Saturday night though, was a unusual night, we had a scheduled power outage for maintenance on the transmission lines, midnight to 5 am, yep...and on the hottest night of the year. Now whether the bat came in while the deck door was opened for air or what, it's a mystery, I'm sure his sonar was messed up because I think if we had the constant humming from the fish tank, we wouldn't of had this visitor. But....this one is a pretty....good....sized one. It had a wing span of about 7 inches. Eww. Well, I sat watching this guy for the biggest part of the morning and finally cornered my husband to remove it. After all...it hung just behind the entertainment stand and every time I glanced at the t.v. I saw mister B. Right about the time my husband moved the stand and positioned himself behind it, the hairy GIR-NOR-MOUS bug took off. I hid in my bedroom where I could peak out the door and feel safe. This was after it dawned on me.....gee, that thing just flew up into the skylight, and DOWN it came! Guess my dog didn't take a liking to my fear and started snapping at it. You could tell he had no clue what-so-ever it was, it was more of a obligatory snap. See the fright in he eyes.

My poor husband waved his arms and blocked areas of the house when we considered it flying the wrong way, shortly, the bat settled on this sign, just above the open deck door and to the world of freedom.

I think the poor thing had exhausted itself, it didn't make attempt to budge when my husband reached for it. My husband was concerned the bat wouldn't make it out the door without getting hurt in some way.

But that mean little thing felt well enough to bite! C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

I'm this close...

This is what I did last night, we went to Wally world in the morning to pick-up the 2 bookshelves (I have p-l-e-n-t-y of books). Upon return we put the trim on as I spent most all day yesterday staining it, then we assembled the bookshelfs. I am this close.....C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

Sasquatch

I am fascinated with bears, I'm still looking for that perfect pattern that I could design to my own liking. I want something that will grab a person and make them want to hold it, something that will look good with white, striped and brown/black fur, especially now since I found about 6 yards of brown on a 60'' wide bolt at Goodwill for $7.99. Gotta love GW!
One day while pondering this new and unusual pattern I thought about putting "YETI" in a search engine and see what kind of images the Internet could show me. After all....yeti is nothing but a big 'ole bear, right?
Yeti led to Sasquatch, and that led to Bigfoot, anyone remember Bigfoot? He's still around and there are claims of more and more sightings today. I grew up with the more infamous sighting, the Patterson footage. Wouldn't it be nice to make a Sasquatch plushie?


The Patterson footage has spent many years with many scientist and many dollars to try to find out if it's real or not. Patterson and Grimlin recorded it in 1969 and Patterson died in 1972 from lymphoma, on his deathbed he swore the footage was true.
Grimlin remained silent for the latter part of the century and it became conspicuous to Bigfoot followers, why be in the shadows. Grimlin sued Pattersons widow for reimbursement of the film investment and 5 percent of the films gross, he produced a promisary note. It seemed Patterson never paid his people.
Much of the scientist believed the gait/muscle movement couldn't be replicated by man, some believed the camera speed was set slower while the subject ran/walked.
A costume company came forward and declared he sold the suit to Patterson, that Patterson called asking how to make the costume look larger. The designer suggested to wear football pads with it. Some believe because of wearing the pads the hairy ape couldn't turn to look back in a normal way, that with long floppy clown feet it's gait would be unusual. However no real explanation about the thigh/calf reflexion was offered other than a tight suit. Shortly after the costume company came forward a person of interest decided he'd release the information that he wore the suit, that he was waiting on his promised profits from the film and that after a while he believed if he told he would be convicted of fraud. He had opposite details about the costume than the company did. (ie. zippers were used but he stated a t-shirt type top). Whatever the facts may be, watch the footage and decide for yourself....

it's a good excuse to listen to Jethro Tull. C&G Design


Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

2 New Ornaments

I was thinking this morning about how it is getting to be time to think about the holiday, not getting ready for but in preparation of making decorations for Halloween. Etsy has a four month posting so right about July is perfect, time to make more scare scenes! Anyway, here are a few ornaments I picked up today on my trip thrifting, they are in a baggie and some of the pins have fallen out due to it. I think the maker did not use glue either. I thought they are so pretty and it's a nice change for using sequins which I have plenty of. Merry Christmas! C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

Annie Ornies

Well, this is the last of the patterns I found for $.69 apiece and although it's not quite a Raggedy Ann, it's close enough. Ornies is the primitive word for ornaments and basically people in the Prim world make several bowl fillers, and or table sitters.

They are usually grunged with a tea/cinnamon solutions that is brushed on the ornament after it's done, then it is allowed to dry or lots of times the piece is placed in the oven at a low temp. Be sure to watch your ornament!

