11 Corn Husk Dolls

I had a very good trip to Michigan. My grandpa made a nice working set up for me in the garage, where I made corn husk dolls. Above is a slideshow of the 11 dolls. Of course I wasn't just making corn husk dolls the whole time. The trip was peppered with activities and nice times visiting with family.

Talk To You Later

Yes, this is the first time I've made a corn husk doll holding a cell phone... or any electronic device for that matter. I was asked to make a pink corn husk doll holding a cell phone, so I made a pink corn husk doll holding a cell phone. She is going with us for our family trip to Michigan. We're leaving tomorrow and returning Wednesday. This doll is going to live with a friend of my grandparents up there. If you need to get a hold of the doll or me while we're gone, just call one of our cell phones.

Animal Hair

In the past, when I've wanted to illustrate sheep I'd use cotton balls for the wool. But lately I've been using real sheep wool to illustrate my sheep wool. It's really nice to work with. I ordered it off of the Little Barn website. While I was there I also got some camel hair to experiment with.

Here is one way I used the camel hair.

I bought it with my corn husk camels in mind but it also works for human hair.

I still did use some for my camel hair. I also mixed in some maiden grass.

I have more nativity pieces to post later.

Passionflower Pressing Procedure

Isn't this an exquisite passionflower?

One might want to preserve such a flower, but the flower is a bit too thick and a bit too moist. And so the dissecting begins.

First, cut off that little triangle thing on the top and set it aside.

Then cut off the yellow star looking thing.

You may put those two parts in a flower press.

Now this is what you're working with.

Flip it over and cut down into the back, removing the thick circle. This takes out extra thickness and moisture.

Like this.

You can throw away the circle you've pulled out.

Now there is a hole that you can see through in the middle. It will be covered after it's pressed and your re-assemble the flower.

Now you're ready to put all the pieces in a press the way you would any other flower, with the exception being that you should also put some desiccant board in the press with them. I think it pulls extra moisture from the flowers.

After they're all pressed and dried you can glue the three pieces back together again, and you'll have a pressed passionflower.

Brook Trout

I wanted to make my brook trout consistent with my brown trout, so naturally I wanted them both mounted on the same kind of cloth. But to my surprise, I couldn't find any more of the cloth that I had used for the brown trout. I know it just looks like plain black in the picture but it has a velvet-like texture and a sparkle to it. I looked through containers and through my closet where I thought I might have leftovers, but found none. So Dad took me to the thrift store, where I hoped to find some. But, really, how likely is it to find black, velvet sparkly material that matches the background of another fish? Well, the likelihood of it didn't matter. God provided me with the perfect material. The two fish backgrounds look like they were cut out of the same material. And as a bonus, I picked up some of the same material in brown, which looked useful. All of the material came in the form of second-hand skirts. God provides.

This picture is made of: money plant, onion peel, delphinium, corn husk, pansy, tendrils, black hollyhock, sea moss, lettuce, skeletonized leaves, cotton, aucuba and mica.