Gratitude Goddesses: A Creative Ritual for November 2025

Key Points

• Expressive-arts mentor Minette Riordan invites women to join her annual November creative ritual—the Gratitude Goddesses Project. The practice blends paper-doll making, journaling, and reflection to transform gratitude into tangible art.
• Each day participants create one small “Goddess” representing a blessing or truth. Over the month, these dolls link together into a gratitude garland—a visual altar of the season of wonder.
• Experts in art-based mindfulness say that combining tactile creativity with daily reflection helps reinforce joy, reduce stress, and deepen appreciation. With simple supplies like paper, fabric, and color, the project offers a soulful and accessible path to mindful gratitude.

Welcome to this year’s Annual Gratitude Project—our third circle together! Each November, I carve out space on my YouTube channel, in my journal, and in my heart to honor the sacred practice of giving thanks. But this year… we’re doing something extra magical.

I’ve been working on Paper Dolls since January of this year and knew my November project would be focused on gratitude dolls.

In my latest YouTube video, you’ll see me introduce the project and show how I’m preparing for the month ahead—grab your favorite cup of tea and catch the replay.
This year, I invite you into the world of the Gratitude Goddesses—a month‑long creative experience where gratitude meets storytelling, meets color, meets soul.

What Is the Gratitude Goddesses Project?

Each day in November, you’ll create a simple paper doll—a Gratitude Goddess—to represent a reflection, a blessing, or an inner truth. One doll a day. One small act of devotion. Together, they form a chain, a garland, a shimmering altar of your season of wonder.

It’s part art project, part spiritual practice, part celebration of the woman you are becoming.

Each week has a theme to guide our reflection:

• 🧚‍♀️ Week 1 – Gratitude for Self
• 🍃 Week 2 – Gratitude for Nature
• 🤲 Week 3 – Gratitude for Others
• ✨ Week 4 – Gratitude for Mystery
  

Whether you follow along weekly or gently weave in and out as life allows, you’re welcome here. There’s no right way to show up—only your way.

What You’ll Need

This project is simple and flexible—you can make it your own based on what feels joyful and accessible. Here are a few suggested supplies:

✂️ Basic Supplies:

• Printed Gratitude Goddess paper doll template (get it here)
• List of Daily Gratitude Prompts (download those here)
• Something to make the base of the dolls: card stock, mixed media paper, canvas, muslin, etc.
• Scissors
• Coloring tools: crayons, markers, coloured pencils
• Journal or notebook for your daily reflections
• Tape, brads, or string to connect your dolls into a garland

🎨 Optional Goodies:

• Water‑colors or paints
• Fabric scraps, ribbons, washi tape
• Collage materials (magazines, paper ephemera)
• Embroidery floss or stitching thread (for fabric versions)

You can create on paper, canvas, or fabric—whatever medium calls to you. I’ve decided to do a combination of both fabric and paper.

In last week’s live video I shared how I am painting fabric to create a week’s worth of dolls at a time! I love simplifying a challenge like this one by “batch-creating” where I can. If I can make the base dolls all at once, then it’s easier to add a few details, words and finishing touches each day to one doll rather than starting from scratch.

🧵 Why Paper Dolls?

If you’ve followed me this year on YouTube, you know 2025 has been the year of the paper doll. I’ve fallen in love with their simplicity, their symbolism, their charm. They represent transformation, identity, and possibility. They remind us we can reshape our stories and dress them in new beauty and meaning.
This project blends art, story, gratitude, and archetype in a way that feels deeply me. And hopefully… deeply you, too.

🌟 Let’s Begin

This season, let your gratitude take form.
Let it have hands and hearts and dresses stitched with stars.
Let each day be a doorway.
Let each doll be a blessing.
Come—make something beautiful with me.

