"Call it impulsive, call it compulsive, call it insane."

I just bought this mystery clone doll... within 5 minutes of discovering it's existence.  I don't know why - it was a totally impulsive move. I want to make her into a calavera.

I've seen some gorgeous Blythe calaveras - but when it comes to proper Blythes, I can't bring myself to do much to them myself... I really like stock Blythes NRFB when they come to me. Out of curiosity, I bought myself a factory custom who is on her way and I am very excited to meet her... but unless I found one baity to begin with, I could never bring myself to change a real stock Blythe very much... I like them as they come!

Yet, I loved the calavera idea ever since I saw it... I was a calavera last year for one of my 4 nights of Halloween!  It was my first time trying the makeup - I just had a black face-painting pencil left over from a kit of vampire facepaint I used a year before... and a liquid eyeliner for the finer lines... it was hurried - but tons of fun & I got a lot of compliments.  I image searched calaveras and had a wonderful time looking at all the beautiful details.

I've seen a few truly lovely Blythe ones and some that were maybe not so well executed... but a lot of love went into them... I fell for all of them! I don't have an airbrush or anything as skilled & specular as these works of art... but I love to paint and I've thought it would be fun for a long time.

My friend just posted this lovely pictures to my FB recently, wanting to learn more about Blythe, totally rekindling my curiosity for a dolly calavera.

 I had been scoping out factory girls on the Taobao agent pages for a girl who might make a good calavera... the whole agent thing with factory Blythes kind of weirds me out & on ebay I'd rather get a stock Prairie Posey or Very Vicky new in the box for the same price than a factory or fakie girl I am just going to have my crafty way with... and I wanted a black haired girl most of all, but had not seen any factory girls with black hair.

So when I learned about the new clones and took a look & saw a black haired girl for $40 with free shipping who I could play with and not feel guilty... I just went nuts for a moment, threw caution to the wind and bought her!

I  really must be stopped.  In addition to the whole customizing diversion... I really do want to collect some more expensive stock Blythes like NosPop, Pheobe Maybe, and Gentle River. Really I do.  I just keep getting sidetracked.

New Eyes for Charlotte.

I changed out a set of Charlotte's eye chips last night!

Yes, my non-existent readers... if you existed to read this, you may be stunned or confused.  Charlotte is a Basaak after all. I bought her as a newbie mistake - "practice your customizing"  that sounds great.  Only the Basaak eyechips are glued in with apocalypse-proof grade superglue. Not so great for "practice".

I love her to bits, even if she wasn't exactly the best choice - she was my first dolly and I could never give up on her. So, slowly but surely, I am giving her a better life.  Clones deserve love too - if they happen into your life.

The first time I tried to change out eyechips, I just hoped beyond hope that she would be an exception to the Basaak glue situation.  I wanted to change out her front-facing green chips.  I tried the hot glue sticks to no avail.  Several times.  I gave up.  The whole ordeal left me a bit traumatized to be honest. I really thought I would never change out any eyechips ever again after that experience.  One of the huge attractions for me with RaRi is that I liked all of her eyechip colors well enough to never worry about wanting to change them and not being able to!

But then I nicked the blush on Miss Mesmer's cheek and that feeling of not wanting to change any of her stock qualities faded a bit... she had a personality inside her that wanted to come out... if she had to sacrifice the perfection of her stock faceup to become who she was meant to be, in the end it was a small sacrifice.  And it started with her orange and pink stock chips.

She was a dream to work with - I mastered the "twist and pull" method and discovered the sweet spot of how melty to let the glue get before sticking it to the chippie.

So Charlotte has a new scalp on the way (if we like the pink!) and I just got this wild hair that she should have new eyes too.  With my new-found confidence - I decided to give it a go on her blue front-facing chips.  I knew the green ones were tough... but I hadn't tried the blue yet.  I gave a masterful "twist/pull" & much to my surprise - on the first try, one actually came out!!!!!!!! (...with the caveat of a small shard of blue plastic left behind - it didn't look like much; but was I ever wrong about that assessment!)

The second chip didn't come out until the 3rd try - I had to let the glue stick get really melty - any meltier and it would have been a huge mess - but I got enough of a firm grip with the glue the 3rd time to pop the other chip out - also with a little shard of plastic left behind.

I've read about this and about how people use a dremel tool to remove the shards left behind... I don't have a dremel tool - so I started poking at it with the edge of my tweezers that I use to place the eye chips in, then a sewing needle that was on my work bench - neither had any effect whatsoever... so I grabbed two sizes of exacto and sat down for a more serious attempt to remove the plastic.  I got the crazy idea that maybe I could sand the edge of an existing eyechip instead of the plastic and destroyed a nice Olive colored B.W. chip in the process, before abandoning that tactic.  Then I pulled out my big Olfa snap blade knife.  This is a serious tool - I use it for book making to cut the book board that goes inside hardcovers.  It scared the living daylights out of me to take this tool to my sweet Char-Char's eye sockets!

