Project Post: Custom forest faerie with birds in her hair.

greetings all,
as promised i'm bringing you a post with pics this week!  this was a custom piece i did for a little girl for her ninth birthday. after seeing my dolls at a festival, her mother contacted me for a custom piece. 
apparently she had quite a conversation with her mom about what kind of doll she would make if she made one herself. (this custom piece was a surprise) here is the list her mom sent via email (posted with permission, of course):

The creature would rescue creatures who had been bullied

She would have the power to change the seasons and the weather so that if someone was being mean to another, she would cause it to snow on the bad person so they couldn't move.

The creature would be a girl with brown skin, dark brown eyes, black curly hair down to her hips and the hair would be able to be used as a nest for injured birds

She would wear leggings in the summer and then over them she would wear a furry skirt in the winter

She would have different colors of shirts (red, green, brown)

She would have soft faerie shoes and her feet might be hooved

She would have wings to fly throughout the forest where she would live


this was so much fun to make!  i tried to incorporate as many of her ideas as possible, but i did have to compromise a little for simplicity's sake (she has shoes, but no hooves, and only one shirt- although it's removable so she could add her own if she wanted to)

here is a pic of her back, with wings attached and you can see the back of her simple shirt.

here is her wristlet before it was sewn on.  i embroidered little symbols that i thought would be good to represent her powers to control the weather: lightning bolt, raindrop, sun, snowflake, and tornado

and in these three photos you see the final placement of the symbols

here you can see her shoes and leggings.  both of which were completely sewn on.  sorry for the funky depth of field in this shot. i know it makes the shoes harder to see :/

i made some tiny birds out of felt and attached bobby pins to them so they could roost in her hair.

as well as in a pocket in her wrap around skirt.

it's a little hard to see in these photos (black hair and fur is really hard to photograph well!)  but she has little nest shaped buns on top of her head to help those injured birds.

so here she is with her leggings

and now with her skirt.




i can't tell you how much fun it was to help a little girl's idea come to life. the rich imagination kids have is so astonishing.  i'll be back next week with tales of cooking for nine and holiday craziness, in the meantime i wish my american readers a happy thanksgiving.  safe travels, good company, and good eats to all,


thanks so much for taking your time to read today! 

-sarah

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

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