ooohhh i'm soooooooooo bad!!!

i really am bad!!! all my Xmas cards are still here! they really are! they are all ready to leave mind but they will be sooooo late! i'm really sorry things just got on top of me really! flu; kids, bad schoolresults!!! other things i will not bother you with,... i promise they are getting posted today so maybe they will be like New Year's cards instead? :-)

i did draw the winner of a Xmas gift, i can say no more than she lives in Belgium...

present will get posted today!!!!

it's been busy here with my birthday, i had a full weekend with my three eldest kids, went out for dinner, visited Maastricht, went shopping in Hasselt, went out with a couple of friends, busy busy... and i slept too little and ate too little the whole weekend, no! i didn't drink too much!!! truth is i'm just not feeling too well, can't explain what, a bug probably

i have a few days to myself now, all the kids are away, only bart is here but he's at work during the day so i have sooooo much peace and quiet, it is beautiful, just me, my music (listening to Coldplay this morning), coffee, Cadbury's chocolate and my art, i'm finishing a few Petite Dolls and starting a new one a hope, i feel like doing dolls this week, experiment with some layers and gesso

here is the Goth Doll that i finished for my 16 year old daughter, i didn't do much more to it, i added silver wax that i applied with the fine tip, drawing along the stamped swirls, i did the boots all silver and they were hillarious ugly hihi! i scraped most of it back off and painted over with red studio paint (claudine hellmuth) and i wanted to dry quickly with heattool cause i am really impatient!!! i admit and what happened? that bit of wax that was still there melted through the paint and i got this great bubbly effect; honestly, maybe it doesn't show up well in the pic but in real life it is really grundgy!so i'm pretty chuffed with my mistake of the silver boots:-) and i'm going to experiment more on wax under paint!!! it is fun!!!!

these dolls need more work, i'm not sure where i'm going on this, i started all pink and girly but then decided bah!!! so in came the orangey colours i like so much these days and a goldleaf tree that i then sanded down to age, i like this!! really great effect

this little girl i just started, i love the layers of her dress, i simply gesso (claudine hellmuth's because the structure is so nice) with paper tissues ripped up into little bits and "gessoed" down, a technique i use alot on canvas to add defenition, really cheap trick but with great results, a friend of mine does all the sides of her canvas art this way but i also use it on altered books, in paintings,...

she still need a lot of work but can you see the structure of her dress?

well, i'm off to get my hands dirty with paints! i should probably go to the supermarkrt first, hardly any food left in the house hihi! but hey! i'll do that later i really am not in the mood to go out just yet

hope you all have a wonderful day!

and my cards are on the way! again sorrrrrry for the big delay!!!!