Shoe-be-do-be-do

I promised some better pics of Nefera's shoes and I wanted to make sure I did. (Granted yes technically I didn't post about them on Tuesday like I planned, but hey I'm still up so for me it's still tomorrow! ;-) lol)

Mattel has really hit it out of the park with the Monster High shoes...they are amazing and intricate and stunning.  But honestly I think Nefera's are by far the best yet! Being the daughter of the Mummy she is of Egyptian descent and therefore snakes are a big part of her detailing.  She actually has several of them in her Accessories from her belt, to her necklace and earrings.  But oh my my my her shoes!!!

 From the front they have almost an Art Deco feel. Done in gold and black with touches of coral and teal.  They are very pretty from the front but not anything super special.

(I love how there is an actual Right and Left shoe!)

Well Hello there!  Turn to the side and things start to get more interesting. Platforms seem to be the norm with these ghouls and Nefera would wear nothing less either it seems.  The back portion that wraps around the heel seems to follow the Art Deco trend.  But there is where 'safe' stops...the girl is walking on COBRAS!!!!  Teal blue COBRAS!!!  Now I don't even like snakes, but holy moly I'd LOVE to rock a pair of shoes like these!!!

Here we have a close up on the amazing amount of detail that went into the HEEL of her SHOES!  Let's bear in mind that the cobras are barely an inch (25mm) tall!  The scales are fantastic and heck there is even a bump in the open mouth for a tongue!  The only this that could have made these better would have been jewels in the snakes eyes...but I think I can handle that!

Now my only hope is that Mattel will release some fashion packs for Nefera that include shoes, (since she can't wear the same sized shoes as the other ghouls).  But if not I KNOW that she can rock these amazing shoes with whatever she chooses to wear!

Slowly but surely

I'm getting more and more things sewn for my shop.  Sadly I have yet to list any of the new items! I reallly don't enjoy the listing process, but it is a necessary evil if I want to see the goodies I make! I am hoping to get several new pieces of clothing listed tomorrow.  I want to do some clay work in the next week, but I need to get these new clothing pieces up first!

I think my next clay adventure will be some St Patty's day goodies.  I want to try my hand at our favorite meal for March 17th...corned beef, cabbage, buttered potatoes and steamed carrots!  Mmmm just thinking about it makes me hungry!  I'd also like to make some dark bread as well as another favorite irish dish: Colcannon.  Mashed potatoes, steamed shredded cabbage and crispy crumbles of bacon.  Oh yes sooo yummy! Of course there will be cakes, cookies and cupcakes too!

 How about some pictures...  This is my dragon-chic from one of the Create a Monster packs.  I won't get into the irritation with Mattel for only putting one torso into a pack with 2 sets of other body parts...(hence the reason she has a grey body!)  Normally I use the matching grey parts as they are just plain smooth pieces.  But I wanted to showcase the wings with this top so I adding the pink dragon parts.  (Which are actually pretty neat!  The arms and legs are scaled and they have little fins!  She also has really cool ears!  There are starting to be folks selling cast versions of the torso in the correct colors so I will be getting a pink torso soon!!!)

Sorry back to the outfit!  The pink top I started back in GA in November.  I finally finished it this past week!  I used a Barbie pattern that I shrunk.  Initially I wasn't too happy with it. But now seeing a gal with wings I am realizing it's pretty much perfect!

The black skirt is a faux suede material. I used the selvedge edge with has an awesome fringe on it.  I love the way this outfit looks together, but have decided that both pieces will go into my new Mix and Match line.  Hopefully tomorrow I will have several tops and a couple of skirts loaded into my shop ready for sale!

Well Hi There! (lottsa words! ;-D)

It's me again!  Been kind of quiet again, but I've been working hard!  The weather was rather yuck for the 1st part of the week.  That slowed me down...big time.  I like to think that being born on the first day of summer/summer solstice/the longest day of the year makes me a sunlight loving girl!  I NEED sunlight to function and feel 'right'.  Well needless to say those grey days we had just drained my batteries.  So I stayed cooped up with my laptop, a book (or 3!) and my sewing. 

