DollsArtCats

I ended up making a separate bolero top and adding plastic raffia to the sleeves, and that was more like what I was interested in having for her. But I was so nervous about the cats eating the raffia that I didn't keep the rest of the package. Anything else I add to her outfit needs to be digestible!

"Just sit right back And you'll hear a tale A tale of a fateful trip, That started from this tropic port, Aboard this tiny ship." This is the final cover for Stuart Jaffee's "After The Crash" and he may not think the ship's resemblance to the Minnow of Gilligan's Island is a good thing, but it made me laugh all afternoon while I worked on it, and he said OK to the final! And here is where you would go for the final: http://www.stuartjaffe.com/blog/ and click on "After the Crash" cover revealed!

J and I went to mail some bills in Downers Grove, and passed this store window. We could not decide which was more disturbing, seeing someone in the pig's head mask or finding the Unicorn Head mask in your bed, as a warning from the Fairy mafia. We both agreed that the Squirrel Mask would scare the cats out of their little minds.

..Sleeping cats.

HerrZog also does amazing faceups, the link below is to her photostream, where you can see the full color version of her painted Migma. (I didn't want to hot link the image) HerrZog's Flickr There are also some very cute cat photos in the mix!

And yet another gorgeous Migma, this one painted by Arianne02 on Den of Angels ... she reminds me of a Botticelli nymph. I keep thinking I should look for the Vampire Migma head but then I would need another Super Gem body. Arianne did the faceup on my Shushu as well! Photo copyright C. Sorton, used with permission.

I had spent some time carefully arranging flowers in her hand, sat up and poof! Away they went and she sat down suddenly. It's windy again today--I don't know why Chicago doesn't have a forest of propellers on every roof; they would never need coal fired electricity again. Below is my grey cat wanting to taste Kalypso's wig, and Kalypso saying "No."

We has them. It must really be Spring!

I tried taking a few photos outside of Kalypso, my Minifee ShuShu-- but the wind was gusting up to 25 mph, so I gave up and came back in. The hydrangea needs to be planted tomorrow, it's from the hardware store and is dry already, if pretty. I'm just hoping no frost happens from now until fall.

If you click you will get the "big" version. This one leaves room for icons on the sides :) And look! A Migma in matching colors! I love how different they all look! http://www.flickr.com/photos/57213153@N07/6988093193/in/photostream

We went to the local arboretum today and it is huge. We drove around first for about 45 minutes and then parked and hiked another 5 miles or so. I would have taken photos of the daffodil fields... but they were full of people sleeping in them! So here are some sleeping turtles in the largest lake, instead.

I traded a head last week for an entire doll, a crabby Angel of Dream RuoFeng. I thought her cranky little face would make her a good companion for my equally grumpy Beryl. Angel of Dream dolls aren't prized by collectors, but I find they are well made and the sculpts are interesting, if quirky. I'll enjoy making her a wig and clothes. We went out for gelato and there was a new moon. The trees in person are white with cherry blossoms.

I'm not a vampire fan, but somehow I have ended up with... 4? 5? Usually someone knocks the teeth off the doll, then regrets it and sells it for cheap. Alejandro is unusual in that he still has his teeth, as well as a rocking faceup by Laura Buff. Buff had to give him a faceup because my cat bit this guy's nose. Buff fixed it by dipping Al's nose in hot water and disguised the other damage with a dashing scar. I still have to really watch my grey cat if I have Alejandro out for photos. My cat doesn't mind any of my other dolls--it might be because Alejandro looks a little like a cat himself, complete with gold cat eyes.

I don't like either of these...back to cutting more random fabric!

In the Lady Gaga sense only...it's actually well written! It was also fun to be able to do a cover in the style of Pino, who was a Big Name Romance Cover Artist in the 80's. (He had a budget for models to come pose, I have a budget for istockphoto). Title will be Falcon's Angel by Danita Minnis. I am so grateful I do not have to do the type for it..there is no room! And yet somehow April M. managed to get all the type on there and make it look so much slicker and more unified: http://www.liquidsilverbooks.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13387 (Plus you get the blurb here too).

