DollsArtCats

I ordered it something like 3 days ago, hoping I could get maybe 4 doll wigs out of it. I think I can. :D http://www.fabricempire.com/ They have LOTS of faux fur, apparently in industrial widths. Best Accidental Cat toy ever--I tried to make a metal reinforced "banana" for the new Male Super Gem body because I had hoped to restring Bird so that the leg elastic went through the torso, which would put too much tension on the resin "banana" supporting the head. It turns out you can't run the strings up through the torso, because then he can't sit--he doesn't have the vertical hip cuts to let the string move: This would be ok if there was a space large enough for a knot in the hip tubes, but even Soom clipped the knot to just a nub, and it got jammed in one of the tubes. I ended up tightening the legs and then sewing the elastic together inside the hip cavity. Anyway, since my restringing was a fail, I still had the wool-covered banana left over: ...

I exaggerate only a little.

The answer to a question on Den of Angels. Also, if someone wants to do a split on the new bodies, the hand part MUST include the wrist ball/prongs. Otherwise both splitters are messed up. You can swap the whole wrist prong and hand assembly for an old hook hand, though.

Soom apparently got some requests for a brown tan boy Dia, and decided to honor the requests...for two weeks. Order period is Jan. 29th to Feb. 12th 2013. In case you were curious how she would look in brown tan, here is a bad photoshop of her head on my brown tan Soom Tremo: Dia has a big head, so she should look good on the male body (better than my photoshop, for sure). Here is her/his sales page: Brown Tan Male Dia LOL and a couple of years later, here is what he really looks like!:

This cover is 90% done--I still have to clean up her hand and some of the edges of both of their hair, but the story sounds adorable (Rock Star meets Girl Next Door). Plus there is a cat--originally I left room for the cat's head center front, but it was decided that the cat was not necessary to anyone's happiness. This (below) was the first layout I did, but apparently "script" fonts are Old and Busted, even when the font is titled "Romance", so things were reworked and rearranged to comply with the tyranny of Smart Phone screens. I think the current version looks a little like a Valentine's card now. And a lot more of those roses are hand painted than you would guess, though a lot of the models were the Costco roses in earlier posts.

Resinsoul, a Den of Angels member, had a chance to pick up her dolls directly from Iplehouse while she was visiting in Seoul. Iplehouse very wisely lets the occasional customer tour around the showroom and upstairs meeting rooms, and the word gets around about how Iplehouse works and how the sculpts are developed, all of which makes Iplehouse fans very happy, even occasional customers like me. Apparently things have been running behind this winter--I hadn't noticed it from Iplehouse, because I have nothing on order from them right now, but I have been full of ants for my Soom doll to come, and I may have to wait a little longer. Here's part of Resinsoul's post: Here is where I had to ask the question...Delays? What was up? And I already knew the answer. Weather and logistics! South Korea has had the coldest winters in about 40 years. This is confirmed too by news reports and my close Korean friend. It was so cold all week I was there and rained two whole days. Even in the...

This photo does not do this guy justice. He's just gorgeous. I looked at him for a long time on the Granado website but...another head, you know? I already have a Gitana head on order. And then someone on Den of Angels made it possible for me to get him (a) instantly and (b) for slightly less than directly ordering one, because of the difference in shipping. So here he is, and he is amazingly lovely. I'm hoping I can do a decent job painting him--if not, I'll send him to Buff to paint up. I did remember to order him some Safrin eyes so he'd at least have those, if no wig and no body. Here he is crudely photoshopped onto a body: Like Granado's other heads, he is limited..I made the mistake of assuming Boyd, the first doll Granado created, would be a standard, and have been kicking myself ever since for not ordering him when I could. Granado is having a "body event" starting Feb 1-3 if you need a Granado body, but I think you should buy a whole dol...

