Blog Archives

Candy Apples

10/31/2023

Not only is it Halloween today, but October 31st is also 'National Caramel Apple Day'.

I remember many years ago when I was young and still going out Trick-or-Treating, there was one house at the end of the street that always had candy apples to give out. Of course nowadays nothing homemade would be allowed on Halloween and would probably end up straight in the trash, but in those days we really looked forward to receiving that special treat.

So I made some candy apples for my Trick-or-Treaters to enjoy....

In the Mirror

10/30/2023

Every week my sister and I get together to work through a few more sections of my Fantasy Fashions book, and we are finally at the costumes for my Fashion sized dolls. It will include a section featuring the costumes form Phantom of the Opera, and that includes Christine's robe and corset set that she wears in her dressing room after her performance, when the Phantom appears and takes her down to his lair. I made the outfit four years ago, inspired by the movie version, and even though several dolls have worn it over the years, I had never photographed 'Christine' in it in a proper scene from the production. Until last week.

I set up her dressing room filled with many arrangements of congratulatory flowers.

And among them was the single red rose with the black ribbon bow...

...from the Phantom, who was watching her through the mirror...

She had the uneasy feeling that there was someone there...

Little did she realize the adventure that was about to unfold.

A Hug

10/29/2023

Yesterday, October 28th was National 'Hug a Sheep' Day....

One Last Knight

10/28/2023

Back when my sister and I started planning my Fantasy Fashions book, there were three costumes that I felt really needed to go into the final section with all the Fashion sized costumes. But none had been made yet. I've since completed two of them; Elf Agnes' gown, and the Phantom as the Red Death...

The third, and final one is a knight costume for Matias. I decided that I didn't want to make him the same kind of knight outfit as my three Iplehouse FID guys. I wanted to do something different. In the meantime Matias was standing around waiting for me to decide what I wanted to make for him, so I made him a robe to keep him warm...

Years ago when my sister and I were making dolls together, we made one of King Arthur. I loved that doll and regretted not keeping him...

So I thought I'd make Matias a knight outfit inspired by Arthur's costume. I had been gifted a set of SartoriaJ's knight gloves that were part of Matias' full set, and they would be perfect for it. I'd use real metal chainmail instead of the knit chainmail from years ago. And he'd get plate armour sculpted out of Aves Apoxie. And since he was in service to the Elf King, and the Elven army had a dragon as their mascot, Arthur's dragon would be perfect too. So I chose two red brocades for the surcoat and started work on it....

It would be a lot easier to add the dragon motif before finishing the surcoat, while it was still flat, so I drew a dragon design onto the paper pattern piece....

Then I cut out the dragon and traced it onto the surcoat, and painted it with acrylic folk art paint.

It didn't have to be perfect, since I was going to embroider over the paint and add all the details with embroidery floss. But painting the background saves a lot of work since the entire figure won't need to be filled in...

The finished dragon. It looks like it's completely embroidered, but it isn't. The original paint layer shows through more than half of it. I find this technique is a great way to create something that looks like it's heavily embroidered, but in a fraction of the time.

All it still needed was a shiny red bead for the eye.

Then the surcoat was sewn together. It still needs some stains and wrinkles, but I'll do that later.

Meanwhile, Matias needed to attend a party, and he needed something to wear, so he borrowed Jude's formal tunic, and I tamed his hair some..

The next part of his knight costume that needed to be made was the tunic underneath the surcoat. Since Matias was wearing Jude's tunic, I thought I'd just try the surcoat over it to see how it fit and looked, and to see if the pattern needed any adjusting. I also switched his one hand to the resin armour glove....

I thought he looked great, although he definitely won't be getting white ruffles at the wrist or neck. He will get a black tunic, onto which I will sew the chainmail sleeves and 'skirt'. Then once that's done, I'll wrap him in plastic and attempt to sculpt some armour pieces for around his neck and over his shoulders. But first he needs everything under the armour made so I can make it the right size to fit over top. I just hope I can do something fine and fancy enough to go with those amazing gloves. And finally he'll need belts, and a sword of his own. But one thing at a time.

