August, 2014
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Thoroughly Modern LAUREN
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Flaky skin. It’s not just a human problem, you know. Poor, sweet Lauren had it in spades. A previous owner had tried to fix it, leaving a thick, gloppy mess that’s hard to see in this photo.
The BEST stuff on earth! Am I right?!
I confidently took her parts in my hands and set about to removing the offending paint, smug in the fact that I would have no problem. No problem at all.
WRONG. It was tricky! For the first time, I wished I owned an air brush. Instead, I use the “tap” method. And when I do, a distantly remembered song comes to mind. I discovered it was from the movie, “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” starring Julie Andrews and Mary Tyler Moore, and it’s called “The Tapioca.” I don’t know all the lyrics, so I just sing the ones I know as I work.
Tap, tap, tap tapioca tap-tap!
My life is a musical.
This is midway, after I removed the previous repaint.
After tap, tap, tap, tapioca tap-tap!
Tapping the paint on with my hands rather than using a brush means I won’t have brush strokes on a girl’s skin. Lauren looks much better. Thankfully, her face was just fine.
Lauren is O.L.D. No. 12 and she was put up for adoption as of Sunday, 6:33 Iowa time. I’ve decided that’s when all the Once-Loved Dolls will go up for adoption, because 33 is my lucky number, and my Dad’s year of birth. You can see Lauren’s adoption page HERE.
I’ve dressed Lauren in 40s style clothes. The wool for Lauren’s coat was given to me by a formal local fairy named Beth who has since flitted off to Colorado. Beth, if you see this, thank you!
I also got a chance to use this strange curved cording I had that I didn’t know what I would ever do with. A black velvet ruffle open crown hat! This is why you never throw anything away!
There must be something in the water in Colorado, because both SHIRLEY and BRIDGET were adopted by a lovely woman who also lives there. We shall call her “M.” Bridget is on her way as of yesterday.
And now! Once more into the breach!
Happy Tuesday! You’re my favorite.
A Little Hunger Games Humor, Courtesy of Our Mayor
As I sew, I frequently play movies in the background over and over, “watching” the same movie several times in a day. It of course has to be a good movie that I enjoy, because I’ll watch it that several times a day for several weeks in a row. And, yet! Lucky me, I have no retention. “Come on, Titanic! TURN!”
My current movie of choice is “The Hunger Games.” Love it! Wish I’d thought of the story! It’s well acted!
There’s this one part that always makes me giggle because of something my sister The Mayor said. She’s a funny girl! So without further ado, here is Julie’s Joke in pictures:
Hee! I giggle EVERY TIME.
Lastly, in the very last chapter I wanted to have Comedy/Tragedy masks. I was just going to use some I found on Google but my brother Dennis suggested we have Nina do ours so there would be no copyright issue. I’m so glad we did!
Aren’t they beautiful? With that, happy Tuesday! You’re my favorite.
Release Your Inner Squaw!
My brother got my blog site working again! Thanks, bro!
Shocking! “Squaw”! Did she really say that?
Why, yes I did. I was putting the finishing touches on Bridget, O.L.D. No. 11’s coat. As is becoming more and more frequently the case, I wanted to make a second dress for her. Something simple. Something red.
Somehow, the simple red dress with perhaps a little trim around the yoke morphed into vague recollections of pretty dresses my mother had made before I was born. They were things of beauty, vivid blue with lots of silver rickrack and I adored them. I remembered that they had a name…what were they called again?
“Dress with lots of rickrack” I entered into “Ask,” my favorite search engine for such things. The answer was swift: Squaw dresses!
Since I was styling Bridget in more of a 1940s style and squaw dresses were all the rage in the 50s, this seemed the way to go (I will justify anything when I set my mind to it. And one of the patterns was from 1948, so it counts!).
So I did! I made Bridget a Squaw dress, and after hours of toil she went up for adoption last night. You can see her page HERE.
Bridget was so much fun! She’s a flirty-eyed doll just like Dot, in that her eyes not only sleep, they move side to side. Her composition arms were barely hanging onto her body and have been firmly reattached. All that remained of her face paint was some of the lip color, one partial eyebrow, and a few painted eyelashes on the inner corner of her eye.
Also, her “wig” was a human hair wiglet made for humans, and the round, stiff base of it sat on top of her head like a pancake.
A little cleaning, a little mending on her shoulders, a few “V” snipped into the wiglet base so it would form, and voila! Bridget is ready to go. Plus, there was some sewing involved. And rickrack, let us not forget that.
Happy Monday!
D5 Creation