Odd and Flora

Two altered art dolls inspired by Mary Jane Chadbourne's work. Her workshop is really fun and you can get the DVD tutorial HERE.
This was my first foray into the word of big saws and power tools.
I have always been very nervous around moving blades, but MacGyver gave me some good lessons on how to use the saws safely and now that I am over my timidity, I am loving what I can do with wood!
So many more doors have opened for me. Learning something new always inspires me, ideas flow and my heart is so happy.
I think this is the beginning of something wonderful!

I made templates of all the components, drew the skirts and the heads on my scrap wood (MacGyver has a ton of wooden bits and pieces that I root through for parts) and used the band saw to cut them out. I used a belt sander to refine the shapes.
Wings, collars and arms are cut from templates. The face I used is a drawing I did....I scanned it into Illustrator and played with the shape of the face until it fit my wooden heads.
I made a collage sheet of the face in various sizes so all I have to do later is print out the sheet when I need more faces.
The legs and  neck are quarter inch dowel rod and the bases are from the craft store.

The flowers are raw brass stampings that I enameled with nail polish. I drilled holes in the top of the head and glued in the beads I wired up.
I used a drill press and drilled a hole in the bottom of the head (where the neck goes), the top of the dress (for the neck), two holes in the bottom of each dress and two holes in each base where the legs go.
I should add-  after I covered the dolls in papers but before I put any embellishments on the dolls, I put two coats of matte medium on them, back, front and sides, then added my beads and dimensional fabric paint etc...

I added micro beads and little seed pods that look like pumpkins to the base of this girl and an enameled flower to the base of Flora. I made tentacles from polymer clay and made a little shopping bag out of a jewelry box cut to size.
(The picture below was taken before I added the beads and the seed pods)

These little girls were a lot of fun to make. And now that I can play safely with power tools, the skies the limit!