slow summer days

I have been enjoying my pleasantly slower summertime schedule.

muffin and latte painted clogs

Wall-E and robot birthday cake

grackle at the pool

my freaky robot disaster

I have been trying my hand at something new for me, which is trying to make some dolls, and I think I'm going to bag it, and go back to what I like better. In an attempt to get ready for some fall and Christmas time street/craft fairs, and in response to some positive feedback about my tiny felt microbots I made recently, my sister and I deciced to make some monster and robot toys. Her former employer was a preschool, and she thinks we could display some prototypes for sale there to get some feedback from kids and parents. She and my mom are successful dollmakers. I, on the other hand, have never been motivated to give dollmaking a try before now.

Thanks to a patient mom and a creative childhood, I do know how to sew pretty well, and I've done some pretty complicated projects in the past ( ...a wedding dress for a family friend when I was fairly young...and a bogus, silly family crest flag complete with two beavers and a great big heart made to fly over our old hippy bus camper...to name a few), but I have never made a real kid-friendly, washable, loveable toy. I rarely sew at all any more. It seems cheaper and faster to just hit the thrift store for what we need.

Well, I have two monsters and one robot done, and I've got to say, I'm just not feelin' the love for this project. The first monster was the best, the second one was a little overworked which is true to how I operate, and the third is a robot which turned out to be so freaky looking in a bad way that she would probably frighten any young kid who saw her. So now it's about ten days later, and I'm putting all that on the back burner for a time, while I decide what to work on next. I know this is my first attempt. Somehow I always expect perfection on the first try, and then reality is something else altogether.

I could fill a room with supplies for projects that go just about like this....

monsters, robots, and painted shoes

monsters and robots during the daytime


painted shoes at nightime


Today I doodled out some patterns for robots and monsters, trying out ideas to see what might work well for some small soft toys. The Day of the Dead painted clogs are what I really wanted to work on the most, but they got pushed to the back burner during the day. Getting out the wet paint on the middle of the dining table during mid-day doesn't always seem like the best idea. Those mealtimes somehow just keep coming around, and we need the dining table for eating, for doing homework, and for folding the laundry; as well as for a good-sized creative workspace. Sometimes I do my best work after everyone else is in bed, so I'll shoot for that tonight.