Birthday Things

Well it took me darn near all day to get her finished, but my Birthday Doll is done. The photo isn't the greatest since it's too dark and rainy to take it outside in diffused light. Her name is Ofrenda, which means "offering" and she's holding a bunch of marigolds which are traditionally spread all over graves, alters, etc. on Dia de Muertos. On the inside, I began with a stick from my walnut tree and wound it with wool from my handspinning stash. As I was winding I included little snippets of paper with the names of all my family and friends who have passed on. At that point she was looking like a mummy, in keeping with the theme!

Over the wool are lengths of fabrics and some tinsel-type yarn for a bit of sparkle. Her face and hands are translucent polymer clay and hand-sculpted by me, then details were painted with acrylics. Her arms are rolls of fabric stitched on. Her hair is fuzzy novelty yarn and there's actually a tiara of transparent black leaves on her head (though you can barely see it in the photo). She has a necklace that includes a swirly bead made by T-Man. She's about 11" tall which is the largest I've made to date.

You wouldn't believe the trouble she gave me, starting with me causing smoke to come from my craft microwave when I "cooked" the stick a bit too much thinking to kill anything nasty. It smelled nice, like incense! LOL!! Then I broke her leg when I was trying to hold her steady to get her tiara on. Oops. It's a bit wiggly but not likely to come off. I'm glad she's done. Don't know about you, but I think she's kind of cute!

So I’m another year older. Am I a Crone yet? I think so! The hair's going greyer, the wrinkles are deeper, the flesh is saggier, the bones are creakier, and the energy level ain't quite what it used to be. Otherwise, I feel just like I did when I was 20! Age is only a number anyway.

We aren’t going out for dinner tonight but The Man ordered pizza. That’s his way of cooking dinner for me and I’m not about to turn it down! Then my friend is picking me up to go to a fibre arts guild meeting this evening. I’ll be taking Ofrenda and wearing my Little Squares sweater. We can go out to dinner tomorrow night when it’s not so rushed. I like taking my time if it’s a nice restaurant.