Has your love of Alice never left?

Do you secretly want to live in a world where fairies are just out of sight; strange Gothic creatures do exist; and wonder can abound?

That is the world I bring to life with my dolls and creations. These dolls are made for art collectors who are looking for the unusual, things that are unique. Each doll is a one off. To own one of my dolls is to feel a sense of charm, with your own little piece of wonderland. You will feel like your own enchanted character has come to live with you. And be filled with awe each time you look at them. They will bring a smile each time you pass by and reach out and re-arrange a hand or skirt.

I know; I can and do spend hours gazing at them.

Dolls come alive

A doll starts with a basic concept, a wish to make a creepy doll, a whimsical doll or whatever is gnawing away in my mind.  But once work starts the character of the doll takes over and no matter how hard I try to resist the dolls finish up the way that they want to be and not the way I had planned. If they want to be happy and not creepy then they will be. And likewise the other way round.

I make all my dolls by hand; some are all cloth, and some are mixed media. A lot of time goes into each one. Each face is hand painted, using different techniques and paints depending on the base material, watercolours for air-dry clay, pastels and fabric paints for cloth. And a recent discovery that oil paints work really well on polymer clay has opened up more doors for ideas to come rushing through.

Costumes are mainly hand sewn and I love to add a touch of embroidery and lace. Meaning I spend many evenings with my embroidery floss adding final details and flourishes. In winter, they often have scarves and shawls knitted for them using the finest wool and tiny thin needles. The dolls can be very fussy about what they want to wear so making sure that the fabric used is as close to the right scale thickness for the size of the doll as possible is very important. I like to find old vintage fabric and dresses too and recycle whenever I can. Then the beauty of a textile can live on in a new form even when the item it came from is no longer wearable. The dolls like that a lot.

My clay dolls are hand sculpted, no moulds are used and my wooden dolls are hand carved.

But why art dolls and where does the Honey Pot come in?

Good question, I have always loved creating and textiles although I had no formal training and went into the usual 9 to 5 office existence for the start of my adult life. Luckily, I was able to reconnect with my creativity making costumes and toys for my children when they came along.

9-5 was not for me

But a career in an office was never what I wanted. And after 25 years I managed to get out and set up a little business called Honey Pot Creations.

The first dolls I created were button jointed, cloth dolls, a style I now call my Bees Knees Art Dolls. But soon cloth dolls weren’t enough. The characters in my head demanded a medium that could be more delicate and emotive, so I started experimenting with clay. And then some of my dolls started to look sad, some even forlorn, with expressions that truly tug on your heart strings. And these are the characters I really love. Combining clay and cloth together to make one of a kind art dolls is really where I am happy, there is always a new chap waiting in the wings of my mind to breakout

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After a while I decided to drop the name Honey Pot and just go with Alison Jackson Art Dolls, and who knows if you have a doll with an old Honey Pot label, it might be worth more one day. But for now, I am very proud of all my dolls and my customers consider them all mini works of art.

It is really important to me that I am bringing a little bit more wonderland into the world. Which can’t be a bad thing.

Want to know more about the Honey Pot name?

Here is a blog post explaining more about my decision to change names…. read more

Great British Doll and Teddy Award 2015

I won the cloth doll section award when I entered this prestigious award in 2015. Sadly this was also the last year that the awards where held, so I was the last one awarded.

This is the pretty little ballerina doll I won with.

Some of my 5 star reviews

Checkout my Etsy store for more