The Bell-Ringer

Finished this doll today, and I am really happy with how he turned out. I was trying out a new clay "Pro-sculpt" I like how it holds the wrinkles better than the SS I usually use but it seems to be a bit harder to smooth, for me anyway.

He is sculpted over a wire armature, soft upper arms , legs and torso. His clothing is a mix of suede, cheese clothe, satin and knit. His top-hat is made from garmet leather with a little feather in the band. He is 11 1/2 inches high including the top hat which isnt removable. He has mohair curls and he is holding some old bells I found this weekend.

The Bell-ringer is a very important job among the elves. His duties are to ring the bell every hour on the hour. Also he must ring the bells at the birth of a new elf or at the death of one. He also must ring the bells at every wedding and funeral. It is a very exhausting job, maybe thats why he looks so cranky. One of the down-falls to being The bell-ringer is the loss of hearing due to the constant ringing of the bells. Each bell he carries is used for different things, and he must keep them straight or the other elves will become confused and not know whether its supper or breakfast. This little deaf Bell-ringer is ready to retire, unfortunately no-one else wants the job.

Pip & Squeak

Pip and his little buddy Squeak

A Elf and his boat

I finished this little elf last night. He is 9 inches high and stands alone. I used polymer clay over a wire armature, his torso, upper arms and legs are soft over wire. He is gently posable. His little boat is also handmade by me, the wheels are sculpted from clay, I think next time I will use buttons.

The Little Artist and the Swinging Fairy

We are having a huge snow right now in NE Arkansas. All of my clients cancelled and so I finished up this little doll. I call her The Little Artist. She is 9 1/2 inches high and stands alone. Shes sculpted from polymer clay over a wire armature. She is gently posable with a soft torso, upper arms and legs. Her little paint pallet and brush are removable and so is her hat. I will be listing her on Ebay today.

The other sculpt I had finished several days ago but after I got it done I realized when you move the base she swings a bit. I wanted her to look like she was swinging but Im afraid if I tried to ship her she would swing too much snapping her tiny fingers off. If she was standing she would only be 4 inches high counting her hair.

Absolutely nothing to do with dolls venting

Ok this has nothing to do with dolls I just need to vent.
I have been self-employed for over 15 years. Ive done my own taxes using Taxact software for at least the last 6 years. Ive always filed electronic direct deposit. Never had a problem until this year.
My refund was supposed to be DD on Jan. 28th, didnt happen. I went online to check status, said it would be there by the 1st of Feb. It wasnt. This morning I check again, it says to call a certain number and extension and mention a reference code, and Oh yeah tell them its been more than 21 days.
SO I do call, wait 15 mins to speak to someone. He asks all the info and then says did you get a letter from us? Uh no, nothing. Hmmm he says well we are sending you a letter this Friday to let you know you might be elegible for a self employed tax credit. But you might not be elegible either he says. Ok I say how long is this gonna put my return off? At least 30 days he says. This is the part where I want to scream, my return has been with them for 3 weeks and they havent even sent the letter yet for me to fix something. Taxact didnt kick this back to me before it let me file it, somethings fishy. Taxact has alerts that you run on your return before it is filed. If I had messed something up it would have found it.
But you cant argue with the IRS and the bills that I was going to pay off will just have to wait. Hopefully whatever is wrong I can fix and maybe next year the government wont be passing things at the end of the year that screw up the IRS computers.