...One of them, at least. It will look even better when the fountains are on and the pots have flowers in them. Definitely you would need a gardener if this was your lawn.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ornithoptera/6312036981/in/photostream I'm starting with a link because this is a photo of one of Ornithoptera's dolls--she collects all kinds of dolls, from bjd dolls to Pullips and even a rather good-looking GI Joe. The mysterious and beautiful Elsa is (I think) a dreaming Delf Lishe, maybe slightly modded. Hers looks so different from the Lishe I have. Below is my Citrine, an open-eyed Lishe...who hasn't been on a body for months, poor thing. Delf girl bodies are hard to find cheap, so Citrine has to time-share.

Just a quick pic of Sirocco on a stump in the back yard. There are all kinds of flowers coming up--I am more excited about the garden than I ever was about this house. Of course, the garden wasn't under a half inch of dust, and 6 foot long cobwebs when I first saw it, either. Plus outside there are big brown Midwestern squirrels. And they are BIG. And if you want to see a Russian Migma, go here and see Sion's gorgeous redhead: http://sion-photos.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d4q953d How do you know it's St. Patrick's Day in Aurora, Illinois? The mall fountain is green.

...in the Visitor Center. You can stand on the plate glass and look down and see the miniature version of the McCormick mansion and gardens. Among other things, McCormick owned and edited the Chicago Tribune and was a WWI veteran, which explains the odd fact that the gardens include a "tank petting zoo" on one end. J and I saved that for another day. I took a few photos, but it was still too early for much to be blooming in the beds, though it was almost 83 degrees and sunny. On St. Patrick's Day, in Chicago. We'll be back later in the season. The Pig Squeak looked fine, though.

Of the 11,000 pounds of household goods the movers shifted from New Jersey to Illinois,(and that is what it weighed) this was the only thing that broke. Just the toes and one foot on the plaster "Spring" caterpillar. A little paint and paperclay and he will be as good as new. The movers were great-- William B Meyer, based in the US Northeast. I'll use them again for the next big move. It was 80 degrees here today. The cats love it.

Sirocco got a necklace today, made from a piece of trim, some beads, and two locking nuts that I forgot to put back on the ceiling fan when I fixed it. I tell myself the screws fit better without them.

I am up waiting for a cat. He is supposed to be home by midnight, but once again he has forgotten his watch and his phone. This painting was a pain, it's almost 4 feet across; it lives in Washington, DC now.

This is some yarn from JoAnn's, made in Turkey: "Sensations-Beautiful", (which is probably a direct translation from the Turkish.) The sign on the rack said "Angel Hair" and since I was looking for wig yarn, I bought it. It's 3-ply, two curly strands and one "hairy" strand..and the "hairy" strand, once I flattened it out, said DOLL EYELASHES to me. I hate commercial doll eyelashes--half the time they are just the regular plastic ones you can get for humans at Target, just cut down and the price jacked up. Other times the lashes come on strings, looking like anorexic centipedes. They never look nice to me. But this hairy strand looks fantastic--it would need to be stiffened, maybe with acrylic medium, painted on wax paper so it will peel off. I'd try starch, but bugs find starch tasty, and I am not willing to invite little guests in. I already have imported mice; last night around 11:00 the cats brought in a field mouse and chased i...

I did take a flash picture too, but I don't like how they look--they are like bad party photos. So here is a grainy, no-flash photo of the progress on her outfit. Her shoes are too big (they belong to my Impldoll girls) and the wig is one that Cat gave me-- and now I think I like it better than the one I made! But more of the skirt is embroidered. I took a break from work and sat and watched TV this evening and stitched. Stripey cat "helped" most of the time. That shaggy yarn is irresistible.

Antoine the Were-Deer demonstrates that there are indeed snowdrops in my back yard. He is now on a sturdy Angel of Dream body,instead of his old hooved Resinsoul Mu body so he can stand unaided, and he has Soom girl hands, which were not flattering to the Soom girl, but are perfect for his fussy self. I still need to put magnets in his head for his antlers, which came off of a Christmas ornament. (My friend C found them for me at WalMart). His head is a very battered Juri07 B, but his paint hides most of it. Buff made his wonderful jacket.

