The Magic Bean

Winning Charm

Back at the end of June, cloth doll maker Colleen Harvey e-mailed me some photos of her beautiful entry to the Hoffman challenge that she based on my Treasures of the Deep pattern.  Colleen H e-mailed me again last week to let me know that her doll won the prize for Most Humorous Doll!  Doesn't that just take the cake!  (Sorry, bad pun but had to be done!)

You can check out all the prize winners at the Hoffman site by clicking the link. 

If you are particularly eagle-eyed you might notice that Colleen Harvey also won first prize in the pieced quilt category.  That's one talented lady!

So here is a question that I find really interesting:

What is it that motivates you to take part in a challenge? 

After hosting the Doll Street Re-Imagine History Challenge I'd really like to understand what appeals to you about a challenge and why, so please do share your thoughts on this by taking part in the poll or leaving me a comment.

Create a Spark Saturday - Schedule Shake Up

Last week on Saturday I issued a challenge to clean up your studio space for an allotted period of time (1 hour or 20 minutes, according to what you could manage).  This challenge is part of my new weekly challenge series, Create a Spark Saturday to get you in a good creative space, and in the case of this week's challenge, that meant physically in a good space as well as mentally.

I don't have a lot of space to get creative.  I don't have a lot of space period.  With only 350 square feet of living/creating space which must house my business as well as my husband, I have to be rather disciplined when it comes to tidiness.  However, I must confess that the little table on which my sewing machine rests tends to become a bit of a dumping ground.

I give you Exhibit A - my desk before this week's challenge:

My main problem is that I'm always getting good ideas.  That in itself is not bad, not bad at all, but I write my ideas down on whatever piece of paper happens to be handy.  Then, I put it on my desk so I don't lose it.  I do have an ideas book, but scrap paper always seems to be more handy.

My other problem is that I took my Crafter's Apron which is wonderful worn as an apron when I'm teaching but for home use I tied it around a bucket.  I placed the bucket on my desk and lo and behold I filled that bucket with a whole lot of stuff I shouldn't have and then promptly forgot what was in said bucket.  The bucket also took up rather a lot of desk area and I really need that area.

I found a new home for my crafter's apron when it is not around my waist by wrapping it around an IKEA clip frame without the glass.  I pinned the ties behind the frame and used the clips on the frame to clip the apron fabric to the wood backing and hung it up behind my sewing machine.  But that bucket still had to go.

So I set the timer for 1 hour and got busy. 

I give you Exhibit B - my desk after my hour of clean up

Here's what this week's challenge taught me:

• the timer made me focus more and work that little bit harder to get what I wanted done before the hour was up - I may use this in other areas of my life, like timing my blog writing so I focus more.
• the time limit meant that I didn't continue to clean up beyond my scheduled time. 
• it's easy to let cleaning up be the excuse for procrastinating and NOT being creative.  Many of you commented that this challenge was easy because you love cleaning up.  I wonder, how many of us use cleaning to avoid creativity?

All that's left are my Pinelope pin cushions, my wall-mounted Crafter's Apron and my sewing machine with sewing machine cover.  And incidentally, you can see how I made all those things by clicking the relevant links.  

This week's challenge:  Change your schedule around.  Wake up an hour earlier or if you read e-mails before breakfast wait until afternoon.  Just give your day a shake up and see if it shakes any new creativity loose.

Remember, as always, you can do the challenge along with me this week or just wait and see what happens to me over the course of the week. 

Did anyone do this week's clean-up challenge?  What did you learn?

 

Freebie Friday - Free Doll Patterns to Craft and Make

I'm continually surprised and inspired by the number of free doll tutorials that can be found on the internet.  Here are few that have impressed me this week.

New to the Magic Bean?

Every Friday I do a round-up of free craft tutorials on a certain theme. So stop by every Friday for your weekly dose of free crafts, patterns and tutorials. Or browse for more free resources by combing through the "Free Craft Tutorials & Patterns" category (just click the link) or use the Google Search function on the top left of my blog to search for something specific.

Check out these enormously cute doll wrist and ring pin cushions with a free pattern and tutorial from Sarah of Dolls and Daydreams.  This tutorial is very thorough and it will use up scraps as well as reusing plastic bottle caps.