Two weeks ago I had a customer in my shop ask me to ship to Sweden...not a problem at all.  The day I shipped his order we began talking about a custom order!  (I really was blown away by the fact that he commissioned a 2nd order before the 1st one arrived!!!)  So the last 2 weeks have been spent in a whirlwind search for the perfect fabric and sewing an outfit unlike anything I'd attempted for Monster High! 

I am realizing just how spoiled I was living near Columbus GA...I had not only a Hobby Lobby, a JoAnns, and a Michael's but also a Hancock Fabrics all within 20 minutes of my house!!!  Well up here there in a Michael's about 35 minutes from here and our Walmart carries a small microscopic selection of fabrics.  That's IT!!!  The nearest town with a REAL fabric stores is 45 minutes to an hour away!!!  Oh the horrors!  I needed a teal and black striped fabric to go with the teal and black stripes socks the customer had.  And believe it or not, in the large shipping box (24x24 square) of all my fabrics, I had nothing like that!!!  Not even a black and WHITE stripe.  (I did play around with dyeing my own fabrics as I have several black and white fabrics, just no stripes!)

In the end I spent a day running around the shopping plaza 35 minutes away at every shop I could think of that might have textiles! I found the exact fabric I was looking for at Walmart...in a dress...however the dress was $13 and it was all BLACK...with a TINY black and teal shrug. UGH so NOT worth my $13.  I kept looking and found a few racks over a black and white striped pullover.  It was 100% cotton too so I knew I would take the dye perfectly!  AND it was only $7 for the shirt which was ALL stripes...ooh and some cute lace trim too!

Okay, okay enough rambling...on with the pictures!!! =D

Vann's Vision

Without the Jacket

 Ok so here it is!  Vann's Vision!  It is a horizontally striped halter neck body suit, with a 'vertically' striped double tiered skirt.  There is also a black faux suede military style jacket with teal cuffs and epaulets.  I've added a pair of silver toned dangle earrings and a smoky black purse.  My customer loved it as much as I did!

The original concept art for Vann's Vision!

This is the original concept art I drew for the outfit.  I think I did pretty darned good!  The bodysuit and the skirt are patterns designed by me.  The jacket is a shrunk down Barbie pattern.  (I like the look but future pieces will get tinkered with to fit a little better.)

Before you ask...no I didn't draw this...I have this really neat sketch book by  Fashion Angels . It has pre-drawn bodies and comes with a bunch of stencils for the clothing!  For someone who can't draw a lick, this is amazing!!!  I have drawn several more ideas for outfits that I plan to work on! It's neat (and NERVE WRACKING!!!) to draw a design and then bring it to life!  Although I think I will consult my fabric stash before drawing patterns since I am in a fabric store wasteland....oh how I miss all my fabric stores!!! lol

This picture is one I took that will be used in the listings for my new Mix and Match Collection.  Some times coming up with entire outfits (jewelry and accessories too) gets tiring or boring.  Sometimes I just want to work with something fun.  I decided to offer individual pieces at a lower cost. In this picture Draculaura (whom I think I will start calling Lala...like in the books...much faster to type! lol)  yeah, Lala models the denim vest I made back in GA...it's stretch denim with a white ribbon bow and blanket stitching.  Frankie is wearing a teal skirt I made while I was messing around with dyeing fabrics for Vann's Vision.  The teal and black check is dyed the upper portion is not.  Ghoulia is wearing my Tiptoe Through the Tulips top.  I made this one a few weeks ago.  And Clawdeen is wearing another denim piece I made back in GA.  It's a pencil skirt edged in a double blanket stitch.  I love the way the double stitching made the hem flare out a bit!  These pieces will be listed in my Etsy shop this week!

It's nearly the weekend!

Another day down and I got nearly everything on my List done today too!

