craft, Doll, pullip, Uncategorized

My hands and Edna

It’s much easier for me to be inspired to write about what I’m currently working on than to write about what I have finished.

“I never look back, it distracts from the NOW”– Edna Mode.

But there is so much I have made while not writing that I’d like to figure out a way to harness the excitement of the now to that which has passed.

So, let’s try this. We’ll got on the journey of my day or my current endeavors and then endcap it all with at least one finished project. Perhaps the two things will relate…perhaps they won’t.

Today

It’s summer vacation but I had some school-related work today.

This week I go to Jr High schools in the mornings to assist students with English speech contest practice. Today turned out to be a light work-load. We worked with one student in the morning until 9:20 and then had to wait for a second student at 11AM. Between these time slots the English teacher I worked with and I made sample recordings of me reading various speeches for students to use for practicing.

Recording didn’t take long. The English teacher I was working with and I sat and talked until 11AM.

We ended up talking a bit about ADHD. I disclosed I had it and she, having read up on it a lot, had asked questions to try to understand why some of her students with ADHD DO the things they do…one example was a student who tries to cut their nails with craft scissors while class is in session. Which made PERFECT sense to my mind.

Like people on the autism spectrum, folks with ADHD often stim. Stimming is any repetitive actions that help a person self-stimulate their senses: auditory, visual, tactile, and even olfactory. Stimming behaviors relieve boredom/anxiety or distract from pain / discomfort while also burning off excess energy.

The urge to stim is NOT going to go away with a teacher or parent telling a child to stop the behavior. The underlying anxiety, boredom pain or discomfort that is triggering the need to stim hasn’t gone away. Stopping the coping mechanism may actually elevate the anxiety. Even if it doesn’t, the absence of the stimming will make the underlying discomfort hit even harder.

I’ve always fidgeted with my hands. It wasn’t strange for me, from elementary school through high school, to have art projects WITH me at my desk. Finger knitting. Origami. Drawing. Filing hard wax rings for lost wax casting. Building wax figures. Using needle nose pliers to manipulate wire into 3-d objects.

Really.

Because of the specific public schools I went to this the reaction to this varied. I was occasionally seen as a problem in elementary school (depending on the teacher), it helped mark me as a bad student all through middle school, and was tolerated in high school because I could quickly demonstrate my understanding of the class topic when challenged…and my high school cared about art. It wasn’t an issue in college because I went to an art school where I was either making things or taking liberal arts classes I had a genuine interest in.

My schools were NOT Japanese schools

I know how strict Japanese schools are about students not having objects unrelated to class out on desks or in hands. I’ve seen how quickly stimming that bothers others (humming, tapping the desk, clicking pens) gets shut down (although that’s the same in America). Often students only have the option of stimming with hands, bodies (quietly) or staring at a particular object or thing in motion.

So what’s with the cutting nails in class?

Take my hands. I didn’t need to be told to frequently massage my surgery scar to help break up the scar tissue and aid in mobility. That scar is on my hand and I can feel it

To stim I tend mindlessly rub the pad of my thumbs over the fingertips and nails of the same hand. If my hands and fingernails are smooth, no hangnails or scabs or jagged nails or chipping nail polish, it’s possible to focus on something else while my fingers and hands do what they need to do. When that smooth surface is compromised OH BOY.

The interruption of my hand movements by an unfamiliar or unpleasant sensation can quickly change my stimming to an intense fixation. That jagged nail is now the center of my world.

ADHD people are not deficient in attention. We’ve got SO MUCH energy to pour at things. We have a deficit in the ability to regulate where and how our attention is focused.

A jagged nail interrupts the motion that was alleviating my anxiety/boredom ( and allowing me to focus on the task I needed to tend to). As that stim is removed, and the underlying mental noise pours in, that jagged nail presents as the thing to intensely fixate on. If I didn’t have ADHD I could simply note that I’ll have to clip my nails later….but I have ADHD. I can’t quickly and quietly regulate my focus back onto the task at hand.

