Maya's New Fashion, Shoes, and Exciting News

Maya's new handmade shoes

First seen here, where the steps taken to transform Big Beautiful Dolls Dasia into a one-of-a-kind Maya Angelou doll were shared, Maya now has a better fashion and sandals.  I was never happy with the sock dress I made for her originally.

Let's begin with the sandals.  The sandals that came with the fashion Maya now wears are too long for her feet.   So I made replacement sandals using tan foam, white elastic painted to match the foam, and brown beading cord, which was used as piping around the soles of the sandals.  Aleene's Tacky glue holds everything together.   See the side view of the sandals below:

The side view better illustrates brown piping used between the innersole and the bottom of the sandal, which also has a low heel added for the doll's not flat and not high-heeled foot.  The elasticized back band creates a nice ankle strap to hold these on securely, as illustrated next.

Maya models her new sandals.

A few weeks ago, while searching through my 18-inch doll clothing to find fashions for Little T, I stumbled upon Hearts 4 Hearts Rahel's original fashion (Rahel now wears her own school uniform).  I immediately visualized Maya wearing the Ethiopian inspired fashion that had been stored for years along with clothing of similar size.

Rahel's fashion and the handmade sandals suit Maya much better than the red sock dress she originally wore. 

I was amazed at how well the fashion fits her full-figured body.  The multiple beaded necklaces work well to shield the area between her face and neck.  (Creating a better face for the doll using the same process as before, but with a full color ink cartridge, is still a plan.)

In the above photo, Maya poses with my autographed copy of Maya Angelou's book, Mom & Me & Mom.  I won the book (as described in the original post about Dasia-turned-Maya) in a contest held by author, Jo Maeder.  Dr. Angelou originally autographed the book to Jo.  Below Dr. Angelou's autograph and inscription are Jo's autograph and inscription to me.

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The Exciting News
I maintain a small collection of Black Heritage stamps issued by the US Postal Service and stamp lapel pins featuring African American leaders.  On February 23, 2015, the US Postal Service announced its plan to honor Maya Angelou with a Forever Stamp! Read more about their plan here.

News of the Forever Stamp makes me as equally proud as it has obviously made Dr. Angelou's family who posted the following Facebook status update on 02/25/15:  We are extremely grateful of the honor that is being bestowed upon our matriarch as the U.S. Postal Service prepares a stamp in recognition of the life work of Dr. Maya Angelou. More details to come, we’ll keep you posted. The Angelou Johnson family.


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