Vintage Christmas and Circus Girl paper dolls

 Hi guys! I have been so busy! I have been leaving my poor blog unattended! Thanksgiving was good. All our family lives 22 hours away in the MidWest, so it is always "just us" for Thanksgiving. This year my people had a mutiny on the turkey and demanded ham instead..fine by me! We did still have stuffing though..couldn't skip that! My daughter was home from optometry school (Indiana U) and we were glad to have a week with her and the grand dog..who I apparently spoil! Our oldest son was unable to get home from SD but I did get to talk to him. We had a couple extra boyfriends and lots of good food! Here is what else I have been up to. The pink ornaments above were sold this weekend and shipped today..along with 15 DOZEN others! I wrapped all afternoon. I "made" this with a vintage rose globe. I painted and glazed the former brass base and added some yummy vintage Shiny Brite pink ornaments. I liked this and almost kept it!

 These I found this weekend and I AM keeping them..at least for now. The bowl is an old Limoges one with tiny shamrocks. The old shabby ornaments looked so good in it, I decided to keep them!

 I have been having a glitter-pa-looza making these vintage style bottle brush trees. They are called "bottle brush" because they are made basically sharpened sisal bottle brushes that I bleached, dyed and glittered. These are pale spearmint..

 I also did cream for the "white decor" lovers and some pale pink ones that went straight to my antiques booth uptown..I've sold quite a few already!

 I made these NOEL blocks for my handmade Etsy shop. I had the very shabby blocks..most of the paint was gone. I decided to jazz them up a bit. I added vintage French text that I stamped with my antique signage stamps.

 On the other 3 sides I added squares of vintage wallpaper and a bit of scrapbook paper (the small damask print on top) I love my vintage wallpaper stash and like to use every bit I can. These were cut from the smaller bits I saved from other projects.

 You can still see the embossed designs on the tops and bottoms.

I also made some tiny bottle brush trees ..these are perfect to display under a wineglass "cloche"!

 And here come the "fancy ladies" as my 4 yr old grandson Hunter calls these circus themed paper dolls.

I make these with antique ad images, head images from antique ladies magazines, watercolor and lots of glitter! These are all my own pattern and design. They are based on "jumping jacks" as you can move the arms and legs into other positions. I pondered the costuming for a long time. I decided I liked the ad "tatoos" so much that I didn't want to cover them with actual paper clothes. I painted on sheer watercolor outfits that let the graphics show through! These are going in my handmade Etsy shop shortly.

They are part circus girl, part paper doll, part jumping jack..I just have to decide if I am finished with them! I have more to show but I need to take some pics first! Until next time! Julia