Doll with Painted on Clothes

One of my favorite things to do is make dolls. That is WHAT we do. I'm always looking for new and fun ways of doing this. I decided I wanted to make a big Fairy Doll, I can put on my front porch, so designed a 30" doll. I'm loving the larger size, easier for these 'old eyes to see what I am doing. Inspiration came because I have a drawer of Fairy Wings I have collected for a long time and have these huge wings I wanted to use.

I decided to paint on part of the dolls clothes, so took my Shimmer Paint and painted on her blouse including long sleeves. I used the teal, gold, emerald colors shimmer paints done in sort of stripes. I let the fabric dry in the sun which took no more than 10 minutes.

I used Keelings Kolors our new Skintone dye and dyed the face, head, neck and hands in a very pale dye mix. Used about two drops of the skintone base color and about two tablespoons of water. It is so easy to do your own skintone. The skintone fabric is expensive. My two drops of dye likely cost less than ten cents.

Painted some tyvek, a used envelop, with Shimmer paint, used the heat blower on it to 'shrink it into fun bumps and bubbles. Drew a shoe the shape of the doll foot, sewed the tyvek into a shoe shape, but it on, used the Heat Blower to shrink the shoe to fit the foot. Ahhhh-haaa a done deal.

My husband, Doug who is the master of our doll faces took on the head/face design. I added a big glob of fab colored SoySilk for hair and our Flower Fairy is ready for a cup of Tea while she sits in the garden.

I have painted shoes and boots on dolls before, but never a blouse. Came out very cool, then I added in some beading and a bunch of machine embroidered leaves. Think she is totally cool. I am thinking I might turn this doll into a pattern if anyone is interested let me know. It very fun and nice change to do the bigger size. We have done two full size dolls too.

Barb Keeling http://www.keelingskrafts.com/