frost fae

greetings all! i hope each and every one of you had a wonderful holiday. today i'd like to share a piece i created for my mother in law for christmas this year. meet the frost fae!

i'd been sort of dreaming about a wintry, frosty faerie for a while and thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to create her. i started first with her hair. it's a blend of 4 yarns, with a sprinkling of iridescent embroidery floss and ribbon
























next up i made the coat... you see, i wanted a faerie in a parka, but then i thought with all of the hair and the bulk of the coat the addition of wings would be too much so i compromised.
























the main part of the coat is a sweatshirt fleece with the fuzzy inside turned out and trimmed in faux fur. the wings are felt (made 100% from recycled plastic bottles!) and they are stitched with metallic/iridescent embroidery floss that is very difficult to photograph... it's much more sparkly in real life!
























some stitching on the front
















































her big fluffy boots of recycled felt and faux fur


























a detail of her hat and the bead i used to top it

























a closeup of her button and pearl necklace:
























and a whole body shot, showing off her necklace and belt and shorts
























and a more modest shot.... i was originally going to have the coat fastened closed, but it turns out that she couldn't sit that way so she's an immodest little elemental ;)

























thank you for looking,
hope you have a wonderful new year!
-sarah

Huldra

greetings readers! i am so excited to finally be able to post about this next piece. it was commissioned as a gift some months ago and has been gifted so i can post her!


























What is a Huldra? Huldre are Scandinavian fair-folk, usually described as beautiful women until their cow's tails are revealed.... this little lady is obviously embracing much more of her cow's nature and isn't afraid of being found out. she's amongst friends here.
more information about huldre can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huldra

that infamous tail:























her hooves.
























i chose her hair color and style because i fell in love with the look highland cattle have: http://www.birchimages.co.uk/galleryimages/Highland%20cattle%20Scotland%202.JPG
















































this huldra is still connected to her roots and is wearing a bronze-age style string skirt as seen here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egtved_Girl
























so, what's with the two sticks? this was a commissioned gift for a very special and very talented woman i am honored to know. she is a volva (staff-carrier) and uses her stav (staff) to create music... more info here: http://karitauring.com/about.html


i got to use my new rotary tool to craft the stav and tine from sticks given by the maple tree in my backyard. i'm absolutely in love with the tools now and have no idea how i existed without it before!





























































and here she is, ready to dance and play!
























thank you so much for looking!

new couple of critters!

greetings readers!
i'm back again to bring you photos of my newest creations. i know i promised a post weeks and weeks ago, but sadly life had gotten in the way of art and therefore prevented this. fear not, i'm here and can show you two more fair folk.
this first one is a dryad. you can see her wings are sort of leaf like, and her skin has the look of treebark.





this next one i call "moose childe" ...it all started when i bought the yarn that would be his/her (i'm not sure- are you? both male and female moose are antlered....) hair. my husband saw it and immediately said that whoever i made with it needed moose antlers. i decided to take on that challenge, and this little one is the result.




i'm so very proud of these feet! they are kind of a pain to put together, but well worth the effect i think ;) the pattern will definitely come in handy- i see a whole range of antlered/horned and hoofed fair folk in the future :)





thanks for looking!
-sarah

asking for feedback

greetings readers,
i will post later either today or tomorrow with the current critters i've been working on, but i wanted to send out some feelers. i'm having a somewhat difficult time grasping a market for my barbie goddess figures. i know there's a niche for them somewhere, but i feel it's being elusive.... people seem to love the images, but perhaps prints of the sculptures isn't the best medium for this. maybe i'm too caught between the reverent and the irreverent here? yes, theses are goddess images, but they are also barbie dolls, and i don't want to have people forget that.... do you think i should play up the kitch factor a bit? la santa muerte coffee mugs? set of goddess fridge magnets? kali pot holders? i'm open to suggestions...
thank you so much!
-sarah

fairies wear boots

"Fairies wear boots and now you gotta believe me
Yeah I saw it, I saw it
I tell you no lie"
-Black Sabbath


well, i don't know about others, but this faerie sure does!

look who i found in my backyard today! she was just sitting there at the foot of a tree. she looked so sad sitting there, i stopped to say hi and invited her into the house for some milk and honey, i told her she could meet a new friend.... she agreed, albeit reluctantly....





you see, i've been terrible with my housecleaning lately.... so much so that i discovered another resident of the house.....




a cobweb elf!













the two of them seemed to get along swimmingly, here they are waiting for me to come out of the kitchen:




after our snack they decided to run rampant around the house, causing trouble like only the fair folk can! the animals went crazy! sadly, the dog scared them so much with her barking that they swiftly ran out!

i still see both of them on occasion, and remember to leave out milk, honey and yarn scraps.... for some reason faeries seem to love yarn scraps..... at least those that hang around my crafty household ;)







the details:

the cobweb elf's dress is made of chiffon that i've burned with a lighter to get a cobwebby appearance. it is also hand beaded with glass seed beads to simulate a "dew on a spiderweb" feel.


























her wristlets are made of faux leather (as are her eyes) and stitched with embroidery floss.























in these two photos of her wristlet you can also see her spider web knee tattoo













she has spiders in her hair, but she doesn't mind... they just keep it tied up nicely! i made these little guys out of polymer clay.


















here are two shots of the faerie's wings. as you can see they are slightly two different colors on the fronts and backs (much like some butterflies and moths) they are filled with polyfil and needle sculpted. wings you can still hug :D































part of her knitted "sweater" (i wanted it to look like she just found a piece of knitted fabric and fashioned a top out of it)

and her skirt of leaves!














and a close up of one of the boots. the boots are made of flannel and lined with felt. they have leather laces. you can also slightly see her needle sculpted knee in this pic.











a close up of the stitching on her wristlet. these wristlets are made of the same felt used to line her boots

















these two little ladies will be posted on my etsy site soon!

thanks for looking!
-sarah

making faeries, making faeries :D

meet the "rebigulated" faerie i made a couple of years ago. as you can see she used to be very small: she's wearing an acorn cup hat, she apparently found a small knitted piece to make her top out of, and she sewed her skirt herself, complete with a button (see second picture)














i decided to pull out this pattern and tweak it a bit. i plan on making several of these, perhaps not all "rebigulated" but i still like that idea....






















this third picture is two blanks i created from the same pattern..... including my changes....


















here is one with (untrimmed) hair, ears, and needle sculpted fingers (i'm actually not sure if i like the needle sculpted hands with the simple face.... we shall see)
















and here you can see her needle sculpted knees :)


















and here's a pic of the original..... yes, that's her bottom, and no, even after i added this extra bit, she still can't sit on her own.... this is where i made my most significant changes to this pattern.












this is the new design.... there is also a small pouch of sand in the bottom... these new ones sit very well on their own, especially on the edge of bookshelves..... here's to hoping that this is enough to balance them out after the addition of wings.....




thanks for reading and i hope to have a finished faerie to show you next time!
-sarah