Tag: Me and My Studio

Posted on by

“Babushka Babies” Treasury on Etsy

My Gumdrop Baby was featured in this treasury on Etsy today. I think it will be up until Friday. Thanks Susan, for including her! It’s always a really nice surprise for me when people pick one of my dolls or prints out of the blue like that to share with other people. I appreciate it a lot.

I asked my mom to take a couple of pictures of me today. Today didn’t seem like a good day for that, since I haven’t been feeling well and just yesterday I was struggling to eat Saltines, but…I actually look pretty healthy. Yay!

I cut my hair recently, and I think I might be close to my natural hair color now. Why is this of interest to me? I don’t know…sometimes I can’t remember what it looks like and it’s come a long way from last summer. Actually, so have I. Maybe that’s why I wanted some new pictures, so I can have a new look at myself 🙂
Posted on by

Dolly Onlookers

I’ve been painting new doll faces today with my other dolls looking on. The slugs seem the most curious and eager to see what I’m up to. I need some shelving, maybe stadium seating.

I was making good progress until I had to take allergy medication for a bad insect bite I have on my foot. Nothing else seems to control the awful itching and the swelling, but then I nearly nodded off right in the middle of my faces. I kept going, but one or two didn’t come out the way I planned. I hate doing “negative work”, a phrase a friend uses for creating more work for yourself by making mistakes. I cut one up just to stop myself from continuing to try to fix it. I always feel compelled to try to fix everything, but sometimes it is just better to start over. Besides, most of them came out quite well. I’ve always been a perfectionist in regard to what I make, and that can make things unpleasant for me sometimes. I’ve been told that by the time I reached my current age, lots of things that bothered me before wouldn’t bother me so much anymore. In some ways that is true, but I haven’t shaken the perfectionist drive.

Posted on by

How did I miss this?

How did I miss Dr Horrible’s Sing-along Blog? I had read that it was going to streamed online but I didn’t write down the dates. Oh well. If I had written them down, the note would have been lost in the cascading pile of notes I leave for myself anyway. This is why I try to take care of everything right here and now, or at least as things come up. Except for cleaning up the pile of notes. Who wants to do that?! Snore.

Update: Dr Horrible seems to be on again here. Did I miss that too?

Posted on by

Chance Encounter

While I was in town the other day, I stopped to pick up some thread and more fat quarters of quilting fabric for my toys. As I said yesterday, I’ve been feeling kind of down, and so I hope this doesn’t come across as too morbid or too much to share. Believe me, I hope and plan to be around a good long time, knock on wood…But anyway, many years ago it struck me that when my time has come, that I don’t want one of those dreary, depressing headstones that you see. I want mine to have a bunny on top.

Yes, I actually mean that. I’ve shared that with a couple of people in my life that I hoped might be around, but sadly, people come and people go. So, I might as well say it here. I hope you don’t mind. The first question has always been, “What kind of rabbit?” I usually say one sort of like Maurice Sendak’s Mr Rabbit in Mr Rabbit and the Lovely Present, but I want him to be his own bunny, unique, someone’s own invention, maybe even mine.

Well, as I was paying for my thread and fabric, I looked up from the checkout and thought, “Like that!”

I know he’s not one-of-a-kind, but he struck a cord I guess and I took him home. Kind of like that. Maybe some day, someone will make a bunny for me, but I’d still like him to be his own bunny.

Why a rabbit? I’m not sure. Maybe I think rabbits represent me on some level, or maybe it’s just my love of animals. They are guileless, loyal, sweet, and capable of unconditional love. I’ve never been convinced that people are superior to them. Some are certainly just as great, but we all have our flaws. One time, my mom and I were sitting at a stadium when a bus emptied out from a group home for people with special needs. We were listening to one conversation in particular that stayed with me because it was so poignant. It was a simple dialogue, but it said a lot to me. Two women who seemed to be developmentally disabled were talking about how much they liked animals. “I like animals.” “Me too!” “Animals are much nicer than people.” “Yeah, people are meaner than animals.” “Yeah, they are! Animals are much nicer!” I thought that was the sweetest and the saddest thing at the same time, because you couldn’t deny that that had to have been true for them.

Back where I grew up, there was a sweet elderly woman with Alzheimer’s who always remembered to tell you one thing, “Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t love animals.” You might not think much of her remembering that over anything else, but I do. She was dependent on others at that point in her life, and I believe it was a fundamental belief she held as necessary to well-being and survival. It told her who was kind and caring, and she was frail as a little bird.

A friend of mine sent this video to me to cheer me up. I’m sure it has been already seen by millions, but it is still remarkable…