Adding More New Items

MJ and I designed illustrations to for my Pet shop of the old ones stories last yr.

This yr I'm using the illustrations to create cross stitch patterns. The first offering will be the illustration of the little fluttercat Cinnamon.

I will be adding these patterns soon.

Bound Fantasies Part 1

One of my on-line groups had this challenge yrs ago. It was about sexual and emotional fears and fantasies. Everyone made a different shrine and we swapped them.

I got the word bound in my swap letter. I was very unsure about trying something like bondage... but, hey try anything new if you think it might create challenging art.




Red Roses for a Blue Lady was one of the pieces I made. Considering the female is bound by roses the symbology is rather obvious. It was an interesting piece to make. I started to find creating bound figures very freeing.

I then went to trying bound figures in 3 dimensions. My Ram Goddess was a piece I was especially proud of 5 yrs ago. I like to think my sculpting skills and my photography skills have improved. Geez...

For some reason binding up these little figures opened me up to creating more interesting work. I now enjoy trying to create all kinds of unusual figures.

Well, I was in the mood to try another bound piece and thought I'd try out the figure of bound female demon that's been sitting in my head for ages.

Oh, no pictures? Well, Part 2 is tomorrow.

Pet Shop of the Old Ones- Coloring Portfolio

I love making my animals for my Etsy shop Chatnoirstudios. I was really surprised when people asked for coloring pages and more story than I was putting in the shop descriptions.

I was happy to oblige. So this holiday season I'm reissuing the first set of coloring pages. My husband, MJ did the illustrations and I wrote the story.


I find it fun to see illustrated versions of my animals. I love the drawing of Winter Sky almost as much as the sculpture.

I have 1 portfolio listed at the moment, but you can order more than one and I can have them printed and shipped out in time for the holidays if you order before the 15th.

Bringing Back an Original Design for the Holidays

I know I disappointed some people when I changed my HexCat design. So I decided to bring back the original little fuzzy cats that
started my business.
Shadow and her
friends will start
showing up in my etsy shop this week.

I'm working on a pair little kid cthulhu monsters for this week too. I'm hoping to keep adding more unusual creatures for you to give as gifts or to buy for yourself.

If you want something custom designed....you'd best contact me now. I sew everything by hand and need time to finish and mail the creature!

New Chihuahua Poco Diablo

I really enjoy making these little patchwork dogs. Diablo is my newest piece in this series. He's also the
first chi I've done with an open mouth.

I re-did the head a couple of times to tone
down the facial distortions. The mouth was more time consuming than I thought it would be. The fact that this dog design needs 2 eyes of different sizes made things more difficult.

The Pet Shop of the Old Ones Coloring Portfolio

It's finally finished!! The folio has been listed in my
shop and I'm hoping for a good response to it.

People have been asking for something with my magicked animals that was less expensive than the actual dolls. I've always enjoyed writing the descriptions of the animals and decided writing a story might be the way to go.

Here it is! 22 beautiful drawings by my husband, MJ and a story by me, in a nice string tie portfolio. I hope this folio is popular. I enjoyed writing the story and deciding on what illustrations to use.

I already have ideas for a second folio.

A New Idea

My husband has been after me to write stories to go along with my Pet Shop of the Old Ones animals . I've decided to experiment with creating the stories and possible illustrations. I want the book's format to be like a binder or workbook that can have pictures, charts and extra diary pages added to it.

I created a separate blog to create a possible diary page here
I don't have any illustrations done yet, so I used pictures of my actual sculpts on this page. http://thepetshopoftheoldones.blogspot.com/

I'd really like some opinions. Thanks for your ideas in advance.

The Concept of Beauty

I've been creating these sculptures like Winter Sky for a couple of years now. They're fun, slightly odd animals , but they're more than that too.

When I was a kid, I always wanted a doll like me. I have cerebral palsy and my right arm and leg are atrophied. It would have been nice to have such a doll and say to my friends..."This is me"

When I was training to be an art teacher, I worked on a study with pre -schoolers. The younger a kid is when he or she is introduced to people who are different the more accepting they can be. From what I saw, a kid has a set idea of what is normal by the time they're 6 yrs old. And in a way that's scary.

Most parents want to protect their kids of anything unpleasant or strange, but aren't they doing more damage than good?

I started my dollmaking career creating dolls that were human, somewhat realistic and disabled in some way. They either scared people, offended people or were deemed ugly. A person with Downs Syndrome or Cerebral Palsy looks a certain way... that's just the way it is. Are they really UGLY or just not the standard beautiful? And does it really always have to come down to looks?

I've wanted to be a working artist since I was 5 and crayolaed my Grandma Bartlett's dining room wallpaper. She told me Dad to back off and that I would be an artist. So I decided to figure out some way to make appealing physically different dolls. I finally decided my best option was to work with fantasy or mythological people and creatures.

So far, I've had fairly good success and have only come across people who are afraid of my stuff on random occasions. I figure they're probably the same people who would be upset to see any kind of doll that isn't physically perfect. Hopefully I'll be able to keep promoting the idea of relative beauty and it eventually helps people expand their ideas on what is beautiful.