Stars in your Soul Quiltie

This is the one of the projects that I made with my latest Alphastamps Design Kit. I haven't shown it here before as it was a special tutorial on the Alphastamps Yahoo group some weeks ago. But now that another Alphastamps Design Kit is apparently on its way I suddenly remembered I had yet to show you this one. It was a paper doll kit which is not really my thing but by putting the doll on a quiltie I suddenly liked her a whole lot more!

Here are the instructions:

Stars in your Soul Quiltie (7.1/4" square)

Stamp a commercially available batik fabric with the quotation (Search within for stars lie hidden in your soul) and small star stamps using a blue Versacraft inkpad. Set the ink by ironing.

Using a girl chipboard shape (available from Alphastamps), cover the gril with a flesh coloured fabric by using WonderUnder (or Bondaweb in U.K.). Glue on a face shape (Alphastamps Doll Parts) and pink dress (Alphastamps Get Dressed collage sheet), making sure to tuck in the dress behind the doll's arms.

Cover the chipboards wings (available from Alphastamps) with blue fabric as above. Stamp the wings with small star shapes and foil with silver.

Make a hole through the doll shape, use the hole already in the wings and through the background fabric and batting (wadding in U.K.) and with a large pink brad, attach the doll and wings to the quiltie.

Glue on the pink hair (Alphastamps Doll Parts), the blue hands (Alphastamps Doll Parts) and the black boots (Alphastamps Get Dressed).

Sew on the exposed parts of the doll to the quiltie, using invisible thread and a jeans needle. Sew slowly and wear safely glasses, just in case a needle breaks. Add beads to the hands and boots as shown. Stamp small blue stars to the pink dress.

Glue and sew on the pink hat (Alphastamps Get Dressed) and add a pink flower bead with a blue seed bead. Sew on the pink butterfly (both embellishments from Alphastamps).

Add backing fabric (using WonderUnder or Bondaweb) and finish the edges with pink transparent ribbon. Finally sew on the blue Dresden scrap (from Alphastamps) at the bottom.

Miss Piggie

Another of my Alphastamps projects that I made with the kit I received as a member of the Alphastamps Design Team, has been floating around my desk for ages so it's about time I showed her to the world. She definitely is a bit of light-hearted fun and I did enjoy making her although dolls are most definitely not my thing. I had not given her a name but after the recent expenses scandal involving our so called Honourable Members (of the British Parliament) Miss Piggie suddenly came to mind so she has been baptized!

Behind what you can see is a chipboard (that's cardboard to all of you in the U.K) Maya doll form, which I have cut back a lot so that nothing of it would be on show around her neck area. She has been adorned with face, hat and shoes from the Get Dressed and Doll Parts sheets from Alphastamps, and the pigs face and trousers are from Funny Arms and Legs sheet.

The pig body as well as her dress are from the Alice in Wonderland doll sheet which is available from Alphastamps (although not produced by them). The text: Happy like a pig in manure!, has been added by Dymowriter on transparent tape.

Kitty Antoinette

Our latest Design Kit from Alphastamps was dedicated to paper dolls and associated paraphenalia, and I should perhaps admit from the outset that paper dolls, and in fact all dolls, really are not to my taste and if it was entirely up to me I would definitely not dedicate any of my time to them.

So this kit proved to be a bit of a challenge and I can't honestly say I'm that mad about my finished pieces but at least I did manage to complete my 4 projects before the deadline came up.

Although this was not the first piece I made, I thought I would start by showing you this one. The doll was made on a background of a Maya Road chipboard doll shape (for those of you in the U.K. this is actually cardboard and not what we call chipboard, very confusing!!). This shape and others are available from Alphastamps. I covered the doll shape in gesso and then sprayed it with Moonlight Shadow spray (Silver). It ended up by making the shape look very tanned!

The face, hair, corset shape, boa and boots came from Alphastamps Get Dressed and Doll Parts sheets and were glued on (yes, you read that right, for once I actually used glue). I added a purple feather to her hair and gave her a skirt made from Mexican oilcloth (also available from Alphastamps). After I finished she reminded me of Marie Antoinette (must have been the hair!) so I looked for a background to go with that theme. I found some vintage wallpapers in my stash, scanned them into the computer and printed them out and then glued them onto thick card and distressed them with inkpads and gesso, to make them look old again. I also outlined the edges with a Krylon gold pen. Marie Antoinette associations also made me add the text (by Dymo writer): Let them eat tuna! A little sparkly flower was also added to her corset to make her look more regal.

The doll shape was added (dare I say it, with glue again!) to the background, and the title Kitty Antoinette just came to me then and there. She does make me laugh whenever I catch sight of her! I will admit that I haven't taken these dolls as seriously as I should perhaps have done but I had a lot of fun making the samples!