the peapod - wip

I'm off today to finish healing up before heading back to work tomorrow, but while I've been resting I've been working on the most wonderful project!  "the peapod" is something that has been brewing in the back of my mind since I finished my "nest" ... I just always felt that I didn't have that right thing to put inside.  Well, since buying the magical Ari doll from Judy at ArtFest, the wheels have been turning extra fast and I've already finished most of it since coming home!  The minute I saw the little doll body all wrapped up in mossy green tissue I knew it was the crucial piece for my peapod project!
Names have always held a special spot in my noggin ... for play as a child and in my artwork as an adult, well yesterday, I received an email from Judy  telling me more about these special little dolls and the journey they took to get to her.  I learned that the stamp on the back is the name Ari [ lion in Hebrew ] ... now I had already stitched on a fortune from a cookie I opened a couple weeks ago [ You are about to embark on a most delightful journey! ] into my strand of peas and this concerned me.  It just so happens that on the other side is the Chinese character / word for GIRL.  So, this morning I took a spin on a website listing the origins and meanings of names, and came up with a few variations on Ari for females:

ARIA - German - melody
ARIAL - Hebrew - sprite (lion of God)

ARIDATHA - Hebrew - flowering field
ARISSA - Greek - sowing the fields 
Obviously, there were many more, but these 4 seemed to fit the best with the fact that they are from a Doll Factory in Germany, and the nature of this project.
I stitched the pod itself from 2 different  colors of green Meltie Felties and then used some brown wool that had a very light and spring feel to it to add visual texture.  I stitched the whole thing by hand and then threaded a piece of 20 guage silver wire through the front to give the pod shape and allow me to create curls. I took the same silver wire and threaded it through the doll body holes stringing on glass beads and a silver heart {the heart is battered and worn, but strong}, wrapping it around the body and curling the ends like peadpod runners.  For the rest of the peas in the pod I made one from different colors of green felt cut into circles, a glass leaf, a fantastic blown glass bead with green bubbles inside that I've been saving for a LOOONG time and a few other glass beads in green. 
(The fortune is stitched in here too.)
The peapod ended up slightly bigger and swallows up the contents, but my husband had a wonderful idea of stuffing the inside of the pod with the filling from the container it came in as well as some fantastic greenish silk ribbons from my collection :)  I'll post more pictures when the peapod is complete!

Tonight the Artist Breakthrough Program begins with Alyson Stanfield of ArtBizCoach.com and I'm really excited!  Come to find out Deb Trotter of Cowboy Sweetheart is in my group too, so it will be wonderful to go through this with someone who I already know :)  I'll let you know how it went on Wednesday.

NOW GO MAKE ART!