Now that I’m on Strattera (a selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor that helps me with my dopamine levels) I can better recognize that I an fixating on something and work at how to redirect that focus.

Even on Straterra I sometimes will not be able to refocus without first removing/dealing with the new fixation issue. I might automatically surreptitiously try and rip that jagged edge with a fingernail. During a dull meeting I WILL have to fight the urge to dip my hand into my desk and grab some scissors even though I know how socially unacceptable it is and how ineffective a tool craft scissors are for the task.

I’m an adult on medication. The average neurotypical child is going to have a worse time fighting impulses. The average child with ADHD? Even one on medication (which is hard being dosages and medication have to be adjusted as they grow) that is helping with the larger issues will have a very VERY difficult time refocusing until the fixation is eliminated.

And that’s why the craft scissors are out, in class, going for that nail. That child knows that until the issue is dealt with they will be emotionally and physically unable to do anything else. They might also know they’ll be in trouble but that won’t stop them, it’ll simply make them try and hide it…and they’ll feel like a failure if they are caught and chastized. Knowing the consequences isn’t enough to stop all impulses.

That’s why.

That’s my dance everyday. The tango of temptations with an ever changing irregular rhythm of regulation thrumming under it all.

Finished Project:

Little Pullip to Edna Mode.

If you can’t link Edna Mode to the speaking habits, intense focus, delight in a new challenge and ever gesticulating personality of someone with Impulsive/Hyperactive type of ADHD…that is on YOU.

The basics

removed wig and makeup
replaced stock Little Pullip body with a more posable 11cm Obitsu body.
scultpted onto face with apoxie scupt.
repainted face
Doll wig from Parabox.
Shrinky-dink glasses
sewed outfit with black cloth, black ribbon, and pink ribbon.
bought tiny tights and shoes from Azone.
enjoyed.

Simple, elegant, yet BOLD

craft, mental health, sewing, Uncategorized

Find the thread.

Fast forward eight months. That’s how long it’s been.

I’m now on ADHD medications.
The middle finger of my left hand has been bandaged in one form or another for two and half months as I recover from tearing part of a tendon. Typing isn’t a breeze.

If I try to catch you up any more I’ll get bogged down. I figure that the way to pick up the thread is to use my photos in my iphone. I’ll just search by month and figure out what needs to be shown that way.

2020 April and May were peak “at home” quarantine times for me with school closed and my daily life indoors

True, there’s a current state of emergency in effect for Tokyo and we’re having a huge spike and vaccines haven’t even started being distributed but now I’m expected to take the train into Tokyo mon-fri to teach two school’s worth of children each week ….let’s not unpack that yet.

I sewed those months. Oh boy did I sew. See the pattern below? McCall’s M6696. After some early tests to get the pattern fitting right I CRANKED out the dresses.

My stash didn’t have many fabrics in the quantity I needed (about 4 meters) so the fabrics were ones I found on Mercari and the fabric shop located near the dentist I saw 12 times between May-August. I figured if I had to go to the damned dentist that much I might as well make use of those trips to gather essentials like food and fabric.

You see that? The oranges? That’s the inside of the dress. all french seamed and everything. That’s due to this invaluable sew along youtube series about the pattern by Kittenish Behavior.

Ebony had also given me a few patterns earlier in the year including Simplicity 4077, so after bust adjustments I made three shirts for work.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL. How about the McCall’s pattern variation with the slim skirt? I made it…in a fabric featuring apples and hedgehogs. See the fabric on the floor? You’ll see it again.

In July or August (Summer break after school started again) I found an awesome traditional styled Japanese fabric with hidden kitties. I also had some Japanese fabric I found too overwhelming once I sewed it so I over-dyed it a purple hue. Same pattern but now with band collars.

I also made myself this Vintage Simplicity from one of Ebony”s patterns. Unlike the button and go style of the McCall dress it isn’t suitable for work so I haven’t had the chance to wear it anywhere. I’ve worn the McCalls dresses SO MUCH for work it is insane. It has pockets, ya know.