With wonder and gratitude,
💖 Minette

Youtube Video

Transcript

[0:00] : Good morning everyone and welcome to Painting in Your PJs. I'm Dr. Minette Riorden and I am here live in my PJs on
[0:09] : this lovely Thursday morning and so excited to kick off a new paper doll
[0:16] : project. Calling it paper doll in quotes because I'm actually going to do mine on fabric. And every year, one of my
[0:23] : favorite practices is to do something different or unique for the month of
[0:28] : November as an extra way to focus in on gratitude. I have a daily gratitude
[0:35] : practice as well, but this month is one of my favorite months. I love the season. And
[0:42] : Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and so it always feels a little juicy and
[0:49] : makes me dig a little bit deeper into the theme of gratitude. Hi Tori, good
[0:54] : morning. into the theme of gratitude by giving it a little extra focus. And as
[1:01] : this year has been mostly a year of paper doll making. In fact, I was
[1:07] : gathering some of mine up and I just have this huge stack. I'll have to do a
[1:13] : recap video at some point of all the paper dolls. So, why paper dolls?
[1:19] : Because I find they're fun and we all need more fun and creative play in our life, but they also are a powerful
[1:26] : expression of how we're showing up in the world, who we're being. It's a useful way to dip into creative play as
[1:35] : a powerful process for self-discovery and personal growth. And I tend to work
[1:41] : with women 50 and beyond who are feeling that longing and yearning to reconnect
[1:47] : to creativity. But guess what? If it's not fun, we're not going to do it. So
[1:52] : again, this month I have what I think is going to be a really fun plan for all of
[1:59] : us. And if you're on the Paperd Doll Chronicle email list, I have emailed out
[2:04] : the template yesterday. If you're not on the email list, we'll make sure that
[2:10] : link is in the description of this video and that you get a copy of the template
[2:18] : for the dolls. So, let me change my screen. Uh oh, wrong one. Let's try that
[2:26] : one. There we go. Um over here. And so, what I have in front of me, I have a lot
[2:32] : of stuff in front of me and I'm gonna walk you through it all. Good morning, Anna. Lovely to see you here. Thanks for
[2:38] : being here live. Super appreciative of my early bird friends who join me live
[2:45] : in the mornings. So, I have a box of sewing goodies because I'm going to be
[2:51] : doing mine on fabric, but I want you to really feel inspired to do this project
[2:58] : in any way that feels good to you. But I have some tulle and some string
[3:05] : and I had recently bought some, you know, lace seam binding. And I think I
[3:11] : have some rick rack in here. I've got some lovely old hankies that a friend
[3:16] : gave me that can be fun elements to embellish and add to our dolls. And
[3:24] : because I wanted to do mine on fabric and because I need more space on my table, I also have some embroidery
[3:31] : floss. And I also want to be able to create a week's worth of dolls all at
[3:37] : once. And then each day be able to write on the back of the doll what I'm feeling
[3:42] : grateful for that day. And I'm going to work on fabric. And I'm going to paint
[3:47] : some bigger pieces of fabric that I can cut the dolls out of. And the goal here
[3:53] : is that we're going to kind of make a daisy chain of dolls. And there's a few
[3:59] : different ways to do this. I've offered up two different templates. And that
[4:04] : one's something else completely. Wrong handouts. Um, two different templates
[4:11] : for the dolls. Kind of a fairy godmother uh luscious body and a slender fit body
[4:19] : here as well. and anything in between. These are templates. You can absolutely
[4:25] : draw your own figure, but you do want that figure to be pretty simple as you
[4:31] : go. So, of course, I had to make some samples and have some fun with the
[4:37] : samples. And I've tried uh a couple of different things here. So, this is my
[4:42] : painty fabric that I painted up. I really wanted it to kind of be in fall
[4:48] : colors. For each week of our gratitude practice, there will be a different
[4:55] : theme. And the theme of the first week is gratitude for the self, I think. Then we have gratitude for others, gratitude
[5:03] : for nature. And off the top of my head, I'm not remembering what that final one
[5:08] : is. And I'm going to take a minute to zoom in here. Let me focus my camera up
[5:16] : so we can work a little bit closer on all of this. So, I these are ones that I
[5:24] : traced the doll and then cut three of them out together. And I am
[5:31] : working on some old pieces of duck cloth. It's kind of like a a heavyweight
[5:36] : cotton, almost like a denim fabric or a thin canvas. And um three was about as
[5:44] : many as I could cut out without completely losing the shape. But then I realized it was actually easier to work
[5:50] : on them individually. So the last couple of nights I've been having fun stitching
[5:56] : up some dolls. So one of the things that I love to do is to cook, nourish, and
[6:03] : feed others. So, I'm grateful for my joy and love of being in the kitchen and
[6:11] : supporting others. This one, I'm not sure what she means, but I love her
[6:16] : crazy red hair and her funny little face. I ended up using some felt and
[6:23] : stitching the felt on to create the faces, which worked really well. But I'm
[6:28] : also curious to just try maybe painting out the faces with some gesso and see
[6:35] : what happens. But you can see where I'm going. And this is I'm grateful for my
[6:41] : connection to nature, my connection to spirit and I have just started working
[6:46] : on her. But I have to tell you what I'm loving already about this project is
[6:53] : that I can make all the dolls at once in terms of kind of the getting them
[6:59] : painted and then cut out and then each evening just spending 10 to 15 minutes
[7:07] : thinking about what I'm feeling grateful for. And this feels like my inner like
[7:13] : silly clown self or something. But taking a few minutes to really just add
[7:19] : a little slow stitching. I just glued on this old-fashioned rick rack here. And
[7:26] : just keeping them really simple. And I'm kind of enjoying the fabric. I
