Friday, June 15, 2012

bye bye creepy eyes - hello Mesmer-eyes...

I took the plunge & ordered 5 pairs of eye chips and a set of foils today from brainworm.

I picked 4 ridged ones and 1 plain.

Ridged Milk, Light Grey, Toffee, and Steel Blue.
Plain Milky Grey

I wanted to order one extra set, just in case it turns out that I don't like one of them.  I also have a couple of plain BW in apple and olive green that might look cool with foils, if it turns out that the milky ones aren't suited to Miss Mesmer.

Since she "told" me her name was Mesmer -- the namesake of famous hypnotist Franz Anton Mesmer -- it seems like the milky eyes in light and dark for her front facing chips will be quite fitting. Her current front-facers are a little frightening.  I think this could be helped by gaze correction, but still they are a bit freaky & not exactly in a mesmerizing way.

 Once again, BK proved a wealth of information.  I found out that it is possible to change side-facing chips out without opening her head, if I am very careful.  I think the placement and the twist to remove them are a little trickier... but not impossible.

So, I am going to see how it goes with the front-facers first. I don't mind her blue and green ones as much, but I think they clash with her hair and I just think she would be gorgeous with grey ridged side-glancing eyes... I like the idea that when she is looking side to side, she a regular girl, but when you stare directly into her eyes as they look straight back at you... you will be mesmerized!



Thursday, June 14, 2012

More Mesmer...

I was looking at so many Peppermint pictures yesterday and I am getting really excited about changing Miss Mesmer's eye chips out... but also thinking that I am not that interested in much more customization until I totally botch her stock makeup... which hopefully won't happen for a good long time!

The little blush scratches don't show very much in photos... and I am okay with them when I am just playing with her.  I saw a thread on BK about blush troubles - someone had accidentally removed 1/2 the blush on one cheek of her Friendly Freckles girl by a bad reaction with the face-up & sunscreen on her hands.

In her photos, you could just see the smear where the blush came off.  She didn't want to totally sand her face or anything, so she used a Magic Eraser to remove all the blush on both cheeks - it changed the look a little, but it was also cute.

If the time comes that Annie Mesmer's blush is too scratched to live with... I will just do that, I think.  I know she is super shiny... but I don't mind.  I was looking at a bunch of Peppermints on Flicker yesterday and I actually was always drawn to the shiny ones a lot.

I love this girl, with her pretty grey eyes but still shiny.  (SP in glasses are adorkable, btw!) And this stock minty girl with her dark eyes just melts my heart!

I think am going to open her head and change out even the side-facing ones...  it will be a big step.  I haven't ever seen that you can change out the side-facing ones without opening a girl up.  I will figure it out, I guess.

But we had fun hanging out together yesterday - she got a new (to us) Plastic Fashion dress in the mail from BK sundries & she modeled the black smock... Then, while helping with some photos edits, she decided to move out of the safe-house and take up residence on my desk!

She's got some extra editing juju from her skully friend!




Wednesday, June 13, 2012

busy bee.


Here's my last dolly sewing picture.  This was last Thursday.  It's made entirely out of fabric and trims that I bought from Moofers on BK.  The fabric is really cute birdie fabric and I was inspired to try making a headband from this plum colored ric-rac style elastic trim.  I made a bow from the bird fabric and put a little of this woodsy embroidered ribbon around the center instead of another fabric piece.  I really like the way that it turned out and look forward to making some more headbands... especially with Lizzie Jane's fringe, I think it looks really cute.

Lately, I've actually been spending most of my creative energy on the non-dolly project that I agreed to do as a trade for Lizzie Jane and Cherry Kim.  I have to be sure to complete that before I go on another dolly sewing extravaganza.  Also, once I complete that project, I have to finish up my BK Swap for June... I have some awesome fabrics and got a couple cute things from etsy too... my swap partner has very cool descriptions in her "likes/dislikes" that gave me some great ideas - next weekend I will try to execute some of them... but no pics until July! 

I did make a little black smock for Annie Mesmer on Monday evening... mostly because I wanted to use up this black bobbin so I could put white thread on it. I really need to get more Janome bobbins for my hand-me-down machine.  She didn't come with all her goodies!

As for the dress, I still need to sew a snap on and take some photos.  I got the internet smock pattern that I couldn't get to print to scale pared down almost to fit... except the sleeves are weird.  It gives kind of a 60's boxy look to the whole thing... Annie can rock it, but it's not quite what I was going for... back to the cutting board.

When I was trying the smock on, I did a bad, bad thing.  I nicked Annie's blush with a pin.  She had another nick on her other cheek and I couldn't figure out how I'd done it before, but now I am suspecting it was in a try on like this.  she now has teensy nicks out of her blush on both cheeks. I was sick to my stomach when it happened - I had a pin in my hand and I was trying the dress on her, turned her around to lin it so I could figure out where to sew the snaps and in one moment gone wrong, I did it.

But I'm actually glad it happened now.

It's liberating.  Like the time that I got my first B my freshman year of high school in my math class and realized that I wasn't going to have a 4 point so I could relax.  I only got 2 more Bs the rest of high school and that was cool... but I knew other people who stressed to protect their 4 point and lost it junior of senior year... that was a lot more heart-breaking for them.

