What A Klutz!

Today I decided it was about time to get my figures ready for putting together... I made them all shoulders, made sure they all had a matching pair of hands and feet with footwear (I hate sculpting shoes - feet are easy, but shoes are a pain! lol), and drilled holes ready for the armature...

And that's where it started to go wrong!

My drill is too tiny, so I borrowed hubby's Dremel to drill the holes I needed as it's bigger than mine. 

Firstly, I misjudged how powerful it was, and when drilling, the little arm flew out of my hand, and with the power of the Dremel behind it, shot across the room somewhere. Half an hour of searching, and I finally retrieved the appendage and started again - holding on a lot more tightly this time.

Next mishap... I was holding tightly to "Come Give Grandma A Kiss", when I felt a terrible burning sensation in my fingers... because I had drilled through the side of the arm, and the drill bit was whirring away, burning my hand! 

Darn - what a Klutz I was being today!

I got out some more clay, and added a bit to Grandma's arms... and was so heavy handed as I was trying to mold the clay, I broke off Grandma's thumb, little finger and ring finger! Out with the Liquid Sculpey, and on to trying to fix poor Grammy's hand. I had to do the two fingers first, and whilst that was in the over re-baking, I decided to clear up a little... and 'cleared up' her thumb. An HOUR later, I managed to relocate the missing thumb under my desk, and reattach it with Liquid Sculpey and baking again. The thumb moved. Somewhere between me placing the limb gently in the oven, and getting it out 10 minutes later, the thumb had turned... so now Grammy has severe arthritis in her left hand with her disjointed thumb.

What a palaver!

On the plus side... Grammy has a lovely little pair of lower legs with pink slippers...

Lets hope I can put her together without doing any more damage!

I have to add this... Hopefully Ms Lizzie will put a photograph of her Fred onto her blog soon.

She came for a visit on Sunday, sat down with a lump of clay, and made 'Fred' - her first figurine sculpture, and he is amazing! She's a natural :)

For myself... well, I have had such a lot of fun making Grammy, that I shall probably make a few more to sell - all different and unique - because I don't use molds :)

Slowly Does It...

I have been taking my time - re-learning how to make dolls house dolls using polymer clay. I kind of have my own way of making them - a mixture of a LOT of watching how other people sculpt, and then trying out different techniques until I was happy with what I could do.

I am no expert. I have a habit of starting out with a bit of clay, deciding what I want to do... and then abandoning all thoughts of what I want as the clay seems to have a mind of it's own, and I just end up with whatever happens to be made in front of me lol

I make my own eyes for the dolls - once again, a technique that's been a LOT of trial and error (mostly error!). I don't gloss the eyes until the last of the baking has been done - I use oven-dry clay usually - so they may look a bit dull until they're finished. A quick peek at the heads so far...

Jacob Marley (the ghost), and a figurine that I call "Come give Grandma a kiss"...

 I make the front of the heads first, as I find this much easier - mainly because I am quite heavy handed and tend to squash things out of shape if I have to hold them AND sculpt them :)

A 'head in progress' is my next 'doll'... he's going to be a man smoking a cigarette...

 The cigarette is remove-able at the moment - I'll glue it into place when he is otherwise completely finished, as I need to shorten is slightly at the filter end, and also to make sure it doesn't break :)

 I am also making a little cat from leftover clay - an experiment. He is sculpted now... but only got fur on his legs at the moment. I decided that to make the faces, I really needed to clear away ALL bits of mohair. The hair gets EVERYWHERE! I even find I am sneezing it out several days after using it!

I have had a bit of a break from crafting... I had quite a stunning allergic reaction to some medication I had been prescribed - it started with my lip, and then my whole face swelled - it was so funny! Of course, in the last two pictures, you will have to excuse my awful nails that need redoing... and my awful 'selfie' with no make-up and not even my hair done! Had to show the photo though - I am rocking those Jagger-lips :)