1. List 5 items in my Etsy shop  Check them out HERE. I was super happy to get them up there!
2. Find a home for the last pile of Studio boxes...yeah well they are still sitting here. :-(  I am short a craft armoire as we gave our oldest one of them for his computer. So I have to be creative about where this last bit of stuff is going. BUT it will find a home, eventually! lol

Polymer clay bracelet

 3. Photograph my new Monster High dress. This is an original design by me! =D  I used a super cute red tulip cotton and a bright green satin ribbon.  I gathered the ribbon at the shoulder to give the dress a toga-like feel.  This outfit included the dress, little black handbag, red polymer clay bracelet and the red edged rose hair pick. It can be found in my Etsy shop

Rose hair pick

Tiptoe through the Tulips

Gathered shoulder detail

4. Make blueberry 'muffins' (in mini from clay)  Haven't gotten to these yet, but they are still on my list and it's still kind of early. ;-)
5. Make English muffins (real ones this time). I've kind of gotten addicted to Pinterest and I found this recipe a nd since we LOVE english muffins I knew this one was a must make.  I made them tonight and aside from not having cornmeal (and substituting grits...bad idea) these were AMAZING!  I will be making these often for sure!

So for the most part I accomplished what I set out to do! Now to start thinking about tomorrow's list!

I feel accomplished today!

I am trying another something new...I am making myself a list of things I want to accomplish each day.  There is something wonderful about crossing an item off a list! Today I got all but one item on my list crossed off!
So what was on my list, you might ask?  Well, here it is:
1. Pack For Trade items
2. Mail     "        "
3. List candles in etsy shop
4. Finish Ghoulia's top
5. Make matching green skirt
6. Photograph the MH gang
6. Blog (and I suppose I can technically cross this one off to, since I'm doing it now! ;-D)

Bff's Ghoulia and Frankie

#1 and 2 came about after reading April's blog and discovering she had some Stardoll shoes and Monster High items she was looking to trade.  Turned out I had several items I would gladly trade her and a deal was struck. As the items going to her contained some of my hand crafted food items, she was willing to wait a few extra day, but went ahead and shipped me my items.  So her goodies went out in today's mail, and surprisingly I got my items FROM her today too!  We ended up trading for more than just the original shoes and MH stuff as she had a ton of Bratz clothes that she thought would fit the MH gals, so we added more items to her goody bag and I eagerly awaited mine!  (I hope she adores the things she's getting!

Ghoulia Ready to Strut

Sadly #3 didn't get done today, BUT it will become tomorrow's #1.

Clawd and Draculaura

  #4 and 5 go together.  Although I suppose I need to back up a little and explain where Ghoulia came in!  (oh and Frankie Stein arrived the same time too!) Forgive me for rambling, I tend to do that sometimes! lol  Oh yeah back to the ghouls.  When I bought Cleo back in November my intention was for her to simply be a model for me to expand my 1/6th scale fashion and accessory business.  I wanted a male and female Monster High as well as LIV dolls, plus of course Barbie and Ken.  I found the LIV pair on clearance and am happy with them. After Christmas I found Gil Webber (Monster High) at Wal-mart...I thought I was happy, I know had my 'couples' from each line I wanted to work on. Then I won Clawd and Draculuara... These 2 changed everything. I fell in love with the MH line, they are just so completely unique and different.  And gosh are they expressive too!!!  So I started perusing everything MH...back when they first came out I just adored the Home Ick Frankie Stein. I mean, Hello!  She's into sewing and cooking and crafty things...yep I wanted her!  However the stars never aligned (nor did our wallets) and Frankie stayed where she was.  Until...I stumbled upon another awesome doll blog by Emily. Turns out she had offered a Home Ick Frankie as a give away to the first person who wanted her!  That post had occured a day or so before I found her, but I thought what the heck...can't hurt to ask if she was still available!  SHE WAS!!!!  YEAH!!! I was stoked!

Then of course came Ghoulia. She has been one of those characters that never really called to me...except for one version.  Of course the version I really liked was the one that came ONLY in a 3 pack exclusive from ToysRus...with Cleo and Draculuara. (neither of which I wanted duplicates of.) So I trolled ebay and managed to find and win a nude Ghoul Spirit Ghoulia!!!!  By this time I was happy dancing in my chair!  

