DollsArtCats

So I was wasting time on Pinterest instead of working, as one does, and I saw this image: This was made of thin leather, but right away I thought : "Craft foam!" Well, and some paint and wire too. :D Pinterest also had this cool thing. I would make the rose out of ribbon, or maybe wire and tissue. I found the craft foam and the scissors and got to work. I had help. I found some 26 gauge thin florists' wire and some Elmer's glue and wrapped the wire with the tissue Stripey is so conveniently slicing up. (By the way, the cat gets to do whatever she wants. She is 13 years old.) Mostly she just watches. How about some puffy paint details? Painted with Liquitex liquid acrylics (the thin stuff is easier to get into the folds). Spraying outside  with acrylic spray would have been more efficient, but I would have had to buy the spray and wear a respirator. Here it is with some tiny plastic rhinestones and hot glue spider webs. The downward t...

All done! The trim is just wrapped around, I think I should have sewn it to the cover fabric at the start, but I didn't think of it until the cover was all glued down. Those corner things are awesome, they bend easily and really neaten up the corners. I'm going to make one more for Dollhausen; way back a few years ago he made me the most awesome dollie coffin ever -- but the only dolls that would fit were not vampires and refused to sleep in it, so I converted it to a couch . But I have gotten so much use out of it I would love to make him a book. He's got a whole crew of Edward Gorey dolls over at his place in Seattle, so they could use at least one grimoire and maybe more ;) He also has an Ausley Love so beautiful that I am rethinking my opinion of the Ausley head. (Dollhausen has Alexis in a large wig), and Ausley just looks great as a creeper: I don't know if he paints them himself, but I am guessing yes. I'm going to see if I can get the Fractal Forge E...

They almost look like little tarot cards, though they are mostly things Cat likes (there are a lot more little pages, not all the pix came out in focus.) I still have to put the cover together-- but this one is better than Arekushia's book, because I sewed the pages to a backing; so they turn AND close properly. Glitter glue was my friend.

I get spam from Sewing Parts Online and I don't mind, as I have used them to buy replacement and missing parts for my various trash-picked and Ebay sewing machines. I was intrigued by this toy--sadly, the ad copy says it doesn't work, which surprised me as it looks like it should. Anyway, it is cute and it looks like it is SD sized. So if you have an Iplehouse Vera, the little sewing genius according to her backstory, maybe she needs a sewing machine. Sadly, I am the only person here who sews, which means a lot of people are wearing scarves.

So this is K's first faceup,on an Iplehouse Luna, based on some You Tube makeup maven's "do." (I also got to see YouTuber Jeffrey Star, who looks like one of my Granado boys with someone else's faceup ;)) I wanted to see how K would paint a head without being influenced by what is currently fashionable in faceups, and the results are pretty neat--I think Luna looks like an online rpg character now, so she will get a not-PC Elf Magic User outfit with some of the trim and thrift store repurposed silk I found this weekend. I might slim down her lower lip--it's pretty full anyway and the underlining makes it maybe more dramatic than it should be, but I want to live with it for a while first. Akutenshi and I found a perfect chair this weekend, and then I went out again with K we found a "cake safe" made from a tiny cover and a candleholder, and a lot of other neat things. The chair and cake safe (and beer stein) are shown here: Akutenshi also spotted ...

Spoons and forks and knives from the scrapbooking part of Joanns.com (these don't seem to be in my local stores). They aren't too expensive--service for 12 plus shipping was around 20 something dollars. J tied flies Saturday while Akutenshi and I scoured the thrift store: And K painted a head today--results tomorrow once she has her eyes, wig and body back together!

