Harlequin Shrinky Doll

I recently rediscovered my trove of Shrinky Dink plastic, and decided to go back and play with it some more. (BTW--isn't that the dopiest name you've ever had to say about an art material?)

I found this jointed doll pattern online aliciag.com, downloaded it onto white cardstock, and then used black plastic Sharpie to trace the lines onto the plastic.



















Here you can see the pieces I traced and colored. At this point, I have baked them and they all fit on a 4"x4" ceramic tile.














This stuff does shrink down pretty small--here is an uncooked arm, and the cooked companion, arranged next to a quarter for scale.
















I had to replace the head I made at first, as I managed to punch through the jaw line, so it would no longer attach to the rest of the body. I outlined one of the blank heads, complete with hair, and drew my own face onto the plastic. The holes are all 1/4" from the hole punch. The plan is to attach this head to the body and then make wire curly hair to attach around the head.



















And here is the finished doll. As I look at her, I think the wire hair doesn't really work--it's out of scale with the rest of her. I am planning to go back and make yet another head and leave off the holes for hair.

Paper Dolls

I have started working with paper arts recently, and I am finding a ton of neat projects to do with paper.

This is a paper doll I made with the Son Of Doll Parts sheet of rubberstamps from Alpha Stamps. I call this one Dahlia--the face just looks like a Dahlia to me.



















I started with a head stamp, a corset stamp, and four separate stamps for the arms and legs. The leg stamps were already patterned. After I colored in all the pieces with colored pencil, I discovered that there were no shoulders to attach to the head, so I just cut something freehand to see how it worked.

As you can see, she's got a bit of a linebacker build--not too heinous, but not really delicate enough for the rest of her. The sleeves are made from trimmed off gaffer tape border that I got from the $1 bins at Target. I made the skirt from some gauzy pink ribbon that was left over from something, and the ribbon across the top of the skirt is from an embellishment fiber set from Michaels.

Dahlia is just glued together--she is not mobile at all, so I decided to make some others with jointed bodies. The Twins are the result:















Basically, they are the same technique and materials. I cut out something that better approximated shoulders and neck for these girls I also added small crystal brads for their hips and shoulders. You can't tell from this photo, but I also used Aleene's paper glaze on their hair bows and waists to hold some opalescent glitter.

I think they all look like circus performers, with their gauzy skirts, patterned tights and corsets.