New Face, New Doll

Well, actually the body is the same only the head is different. I made another head and put on new hair. Here she is the new Valandrial. The second picture is some clever editing done by my DH.

Putting on a New Face

Practice makes perfect people say but what if it only confuses me? Here are 11 doll heads that I have made for Valendrial and I still can't pick one of them for my second Valendrial doll. Note: The doll face on the top was painted by Patti Culea as a class demo.

Some of the faces are only half done. I am trying to get a perfect symmetry here but they turn out so different and so lopsided. I think I should first get to work and finish painting the faces and then pick the one I like the most. And maybe next time I should make just one head for each doll and learn to accept it. After all I can't do anything about my own face, now can I? And I have learned to live with that!

Found the Picture

Valandrial of the Green Elves from Patti Culea's doll class.

Doll from Patti's Class

This morning I thought I should post the picture of my doll and wrote a short note about it. But what can I do when I can't find the picture! I could not even find the folder which had my pictures in it. So here I am.................

Happy Blog-a-versary

It has been a year since my first blog entry! I am so glad that I lasted this long. I have been looking forward to today for over a month now. I tried to finish a doll so I could post some pictures but could not finish the doll with a face that I am not very happy with.

Rakhi Day came early this year and here is a picture of Rakhi Day at my house. Nita is tying a Rakhi on her brother Neel's wrist (with a little help from Mommy). This Rakhi was sent by my brother's little daughter Minty to Neel.

Tiny Doll

Every month my doll club has raffle for which the members contribute dolls or doll related items. This one was my contribution this month. The doll is just about 3" tall and loads of fun to make. The turban is made from angelina fiber we made in Patti Culea's class.

First Day of Schools

Isn't first day of school so much fun? I remember very fondly my own school days when I had a big school supply list to "lug" to school which included new notebooks, text books (which were used- back then when I was growing up we always tried to recycle textbooks in India. I am not sure how it is now.), pencils in a new pencil box and above all a brand new school uniform. Well, I re-lived that feeling yesterday when I accompanied my 9 year old on his first day of school. He sported a brand new uniform and he never had to wear a uniform before (he just changed schools) and a happy excited face, eager to meet his new classmates and his new teacher.

When I was in my elementary school, I would not know who my class teacher was until she/he stepped into the classroom. We would peep through the windows or into the corridor (hallway) to see which teacher was walking towards our classroom. Of course there were rumors and lots of discussions about who it could be, way before school reopened. Unlike here in the states where one teacher teaches everything (except, maybe PE) , we always had 4 or 5 teachers teaching different subjects and languages even in elementary school and one classroom teacher.

Oh, enough about my nostalgic memories. Lets talk about the title now. I say First Day of Schools because both my kids' schools reopened yesterday. My kindergartener started her school yesterday too. Since both the schools have similar opening time, my DH drove her to school and I did my son. Today we switched children and I got to see my daughter go to her classroom with a very shy smile (which lasts for about a minute because she is very social and has already made a few "best friends" (And who keep changing everyday because her list of best friends was very different today- her second day at school!).

Henna at School

We had a major fund raiser at my son Neel's school on 2nd June where I put Henna. It got very popular with the kids and since the moms were busy organizing and helping with the events, they want me to put henna on their hands on another day. My little girl wanted a mermaid on her arm. Here are a couple of pictures of henna on my own hand. The first picture is with the paste on and was taken on Sunday at night. The second picture was taken on Monday morning an hour after I scraped off the henna. Yes, I did sleep with the design on all night. I love this henna from Yemen since it is pre-sifted and has a lovely stringy texture to it when made into a paste. The design got very dark (they do get darker for a day or two before they start to fade away) and has a dark red color to it today. Hope DH will take a picture of it today so I can post it tomorrow.

Art Everywhere

Almost a month went by since I wrote in my blog and I did not even notice it. I can name a whole lot of reasons for not writing but it would actually be more fun to just write about something-anything else instead.

Looks like nice weather is here to stay. We went out for a walk in the new neighborhood and enjoyed looking at the lovely flowers blooming everywhere. My DH had a ball taking pictures with his new camera. And he did get some really beautiful ones too. But that is not the kind of art or inspiration that I am talking about. I am talking about mundane things like trash (trash!??!).

One must walk around in my neighborhood on a 2nd and 4th Tuesday of the month to see what I am talking about. It is almost festive. Everybody arranges their trash and recycle items neatly in stacks or side by side and in lovely bright blue and green colored bins. And they do it over a 2 day period, all ready for the trash people for pick up. Looks like they treat their trash as their own treasures?

I am still new here and have a lot to learn and to get trained and to put the glass in green and paper in blue (or the other way around? ) so I won't miss the trash collectors. Maybe I should give them a more glamorous name such as "Used items picker uppers" but that sounds like a Bounty commercial!. Anyway, we all wait for them early on Wednesdays so we will have more space in the garage to collect more "used items" for them to pick up in a week or two.

Mehendi Maidens

Here is a picture of a project that I have been working on and off for a few months. I used to be a henna mehendi artist when I was a teenager. It was a favorite hobby of mine and a very lucrative one too since I made a lot of pocket money putting mehendi on brides. These dolls have mehendi designs on them and some bright Dye- Na-Flow dyes. When I am all done embellishing them with beads I have some faces to put on them. Now, should I use my air dry clay faces or should I use the new terracota ones? Ummmm....that is a good question.