Creating a Fall Door Doll Greeter from Nature's Bounty

When the first of this month rolled around I had two goals to cover for my creative business. One was to expand my wholesale campaign for my funny and unique magnets and pinbacks–(www.smirkinggoddess.com)to be launched in August. The other was to totally re-organize my poorly designed studio space so I could work more efficiently, and feel free to create without fear of creating more piles of unfinished art. I believe, messy rooms=bad Feng Shui=low productivity.

Re-organizing my studio was a daunting task, but I needed to break up the space into dedicated work centers, one for my magnet/pinback business which I had but needed to expand, one for my illustration work and lastly one for fun projects and product development. The fun projects area is an  indulgence of creating something for fun to unwind and so on the 4th of July weekend before hunkering down to studio re-orging I made this Fall Door Doll. I'm also trying to use up supplies piling up in my studio bins. Thus I happened upon a cornhusk doll kit  I purchased for no reason at all, ripped it apart and made my own kinda doll-or  Fall diety for our antique home's front door.  These little doll characters are also known as "Door Greeters". Below is the creative process broken down into the steps. Some of the items in the first photo I opted not to use-(the Okra pods).

Natural Door Greeter for Fall Decoration
1. Along with the Corn Husk Kit I gathered up the following for the armature:
• A wood twig pencil
• A waxing paddle stick, these are used in salons and can be purchased on ebay
• A second twig to use for dolls arms
• Some embellishments, nutmegs, acron cap, wood star, wood button, twine, wood balls, pumpkin seeds, dried gourd stem for hat I didn't use the Okra Pods after all-was thinking of making wings but the scale and shape were off
• Two ice cream wood spoons for wings

2. Using a glue gun I glued the wood pencil to the waxing paddle, In retrospect I wish I glued it further down from the "head area to show more of the paddle neck. I then glued the smaller twig cross-wise for arms. This is the basic Doll Greeter Armature




3. Removing the stringy stuff from inside the husks, I then proceed to glue the cornhusk "dress" around the doll armature.


4. Wanting to animate and make the doll look a little more interesting I cut some twigs off off a Branch with teeny rice lights on it that I purchased at Bed and Bath a few years ago. Rice lights no longer work. I glued these branches on the back of the paddle-head area as hair.

5. I continued to glue cornhusk around the armature then flipped the doll over on her front and added some wood embellishments as well as some real whole nutmegs-they smell so good and I live in the Nutmeg State a.k.a Connecticut.   I criss-crossed the wood spoons and glued on the back for wings and added a looped piece of twine to hang my greeter up on our front door. She's protected from weather elements due to an archectural over-hang. Make sure your greeter is protected or spray or brush on a polymer coating to preserve.