[7:32] : want to try some fabric collage on some of these as well. And again, I I'm glad
[7:40] : Tori, you're I'm sure with your stash of fabric and paper and all the supplies,
[7:46] : having just lots of fun ideas. And so to think about what feels easiest
[7:54] : for you. Would you like to work on them already in a chain? Even if I were working on them in paper. And this week,
[8:02] : for the first couple of weeks, I definitely I think I'm going to do fabric, but then maybe I'll do a week of
[8:08] : paper as well. But I'm excited to make these beautiful visual reminders
[8:15] : of gratitude to hang here in my studio, maybe even on the wall in front of me to
[8:21] : remind me of just the so many blessings, so much gratitude, and all the just
[8:27] : amount of abundance that I have in my life right
[8:33] : now. And so super excited about this project. And I thought where I'd start
[8:39] : for today is to show you how I painted up my fabric using some of my favorite
[8:46] : mixed media techniques. And then once that dries, I'll be able
[8:51] : to go back and cut the cut the paper dolls out of it. So, I've done a bunch
[8:57] : of this lovely woman. I love the funky one with the red hair. Me, too. My
[9:04] : husband was really laughing out loud at her, but she is so much fun. Let's get
[9:10] : some more light in here. And I'm not I'm not really I don't think I'm done with
[9:15] : the the stitching yet, but uh this is some funky yarn stuff from some other
[9:22] : leftover project, but I like the one with no hair as well. She feels a little
[9:29] : bit like a gingerbread uh cookie, right? you know, a gingerbread lady. So, that also feels
[9:36] : very fun and playful. And the way that we're gonna stay committed and connected
[9:42] : to getting this done is to make it one simple and not take hours to complete
[9:48] : every day. Two, to create the dolls in bulk so that we're just adding details
[9:55] : on the daily. and three, just to really fall in love with the process, right, of
[10:02] : our own creative expression. So, I'm going to set our templates aside
[10:08] : for now. And again, I have some duck cloth left over from a project
[10:16] : and I'm going to paint that up. And I'm just going to use acrylic paints to paint this. I had a lot of fun sort of
[10:23] : testing and what I did not grab was any water,
[10:29] : but I don't know if I'm going to need any water. So, I am going to be using
[10:35] : drop everything in my office acrylic paints. I'm going to be doing quite a bit of
[10:41] : stenciling. So, I have some makeup sponges for doing the stenciling
[10:50] : here. And then I just pulled out a few different stencils.
[10:55] : And this one, like I said, I tried to keep it more in kind of a fall palette
[11:02] : with just some little pops of pink and blue, but most of the colors were sort
[11:08] : of fall themed. And I have to decide if I want to stick with that palette or do
[11:15] : I want to change things up week to week. Um, I'm really loving the the fall
[11:21] : palette and I want the dolls to feel connected. So, even if I want to shift
[11:27] : my palette a little bit from just a color story perspective, I would keep
[11:33] : like the blue and the yellow and then maybe add a different color so that I
[11:38] : would get a different palette. Definitely going to want some black and some white. either just white paint or
[11:45] : some white gesso for some nice opacity. And this had, you know, quite a few
[11:52] : layers. So, I've grabbed just a variety. I have way more stencils than I need. The one thing I did was to
[11:59] : grab different stencils than I used in the first part or in the first
[12:06] : painting of the fabric because that will also even if I use the same color
[12:13] : palette just adding some different marks and shapes. I did I used this one
[12:19] : because it has these awesome fall leaves, but I've got some handmade foam
[12:24] : stencils here. And I even loved these kind of fall funky
[12:31] : trees which remind me of the mountains of Colorado. And if you've been following me for a
[12:37] : while, you know one of the things that I always love to do in the beginning of
[12:42] : any painting process is to just get some marks down on the surface. Whether I'm
[12:50] : doing this on paper or on fabric, I tend to start the same way. And I want to
[12:55] : just plant some seeds of gratitude, plant some energy, and just get past
[13:02] : this blank page. And on the first sample, I did it with crayons, but you
[13:07] : know what? I have this these Crayola markers, and I'm wondering they're water
[13:13] : soluble, so they might mix with the with the paints. Let me see if I have
[13:19] : So, I'm going to use one of these Identity pens. I love these. These write on anything. It's one of my made by
[13:26] : Sakura. It's one of my most favorite pens. It's a permanent black. And I'm wondering what might happen if I start
[13:32] : with some black. And then maybe I will grab one crayon, too. It was actually
[13:38] : really fun to write on the surface with crayon. Oh, those are feeling very
[13:45] : Halloweeny already. Some black and orange there. And knowing that the theme of that first
[13:52] : week is gratitude for the self. So, I'm going to come in here and just start to
[13:58] : write some words. So, I'm grateful for creativity,
[14:05] : my connection to spirit, my connection to nature,
[14:10] : um making people feel welcome,
[14:17] : my general sort of enthusiasm and joy for life.
[14:24] : One of the things I'm working on is learning to be more patient. So maybe I
[14:29] : have some aspirational gratitudes as well
[14:46] : and just some of the things that we know are our gifts or gifts that we aspire
[14:51] : to. And we'll get more into detail. So next week on the live we will talk about
[14:59] : the prompts and how to work on the dolls daytoday. So today I want to just share again that idea for how can you create a
[15:08] : week or even a whole month worth of dolls the base of the dolls all at once
[15:14] : so that after once they're created the the hardest part is done and then you can work on
[15:20] : them throughout the month. Like last night I worked on two of them. So,
[15:25] : working in bulk does not at all diminish our um effort of doing a 30-day
[15:32] : challenge. In fact, it's a great way to approach any kind of 30-day practice is
