Sometimes I start a few weeks before my birthday, sometimes I start just before or after. Each doll has it's age somewhere on it. Each doll is completely different from a prior year. Each doll ends up being very strange. But it's such a wonderful time finding out how the doll is going to end up looking
I started when I was 55. The doll was made from unfinished wood toys and scrapbook odds and ends. T
he face was crafted f
rom clay and everything was painted. Here's Ms. 55.Birthday 56 was a different proposition. She didn't cooperate well at all. In fact we're still fighting with each other. I started out with a cedar smoking chip from my husband's pile of barbeque stuff. I varnished her and then brushed some gold leaf paint here and there. I made her feet from a push mold but have to admit she doesn't have any arms.
Her head was from a push mold and was hideous. She looked like a wicked old man with feathers on his head. She stayed this way until last month when she jumped off the shelf in the basement and knocked her head off. Can't say as I blame her.
What to do? What to do? Well, I had some "helicopter" leaves I'd picked up off the sidewalk next to a neighbor up the street. I glued those onto the top of her shoulders and then I glued a pineapple/pinecone looking thing I'd bought from Hobby Lobby onto her shoulders. She's still weird looking but at least she's not hideous. Photo to come.
And finally (this year at least) I turned 57 on March 31. Feeling old. Feeling damned old. So I made myself a Baba Yaga/Yaga Baba doll. She even has a house with chicken legs, a mortar and pestle on the roof top, and a corgi standing guard at the front door (I like corgis better than chickens and he was chipped and broken when HE jumped off the bookshelf last year).
Yaga isn't done yet but she's becoming awesome (if I do say so myself). Photos to come :)