The reluctant oracle was even freaked out.  He used to find all aspects of the dolly world anathema - but since my doll family has been around for a while he's relaxed his stance & now just feigns complete indifference. Occasionally he slips up and actually betrays that he's paying more attention than he lets on.

Mesmer's eye chip changing project weirdly intrigued him... but he remembered that I had said I would never do the same for Charlotte - so when he saw me with the Olfa blade he exclaimed in a very concerned tone: "what are you doing to her?!" He was truly worried.  I promised him that Charlotte was in the best of care and I would never let her get baity - even if I had to buy her an entirely new eye mechanism that cost more than she did!  He relaxed a bit.

When I finally got the blue plastic out, I was testing different colors of eye chips for her and then I remembered the Elficious hand-painted chips that I bought for her before I realized that her chippies were such a challenge.  After my first failure - I'd set them aside & almost forgotten that I had them, thinking that someday I might try to sell them on B.K. sundries.  So glad that I hadn't, since I'd picked them specially for Charlotte.  They were perfect in look and practicality too - the post on Basaak is a little shallower than Blythe, so I was thinking I would have to sand down one of the sets of B.W. chips that I had leftover from esmer's project - but the Elficious ones come with a shorter post and they fit perfectly without any sanding (thank goodness - I had enough plastic shards for one evening with the eye socket debacle!)

So my sweet Char-Char has gorgeous eyes now - hand-painted front facers and my favorite side-facing ice blue chips.  She still has her slightly scary side-facing pink chips that we switch the dolls to when we go out of town to protect the house. And the green front-facers... well I think they can stay too.

James is in transit...

One more time... my James!  (I am actually going to call her James St. James... in honor of her original name, but also to give her my own nickname.)  She was mailed yesterday... she's on her way for my birthday!  And my other b-day present to myself was totally spontaneous.  Yesterday evening, I was poking around on ebay and I discovered a super-cheap Simply Guava scalp with no bids on it. I put in a bid, thinking that I would certainly be outbid... but no one else bid on it and I got it for the lowest possible price.

It was just listed as pink Blythe scalp - but it seems to me to be a Simply Guava - with the exact hair-style... so I don't think it's factory.  Even if it is fake or factory... it will definitely be better quality that Charlotte's current current hair.  Here is the e-bay listing picture.  Do pardon the nudity... poor girl. :(

I have been on the look-out for a cheap scalp with bangs that would be an improvement over Charlotte's current Blybe/Basaak scalp.  I did add some knotted-method highlights that I salvaged from a Cool Cat wig & then I gave her a bob... but her hair is still sort of a challenge - mostly because of scalp gap... & also that her original hair, though thickened up and restyled, was never very good quality.

I never thought of her as a pinky girl, but I have always kind of wanted a girl with pink hair & now that I have a psuedo-mango on the way... why not a pseudo-guava too!

I am really excited for Char-Char to get some quality hair that I didn't have to spend a fortune on...  I know she is "just a clone" - but she is my first girl and she has a heart of gold!  She has a special place in my heart and I want to spoil her a bit.  We tried to change out her chips with no success.. but the hair, I feel confident with.  I hope she doesn't find that going pink is too much of a shock!

The Plunge! (I took it!)

So the Brainworm package arrived this week!  Mesmer's new eye chippies are here!

I picked four with foils that I really liked... the foils are very cool - quite subtle and really make the chips unique.

 After much hemming and hawing, I actually decided to paint the pupil of the milky ones too.  Those were the first ones that I have changed out & I really love them.  Mesmer was such a brave trooper!  I am really proud of her. Of course we took some picks of the process...

As promised, the orange chippies were the first to go.  I used sticky notes instead of tape to hold her lashes out of the way - sliding the paper end under her lids and folding back the sticky part onto her forehead.  It seemed more gentle than scotch tape.  Then I bundled her up to make her as comfy as possible during the ordeal.

On the first try, only one chip came out and the other one stayed in... so we had to try that one again.

The second time, I let the glue get a little meltier - I was worried the first one was too melty, so I tried not to let the second one get too melty... but that was the one that didn't work first time around... so the second time, I let the glue stick get a wee bit meltier... and it worked!

Already looking better... then to put the eye chips in and rest. All the girls came to visit her to make sure she was okay.

She's doing very well, post-surgery... loving her new look & anticipating another go tomorrow.

And in black and white... my beautiful spooky girl's looking mesmerizing with her new milky eyes...

Coming soon... what have I been doing all month?  The Blythe Swap!  I will write about it and post pictures soon.

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!

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!

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.