[15:39] : to work on it when you can, right? And the goal is to get as many done. You
[15:44] : could do one a week and this would still be a beautiful practice and process. So,
[15:50] : you might not want to create 30 dolls. you might want to create for. So again,
[15:56] : approach this project in a way that's meaningful to you, right? Um I don't
[16:04] : know why I just, you know, when I think about making people welcome,
[16:10] : I think about having an open front door. So I might just add some symbols in
[16:18] : here.
[16:29] : of these different things. I don't know what a symbol for patience would be.
[16:37] : And again, I'm not This is all going to get painted over. You're not going to see this underneath, but it's such a
[16:43] : great way to just kind of get some things down on the page. so we have
[16:52] : something to respond to and just a place to begin getting started.
[17:01] : All right, so we got enough down on there. It doesn't have to be a lot. You could also treat this like a journal
[17:08] : page and when you see the the prompts for each week, you could come in and do
[17:16] : this in a a different perspective and literally do a list of
[17:22] : I am grateful for my
[17:28] : connection to myself.
[17:49] : So this can become, you know, I'm grateful for my journaling practice,
[17:57] : which helps keep me connected to myself and present to my emotions and feelings.
[18:05] : So it could be words or you could if you love to write just treat whether it's
[18:10] : fabric or paper treat this like a journal page. Okay. So I am going to
[18:17] : grab some paints. You don't need a lot of different
[18:24] : colors. But I am kind of obsessed right now with this.
[18:30] : Let's see. Looking for a green. Maybe we'll bring in a a dark green for a
[18:36] : little bit of contrast here. And then I am going to
[18:44] : This is what I used on the other one too that I really loved. Let's see. I don't
[18:50] : need iridescent white. I need a white and I need a black. And I'm looking at
[18:57] : these going, I don't love that green with this combination of colors. So, I'm
[19:05] : thinking I'm going to go for a blue knowing that I can make some green out
[19:10] : of the colors on my palette. And then
[19:15] : I'm going to grab one of my coffee bags that I love using as a
[19:22] : palette. Oh, this one still has coffee in it.
[19:35] : And I could also use my paper. I have butcher paper on my table. You're going
[19:40] : to probably want to make sure you cover your workspace for this because
[19:46] : we're going to be probably adding some water to this. depending on if you use
[19:51] : like a cotton muslin that would also work really well for this project. But
[19:57] : with the muslin, the paint may actually not may it 100% will
[20:03] : seep through the fabric. It won't as much on this, right? Um
[20:14] : what smells amazing, Tori. Oh, the coffee. Yeah. And they make it because we buy
[20:20] : our coffee in bulk and it makes such a a great great palette and for me it's
[20:27] : recycling. A thanks Lorraine. Happy to see you here
[20:34] : my friend. So we are making a gratitude paper chain
[20:42] : of what I'm calling gratitude goddesses.
[20:47] : And I'm going to start with those colors and see where we go. So, if you're just joining us, this is kind of the idea of
[20:56] : where we're going. And what I'm doing today is painting up some more fabric.
[21:02] : And the whole process that I'm teaching could be done on paper or with fabric, but I'm so obsessed with uh slow
[21:10] : stitching and fabric collage these days that I really wanted to stitch. So these
[21:16] : are some of the samples that I have been working on and I found it actually
[21:22] : easier to work on them separately than to together. Although I love how they
[21:27] : look all cut together and to bulk create, right? So, I want to get enough fabric painted to cut a whole weeks of
[21:35] : doll whole weeks worth of dolls for our gratitude practice
[21:41] : and so that they're ready to go. So that when I have the time to work on them, I
[21:47] : am ready to go. So, I'm just going to take a scraper. This, you know, is one of my favorite tools.
[21:54] : And I am just going to start to get some paint down on the surface. This I'm not
[22:03] : adding water yet. And the fabric is very absorbent, so
[22:11] : it's going to take a lot more paint than I put down on the palette. And that's
[22:17] : okay.
[22:25] : And you can come in with a spray bottle and move some of that paint around a
[22:33] : little bit, make it a little more translucent. Another thing you could do is you could, if you wanted more
[22:39] : transparency in your paint or a little more flow, you could add a little matte medium to your paint. But the more paint
[22:47] : that you put on here, the stiffer it makes it. And so if your hands get tired
[22:52] : when you're stitching, just be mindful of that, right? Just be mindful of that.
[22:59] : So again, you can see I'm starting with just a mess. I am not starting with an
[23:05] : idea in mind other than I am creating a base for these dolls.
[23:13] : I love this pop of pink. it's going to end up getting buried. So, I will come back and make sure that I put those pops
[23:20] : of pink on at the very end. But right now, I just want to just like I did with
[23:26] : the writing and the mark making, I just want to get something down on the page.
[23:31] : And I'm almost feeling like I want this one to have a little more white space
[23:37] : than my other one did. And what's going to happen if maybe I just come in
[23:43] : and roll some white on here. Interesting. It doesn't move a lot with the brayer.
[23:50] : It's going on really thick. Remember, everything's an experiment.
[23:56] : Everything is paint overable. Oh my gosh, you guys. We had the
[24:02] : funniest thing happen that I have to share with you guys. So Brad and I are
[24:08] : so excited. We are actually um going to be launching a store on Shopify with
[24:16] : some fun t-shirts and mugs and some of the things I say all the time like
[24:21] : everything is paintoverable. So, I now have this very cute t-shirt
[24:27] : that says everything is paint overable on it. And we will be rolling this out
[24:32] : soon, probably in time for Black Friday. And uh
