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Too Hot for Ice Cream

7/31/2015

Tillie and Cinnamon were hot, so they asked for an ice cream cone to help them cool off. So I made them both one. But it was so hot outside that the ice cream didn't stand a chance, and very little actually made it to their mouthes.

Instead it melted all over their hands, their clothes, and even ran down their legs.
What a hot sticky mess!

So they both needed a bath, and I had to wash all their clothes - the chocolate
ice cream had even seeped right through Tillie's dress into her underwear!

So, next time I serve ice cream, they'll just have to eat it inside, in the air-conditioned house.

Snow Queen Costume for Sale

7/30/2015

I've put the Snow Queen costume up for sale

A New Wig for Milo

7/29/2015

I wasn't totally happy with Milo's shiny straight hair, so spent the past two days making him a new wig out of mohair. The KIDs have such large upper heads that I needed to keep any bulkiness to a minimum, so I tried a new technique which is way more labour intensive, but yielded a much better result.

I separated the mohair curls and cut them into thin 1 3/4" lengths, then stitched down the middle of it onto a line drawn on paper. But at the end of the row, instead of turning around and folding the mohair over on itself, like I used to always do, I stitched a second row 1/8" away from the first. After removing the paper, I pinned the mohair strips onto a plastic-wrap-covered placemat, and spread 'Gem Tack' glue along the stitching lines. The Gem Tack glue says it's 'washable', so I figured it would be safe to use on a wig that would probably need to be wet when styling. After the glue dried, I cut between the two rows of stitching to make two separate wefts of fine mohair, which i then hand-stitched onto a crochet wig cap. I also figured out how to make a much flatter crown, and the finished wig wasn't nearly as bulky as if I'd used hot glue. Then I covered Milo with plastic wrap, saturated the wig in styling gel, put it on his plastic-covered head, and styled it. After the wig dried, I removed the plastic wrap.....

I think this new wig looks so much nicer on him....

..and Milo posing with Lonnie....

I don't know if anyone noticed, but when Charie painted Milo, she also modified his default
hands, bending some of his fingers, so his hands wouldn't look quite so 'feminine'.

Cool Pictures for a Very Hot Day

7/29/2015

I've not been doing much lately. It's week six of ear infection and non-stop headaches, plus it's boiling hot outside. Definitely not in the mood for doll work. So I'm spending some time trying to finish the photos from our trip to the Pacific back in 2012. We are supposed to go there again this fall, and figured I'd really like to have the photos from the last trip finished before we go and I take a ton more. It was a four-week trip across the US in the end of May, then after visiting out son in Vancouver, we headed back home across Canada in early June.

It was a very rainy spring, and as we headed up the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise to Jasper, the rain turned into snow at the higher elevations. These photos were taken on June 9th, 2013, as we headed north up the Icefields Parkway in a blizzard. Yes in June!

Battling the Elements

The Icefields Parkway

The woods at the Icefields Campground are full of snow

Tangle Falls through the Snow

My Snow Princess

7/27/2015

I finished reworking the Snow Queen costume for my Hope, so I took her out
first thing this morning (before it got too hot) to take some photos, but it was
too sunny. Definitely not the right look for a winter Princess.....

So I tried again inside, in front of my kitchen curtains.

But the lighting was rather poor, so her back-lit white hair ended up not working. Then I
found a different wig - a very long, dark brown, human hair one. And in the afternoon,
the sunlight bouncing off the kitchen windowsill, produced a much better lighting....

So I photographed her in front of the curtains again. She looks so much nicer!!

I received a "Shipping Notice" for my Whispering Grass Racoon last week, but he's still not showing up on tracking. Kind of expected he wouldn't. I know that "shipping notices" from Jpopdolls aren't really notices that the doll has shipped - it just means they've printed out the shipping label, and that automatically triggers Paypal to send me an email giving me the tracking number for whenever the parcel gets taken to the Post Office. Sigh. With them it's always, wait, wait, and wait while the months pass, the expected delivery date comes and goes, then wait some more. I ordered the Raccoon back in October, last year, and the estimated delivery date was "April/May". But I know better than to count on those dates. It wouldn't be so bad if there was some communication, or updates on shipping delays, but there never is. And they even have a Pre-Order Status chart on their website - but it doesn't get updated with new arrival dates when the original dates come and go. I find it all very frustrating and quite unpleasant, and it rather ruins the excitement of getting a doll, but unfortunately it's the only place one can get the little ball-jointed animals by Whispering Grass. So I have to put up with it. But other than maybe a few more animals by this wonderful artist, I certainly won't be buying anything else from them.

