Wonderlandian dolls for all...

As you may know from my previous blogs I have been experimenting with the idea of Wonderlandian dolls for a while, however my fear of sewing failure meant all dolls would have to be a joint effort between my mum and I which made things very hard considering mum is in coffs and I am in Sydney.

It finally occured to me a few weeks ago that I should just learn to sew, so I bought a machine and Mum taught me how to sew that afternoon. Honestly I don't know why I put it off for so long it's SO fun and another fantastic creative outlet to add to my repotoire.

So... what have I been making - well you guessed it. Dolls!! They take me quite a while to make but I really enjoy every minute of it. I consider them as 3D portraits of ordinary Wonderlandians that you would see playing in the park on any given afternoon and as Wonderlandians come in lots of different colours and with many different faces my dolls reflect that.

I design,sew, stuff and decorate all the dolls myself, including painting the faces, sewing any additional clothing, shoes and accessories - I even crochet scarves for some of them. Dolls are such a great way of combining lots of my favourite things. Look out for the newest dolls that I am working on now, instead of felt hair I am using beautiful angora and mohair yarn - I came up with a way of making wigs out of it and I just love the effect.

I am going to create a doll gallery on my blog to keep a record of all the dolls I make because I really do create them with love and It's sad to see them fly the nest - keep a look out for this soon.

Above is my first ever batch of dolls, if you came along to Allies Attic at Cronulla or Coffs Harbour Yacht Club market last weekend you may have seen them - or possibly even taken one home! The sweet dark haired doll in the picture by itself was the very first to sell - I was so happy that she went to a great home.

If you would like your very own Wonderlandian friend I think all the dolls above are sold now but I am working on some at the moment which should be finished in time for the Coffs Harbour Yacht Club market this Sunday and I'll also be adding a few to our Etsy store later this week.

I'd love to hear what you think of my girls and I'd also like to know if you think I should tell you thier names? I loved naming my dolls as a child so I didn't want to take that away from anyone but I can't help but have secret names for them all...

Manda xxx

Mini Me

Whilst I was in Sydney a friend of my daughters asked if I could sew a dress for her 4mth old niece. She wanted the dress to be a mini version of a party dress she was wearing to an upcoming event.

I agreed and so we met up and went looking for the matching fabrics and colours. Sadly, we couldn’t find the matching colour, but she decided to go ahead any way and have the dress in white.

It was a real change from what I normally sew and consequently I spent quite a lot of time unpicking errors, but what a sense of achievement when I finally finished - and it looks just like mums, so cute!

They are going to look so cute in photos - and they will always have the dress as a treasured memory, you never know it could be the start of a family tradition...

Watch out wonderlandia followers and customers - you may see some Chiffon clothing popping up in our store in future ...

Wonderlandia out and about!

We have had so much fun doing markets over the last few weeks, starting with the very successful Allies Attic at Cronulla, then continuing with Narrabeen market at Berry Reserve the next day and just last weekend I found myself back in Sydney again for the Allies Attic Easter Market at Mosman Art Gallery.

We had an overwhelming response to our clothes and art, particularly at the Cronulla markets and we'd really like to thank everyone that took the time to come out to visit us - it's just so lovely to meet people that appreciate what we do, it really keeps us going.

I'll be back at the Coffs Harbour markets outside the Yacht Club as usual from this weekend coming. As I have been down in Sydney so often lately I haven't been around as often as normal. Can't wait to catch up with everyone again! The next Allie's attic isn't till the 22nd of May so I'll be staying put for a bit!

Oh and how cute is the above pic - it was taken by Chantelle from Forever Bliss Photography as a part of a photo shoot for Allies Attic, how cute, we just love it! We can't wait until we win lotto and get to do our own Wonderlandia photo shoot with a professional photographer - LOL :)