[24:39] : we were having a little bit of a nervous moment because so this one is wanting a
[24:47] : lot more yellow. So, I think this got more dark. And I'm liking liking the
[24:52] : white here. Wanting to be a lot brighter. The other set that I did was a lot darker. And one of the t-shirts,
[25:01] : thank you, Tori. One of the t-shirts, um, and we picked the ones, Tori, that
[25:07] : people voted on inside of our membership, our sisterhood of wisdom and
[25:13] : wonder. Oh, yeah. It's that yellow and the blue and the pink. I think it's
[25:19] : maybe the red didn't quite match when I got it on there. And one of the t-shirts
[25:25] : that says creativity is my rebellion that Brad made this gorgeous design for
[25:31] : came just fine. Showed up in the mailbox. And then it said that the other t-shirts
[25:37] : that I had ordered because I got to have samples. We wanted to see the print quality, the quality of the t-shirts,
[25:43] : all that stuff. And um make sure that you get all the way to the edges of your
[25:48] : fabric as you're painting. I realize I'm not getting all the way over here. And
[25:54] : uh so we didn't get the t-shirts. And so
[26:00] : we went, you know, looked at on track, looked at all the things because they get made in other countries. These might
[26:05] : have come, I don't know, from South America. And we can see that it got delivered to a house. Oh, that looks
[26:12] : cool with the way that came out. Um, with a house with a red door and our house has a red door. And Brad's like,
[26:18] : "Well, isn't that our front door?" And I'm like, "No, we don't have pumpkins. I have a wreath, but not pumpkins." And so
[26:24] : I'm like, "Okay, this evening after work, I'll go ring the doorbell because we figured out the house they got
[26:29] : delivered to by mistake." We hear the doorbell ring. It's a neighbor across the street who we've never met and now
[26:35] : we'd had this lovely connection with. She said she didn't have her glasses on. she wasn't paying attention and had
[26:43] : opened the package and looked at all the t-shirts and then realized that these were not for her, but absolutely loved
[26:51] : the t-shirts and wanted to know where she could buy some for herself. And she
[26:57] : was so uh mortified and apologetic that she had opened this mail that had not
[27:04] : been actually meant for her. And uh it was what a fun way to meet our neighbors
[27:10] : in such a silly silly story. Okay, now we're getting somewhere with this.
[27:18] : And it was extra affirming to hear that she had liked the the t-shirts them
[27:26] : themselves. But now I have a t-shirt that Brad did such a great job of
[27:33] : designing that says everything is paint overable on it. So I'm sure here in the
[27:39] : next few weeks I'll start wearing those so I can show them off and we have a few
[27:46] : other fun ones coming too. But I am so very proud of my hubby for how hard he's
[27:54] : worked on all of this. Okay, this is feeling better. That red wanted to come back. So interesting. So, it's just
[28:02] : paying attention, trusting our own creative process feels
[28:08] : a little fiery and flamelike.
[28:13] : And this side where it's a little wet and has a little more a few more layers
[28:18] : of paint, I can, you know, do some mark making in here. move that paint around.
[28:31] : And I don't want to overwork it because I'm noticing also, oh, it's going to get muddy if I do that. So, trying to
[28:38] : decide. I think I'm going to go ahead and put some white over this side too because I want to I think have more
[28:47] : distinctive stamping on this one than I had on the other ones. It's just about
[28:53] : time for a new tube of white paint.
[29:00] : And this is typical Manette, right? I started with writing. I started with a bunch of paint. And now here I am
[29:07] : covering everything up. And this is where we start to learn the magic of the intuitive creative process and in can
[29:16] : totally flow into other areas of our lives as well. And it's the joy of letting go. Letting go whether you love
[29:23] : it. Letting go whether you don't like it. And it feels great to uh cover it
[29:29] : all up. So here we have this very messy, very interesting piece of fabric. I'm
[29:36] : going to get all the paint off of this. And now I'm going to come in and do some
[29:43] : stencils and stamping. The first thing it needs, it definitely needs some contrast
[29:49] : on here. So, some black and some white. Get a little too much black down on my
[29:57] : palette here. I'm gonna grab my makeup sponge
[30:03] : and maybe Oh, I can use the So, the foam stamps,
[30:09] : what I noticed about stamping with them on the fabric was they actually took a
[30:14] : fair amount of paint to get a really nice stamp. Plus, these all these foam
[30:21] : stamps are um old and have lots of layers of paint on
[30:29] : them. No, Lorraine, I opted not to. I thought I didn't even wash it or
[30:35] : anything. Um I do have cotton muslin. If I had paint on cotton muslin, I will Oh
[30:41] : my gosh, that's so cute. Um, I would probably,
[30:47] : you know, wash the fabric first if you're using cotton, but this is just canvas. I did not I thought about adding
[30:54] : gesso, but the problem with adding gesso is that it makes the fabric really stiff
[31:00] : and because I know that I want to be stitching on this that I probably don't
[31:07] : want to do that. Okay, those trees are really cute and they're not going to fit
[31:13] : on one of my little doll templates. Where's my one of my This? In fact, this
[31:19] : is a a piece of muslin that I cut out to play with. Oh, I might get a tree on one
[31:26] : of them. Oh, look. I could just stamp that right on there. How fun is that?
[31:31] : and see what the muslin the the the paint comes right through right away.
[31:38] : But look at that. We got a fun stamp on there. So, she might get painted up, but on this heavier duck cloth, unless you
[31:45] : get it really wet, it tends to stay on the surface similar to canvas.
[31:53] : Any other questions? These are all great questions.
[31:58] : Let's see. What else do I want? Maybe some more abstract things.
[32:08] : I love these.
[32:15] : Maybe just some big dots.
[32:22] : And you can spend as much or as little time painting up the fabric. And I may
[32:31] : even one week start with just blank fabric that's white and simply add