By Saturday the ant problem had gotten out of hand. Even with everything cleaned, the floor coated with whatever nasty substance comes on Swiffer pads, and the sink devoid of dishes, there were still ants wandering about. Eventually they would find the trash can in the living room and all the tasty stuff in the pantry, so J decided to go after them. He went first to the hardware store for boric acid, and the clerks were amazed. "You have ants ?? In the winter?" Oh yes we do. So J came back and pried off the molding, and discovered that the vent there is held up with duct tape underneath the floor (it's in the crawlspace that no one can crawl into, because of how the pipes were put in afterwards), and that the previous owner had ..painted over wallpaper. That part of the kitchen is all vinyl wallpaper under the paint, which explains why the paint looked odd in places. So that will all have to come off. J said it might be easier to just pull off the wallboard and at the s...

I have a bouquet of roses from Costco that are in need of being tossed out, but I loved the colors so much I took a set of photos. With some photoshopping you can bring them right back up to 100 percent fresh, so I uploaded the large files for free stock for anyone who needs them for Valentine's Day :D.Because I suck at writing html, you have to use your "back" button to get back to this post from the large images. The link to the large version of the photo above is here: Old Roses 003, 3456x2592 Old Roses 004 3456x2592 Old Roses005 3456x2592 Old Roses 006 3456x2592 Old Roses 010 3456x2592 Old Roses 011 3456x2592

(Hopefully Soom will send a stringing guide when they ship out the kits, but in case they do not, I took some photos.)The longest piece of elastic they send with the kits is the one that goes through the legs (and only the legs, not up into the torso.) Aside from that, it's less complicated than it looks. The big changes from the old body are the hands and the head, and you can see the inside of the head here: Soom's Faceplate System Here is the rest of the joints so you can see which way they go together. The shoulders are a little tricky because the "nubs" need to slot into those grooves: Elbow ("stem" goes up): Hand (put "c" on last so you can squeeze the prongs): Chest Plate inside. Head string goes to hips, comes back up. Photo Below: The string closest to my hand is the one that goes to the head--as you can see in the sketch, that is all it does--just holds the head on by looping through the hips. The lower string here connects thr...

Many, many funny captions of great works of art here: That is Priceless

I spent some time this morning sewing up the tiny corset. Here I am about to press open the first seam, with some help from a wet, shaped washcloth. I stuff the tip of the washcloth into the corset so I can shape it a little while I iron it: Then I will topstitch that seam. Because it's so tiny, I often use a pin or a seam ripper to push the fabric under the presser foot. The "toy" Brother that I bought from Amazon for around 80.00 sews very slowly, and has a big foot pedal-- which is great for this kind of fiddly sewing. It also has excellent "feed dogs" that pull in even super thin fabric without eating it. However,with the Brother, You May Not Use Pins. The reviews warned that if you run over pins, the plastic bobbin plate will either dent or crack, and the rest of the machine isn't set up to eat pins, either. So I either do without pins or if it's a tricky spot, I will hand-baste it first. I also found the first pattern mistake--I forgot to...

Ooooo! The amazing Ira Scargeear has patterns on her deviant art gallery! I was familiar with her work only as a doll artist--it turns out that she can also make tiny shoes, clothes and pretty much anything . Here is the pattern page for the Super Gem items--she also has in her gallery tutorials; one for making wig wefts, which I am eager to try. Read the usage terms before you start! Ira Scargeer Super Gem Patterns The little shoes above used to belong to Sensei Fuzzy, my elderly Soom Sphaler, but now they belong to Stripey. She does not wear them, just carries them around the house and tosses them up and down.

1-26-2013 Edit : First of all, I had to make some changes to the pattern after I cut out and stitched together the pieces shown below. I forgot to add extra fabric at the bottom of piece no 2 to compensate for what I folded up into the bust dart, and the back of the corset was..way too wide. The center back piece looks like it's not needed except for an overlap for a back fastening corset. Here's what the pattern from Super Gem Female Corset (beta) looks like with the lining and the top fabric cut out. The pieces are in order and the center front piece is a different color than the rest on purpose. :D I haven't had a chance to sew it up as work has kept me busy. In other news, J replaced the sump pump, so the plumber will have to find another customer to make his next boat payment. I fished out the paper from the pond--it turned out to be the label on the floating de-icer Pond Saucer of Disappointment. I also saw my mistake: Do not immerse . OK. I suspect they ...