No, the shoes have nothing to do with Rosa, who has a blog of dolls she made herself, also on Blogger: http://nenufarblanco.blogspot.com/ it's just that I think she doesn't want people to lift her images, so I put in one of my own. (those are the feet of a doll who is now living in New Zealand--I was happy to send the doll, but I regret giving up those shoes. Rosa made a mermaid I really liked. I have paperclay and sculpey in the fridge, I should use it. It's way cheaper than buying ball-jointed dolls, and I can still make wigs.

It must be spring, I'm sneezing, and the cat is shedding. And like in this photo, she has already found a fly to eat. And it was inside. The yard here has snowdrops and daffodils! I was so excited to see them come up under the broken beer bottles and bits of garbage bags! Now that there is no snow, cleanup will commence.

Such great (tiny) clothes!(These are all Iplehouse dolls Junior Iplehouse Dolls, and Baby Iplehouse Dolls) And here is an article on the artist who made them: http://www.bjdcollectasy.com/articles/martha-boers-antique-lilac.html And a link to her full site, where she sometimes sells bjd clothing: Antique Lilac

J is in Rio so I am living here in batchelor splendor. Every surface has doll junk on it, and the food comes in little paper containers, not off the stove. I watched 4 hours of Billy the Exerminator last night and neither the cats or I got bored or wanted to watch The Food Network instead. (The strange little head you can see is a Impldoll Miguel head, he's actually pretty cool, but he is also a pain to paint--lots of surfaces).

Well, at least 4--there is something about her eye shape that I just can't get right. The best faceup she had was the sticky one I did when I first got her, and the Mr. Super Clear never set properly because it was monsooning outside and 80 degrees inside. She's the Astrologer Yur from the Iplehouse Noctarcana Circus, and a little bit the worse for wear. (She's missing all her Limited extras). I'm still glad to have her.

I took this as a size comparison; the Mecha Angel body is about 1/3 taller than the Super Gem girl next to him, and much larger than the Minifee Shushu that he is wearing as a scarf. For some reason this looks like a reference photo Picasso had for one of his Blue Period paintings.

I was digging around my hard drive and found a bunch of old doll photos, including my first ShuShu--she's one of the Type B Fairyland versions, and I can say I am glad I swapped her for a Type A, which poses much better than the confusingly older Type B. The only thing I don't like about my new one is the magnet hands, which are great for putting clothes on her and less great when they fall off.

This totally cracked me up-- Sistercuervo on Den of Angels let me borrow a photo of her version of A and E's Billy the Exterminator, here obviously about to remove a pesky alligator from someone's front lawn. Thank you for the huge smile!

Ok, it looks like a science thing-- but my measuring tape has a 1cm metal tab on the end, plus it has my name written in marker over the centimeter side because in the US, who sews with centimeters? Now of course, I need to go get a narrow cm measuring tape so I can sew for dolls. Anyway, I figured a picture would be better so that people could see where I was measuring. I would still take these numbers with a grain of salt, and use a muslin to create your pattern first. The tape draped over his shoulder starts noplace--it was just so that if someone wanted scale, there would be something there. The 15 cm mark is exactly on his shoulder seam, though. His wrists are around 7cm, the mobility joint line is about 18.5 cm around.

I was contemplating doing a trade with my Iplehouse Yur. Somewhat reluctantly, as I like her a lot, but there was a tan Carina that would be an upgrade for my Nanuri/Delf...anyway, I was thinking about it, so I opened up the box to take some pictures and discovered her right leg was unstrung. And yes, the resin hook had broken off in her ankle, a classic old-style Iplehouse problem. (The new Iplehouse feet have solid loops of resin rather than hooks.) So I thrashed around a little and came up with a solution that seems to work: So since she isn't mint any more, I will be keeping her. :) Here she is, looking a bit resentful at being bald and mauled about: It's been a busy week, I finished another cover and am working on two more. This one was done with Christina Yoder, she did much of his face, the little fairies,the special effects and the text; I did the walls, the armor and much of his hair (violin is stock):