Gil and Cleo

Gil & Cleo, Clawd and Draculaura, Ghoulia, Frankie

Blowin' Kisses goodnight!

Oh geesh, sorry rambling again!  To make a long story short both of those girls arrived yesterday, bringing my total MH figs to 6!  So here are some pics of my gang

What to do, what to do?

So today I just putzed around fiddling with several different mini projects. I started some art work, none of which I am super-OMG-thrilled with, but it's nice.  I also made several polymer clay candles in orange, green and white (purely random colors! lol). I am trying to figure out what kind of project I want to work on tomorrow after my errands in the morning.

So I asked Draculaura to help me out, but it seems that she got more bewildered than I was at all the possible choices.  Hmm do you think you can help a couple of ghouls out?  What should we work on tomorrow.  Doll clothes sewing, mini-food baking (suggestions on foods would be helpful) or more mini art work?

(BTW the melted red candle and the dark green round candle were made by me from polymer clay! =D )

Um wow 2 months... (horridly wordy, sorry)

Geesh, it's been 2 months since my last blog post. And gosh how my life has changed! If we're friends on Facebook, you already know most of this so feel free to skip ahead! ;-)

oooh Hey you're still reading, cool! My last post was the 14th of November, we ended up leaving Georgia on the 10th of December. After a harrow ordeal with my husband trying to clear Post(get all his military stuff taken care of) and me trying to get our house in move-out condition nearly completely by myself, we finally made it. Although it would not have been possible without some amazing awesome dear friends! We left Saturday morning and headed to Kentucky. We stayed overnight at the campground where Hubby's family reunions take place. OMG it got so cold that we ended up shutting off the water so the hoses wouldn't freeze!!! (I totally understand the need to insulated or heated hoses now! Heck even with the water off the next morning as I was attempting to empty the sewer drain,(thankfully it was 99% sink water) the house was so cold and brittle it BROKE!

Sunday morning we headed on up the road to head to my Mom's in Ohio. They have several acres and graciously are letting us store our camper there for the winter. It was wonderful to get to visit with my Mom, Step-dad, brother and sister for a couple days. My mom has been in poor health lately and had only just recently come home from having a partial hip replacement done. My Father-in-Law came down to visit us that night and we had a lovely dinner.

Monday was spent running around trying to find everyone 'real' winter coats and such, as well as renting a Uhaul and having to buy another hitch since the ball on ours was much to large. It was a busy day, but after spending a couple hours in the cold we had everything (or atleast what we thought was everything! lol) that we wanted to bring with us to New York.

Tuesday morning we set off on the last leg of our journey. It was a wonderful trip, actually. Pennsylvania is gorgeous as is the portion of New York we drove through. The last hour was rather nerve wracking though as we never realized that the closer you get to the east coast the earlier the sun sets!!! Thathttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif day coming in it was pitch black by 4:30 in the afternoon!!! OMG!!! To make matters worse this area is very mountainous and having never driven these roads in the daylight, we pretty much had ourselves convinced that there were sheer cliffs and steep drop offs on both sides of the road! (While there are definitely those things here, the road we were on was actually very nice, after we saw it in the daytime! lol) But we made it to our hotel by 5 and settled in.

We ended up being in the hotel for about 5 days, and nobody killed any body! We didn't drive each other crazy and the dog and the cat didn't freak out...too much. We got into our house here at West Point, NY on the 19th and started settling in. Our household goods that had been in storage since the end of September were schedule to be delivered on the 23rd of December. Sadly that didn't happen...it almost did, but the truck driver drove 90 minutes from their base to our home only to realize he'd left his ID at home! If you know anything about military installations you know that getting onto one without ID is impossible...so all of our belongings were little sitting less than a quarter mile from our home! Sadly after making several attempts to find a way for them to either get a copy of the ID here, or finding a rental truck, the shipping company was forced to call their truck back and redeliver our stuff Christmas Eve morning.