Sarah at Dolls and Daydreams actually has some other wonderful tutorials, including this one on how to embroider doll faces - perfect if you want to make a doll safe for small children.

 

If you prefer to paint faces then Sarah at Dolls and Daydreams has that covered too with a doll face painting tutorial, including video tutorials.  The doll pictured is also available as a free rag doll pattern from Sarah on her Dolly Donations site.  Click the link to get the tutorial.

And Sarah at Dolls and Daydreams has an alternative idea for colouring dolls with this tutorial on using fabric markers to create every detail of an art doll.

Rhelynn of the Craftsy shop KnitOwl Toys and Crafts has a free miniature rag doll pattern on her craftsy shop that you can download.  Click the link to get the pattern.

Runo shared a pattern and tutorial to make these Goth felt dolls at the blog Nuno Life.  Click the link to get the pattern and instructions for the clothes and hair.  The doll body is based on Runo's felt fashion doll tutorial which can also be found for free at this link.

Get a basic tutorial to make these adorable miniature elves at the blog Creative Breathing.

Creative Breathing also generously shared this felt Wise Old Owl pattern for free. 

Disney Family Fun shared the instructions to make this simple Merida doll.  You could make this simple version with kids or use the technique and tart it up to make an art doll.

Over at Twig and Toadstools, get the tutorial to make this Queen summer clothes pin doll.

More doll magic at Twig and Toadstool, find out how to make this natural tea set that would be the perfect accessory for a fairy doll.

Also from the creative genius behind Twig and Toadstool comes this sun child doll tutorial.  Click the link to get the tutorial.

Pollyanna at Pollyanna Reinvents shared a great idea to make candlestick dolls using free clip art faces.  Click the link to check it out. Great as hat-stands or art dolls, huh?

If mixed media is your passion, then try making this mixed media portrait shelf sitter designed by Claudine Hellmuth on the Cloth Paper Scissors blog.

And don't forget my own recent free pattern and tutorial to make L'il More Than Your Average Rag doll, complete with reversible dress, shoes and knickers.  Plus, the free pattern for this little rag doll's PJs!

Live long and make dolls!

Wordless Wednesday - Patterns of Light

Free Pattern and Tutorial to Make Pyjamas for L'il More Than Your Average Rag Doll

Last week I shared the free downloadable pattern for L'il More Than Your Average Rag Doll, click the link to get the free pattern for the doll and her reversible dress, shoes and knickers.

This week I'm sharing the free pattern and instructions to make L'il her own set of PJ's with slippers.  Click the link to  Download Pyjamas for L'il More Than Your Average Rag Doll Instructions.

Tip:  If you are having trouble downloading the instructions and pattern for this doll's pyjamas then please ensure that you have Adobe Reader installed and that you have updated your Adobe Reader.  It is free to both download the reader and to update it, just click the link to visit the Adobe site.

And don't forget to check out the rest of my free patterns and tutorials by clicking the link.

I really love it when people to link to my free projects, however, as a courtesy, if you wish to link to this project, please link to this page and not directly to the downloadable PDF file. Please do not save the PDF file and upload it to your own blog.  Thank you!

Create a Spark Saturday - Tidy Up Time

Last week I issued the first of my newly weekly challenges designed to give your creativity momentum that can be fit into whatever you happen to be doing or making at the moment.  You can join in and do the challenge with me or just read and see what happens to me (but I hope you'll join in and share what happened to you in the comments). 

Last week's challenge was as to do something you've been meaning to do but where the fear of screwing it up was putting a stop to your good intentions.  The really hard part was to just jump right in, do it and not to worry about mistakes.

So I did it.  I sat down with nothing but my Illustrator software, Kim Kight's book A Field Guide to Fabric Design: Design, Print & Sell Your Own Fabric; Traditional & Digital Techniques; For Quilting, Home Dec & Apparel and a stomach full of butterflies and started designing some fabric.  I decided to focus on just getting something uploaded to Spoonflower just to see how it worked.  I didn't fret over colour or anything, I focussed more on getting a pleasant repeat.