I'm getting way too old to wait 8 to 10 months for a doll to arrive. There's enough other beautiful dolls out there, and they come in a mere fraction of the time. Now Iplehouse - there's a company worth buying from. And Junkyspot. And the secondary market....

Costume Reconstruction

7/25/2015

The Snow Queen costume felt rather grungy with 25 years of accumulated dust, so i decided to wash it. Some gentle hand-washing in detergent in the sink, followed by a rinse in fabric softener.
I was surprised just how gray the water went. The costume parts were hung outside to dry....

The costume had been sewn directly onto the doll, never intended to come off, so now the challenge is to turn it into a removable BJD costume. Fortunately when I used to make the dresses for my art dolls, the entire gown was made in one piece, with the back left open, and the underarm and sleeve seams left open. Those seams were handsewn after the costume was pinned on the doll. So it was easy enough to pick apart with my seam ripper. Now I'm in the process of sewing binding on the dress back opening, and onto the edges of the lower sleeves, which will have to remain open and do up with snaps to accommodate the doll's hands.

The biggest problem will be the neckline. The neck of the original costume was way too narrow for a BJD, and there was glue involved, which meant it couldn't be picked apart, so I had to cut it off. Which means making a whole new neckline and adding it to the top of the bodice, and make it look like it was always like that.

Reworking a Snow Queen

7/24/2015

I didn't have room in my doll cabinets for my old Snow Queen, so have decided to take her apart and rework her costume to fit a Kaye Wiggs MSD. That old Snow Queen was one of the very first doll heads I ever sculpted, and several years later, in May of 1990, I made her into a doll with a very elaborate dress. Which means the costume is over 25 years old! It was an incredible amount of work, and should make a great BJD costume.

So yesterday I removed the costume, and threw the doll into the garage to await the next garbage pick-up. The clothes feel rather dusty, so I'm thinking a quick dip into some soapy water, a rinse, and then hang them outside to dry. I just hope all the rhinestones were not glued on with a water-base glue, otherwise I'm going to end up with some sparkly rinse water. I guess I'll find out soon.

Lily and the Gang

7/22/2015

Took a photo for Donna, who wanted to know how Lily fit in with the Iplehouse BIDs.
Perfectly fine!

I borrowed a dress and Iplehouse wig from Soa. Both are way too big,
but she still looks beautiful in them.

Shoes for Milo

7/22/2015

Black frog shoes just weren't doing it for me, so I decided to make some short boots for Milo. I have several pairs of nice brown boots that would have fit, but they are too high, and they are all already taken. So I traced the main boot parts, and soles, onto some paper towel to make a pattern. I sewed the pieces together, inserted eyelets, then glued the uppers onto cardboard soles. Then I added double soles of thick leather, and dirtied them with paint.

The toe area on homemade shoes tends to always be a bit too flat, so I spread some glue onto two small oval foam bits, and rammed them into the toes of the boots. The boots look rather rugged, and worn, but that's perfect for Milo's character. Now he has appropriate footwear, and his 'wrapped leggings' no longer look too bulky, and they don't stand out as being too wide for his shoes.

Playing with Lily

7/21/2015

I replaced Lily's eyes and went a size smaller to 8 mm. Now there's a bit more white
showing, so her eyes don't look quite so dark. I also tried on a different blonde wig.

I'm working on a bodice pattern, and found my Narae bodice comes closest, so altered it to fit Lily. Only problem is, Lily has lovely breasts when she's naked, but her nipples are too high on her breasts to fit nicely under clothes, and they show through. I imagine it would look really wrong if she had on a tight stretchy top.

The bodice darts end at the fullness of her breast, yet her nipples are above that. So she can't have really low necklines or the nipples will show. They may just have to be sanded off. Ouch!

She's so beautiful!

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