[32:37] : stitching and collage. When I went to maybe add some other fabrics or collage
[32:44] : bits to this the painty dolls, it was too busy. It ended up being too much.
[32:52] : But I do like doing some collage. So, we're just getting some marks. It makes
[32:58] : such a difference when we just add this contrast on here.
[33:07] : Using up all that paint off my brayer
[33:13] : and having some of that black be darker, some of that black be much
[33:20] : paler. So, it doesn't have to all be super dramatic. What I did not pull out
[33:26] : was a place, some piece of paper to put my stencils on. I'm kind of digging this
[33:32] : one, but I'm thinking it wants to maybe be white, not black. And that feels like
[33:38] : enough black. But I still have all this black on my
[33:46] : So I'm going to set that one aside for a second. And I'm going to bring this one
[33:51] : back and instead with starting with writing, I am going to just use up some
[33:58] : of the black that is on my palette here. a different way to just
[34:07] : do some mark making.
[34:14] : And I love when you start with black
[34:20] : and paint up from it. You're never going to lose all of the black, right? And I
[34:25] : love printing on fabric. Look at that. How fun that is. This duck cloth is really taking the paint really nicely.
[34:34] : So, I'm appreciating that very much.
[34:39] : I love these little dots and these little flowers as well, but I also just
[34:45] : want to kind of clean things up. This is what I would do
[34:51] : if I were working on book pages. It's the same process, right? I'm just using up some of the the extra paint that I
[34:59] : have here on my palette. And we'll see what happens when I go back and now add
[35:07] : color over the the top of this one. What changes in the look? Do we get a darker,
[35:16] : more dramatic look? That contrast is kind of built in in a different way.
[35:26] : And so much of this is about experimenting to discover what it is
[35:31] : that we love and how we enjoy creating and working. And I mean, that's a really
[35:37] : fun black and white print right there. Makes me think of my friend Andrea
[35:43] : Shebaloo, who loves all things black and white. So, you could do a series of
[35:49] : black and white dolls that then the the color is added with stitch or with collage. So, this also feels fun, but I
[35:58] : kind of like even this grungier bit over here.
[36:04] : So, let's see if there's just a little bit more. We're just going to have this
[36:09] : nice grungy piece to start with. And that allowed me to clean up some of the
[36:16] : paint on my page. We'll set that aside to dry. We're going to bring this one back.
[36:26] : So, working with fabric, one of the things that's different than working on
[36:31] : paper is that the fabric holds water and this will stay much wetter for a longer
[36:39] : period of time. So, I'm noticing that I've added this black. If I try to add
[36:45] : any layers right now over the top of this or over the top of the black to
[36:51] : start to push some of that black back, bring back some of those pops of colors.
[36:56] : I'm just going to create a muddy mess. So, I'm going to hit this with my craft
[37:02] : dryer and see if I can dry it up a little bit
[37:09] : because I love all this black, but it's more black probably than I want to have on the fabric.
[37:25] : And it would be really easy to spend an afternoon
[37:31] : painting up your fabric for the whole month and letting that get good and dry.
[37:40] : So, I painted mine one day and then traced and cut the dolls the next day.
[37:47] : [Music] All
[38:03] : right. It's probably not completely dry, but it's drier. So, what I said at the
[38:08] : beginning was I'm such a fan of batch creating for a project like this. And
[38:15] : so, you could easily create all the paint
[38:21] : for the whole or all the substrate for the whole month. Whether you do it on paper, if you do it on paper, use a
[38:28] : heavyweight mixed media paper or uh even just a card stock or watercolor paper
[38:35] : would work as well, but it's not as flexible. So, um like just a Canson 98
[38:41] : pound mixed media paper would be perfect for this.
[38:48] : This time I'm just going to get some more color in here. We're going to start to push some of that black.
[38:56] : I know the goal is to make a paper chain that I will uh literally hang in my
[39:03] : office through the month of November to remind me of all the things that I am
[39:09] : grateful for.
[39:15] : All right, just start to layer this up.
[39:23] : And I love translating, you know, mixed media processes. This is still pretty wet. That I would normally do on paper
[39:32] : to fabric, right? So again, it's that just that idea of how can we take
[39:40] : something we love from one process like art journaling and move it into other
[39:46] : things like making a fabric paper doll chain. So, we're still using the same practices, the same processes
[39:58] : and just doing different substrates and stitching them into different forms. Right? If you love
[40:05] : painting on fabric like this, this is a great way to make your own journal
[40:11] : covers as well. Let's see.
[40:24] : And all my I realized all my little foam stamps are kind of getting old and stiff
[40:30] : and it's probably time to make some new stamps. Look, as soon as I put that white on there, all of a sudden, we're
[40:37] : bringing brightness back, texture back.
[40:50] : And remember, you never have to use all of a stamp. Use parts and pieces of a
[40:56] : stamp.
[41:01] : And because I know I want to bring back some of the the pops of yellow and pink, I will probably
[41:09] : come right back over those stamps with some of those bright pops of color.
[41:19] : And it doesn't matter how busy this gets because remember we're going to be
[41:26] : looking at it in sort of smaller bits and pieces. And this is definitely about
[41:32] : not being attached to the outcome of the hole, but about looking at, oh, like I'm
[41:40] : looking at this, and how cute would this be for the bottom of a dress on one of
[41:46] : the dolls, right? So, just a lot of different ways, directions we can go
[41:52] : with this. All right, I want to get some of these
[41:58] : fall leaves on here. I'm going to start with some yellow and then maybe go with
