Babushka-Inspired Brontë Dolls

In my last post I promised to tell you why I disappeared from my blog for a bit more than a week. The reason is pretty simple - I had signed up to participate in an arts and crafts fair. It was a rather spontaneous decision after an opportunity came up and I just couldn't pass it. I had two weeks to prepare, and I got extremely busy. I created like a mad woman and was more than grateful that my creativity was strong and present during those two weeks. I already had a rather good inventory, but I felt that I could do with a few more Christmas items. Of course I also practiced setting up my table several times with the result that setting up at the fair took us just an hour. I said "us" because Kaefer was my helper. She had created some polymer clay ornaments the evening before the fair and she actually sold some of them and made a bit of extra money.

Kaefer took a picture of me behind our table.

Sorry for the bad quality - it was an indoor show and I only had my small camera with me.

The show went pretty well for us which was nice. However, I almost enjoyed more talking to the other vendors and the interactions with the customers. All in all it was a great experience.

One thing I did for the show was creating these babushka-inspired dolls.

This yellow one was the first one that sold.

The inspiration for them I found in one of the classes by Christy Tomlinson. Guess what the inside of each doll is? An old lightbulb - those that we don't use anymore because they are not energy-efficient. The lightbulb is wrapped with air-drying clay and then further decorated.

Here you can see them in various stages of progress:

After the clay had dried overnight, I painted the dolls with a layer of cream acrylic paint. After that was done I changed my mind again and decoupaged them with torn book pages. These pieces came from a cheap edition (thrift store find) of "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Brontë. That's the reason I also call these dolls "Brontë dolls". The decoupaging of course was the stickiest part of the entire project. When the dolls were completely covered in the torn book pages, I painted them with acrylic colors and then embellished them with stamps, rub-ons, small rhinestones and a white marker (Sharpie's mean streak). I had attached a screw-eye to the top when I had wrapped the clay around the lightbulb, and now I knotted a piece of lace ribbon around it as a final touch.

Brontë doll in red and green

I am very happy how the dolls turned out and really like them. I am glad that I decided to paint tiny faces on them - I looked at real babushka dolls and loved the simplicity of their faces, so I adopted that idea and applied it to my dolls. I think they're quite cute.

Brontë doll in red and blue

This doll will end up in our Christmas tree

(it was the first and only one that is not decoupaged)

I am linking up to Paint Party Friday. I have no idea when I did so the last time - probably several months ago. It feels good to be a part of that talented group again.