Three Guys

10/27/2023

Between everything else going on I'm continuing to try taking photos of the missing costumes for my Fantasy Fashions book. Even though Maya and Narin, who are two of my oldest guys, have appeared in many stories over the years, there were never any good full length photos showing their costumes. So I had to take some. First I tried Maya in the castle interior set...

He's a Doll Leaves 'M', and was a gift from the company twelve years ago.

Then there's Narin, who was purchased eleven years ago during the D'Storic 'Goodbye Bimong' Event, when their contract with him expired. Narin never had a nice outfit until last year when he came to the castle and became the King's secretary.

That's when I made him a new wig and outfit....

And then because the two of them would be on a two-page spread with Kyle, my very first Iplehouse JID guy who arrived eleven years ago, I took a photo of the three of them together....

But the verdict was that they blended into the background too much, so I went back to my initial idea of taking the guys to the lake. So, when it was dry and cloudy first thing this morning, I packed them up and we went down to the beach. It was really beautiful down there.

I didn't feel like laying down on the wet sand, so we brought along our projector stand. No sooner were we set up, than the sun came out from behind the clouds into a bright blue sky. Good thing I had remembered to bring my big white umbrella to shade the dolls...

And that's a wrap. Time to head home and see what's next on my To-Do list....

Sands of Time

10/25/2023

Every now and then I'm inspired to take some photos for no other reason than I enjoy a challenge. Two months ago I picked up an old hour glass at Value Village, and I wanted to see what I could do with it. Then I decided my Wizard needed a new hat, like a stocking cap, so that meant another trip to Value Village to find an old scarf in some suitable fabric, to make it from.

The photo session became a study in dramatic lighting, with the Wizard and his companion watching the sand trickle away in the hour glass...

Lisa and Faye

10/24/2023

Still continuing to take photos for the costume book of any outfits I didn't have any full length portrait shots of. I needed some of the last two KID size Medieval gowns I made, which were Lisa's gown and Faye's birthday dress.

First Faye, who is Bianca and Yvette's little sister. I had made her a new gown of her own for her birthday.

And I needed a photo of Lisa, who just arrived last year, and finally had a dress of her own...

She is my very first, and only doll, in the Iplehouse Peach Gold resin colour.

I was surprised how pretty it was, but then it's the older, more translucent resin, before they changed the formula and everything went matte.

And we needed a close up photo of the two of them with Paige in her blue dress..

I've never been all that happy with Faye, and had wondered if maybe a different wig would help. So I had ordered a blonde Monique 'Lovely' wig from Facets Boutique. Even though they used to sell many of the various Monique wigs, most have been sold out ever since the company went out of business. But Facets still had plenty of 'Lovely' wigs in all sorts of colours. I'm guessing most people are put off by the awful promo photo of that particular wig, so there hasn't been much demand for it, so it was still available in almost all the colours. But it is really a very nice wig, and I ordered it in blonde in two sizes. I tried one on Faye...

I think I like her much better like this....

So I had to reshoot the group photos as well....

So, that's another group done.

Two Little Medieval Girls

10/23/2023

I have a LOT going on right now. In addition to processing trip photos, preparing more segments to the continuing story about Baron and Naomi and their twins, taking photos for special days and anything else that inspires me, plus working on Matias's costume, my sister and I continue to get together weekly to continue working on my Fantasy Fashions book. It's been in the works for months now, and each time we get together we tackle another section or two.

On Saturday we started working on the children's Medieval costumes. Even though the first three were made way back in 2013, and have been worn in countless stories over the years, there were no full length photos of two of them. We needed them photographed outside in a garden setting, and with a frost warning threatening to put an end to my flowers last night, it was yesterday or never. So I redressed Elin, put on my winter coat, and arrange some million bells.....

Then there was Nami, who has been a Princess, as part of the Royal family for the past few years. But there were no clear, full length photos of her, and we needed one of her as well.