My China Lady

Today, I am going to teach you how I made my "China" lady.

We were getting ready for our annual Mission's Conference.

Each family or person was assigned a table to decorate for a country around the world.

I chose China.

For a few weeks, I looked for ideas of what I could use for a centerpiece for the table.

Because it was a Mission's Conference,

I thought, "what would be better than to decorate the table with a Chinese person 

to remind us to pray for the people in China".

After looking in the stores and even the second hand shops,

 I realized that the best and most inexpensive thing to do was to make my own lady.

Now, what will I use?

She had to be big enough to stand in the center of the table under a tree

(well, really it was a branch from my neighbor's fuscia bush).

I looked through my cupboards for red/China-like fabric

and other odds and ends that I could use to make my lady.

This is what I came up with:

-an old lamp

- an old dress someone gave me to use for the fabric

- wire

-stuffing

- masking tape

To make the doll form,
I took the cord off of the lamp and
attached some wire to the top.







                                                                  Then, I used the masking tape to hold the wire in place.

After the wire was secure, I tore a piece of masking tape off the roll and crumbled it into a ball - this will make the head.

The ball was then placed on the top of the lampstand and secured into place by again wrapping more tape around it.

I worked at this for a while, adding layer after layer, 
until the head and neck seemed a proper ratio for the body.

{I love using masking tape because it is easy to use and is cheap.  To see some other projects I have used masking tape for click here.}
      

neck

Now to make the body.

The fabric I used was already a child's dress.
So it was already sewn.
I cut off a length from the bottom that would go all the way above the neck and touch the table at the hem, with a little bit of a train trailing behind.

I left the top of the dress unsewn, with the rough edges showing.
Then I secured the dress in place at the base of the neck with a rubber band.

sleeve

The sleeves were made by cutting pieces of the dress lining and hot gluing them to make a seam.

Now the poor bald lady needed some hair.

I was not sure what to do about hair.

After a look around at supplies I had,

There was nothing I could find -

yarn was too thick and was too unnatural looking.     

Can you tell what I finally decided to use?

I know, you are probably shocked.

I used my own hair! 
Do you think that's gross?
There is always a clump of hair in my brush, so instead of throwing it out, I used it for my doll.
They say,
 "Necessity is the mother of invention"
and I have found that sooooooo true!

I really put myself into this project, ha ha!

After gluing my hair to the doll, I also made a bun for the back.

My messy work station

Now it was time to get out my paint stuff.

This is a picture of what my workspace looks like sometimes-

too many projects on the table

and a movie on my laptop.

I painted the China lady's hair jet black.

Then I mixed a little grit with white paint to paint over the masking tape.

If you use grit mixed with the paint,
it will hide your tape seams.

After the face was mostly dry,
I put another thick coat on.

The second coat smoothed out the face.

Now, I had to let the paint dry.

                                                                        I am not very good at drawing people's facial features.

I was so afraid to mess my lady up, 

but bravely, I looked online at some pictures

and then lightly penciled them on.

When I was was satisfied with my drawing,

I painted on her face.

I don't think she looks                               very happy.                                                   What do you think?

I gave her "china eyes".
bright red lips,
and rosey cheeks.

I finished my lady off with 
        a gold sash,
               black collar,
                       hair ribbons,...

Of course the women in China do not dress like this now, but when you think of traditional China you can't help thinking about the color red and a cute little lady like this.





My table was decorated with this beautiful lady 
to remind us to pray for the people in China to hear the Gospel.