Wispies

Today I made some dolls on sticks, and I've decided to call them "Wispies". The sticks are bamboo meat skewers. I always keep a pack handy, and when I have leftover paint from a project, I roll the skewers in the paint, to color them. Once they've been rolled in two or three colors, they look marbled and make a magnificent impression.

Normally, I don't do felting, so when I received a small bag of various felting wools, I laid it aside in the hope that an idea would occur to me, and it did. I felted wool directly onto the painted skewers, to create a kind of long "bead", which I left on the stick. I then used a felting needle to add wisps of light wool, to give the dolls a slightly ethereal look.

That done, I sewed beads onto the felt bodies and then would wispy yarn around the body and between the beads. The hair is sisal that you can find in the floral decoration supply department of most stores. I picked up mine at a local euro (dollar) store.

The wispies will have to fit into a one litre milk carton, so I snipped the top of the skewers to make them a suitable length. I thin they look nice with the skewers protruding in both directions, though. I left the bottom of the skewers as they were, as the dolls are intended to be anchored in something -- perhaps a plant pot. I stuck the sticks into some oasis (that green foam block stuff you use to arrange flowers), and you might also use that to anchor them in a container of some description.