"I find many people tend to believe my name is a pseudonym. It isn't," she said.

"My real last name is Kläy which is a popular Swiss name. My father was encouraged by a US immigration officer to change our last name to Klay. Then there's my first name, which was so given by accident. My mother asked her friend which name she liked best, 'Jean or Uh, Leah' and her friend replied Aleah is good. My middle name became Jean," she explained.

Her name turned out to be a foreshadowing of her future creative endeavors. Tiny, happy animals and Art Doll characters populate her world in many different attitudes. Recently their attitudes have been branching out and stretching her creativity into new directions.

"I was working on a sleeping Hedgehog doll. It was only going to be a sleeping Hedgehog. But when the doll was finished I thought it needed more. So I took an old glove as a kind of sleeping bag, with his two feet sticking out of the glove.

"Then I thought he needs a bed. So I put him in his glove and then in a basket. It was cute, but that wasn't enough. I just kept thinking of things to add, then eventually it got to a point where I started to imagine a mean little fairy's voice.

"This cute sleeping Hedgehog was being transformed into an innocent victim of a fairytale. I've been calling this mean little fairy The Unlucky. This faery's name never came to me, but I imagined his voice so well I could almost hear it. I ended up writing a short poem for this fairytale. The poem was meant to be as though it was written by The Unlucky. As I thought up the Poem I imagined the words being spoken in the evil little fairy's crackly voice. It was somewhat creepy, but very entertaining."

Her miniatures vary in scale, due in part to the challenge involved. But during her early sculpting days they stayed very small.

"I started out making miniatures because of needing to conserve supplies. I've sculpted since I was young and I usually bought my own supplies so I'd make them last by making tiny things," she said.

Inspiration in those days took the form of her brother's role playing game figures or mini figures like Hagen Renaker animals. Today she looks to several different sculptors of Art Dolls for inspiration as well as The Lord of the Rings trilogy and basically anything she sees!

"My mind seems to be over-stimulated. I imagine characters as I'm running errands or working. I'll see an animal, insect, or plant and I'll imagine it as a fairy or I'll imagine there is a character hiding out just around the plant. It is a very entertaining way to see the world. I try to show what I imagine through my sculptures," she explained.

Her creations are for sale on CDHM Gallery, Ebay, and Etsy from US$15.00-$500.00.

A clay tool with a needle end helps her create everything she makes.

"There are two reasons it's my most valuable tool. First, it's the tool I use most often. Second, it was given to me and made by Art doll Sculptress Carie Schoen," said Klay.

The hardest thing she does is making an armature that can hold the weight of the sculpt for larger dolls, and sculpting accurate details for the smallest.

"I have many ideas I'd like to see finished. Eventually I'd like to make animations. I want to do well enough to live a good life creating and I'd like to try to win some awards and get into some well known shows and fairs."

She is well on her way to wide spread recognition with collectors and was published in the October 2008 edition of American Miniaturist.

"I like to get up knowing I create things that other people enjoy."