[42:03] : some red. And this is such a perfect oak leaf
[42:09] : here. And actually, if I use this blue, I might even get a little green out of
[42:17] : there. We'll see. So, you can just kind of see that on there. Definitely want to do
[42:24] : this where it's going to show. So, if you've watched any of my older mixed
[42:30] : media lessons, still yellow is one of those colors
[42:36] : that's extremely transparent. It's really hard to find an opaque yellow.
[42:43] : So, it's going to nicely show some of the the colors that are underneath. And
[42:48] : if you want that yellow to be more vibrant
[42:55] : and to stand out more, you can add a little bit of white to it. Or you can
[43:01] : paint white on your surface first, let it dry, and then add your yellow back on
[43:08] : top of that.
[43:14] : Okay. Loving all the leaves. That's feeling nice and fall colored. I'm also
[43:21] : really loving the pops of yellow. I'm going to do a little more yellow. And then I think I'm going to come in and
[43:27] : mix just a spot of red with that yellow and see if we can get some nice oranges
[43:35] : there. We have had such a spectacular
[43:40] : fall season. So much amazing color in the trees from
[43:46] : the beautiful reds of some of the maples to the yellow gold of the aspens.
[43:59] : Trying to vary the direction of the leaves so that they're going different
[44:05] : directions. And I'm loving I used a similar palette to the other one, less
[44:12] : the red oxide and I use different stencils. So, this set of dolls is going
[44:17] : to look very different even though a lot of the the colors are the same.
[44:29] : You just finished your templates, at least two. Not sure there will be more. Yay. So, you drew your own templates. I
[44:35] : love that. Love it. Love it. So, for those of you
[44:40] : who like to draw your own, do that. For those of you that would like to have the
[44:49] : template done for you, I have created a template for you. And if you're on the
[44:54] : Paperd Doll Chronicles email list, it's sitting in your email. And if you would
[45:00] : like to get on that list, then we can make sure we get you that stencil.
[45:07] : Okay. The poinsetta shape here may be a little Christmy, but it's turning out as a really pretty standout shape here.
[45:18] : So, I'm noticing there's kind of some empty space here and a sort of a a busy
[45:25] : space here. like that pattern feels a little too bold and busy. And I may even
[45:32] : want like a nice dark deep green on here to pop some of those trees back out.
[45:42] : Let's see. And I'm just moving the color around the page.
[45:50] : Little seed pods are cute. Making sure I have little pops of that red.
[45:57] : around this substrate here around the fabric. So, I want to bring in some pops of that
[46:05] : vibrant pink back in. I think I'm going to give it a try and see.
[46:13] : And I'm just kind of pausing to look. So the white is almost feeling too bold
[46:22] : and geometric where so much of this is
[46:27] : very organic. So I'm just noticing it's not good, bad, right or wrong. But what
[46:34] : if I came in? Let's see.
[46:40] : Oh, I love those big bold shapes. Look at these cute little rainbows here.
[46:49] : And I could bring back some dots in some different colors,
[46:54] : but I'm also kind of digging. This would be a fun pattern.
[47:04] : All right. So, this is it's all about experimentation, right? It's just try it and see what happens.
[47:13] : And if I don't like what I create, the trick is to
[47:18] : just keep going. Just keep adding more layers. It's just paint
[47:25] : and scraps of fabric.
[47:30] : Okay, that's exactly what it needed. It just needed something to kind of break up the little bit of patterns that were
[47:40] : I wasn't loving. bring back something a little more organic. Bringing back just
[47:46] : parts of the pattern, not that whole pattern. Not even trying to make it super opaque, but it just is somehow
[47:54] : kind of pulling everything back together again
[48:01] : in a way that somehow feels right. I couldn't explain to you why.
[48:14] : Okay, now I feel a little happier with all of it.
[48:20] : And I am going to bring back some of these pops of vibrant pink.
[48:27] : And I wonder if I also have
[48:33] : I do maybe also I love my fluorescent. So, let's see if there's a little
[48:42] : some little bits of fluorescent orange. I'm just going to use my fingers.
[48:48] : I love spirals. And it's a little hard to see in the camera. I'll zoom in here
[48:54] : in a second. But in
[49:00] : my perspective, that just bold fluorescent orange is just exactly what
[49:08] : this needed to lighten it up. And I'm going to do a little bit of the orange
[49:15] : and maybe a little bit of that pink as well.
[49:20] : Again, I'm just using my fingers. Your fingers are such a great tool for mark
[49:26] : making.
[49:32] : And I'm trying not to mush it into the fabric too much because that fabric is
[49:38] : still quite wet. And I'm wondering if that
[49:45] : put a couple of these rainbows in here with the pink. Let's just see what'll happen.
[49:56] : And then this will dry completely and I will
[50:06] : cut paper dolls out of it. So some happy little pink rainbows.
[50:14] : Again, I'm just going for shape because we're going to cut this all up. And I'm going to show you in a minute what that
[50:22] : might look like. So like the yellows, the fluorescents are very transparent.
[50:31] : So they're going to show best where there is already some lighter paint
[50:38] : on the surface. So, I'm just gonna come in with that finger and mix this in right over the top
[50:47] : of some of these white lines, which also just is going to soften that white up a
[50:53] : little bit. I got pretty good coverage on this.
[51:00] : Kind of mix those two together. You can tell I love my fluorescents
[51:07] : there or everything's a little bit
[51:12] : well used. And I'm noticing there's no white and no
[51:20] : pop of color right here in the center. So, you know, I can put just some
[51:27] : little bit of that fluorescent in here to brighten that up, but it also feels like it needs a little bit of white
[51:35] : brought back in. See if I can get just a little bit
[51:40] : white. And once this is dry, you could come back in and spend as much time as
