My first attempt at doll carving: Hitty

 

I’ve wanted a real wooden Hitty doll since I first read Hitty: Her First 100 Years, by Rachel Field.  I had (well still do) an issue of Doll Reader in the early ‘90s that featured Robert Raikes line of Hitty dolls as well as those by other doll artists’ and I desperately coveted them. 

I had tried my hand at woodcarving before, but ended up carving more of my fingers than the actual wood.  However, I have recently been introduced to the wonder tool that is the Dremel.  So, donning a pair of safety goggles and a dust mask I went to work turning a block of pine into my very own Hitty. 

The base pieces, the body, arms, and legs were cut using scroll saw, then individually dremeled (is that a word?) using variety of different dremel heads into their final form.  Then each finished piece was sanded with increasing fine grit sandpaper and buffed with a canvas cloth. 

Hitty was assembled using wooden pegs (no glue or nails) then lightly stained and painted with the same minimalist style as the illustrations from Rachel Field’s book.  A final polish with beeswax for varnish, and I think she turned out pretty well.

Well here she is-assembled, stained and painted. 

These are a few of the dolls that I hate...

For your reading pleasure I present a short list of some of the collectible dolls/doll genres that I detest most of all...Remember the number one Rule of doll collecting is:  If it was sold as a collectible when you bought it, it's probably not collectible now.....

Latest Doll Almost Finished

Here are some pictures of my latest sculpt.  She hasn’t got a name yet, but she is loosely based on on the painting “The Slave Girl” by Leon Baskt.  You can see a picture of it here.  I changed the pose quite a bit, and she ended up being quite a bit more “developed” but I plan to keep the overall feel the same.

Barbie-Scale Cigar Box Kitchen Cabinet

After an excellent garage sale haul—I realized that the display case I’ve been storing my barbie dolls was at capacity.    So…I purloined the the bookcase from the den (it wasn’t really being used anyway) to set up a barbie display house. 
Starting with the kitchen…
The floors and wallpaper are easy—scrapbooking paper makes great wallpaper and flooring. 
I built a kitchen hutch/cabinet using a cigar box for the base and assorted small box lids (jewelry boxes work well) for shelves.
Primo del Rey boxes work well because they don’t have any metal hinges or beveled edges.  Superglue the lid into place so that it stands in place.  Glue the boxes to the back of the lid so that they are arrange like shelves.  Before painting it helps to spray the entire structure with primer,otherwise the pictures on the cigar box will bleed through.

After it dried, I painted it turquoise, and added glass mosaic tiles as a backsplash.  Cigar boxes are sometimes lined with thin sheets of cedar, this makes a great “butcher block” countertop.
For a final touch faux cabinet doors were painted, and the entire cabinet was painted with acrylic varnish.   I used jewelry closures and a brass tube to make the cabinet handles and a towel rack. 

And here’s the final product…