 

I traced a drawing of my Gather Ye Rosebuds doll in Illustrator (not the simplest motif!  I should have just done stars or polka-dots, but anyway...) and combined it with a simple flower motif that I use on my business cards.  I wacked a block of lavender colour behind it and and uploaded it to Spoonflower. The above is the illustration before being put into repeat.  I used a 4-spot repeat.

The resulting fabric is not super wonderful.  I don't think Amy Butler should be fearing for her job or anything, but I did it and now I'm over the hump. 

Surprisingly, part of what I am finding challenging about this challenge on a Saturday thing is that I don't usually share things that are in progress.  I don't like showing something that I don't think is "worthy".  I know I'm not perfect, but somehow there is a temptation in the blog world to show only the perfect bits.    So I'm going to have to get over that too.

This week's challenge:  Set a timer for 1 hour (or 20 minutes or whatever your schedule allows) and tidy up one area of your creative space.

Because my creative space is so tiny, that basically means that I will have cleaned the entirety of my creative area, but I realise that many people have large studio areas that will take much longer to completely overhaul. 

What can you manage in 1 hour and only 1 hour?  Don't allow yourself to clean up for longer than the allotted time because "tidying up" is a good way of putting off getting creative.  

I suggest this challenge because I watched the movie Limitlessstarring Bradley Cooper. 

In the movie, Cooper's character takes a drug that allows him to use 100% of his brain.  Usually human beings can only access about 20% of their brain capacity, so with an 80% boost in brainpower Cooper's character has an IQ in the quadruple digits.  And what is the first thing he does with this brain boost?  FIRST, he cleans up his apartment.  And THEN he sits down and rights the next great American novel.  Interestingly, that suggested to me that he needed that lack of clutter to access his creative genius. 

Here's hoping that a clean up will blow the cobwebs out of your brain. And mine.

Did you do last week's challenge?  If so, tell me how it went in the comments.

Freebie Friday - Free Garden Accessories to Make and Sew

Here are some great ideas to make your patch of the outdoors something special or maybe to make a little gift for the gardener in your life.

New to the Magic Bean?

Every Friday I do a round-up of free craft tutorials on a certain theme. So stop by every Friday for your weekly dose of free crafts, patterns and tutorials. Or browse for more free resources by combing through the "Free Craft Tutorials & Patterns" category (just click the link) or use the Google Search function on the top left of my blog to search for something specific.

Shelley of the blog Sew & Dipity shared a fabulous tutorial to create a garden girl by wrapping a dress-maker's mannequin with wire to get the shape.  It's like a living sculpture!  Love this idea.

Pam of Gingerbread Snowflakes shared a tutorial to make a punched tin and bead firefly that you can use to adorn your garden.

Head over to Garden Therapy where Stevie shared a tutorial to make these hardware store inspired plant tags.  My dad and I used a similar technique to make necklaces out of washers.  Easy but very effective.

Turn thrift store plates into fabulous mosaic stepping stones for the garden with a tutorial from BHG.com.

BHG.com also shared how to create a potting shed out of re-purposed furniture.  Click the link to find out how to do it.

In this tutorial, Martha Stewart shows you how to take basic dowels and make them into a class lawn game called Molkky.

This little fairy house for your garden tutorial would be a great decoration amongst your greenery or an excellent backdrop for an art doll.  Thanks to Crafts by Amanada for the how-to.

Sticks and stones might break your bones but they also make great dolls.  This tutorial from Disney Family Fun shows how to make little people out of sticks and stones.  Don't forget that adults can do the same thing, just look at Akira Blounts dolls for inspiration.

Make a Garden Girl Copper Plant Stake with a tutorial from Amaco on FaveCrafts.

Gifts for Gardeners

Martha Stewart's website has a great idea for presenting gardeners with the gift of cuttings - presenting them in little sake boxes that act as mini-greenhouses.  Click the link to see how to do it.

Make a garden inspired wreath out of pots with a tutorial on Joann.com.

Back in 2010 I made this gatherer's gardening apron as a gift for my mother-in-law who loves to garden from a tutorial I found on the blog The Cottage at Frog Creek.  Click the link to get the tutorial.

