Snow at last and a staring doll.

Finally, it snowed-on the day I went back to work. It was not a lot of snow, just a token sprinkling. This photo was taken this morning from the nursery at about 9 o'clock-it was still quite dark. I was not looking forward to work but it was actually quite fun. We had an inset day which was quite relaxed and only lasted half the day so I could do some planning in the afternoon. It was good to see everybody and we have got a whole load of great new books to use too. Also the head has made the decision to stop the anoying, loud and regular beeps which have governed the life of the school and the local estate for years! Every day they interrupt my story time as we have a different time table anyway. Hurray! This is one of the dolls I have recently finished-she has enormous staring eyes-as you can see. I love all the eyes you can get-there are doll sites and also taxidermy sites with weird animal eyes that are great. I should have made the lids come down over them but didn't think of that at the time. I may yet add some kind of head dress as I have chickened out of making hair again. I begin to like the look of the dolls a little more after I have given them a wash of diluted brown paint to age them a bit-I put wax on the head of one doll and I can't wait to try that again as I liked the effect. I am finally trying my super sculpey clay-I have made a tiny head which is quite frightening looking-but it is so different to the air hardening clays once it is cooked-much harder. I bought some tinfoil today so am going to try another head. It is so difficult!

I glued a scrap of fabric on to cover up her lumpy chest. I used spray glue and spent most of the afternoon trying to get it off of my fingers.

She is posing in one of my sorrowful plants. I really will repot them this spring! I call her the shield doll at the moment because, as usual, she has not got a name yet. The shield is a button my Mum contributed to my doll making along with many others from her button box. She gave me lots of great doll related presents this Christmas including a book about using beading on dolls and some lovely pieces of ribbon. The blue velvet ribbon around her waist is one of these.

This is what she looked like before clay!