I love calendars, especially art calendars--and I don't throw them away when the year is over, I cut out the pictures that I like the most and frame them (free art with purchase of calendar!). So I was scissoring up a Kinuko Craft calendar and looked on the back, where they have the tiny images for you to see before you buy the shrink wrapped calendar, and I realized they were perfect sd size. This one even had the months underneath the images. Usually they just have the images in blocks like this: In that case you have to do a bit of cut and paste on an index card, with the image on top. Then open up the calendar and grab one of the "previous/next month" calendar images: ..and snip out the dates you want and paste them down. And there you have a nice calendar page to stick up on the wall of a doll's room! For scale, here is Violetta, who is an SD sized girl: (Alexei is sort of a zombie, which is why his eyes are rhinestones. It makes sense to me :D)

It's a book by Lori Zimmer and it is so much fun--it is a mix of amazing art and artists, and some fun goofy projects you can do yourself in the back. I bought it because I wanted to see how to handle the edges of cardboard--I made a sort-of-sculpture for the Granado photo contest last year, and I wasn't satisfied with the finished edges of the piece, and I want to make a 20 inch tall Dutch tavern fireplace, with a mantel, and have it light enough to tape to the cardboard tavern "wall". It turns out that cardboard has it's own distinctive look, no matter what artist is using it--rough paper edges, bends in place you don't want and has straight edges where you want curves. I like using it, though--maybe because it handles a lot like polygons in the computer do, with some of the same limitations. (Polygons are less flammable to store, though). Anyway, the book is put out by Rockport Publishers and you can get it at Amazon . Speaking of Amazon, one of my rela...

Among other things, today I made a rickety bench for my Granado boys to sit on. There is plenty of raw material from leftovers from the woodshop, but I can't use the shop itself--first of all it is set up for J and I don't go in there (I have trouble even finding the power switches in there). I went in this morning to borrow a chisel and discovered that the skunk, which is normally a little stinky and lives under the raised side of the shop, had sprayed somewhere in his hole-- and the concentration of skunk smell was enough to make my eyes water. So I left the chisel where it was on the rack and went back outside. I have my own tools in the house, and normally I would use them on the sun porch; but the sun porch is about 22 degreesF now during the day, and the big table in there is covered with the parts of a blanket chest J is working on-- and there really isn't any place to move them (also they are clamped and drying, so I didn't want to touch them. I didn't w...

I wasn't doing the best job on Claudia's face, and Sicktress was willing to paint her up--and she made Claudia *perfect*. Here is a better photo from Sicktress herself: Sicktress not only has steady hands, I love her style and it was exactly what I wanted for my glam con-artist/street magician/ actual mage (though she doesn't know it) Claudia the Conjuror. Claudia already has a huge box of North African-inspired outfits and magical rubbish, and now a face. :D I did have an Iplehouse Stella before, and as beautiful as Stella was, she didn't have the charm that the Venus sculpt does. She also seemed to have "one expression" for all occasions, probably because her face was so symmetrical. One of the things I love about the Iplehouse Bianca is that she is not symmetrical at all, so she can smile or scowl depending on how you turn her. Sicktress also makes props (Teodor the Necromancer's staff was made by her) and she made Coriel an Elvish bow with leaves--...

Akutenshi7 came over today and brought me Kona coffee, organized my clothing bins and presented my dolls with this wonderful little book. (Josiah Aldwood, Victorian Gentleman and the proud new owner of the DollHeart cravat; is currently holding the Book.) A close reading of the cover is pretty amusing--it says: (Flourish with crown) "Write Down Your Wish This magic book is gonna help you (ornate medallion) MAGIC SPELLS Purebook (end ornate medallion) Precious Memories Linenote, Idea, Memo, Daybook Since 1981 Tradition Notebook (flourish) Well, that seems to cover everything. It's blank inside so Teodor can add his own Greek scribbles and diagrams. I need to make more of these little books!

I can't even put things in the box part because it is now "Stripey's Couch" and the cat is on it 14 hours a day.

It's got a seat (that acts like a lid to the space underneath), and the beginnings of a back. I will work on it more when everyone is out Monday, as it requires a lot of noisy hammering (who knew upholstering was so loud?). Right now it's big enough two people can sit uncomfortably close together, or in splendid isolation: The lunette thing on the back needs to go up higher, and the side arms need to be made for real and stuffed and whipstitched on. I'm sure the beads in the back are no fun to lean on, but as the couch supposed to be epically ugly and vaguely 18th century, I think it's doing pretty well. It keeps people off the floor, anyway! I could really use two side chairs and a nice reading chair, but all these things take up room that I don't have at the moment.