It should be noted that the vast swinging between “I can sew everything I HAVE FOCUS” and “I cant focus on anything I’m going to do nothing” in March/April/May is what got me to get on ADHD medication.

And that is the start to returning to bloging…wonky finger be damned,

craft, Doll, monster high, sewing, Uncategorized

Sally and the bumpy ride.

Oh. Oh. It’s just so hard to know where to start.

As an elementary school English teacher employed by a dispatch company in Japan, March always involves a dip in work and pay for me.

This year has been a whole ‘nother experience.

My contract year and the days I had to show up to school ended March 10th, although my actual classes ended in February 28 due to Covid19. A few days before the contract ended I learned that the company I work for had lost the contract for the city I worked in..and didn’t have any cities near me they could shift me into.

Next school year starts April 1st. Japan is still planning on it starting…but then again in Japan people are still going to cherry blossom parties and Prime Minister Abe is JUUUST starting to admit that maaaaaaaybe the Olympics won’t happen this year…but the Gov. of Tokyo wants to declare a lock down. It’s all complicated. I think Japan is in denial.

I’ve had the insanity of being an asthmatic social distancing myself when it feels like so few other in this country are people are… while also making sure I’m employed the next coming school year…even though I think that the school year maybe shouldn’t start.

All while trying to get more organized through the filter of knowing I have ADHD and need new skills, at a time my days and nights all blend together in mostly emptiness.

My family back home is taking precautions. I would often travel to see them this time of year but..well..I can’t do that during a job hunt and the end of the world. I worry about them. I really do.

In the last 48 hours I’ve turned down a job, thought I had another job, lost that job, applied for different jobs, and accepted a job offer from my previous company now that they’ve had an opening that’s…not near me but not worse than last year?

And there have been tears.

My friend Ebony works in a preschool. Her school isn’t public so she’s been at work this whole time. Things have been rough on her. We have texted dailyl

One thing I’ve been able to feel great about is that I finished a surprise gift for Ebony and sent it to her home..and she got it and cried.

This is what we do now, we cry. We all cry a lot because there’s just so much to be overwhelmed by.

This is what she opened:

I didn’t take enough in progress photos, sorry.

That’s a Frankie Stien Monster High doll as Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas…but I think you knew that.

The process started before I had an airbrush so I had to sand and build up the color of the doll (Frankie is more light greenish blue than blue) with chalk pastels and layers of fixative. And then I had to pencil in her seams.

You can see the color difference clearing in this shot of the finished body and the head (uncolored) after I’d rooted it with brushed acrylic yarn.

But this time I had an airbrush to get the base color down for the face before painting.

With the dress, this was my first time using acrylic paints, thinned with a textile medium, to create the whole dress pattern.

I made a base dress from white cotton. Then I painted in the color patches. Once dried I used a permanent fine-line marker for details. Finally I over-stitched sections with black thread and added a stitched on patch for depth.

For all the turmoil…and stillness…the last few weeks have contained…I have brought some joy to someone.

I have also been making progress in organizing my projects, tasks, life and daily needs in a bullet journal….figuring that a system developed by a designer with ADHD might be a good fit for me, and so far it is.

Tonight, I get to rest. Knowing that I do have a job come April…I really do..so long as school is a thing. If school isn’t a thing for a while, I have a safety net.

There is much to worry about…but I’m getting out of bed everyday and doing…somethings. I hope you are too.

craft, organizing

Paint organizing.

If I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.

I’ve got object permanence. I’m a big girl. But when it comes to stored items my working memory is faulty.

If I haven’t drilled the idea that this object always goes there (an opaque location I can’t see it into) for a good duration of time then placing any objects out of clear sight is an effective way for me to lose them.

Yesterday evening tackled some of my doll craft space to solve the problem of my acrylic paints.

You might be thinking, that’s fine. And it is. I’m never going to put everything in a specific order. I’m just gonna look and grab.