I'm going to design my own Raggedy Ann and Andy ornie one of these days.....soon.

I didn't meet my goal of finishing my studio on Sunday and all that is left is to install the stair rails and the window trim with the wall baseboard. Sounds simple enough doesn't it?

I gotta tell ya, I have been very distracted with unpacking the mountain of craft boxes that have been stored in my bedroom for the last 9 months. I'm itching......

Oh well, I'm confident it'll be there for me next week. C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

First Time Driver

I guess maybe the day had to arrive, that day was yesterday. I was convinced my son would not, could not, didn't dare! to pass a road test. I was wrong.

He has enough driving hours and was even rear ended while driving to school, thank goodness he was with his Dad, but the other student was a bit afraid when my son got out to see the damage. No one was hurt and it snapped the bumper down which......I'm told, that's what the clips are meant to do. But I was sooooo.......thinking he would not walk away with a temporary license. I was soooo thinking it's his first attempt and we would ride home in brooding silence. Drats! No such luck.

We did drive home in silence but only because I wouldn't let him drive.



Oh no. C&G Design



Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

Moving On...

Well, we made it through another school year and next year I won't have a child in elementary school. It's been 12 years that I have been visiting the primary grades, k-6 two times for 2 kids. My son's graduating class gifted the school team benches for the gym, Madame's class gifted new dugout benches with their hand print/names wood burned into it. They came out wonderful!

The balloon drop was a great success at the moving on ceremony. I guess one other class tried this and it got stuck, the sixth grade teacher had to pull it. Our balloon drop was on the basketball hoop and it all came down like the dams opening on a river, too cool.

I'm not sure how I managed this shot! All the students were announced by alphabetical order and they marched through the balloon arch up to the stage.

Madame said her most favorite memory and then ended her piece by saying...."goodbye _____school, I will miss you."

Boo hoo! C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

A Sneak Peek

I should have my studio done today. Late Saturday afternoon we finished doing all the walls and I must say, I am brave.....I think the walls say it all but it's not quite whimsy, just brave. Here is our test wall, this areas won't show because I'm getting 2, 6 foot bookcases to go on either sides of the windows so it seemed like the logical place to start. We liked the smaller sized pattern pieces better than the large.

Thank goodness the thrift shop has patterns for $.19 cents each! C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

Retiring

Today is the last day of school and for our elementary school, it's the end of 5th and 6th grade. Due to budget cuts 3 of our 9 town elementary schools are combining certain grades, cutting positions and increasing enrollment to other locations as the numbers have dropped dramatically in the last few years.
Anyway....ever since my son went through our local school, there have been a few teachers joking about retiring due to a....group of boys..or a..gaggle of girls....etc. and our sixth grade teacher has decided to make it true this year. This teacher has been a favorite teacher of my son's, which is a hard thing to do! My daughter seems to like them all, so here is what we personally did. He likes golf.....

Wouldn't this make a nice retirement gift? It's a home set for those rainy days. I love it!

And life wouldn't be complete without a cuppa' java, this one states it all:

The good teacher explains,

The super teacher demonstrates,

The great teacher inspires.

It's from the Boyd bear collections.

And look at the inside......insert squeal here**!

We filled it full of Carmel's with netting over it.

Even the package had coordinating ape paper with a monkey card!

I had a bit of trouble wrapping so the whole thing ended up in a gift bag. C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.

Tissue Paper Flowers

Last night was Madame's moving on ceremony (Graduation from Elementary school, grrr!) Psst.....what is a moving on....it's when they say...."Get out!" Just kidding. Well, I put myself on the decorating committee and got elected (ha!) for the gift committee. Here is my idea for decorating........I hope for a non-wedding atmosphere!

The first flower I made is petaled, I quartered my paper and cut my half rounds.

Then I fanned the paper with the flower side out.

Wrapping the pipe cleaner around the center, I pulled the five layers of paper apart. I like this flower although finicky about staying round sometimes.

Then I frayed the long side of the paper (group of five), and fanned the short side.....

to get this carnation like flower, pretty huh? Protector of Vintage sent me a book about tissue paper flower I wished I could find but don't cha know it! I think it is in one of my 6 piles of craft books. I can't get this studio quick enough!

Anyway I cut a boat shaped leaf, taped it in the middle on both sides of the tissue and poked the pipe cleaner through to for a leaf.

I'm not sure why but these remind me of pond lilies, don't they look like them?

After having a brain storm with the Christmas ribbon being the center of the flower, all my 14 dinner plate sized pretties were done.

I saved scenting these for another occasion. C&G Design

Words and photos by Dawn,C&G Design.