Weird analogy, but I just feel like the stress of trying to protect her is relaxed.  I am not 100% happy with her as a stock doll the way I am with Lizzie Jane.  She begs to be a little different than she was created as... but I was too scared before.

Now that she is "imperfect", I am starting to daydream about some light customizing that might bring her personality out.  I think she would look beautiful with some really dark brown/black hand-painted chips and some spooky milky ones too.  She is also really shiny.  I sanded Char-Char to really great effect, but I was scared to sand her, even though I wasn't sure about her shine.

Right after it happened, I hugged her and gave her a kiss on her super-shiny stock forehead and I felt like she was saying... it's okay.  I am free now to become who I am meant to be.  Lizzie Jane is perfect out of the box.  I wouldn't change a hair on her head... but Annie is waiting to become something more.

It's been so fun to start looking at Peppermint customs & day dream about what I want for Annie. There is one adorable Frankie Darling custom Peppermint on BK named Harlow who I adore!  She has a bob with fringe & I don't think that suits Annie at all... but she shows the potential of the Peppermint to be customized. There are some others that amaze me too...

Trixie - she's a dream.  Not what Annie will be at all... but so shows the amazing potential for Peppermints to reveal their inner personality. I am amazed at the little things you learn in this hobby...

I love all the Peppermint girls with pale green and blue lids... it looks beautiful when they are the same color as their hair, but also when they are a bit different - either a bit more green, yellow, or blue... or darker.  I wish I could post a bunch of flickr pics from other girls, but I am not sure if that is considered bad etiquette - that is why I just put links to Harlow and Trixie.

Then again, I really like the beautiful simplicity of this girl's face-up too.

And warmer, peachier blush too.

So many possibilities!
 
I am in no rush... I plan to play with her for a good long time and enjoy not having to feel so terrified of her getting scruffed or scratched.  I will let her speak to me slowly to know exactly how she wants to be made over...

I think I will start with the eye chips that I've gotten the strong impression on and then wait for the next gut feeling to decide what's next after that.  I think she will be dazzling with some moody and spooky eyes... she's such a sweet little spook.




Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Watching Venus transit the Sun & more dreaming of James...

Cherry Kim has a wonderful time checking out Venus transiting the Sun this afternoon at sunset.  We got to see it too!  She loves science, math, and gadgetry of all kinds... so this was right up her alley.  She may cultivate her interest in astronomy.

After our eyes got tired of watching the sun, I checked out some NASA pics of the transit online and poked around.  A couple of the threads on BK got me thinking again about my custom girl who is on the way... the first was from someone who had customized her first stock girl and felt sad that she wasn't stock anymore. Another thread about top favorite girls & one person mentioned how she realized that she loved stock girls after she had bought some customs.  In both threads, the message was that you really never know until you try & it's not the end of the world if you figure out that you like something different than what you first thought you might like.  The fun is in learning! 

Me, I am definitely partial to stock girls... at first, I thought I would really want to sand matte and change out the chips on the girls I got - probably add sleep eyes and maybe decorate their lids... but once I got a real Blythe, I couldn't bear to change anything about her... and I knew that I really enjoyed that NFRB feeling... but I also thought that I would be happy to love an adopted girl who was customized before coming to live with me & in the interest of collecting and curiosit, I felt it would be an important addition to my dolly family some day.
There are some things about customs that I really admire in photos and would love to see first hand. I like the expressiveness of their eyes with gaze correction - especially if they can look up and to the side at the same time.  For some reason, that look always "gets" me in photos.

I also like the look of custom eye lashes and painted lids with sleep eyes.

And, while I don't really like thinking about NRFB dolls being bought to customize... I love the idea of a factory girl getting a newly glamorous customized life... so James is perfect for me!

I went back and looked up her description... here's what she's 'had done'... and some pictures of her, that her creator took.

base doll: factory girl
scalp:simply mango, not a factory look-a-like.
cool cat rbl dome
hair highlights: Sarah Tutone Titian and Sarah Barbie Champagne Blond
eye chips: Chips Brainworm R25 Lime and 3 special factory eye chips, Light blue, dark blue and hot pink.
new eyelashes
Spray-matting (MSC)
sleepy eyes
gazed correction
new pull rings

 Looking forward to her very much.  There was another Gentle River on BK Princesses Needing Rescue today and I didn't even feel my heart tearing out this time, because I was happy with my family that I have now and anticipating the arrival of my newest addition.

Dreaming of James & swaps...

One more month and she sets sail from Portugal to America!
James

I was just looking at her pictures again... remembering what I like about her and also  trying to get a sense of what she will like to wear to make something for her.  She's a little different than I remembered from the last time that I looked at her set... of course, I remembered her scalp and colors and everything... but it's like her expression has changed ever so slightly... I had made up things about her in my head that may not be exactly how her personality is... so I have to be patient and wait to meet her in real life!

Last night I finally got a chance to sew on my newly tuned up machine.  It sews like a dream now... I made two cute matching dresses for Annie and Lizzie to wear in honor of the Diamond Jubilee and snapped some cute pics of them... but I am not sharing right now because I will probably use some of the same fabric in my BK swap.

Thankfully, the British theme prevailed in a tight race, till the end... so I get to use all the cute stuff I planned after all!  Yay! I am dying for my swap partner assignment in order to find out what they like so I can make things to their taste & put together a great package for my very first BK swap.