Making Doll Eggs

by
LaQuinta Long


Beautiful doll on a rhea eggshell skirt
by Karen Lawton

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Some have asked about doing the doll, so I would love to share some simple things that anyone can do to make a doll.  All that is needed after you get one put together is your own personal style of decorating.  Bear with me on the instructions and some of my pics aren't the clearest but I think you will get the idea.

Okay the first thing I will say is the doll that Karen had was a figurine that had her arms in a position where I could work around her waist. I did not try to cut the figurine at all just work around it. She was a figurine about 5 inches tall.  What I did was to use the whole figurine on that one and I cut 2 goose eggs into halves lenth wise, then I worked the part that went around her waist with removal of small pieces of eggshell until the parts would fit around her waist.  Sometimes it is easier than others to get it to stay on right.

First I put the two halves in the front and the back of the doll and glued it on with epoxy.  Now remember, on this one I am using the whole figurine not cutting it off at the waist this will come later.  After the two halves dried I then glued the two halves from the second egg to the side of the waist making sure that it fit well at her waist.(See fig.1) Dont worry about it not being perfect there because you will cover it like Karen did. Nice thing about these dolls are that you can paint, flock, bead, put material, braid, pearls and lace and just about anything you would like to make her pretty.

Fig.1 Looking from the bottom of the skirt to see how the pieces are placed

 

Next are some patterns that I drew (fig.2) for some ideas but for now hope that isn't too confusing and I will show you pictures of the lady like Karen had but it is not decorated.  I will also show you a view of this doll from the bottom (see fig.1) and you can see how the 4 shells fit together. I had painted her in hopes of doing black and gold but this is as far as I have gotten.(fig.4)  I think she has worn this same black outfit for almost a year now   Hope you enjoy and I will be showing you next how to do one that you do cut off.

	fig.3
fig.2		fig.4

Well back to the drawing board, here are just some extra shell pieces I used to show you and this is just to give you an idea about what you are about to see on a doll.(fig.3) Now remember these are just ideas and you are the one to take them and run with the ideas. The next picture will show the doll and then how shell pieces can be put on her.  Also I will show you a drawing(fig.2) and REMEMBER I DIDN'T SAY I WAS AN ARTIST............

Part 2

Cutting the Doll

fig.5

Any figurine can be cut with your dremel cutting wheel if it isn't resin.  Resin is so hard that it has to be cut off with a sharp cutting wheel.  This little figurine (fig.5) was a ceramic so it was easy to cut in half. I have some pictures and a drawing(fig.2) of ideas that can be done and as I said only your imagination limits you to what you can do with a doll so try to use your own ideas with these drawings.

fig.6

 

I have tried to put it into a short lesson so you can know how to cut any doll you would like. Finding a figurine I liked to cut and set on the egg is what I did to this particular doll.  In fact all the other dolls that I am showing will be cut off and examples of the shells how they can be used for skirt parts.  On this first doll you don't need to add anything else to her. Just paint and decorate her skirt with beads, etc.  Like I said use your imagination.

fig.7

When you look for a figurine, if it is very heavy don't try to cut it unless you have a sharp cutting tool. Because it will more than likely be the resin type.  Okay just look at the picture of the part that is cut off(fig.5) and then look at the top glued onto the rhea egg.(fig.6)   Also a thought too for you who like to carve or do fretwork on shells one of these dolls with several layers of shells with carved out places like flowers, hearts, etc would really be pretty.

fig.8

Part 3
The Harder To Cut Dolls

fig.9

These are figurines that have something at the side or hard to get at places to fit on a skirt so here are two examples of that kind of doll. On the lady with the purse I had to cut her off at the waist and around her purse.

fig.10

She wouldn't fit on the egg top so I put her on a small plastic piece that had a stem, mixed epoxy and tissue paper together and put it up inside the doll top to make her tall enough so her purse would also fit on the egg. Her waist can be easily camouflaged and made into a very interesting doll after she is dressed.On the lady with the fan in her hand and one arm at the side if you will notice I couldn't get her cut straight across on the waist so I cut the best I could keeping in mind that that part can be easily covered or filled in with white stuff or designer paste and painted. On her hand at the end is part of the dress she was holding on the original figurine and that part can be covered with a few little flowers or painted over to make it look more like an addition to her white gloves.

As I said earlier use your imagination and don't be afraid to try new things. As you can see here most any doll can be used if you can cut her off the figurine. Also another note if you have a doll that may have an arm or other feature where it is just impossible to put on the egg shell depending on where it is, example would be an arm, it can be cut off whereever it won't fit on, then repositioned on the arm after gluing her on and then the place where you might glue the arm back on put some flowers, ribbon or whatever you would like to put there to cover where you repositioned her feature.

fig.11

fig.12

fig.13

Hope this is enjoyable for those of you who like to make dolls or just want to do something different.  Once about 3 years ago I made a doll and I put an umbrella made out of a small egg on a stick and then glued the stick in her hand.  I dressed her and then put her on a small revolving cylinder and put it on a music box and she revolved as the music box turned.  Wish I had a picture of her but the camera I had at that time was not a good one and the pictures were real blurry and she has gone to live somewhere else.

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