[51:46] : you wanted with Postca markers or other supplies that you love to continue to
[51:53] : make marks and add details. I'm looking at this thinking, oh, I want to come in
[52:00] : with my Stabilo and maybe even
[52:05] : outline. And remember, this is water soluble, so
[52:11] : it's okay to go over paint. And maybe I want to give some of these
[52:19] : shapes a little definition. It's actually scratching into the wet paint. But look what a difference it makes just
[52:25] : to come in and add a little
[52:34] : contrast again. Again, again, I got paint all over the pencils. Oh, I'm starting the day with painty hands.
[52:40] : Makes me so happy. So, this time I'm going to use my my sponge again, but I'm
[52:45] : going to use this nice thin edge edge. And so, I can just do a little mark
[52:52] : making.
[52:58] : I don't need a lot of white brought back, but it felt like it just needed a
[53:04] : little bit. And if I want to soften that up, I can just take a little bit of that
[53:10] : away. But I've got that white underneath there.
[53:17] : White is also great for just like we did with the black, maybe coming in and
[53:24] : adding some highlights, maybe giving some definition to things.
[53:33] : Maybe I want to bring that spiral back.
[53:39] : I love these little seed pods, but that red got a little bit
[53:46] : lost. So again, you can have more fun
[53:52] : with the details. So, you can keep this as simple or as complex and layered as
[54:02] : you want to. And you can never have too many dots on a piece of art. Just
[54:09] : saying. This brush isn't making very round dots.
[54:15] : They're a little more blobby. All right. Loving the white dots. it
[54:21] : feels like it's perking it up. And those will be fun on the pattern and the
[54:28] : design. And this is where it's hard to know when do you stop, right? When you're painting
[54:35] : up a piece like this, well, remember this is just the first layer because as
[54:40] : you cut out the dolls and you're going to start to see
[54:45] : different things and different parts and pieces of each little story emerge,
[54:53] : you can always add more paint, more stencils, more details as you go along.
[55:01] : But here is my crazy painty piece of fabric. I will let this fabric get
[55:07] : completely dry. And then once it is dry,
[55:13] : see if I have a little scrappy bit. Oh, I didn't bring the scrappy bits.
[55:19] : What we're going to do is, and I just used a black marker to trace my
[55:26] : templates, but you could also turn the paper over and trace your templates on
[55:32] : the back side of the p the the fabric as well. But you want to start to kind of
[55:39] : just I love the simplicity of this one, too. I may have to do some dolls out of
[55:44] : this one that I can add to. So, these both feel different and unique and fun.
[55:50] : And I'm trying not to drop my fabric into all of the paint, but we're going
[55:57] : to go from these lovely painty pieces of fabric to our paper dolls. Right. So,
[56:06] : here's our template. That's one of the templates. I didn't cut the other one out yet. Right. And we're going to end
[56:12] : up with our daisy chain. I haven't connected these because I'm not sure
[56:19] : they're quite finished. Next week, we'll talk about prompts. My
[56:24] : goal is to get the dolls made. And then each day of the month throughout the
[56:31] : month of November, I will just take a pen, any kind of pen or pencil.
[56:38] : I love it as it is too, Tori. and I think it's done for now. Um, and I will just take a pen or a pencil and write
[56:45] : that day's gratitude on the back of the doll. And then they will all get
[56:51] : stitched or glued together. I also wanted to show you
[56:58] : where's Oh, here it is. So, this glue is absolutely amazing. It has a very fine
[57:04] : pin tip. It's barely art precision craft glue. I used it to glue on I also used
[57:13] : uh just fabric glue, but it this was this was actually better to glue on the
[57:18] : rick rack and to I stitched her hair, but then I glued her hair and I glued
[57:24] : her hair. This is super strong and super precise glue. So, it is a a great option
[57:32] : and it's not the cheapest glue. It does dry. I got it on Amazon. So, Barely Art
[57:38] : Precision Craft Glue, but I've had this for over a year. It lasts forever. It does not take very much of this glue to
[57:47] : work with. But I am so excited to see how we each go from our fun painty
[57:55] : substrate, and let me move these out of the way
[58:02] : to our variety of dolls. So, here's the painted
[58:08] : unstitched, unfinished ones that I cut out already in a chain. And then here
[58:15] : are some of the ones that I have been working on that are already decorated.
[58:21] : So have fun. This is the beginning of the project. I want you to take this
[58:27] : week and next as that chance to get your dolls ready so that when we get to
[58:34] : November 1st, you can be focused on adding the daily details as well as
[58:42] : writing your daily gratitude. So, I think this is going to be a fun project.
[58:47] : I think for one of the weeks in November and put these on white so we'll get a
[58:53] : better cover picture here. Um so that uh
[58:59] : we can see what it's like to do these on paper. So one week I'll do a paper version as well. She always feels like
[59:06] : she just wants to be right in the center of everything. But you get an idea of
[59:11] : where we're going with these. Super cute, super fun.
[59:19] : Gratitude goddess daily chain. So, it's going to be super fun month. I'm excited
[59:25] : to be starting early and getting ready ahead of time so that I don't feel like I'm coming from behind for this year's
[59:32] : gratitude project. As always, thank you for joining me live. Thank you for those of you catching the replay. Leave me a
[59:40] : little comment, like the video, just let other people know. And I'd love for you
[59:45] : to share this project on Instagram and encourage people to come and play along
[59:51] : with us. Thank you so much. I'm Dr. Manette Ryarden. This is Painting in Your PJs with Manette, and I will see
[59:58] : you guys next week with our weekly prompts and ideas for continuing to
[1:00:04] : decorate our dolls. So have fun, enjoy, and awesome Anna. Have fun painting up
[1:00:10] : your fabric, painting up your paper. I'll see you guys all soon. Bye bye.