Thankfully they showed up bright and early Saturday morning (with a NEW driver) and began to unload our goods. Sadly my dryer was badly mangled somewhere between Georgia and New York, so I am dealing with claims to try and get it replaced. And believe it or not I was actually looking forward to being able to do laundry. But other than a small dent in the control panel of the washer and the mangled control panel of the dryer, all the rest of our goods came through perfectly! It's taken me almost 3 weeks but I have nearly all of the boxes emptied and everything put away. The last things I need to do are the boxes in the Master Bedroom (todays chore) and a few more in my studio, doing slowly as I don't have nearly the storage space I used to, so I'm having to be creative!

On the doll front I have reopened my Etsy shop and happily made a sale within the first 30 minutes! I now have a permanent set up for taking pictures of my product so once I have it the way I want it I can start photographing items as soon as they are finished. Which means hopefully I can get them listed and up for sale right away as well. I have also added to my collection by 5 dolls. I found a LIV Sophie and red-haired wig on clearance for $8 for both, a Jake by LIV for $7, a Gil Webber from Monster High for $12 and oh my gosh my new faves Sweet 1600 Draculaura and Clawd Wolf also from the Monster High line. These are not only amazing to look at, their detailing is fabulous, but I WON them! Which makes them even better! =D Shuga Shug had a giveaway for them over on her (totally awesome BTW) blog...I honestly didn't think i had a chance or winning, but said what the heck, I'll enter anyways. So imagine my total shock and surprise when I got her email telling me I had won! I about fell out of my chair. I received them less than a week later and am totally in love! My hubby even thinks they are pretty neat.

I have decided that while I still intend to create for all three equally I am going to focus my collecting on just the MH figs, they are just so unique and different. My plan though is to only collect one of each character though. (although if I find the various heads out there I am not opposed to picking them up to be able to change looks without buying a TON of dolls.

So that about catches up my life and I will really try to post way more often! I miss all my pals! Have a wonderful long weekend if you've got one, if not, well take heart tomorrow is FRIDAY! =D

Still in GA, and playing around...

Things are very much still up in the air as we wait to find out when we need to be in NY, so we are just enjoying the time we have here and getting this house ready to move out of. We were planning to travel up the eastern seaboard to get to NY, but have decided to travel to OH first as my Mom and Step-dad have graciously allowed us to winter our travel-trailer on their property, since all the parks in NY are closed for the season.

In the last few weeks I have been working on some more clothes for my Monster High doll. (I'll get back to Barbie stuff too, once we get moved. I love Babs and will always come back to her, but I'll tell you I am loving the challenge of creating for the uniquely shaped MH girls!) I created a top to match the Purple Gingham Skirt I created a few weeks ago. This one was completely from my own mind and I love the way it turned out.

My next top was created using a Barbie doll pattern that I reduced and altered to fit the MH body. I was very curious to know if this would work as I have several patterns for Barbies and would love to use them to create more clothes. For the most part the process was easy and worked rather well. Because of the exaggerated curve of the Monster High spine, the back doesn't close completely like I'd like it too, but with some time and tweaking I think I can make the work too. I love the way the top turned out and will be adding some slim black ribbon trim to it to finish it off!

November Already??? (pic heavy)

Happy Anniversary to my dear husband and me. Twelve years ago today I married my best friend and soul mate! I look forward to many many more years of happiness! =D

It's been ages since I blogged, as many of you also are facebook friends you might already know how my life is right now, but just to play catch up... hubby's deferment was approved, so our new report date is the 10th of December. We are still heading to NY and are trying to decide when we want to leave GA. I saw my doc on Halloween for my final appointment and have been given the all clear to get back to normal life. (although he did say not to over due it, no gymnastics and such! ;-D lol)




Speaking of Halloween...money was a little tight this year so we kind of made due. My youngest was a soldier, my middle was Jack Skellington ad my oldest decided he wanted to dress up too. He was a character of his own creation. He was the God of Fortune from a story he is writing. (no he wants to steal my cape because it's so warm and comfy! =D On a side note I've had that thing for close to 15 years {it was a gift from my Dad and Step-mom!} I love it and now that they are back in fashion I cannot wait to wear it this Fall and Winter! ) We had tons of kids...nearly a thousand!!! How do I know, you ask...well I bought a HUGE pail of 1000 suckers and aside from a few dozen kids that came around twice and a small handful of kids at the end, I was only giving each child 1 sucker, and after 2 hours of trick or treating (ours lasts from 6-8) ALL the suckers were GONE!!! There were tons of really creative costumes, but honestly none of them topped the adult wearing the homemade Optimus Prime (Transformers) costume! It even had working lights!!!

