DollsArtCats

It was dry enough today for me to paint a doll head, finally. I have been collecting reference for Iris for a couple of weeks now (I would like to make her an 1880 style dress to go with the other "steampunk" style dolls I have been working on). She needs different eyes as the soom eyes make her look a little crosseyed. She also sits a little oddly on the Peakswood body, but it was the body I have so she will just have to live with it for a while. We also walked around the Downers Grove Farmer's Market this morning and saw a kitten Illuminati sticker (I assume it's a band, but I have no idea) I also had a leftover photo from yesterday, when we went to lunch a Hugo's Frog Bar and I realized I can't bring myself to eat frog legs any more. These are kids making pasta at Sur La Table, where I found some little doll-sized plates. Here's Mr. Cool in his shades, too: Here's one more photo of Iris, and one of the Poser version of her:

This week I finally got around to getting a carpet guy ("Mike") to come and look at my floors and work up estimates for various floor coverings. The stairs need to be done first, as they are filthy from last winter and stinky from the previous owner's pugs, but since it was a small area I wanted to give Mike more to do, and the carpet I want (beige with brown speckles) can go anywhere as it looks pre-dirty and bland, so I asked him to include the small bedroom as well in his estimate. He took my sample and went off, and I haven't heard back from him yet, which is OK since he told me he was in "carpet hell" doing a hi-rise in downtown Chicago. They have to reserve time on the freight elevator, and there is nowhere to park the van. He said they got "One unit" done after an entire day of driving, elevatoring and laying carpet. So I am assuming he is busy this week. In the meantime I ripped out the carpet in the bedroom, to see what bad news was unde...

Granado has released Gabe , the head designed to go with the "Lads" body, and he is super cute! I'm actually getting carpet this time, but he is the smaller version of the second Titan head I was hoping for. Such a pretty boy! He is available until July 7th, it looks like, so don't wait too long if you want him or even just his head!

On Sunday K and I spent the day driving around odd places, including the lawn ornament place in Darien, where I bought this skeptical little concrete mermaid: They didn't have too many mermaids--if I had wanted a gargoyle, I could have gotten plenty in sizes ranging from 8 inches high to 8 feet high. I had to ask to find even one mermaid, and the one that the staff guy pointed out to me was 5 feet long and 500.00, which was more mermaid than I needed. So I went inside and asked the owner if he had just the "one big mermaid" and he took that to mean that I wanted a procession alley of big mermaids instead of one smaller one. So we finally got that straightened out and I took home the small mermaid. Earlier in the day we had gone to the Marriott in Naperville to check out the doll show. It was a gorgeous day and K didn't want her photo taken: But of course I took one anyway, though inside it didn't seem like the kind of venue where photography was encouraged...

J was out looking at the pond and I came out to see what he was looking at. He said "There is a snake in the pond." And sure enough, one of the ribbon snakes had caught a pollifrog, and while we watched, left the pond with it. At least that explains why the polliwog numbers went down. We do still have at least one frog, though. And a large ribbon snake. Maybe I should just go get some feeder goldfish. :o

One of the few other Immortality of Soul "G"s that I have seen photos of, is now for sale on Den of Angels (you need to be a member to see the listing here ). Pozdim did an amazingly beautiful tattoo on him--I hope whoever buys him keeps his painting in place, because it is a lot of what makes this doll special.

Granado has just released a new body, perfect for slimmer guys or younger ones (like 17-20 year old characters), called the "Lads" Body. It's 66.5 cm tall and I have a small regret I didn't get this one for Fabio, because he would have been perfect on it. I love the hands, too--the poses are good for holding things and a lot of care went into modeling the fingers. See more here . The next sale period for this body is July 1-3 (China time, check the Granado clock on the upper right corner of the front page of the site .