Or make this gardening apron with a how-to from Martha Stewart.

Here's to keep it green!

Wordless Wednesday - Geometry of Design

L'il More Than Your Average Rag Doll Free Pattern and Tutorial

Although I normally only make art dolls, I decided to try my hand at a doll that was just one step up from your average rag doll.  And I decided to offer her as a free pattern and tutorial here on the Magic Bean!

L'il More Than Your Average Rag Doll (L'il for short) is a 20" (50.8cm) tall all cloth doll, suitable as a play doll for children aged 3 and over.  With button eyes, yarn hair, her body is soft and cuddly.

And the step by step photo instructions not only include how to sew and make the doll's body it also includes how to make her little knickers, shoes and a completely reversible dress.    The instructions also cover some great sewing tricks like using French seams and "stitching in the ditch", so this project is also a great opportunity to improve your sewing skills.

I hope the kids in your life will enjoy the magic of flipping that dress from one side to another as much as I hope you enjoy making this little cutie.

Click the link to Download L'il More Than a Rag Doll Instructions and Pattern

and don't forget to Download Dress, Knickers and Shoes for L'il More Than Your Average Rag Doll Instructions and Patterns

Tip:  If you are having trouble downloading the instructions and pattern for this doll then please ensure that you have Adobe Reader installed and that you have updated your Adobe Reader.  It is free to both download the reader and to update it, just click the link to visit the Adobe
site.

And that's not all!  Click the link to get the instructions and free pattern to make L'il a pair of pyjamas and slippers. 

And don't forget to check out the rest of my free patterns and tutorials by clicking the link.

I'd love it if you would like to link to my free projects, however, as a courtesy, if you wish to link to this project, please link to this page and not directly to the downloadable PDF file. Please do not save the PDF file and upload it to your own blog.  Thank you!

I shared this project at:

 

 

Create a Spark Saturday - A New Weekly Challenge to Kickstart Your Creativity

I'm starting something new on The Magic Bean, designed to fuel your creativity.  And to keep you from doing the laundry or washing the dishes to avoid the project that you just can't finish or that you can't seem to start.  I'm calling it "Create a Spark Saturday".

Every week on a Saturday I'm going to issue a creative challenge that I will be undertaking and that you are welcome to participate in, if you choose.  It will be a small task that can be added into your everyday life no matter what you are creating.  The challenges will be designed to make life more creative - they might just create a spark that will light your creative fire.

"The object isn't to create art; it's to be in a state which makes art inevitable"

                                                                                            - Robert Henri

Each week I will report back to you with what happened to me during that week as a result of the challenge, you can tell me how you got on with the challenge in the comments and I will issue the next week's challenge. 

I started off by brainstorming a list of possible challenges and I'm ashamed to admit that the first thing I did was scan the list to find one that was "easy".  Gasp.  Not a good start.  So I'm going to do the exact opposite and pick a challenge that scares the bee-jeepers out of me. 

This week's challenge:  Do something you've been meaning to do, but the fear of screwing it up is stopping you.  Jump right in, do it and don't worry about mistakes. 

For me, this challenge is going to be very hard.  I am not the kind of person that jumps right into the deep end.  I'm the kind of person that takes the temperature of the water from one thermometer and has a back-up thermometer just in case the first one is faulty.  Then,  I'd have a tox report done on the water to make sure the balance of chemicals is just right.  Then, I make sure there is a trained first responder at hand, a life preserver near by and an ambulance on stand-by. 

Whenever I learn something new, I read a book on the subject cover to cover and completely assimilate the information before touching anything.  I even read manuals.  Cover to cover.  I take courses and write notes.  I'm always prepared.  Correction, I'm always over-prepared. 

I'm always astounded when I see that people write books on a subject having only taken up that creative pursuit a few years ago.  "How do they do that?", I always wonder.  I strongly suspect that they just jump right in.

So here goes, I am going to sit down and design a fabric and upload it to Spoonflower which I've been meaning to do for ages.  The design might be an offense to the eyes.  I might get it all wrong.  But that is going to be OK.  The point is for me to just do it.  Stand back I'm jumping in.

Are you going to take the plunge too?