On the crafty/doll front I have been playing around making clothes for Cleo...I started out with a simple one piece vest pattern I created, I altered it several times and ended up with half a dozen various felt and denim versions. Then I used a small scrap of left over denim (I'm repurposing the legs off an old pair of jeans!) to create a halter top. Since all my ribbon is in storage in NY I took 12 strands of sewing thread and sectioned it off into 4 thread groups which I braided to use as the halter ties! Next up I created 2 different skirts... a slim pencil skirt with black trim and this purple gingham trimmed skirt! All of my other Cleo pieces can be seen over in
my Flickr photostream.

As far as nail go, I have been keeping them painted most days, but I've been rather lax in taking pics. :-( But here is my Halloween mani... Revlon's Mad about Mango scented polish on my ring fingers, and 2 coats of China Glaze's Ick-A-Bod-Y from their 2010 Halloween collection. On my ring fingers I did a quick free hand jack o lantern face. Right now I am wearing this pale simple pearly number. I've got 4 coats of OPI's Pearls of Wisdom on all my fingers. On my ring fingers those layers are mixed with 3 coats of Wet n Wild's Party of Five Glitters which I them topped off with Hard Candy's Matte-ly in Love (which I am totally in LOVE with, and seem to use it over nearly everything! lol)

So in a nutshell that's what's been going on in my life. Next week I'll be busy working on cleaning and painting and such to get ready to head to New York. (man I'm still not totally ready for that, but hey that's where the Army wants us so that's where we're headed. We'll make the most of it! :-D ) Thanks for stickign aorund and reading all this. HUGS

Woohoo!!! I was crafty! lol

I started a project yesterday and for a first attempt I'm pretty happy with them! I made my Cleo a pair of shoes! I have actually made a few changes to both the shoes and the doll since the picture in the above link too. I used some lightweight cardboard and photo paper to make the outer sole and the inner soles respectively. I used a strip of ribbon as the uppers and a piece of Q-tip stick for the heels. They are just prototypes as they aren't sturdy enough that I'd feel comfortable selling them. (which is my ultimate goal) But for a 1st attempt I'm pretty darn happy with them! I think I want to 'brand' my shoe line, kind of like red soles are symonymis with Louboutins. I think I want to use a dark teal or aqua as my 'branding' color. I have painted the soles and heaels of this pair with a wonderful nail polish called Figi by Petites. (it's an inexpensive brand at Walmart or Kmart!) I'll share that pic tomorrow.

I want to make some molds of Cleo's feet and legs. Hopefully I can cast them in plaster and then make polymer clay shoes and boots around the molds. If my ideas work I should be able to then remove them and they will be wearable. I also want to sculpt shoe bases that can then be decorated with fabric and ribbons too. There is a lovely lady in Finland who goes by Tarja, who amongst other cool things, makes amazingly cool shoes for several different brands of dolls. I HIGHLY suggest you click on her name to visit her Flickr photostream! =D She is definitely a creative inspiration for me!
On the nail front I switched polish the other day to a custom color I created a while back. I absolutely LOVE holographic polishes and wanted to create a black. For the most part I succeeded! I say for the most part as I used a good bit of navy in my mix to keep it from being overwhelming (and I only had a small bottle of black but a large one of navy! LOL) And while this color reads black on it's own, next to a true black it definitely comes off as Navy. But you know what...I LOVE this color and the holo-ness of it is awesome! I hope you like it! I call it Into That Dark Knight. What do you think?