These makeup holders are the perfect dimensions for this volume of paint…but over time I’ve amassed some artists gauche and let’s look how those fit.

Oh, they fit fine but there is no information on the top-most part to indicate what color the paint is. If I fill this rack like that I’m doomed to constantly emptying and looking for colors…as I have been doing for half a year.

My solution was to cut a long strip of paper and paint a sample color from each tube onto it. After the samples dried I cut them and used scotch tape to attach each one to its tube.

I labeled the caps of identical containers of paint thinners and glosses. This is also how my spice drawer works. Identical containers, each labeled, I can visually scan from above.

That’s my tiny fix for today. My space is in progress.

Then I worked on a top secret project. Shhhhh.

craft, Doll, Uncategorized

Airbrush resistance: Art School

I was resistant to getting an airbrush because I had an attitude about airbrushes.

That attitude comes from my “foundation year”(fancy term for freshman year) at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design and the general disregard held for airbrushes there.

Not that some students didn’t have them and use them. This was never more obvious than on Halloween when some lazy art dudes who hadn’t given thought to their costumes (art school Halloween costumes are serious business) would go over to an airbrush-having student (usually “Sham” and his roomie) before the parties and get their torsos and faces sprayed to resemble skeletons: pathetic, half-dressed, slacker skeletons ready to get sloppy drunk. That’s what I think of when I think airbrushes, drunk skeletons who couldn’t be bothered.

It would take a few years before we would all come together against a common Halloween enemy: Don and his damned Edward Scissorhands costume. Sure, it was great….the first year…but the way he’d use it to win Milwaukee bar costume contests every damned year for the next four years wasn’t.

We were sick of that costume and sick of him.

He was a wanker. He’d eventually become an official Utilikilt vender for the North Pacific and move to Portland to sculpt and weld things and claim he’d always been named Gustav Sculptor.

Airbrushes though…

I had a buddy who worked at a Milwaukee’s Grand Avenue Mall t-shirt kiosk our first year at MIAD. He had flashbacks when I recently mentioned online I was looking at airbrushes.

We didn’t have dorms. We all just lived in downtown Milwaukee. Just responsible freshmen art students in apartments with leases, what could go wrong? (so much) The following year the school had dorms but by then no one wanted to give up the freedom …except Don, because being a RA to young impressionable incoming freshman was his kinda thing…wanker

My airbrush working buddy had an apartment with a bunch of other art student dudes who discussed which Young Ones archetype they fit. It was an apartment complex full of similarly filled apartments. The Apartment complex itself was named after Alexander Comstock who would not have approved of the shenanigans within. Airbrush Buddy and Co’s apartment was a place with nasty but loved couches where you’d find yourself sitting in the evening drinking beer, watching STNG, and not doing your art homework.

One of his roommates also worked in the airbrush-shirt kiosk. I remember them complaining about the pushback they’d get from refusing to do gang symbols and the customers who would demand that they make the already painted bunnies cuter…or that the example t-shirt had seven purple balloons in the bunny’s hand and theirs only had six and was this a rip off or what?!? (Drink)

Sweet Baby Stevus, when looking for a picture of the Comstock I found listings that included pictures of the interior and I swear to god the kitchen fixtures ( and fillings ) haven’t changed since 1994. The only thing missing is there is no keg in this picture.

So, prior to dolls, airbrushes were a source of contempt and stress in my mind: Drunk slacker skulls and bunnies that were never cute enough.

Then I learned that airbrushes are pretty much the best way to change the color of a doll’s body and head and I started looking at them, casually.

Hey, hey baby.

This year, facing the stress maybe changing jobs, I started looking again at them…

I didn’t get the job I wanted. Again. I got a letter telling me “you’re not our first choice but if anyone drops you’re on our waitlist”…which is why I simultaneously tell people not to panic about Covid-19 while also privately hoping whatever applicants got that job freak out about it and flee the country before the next school year starts

l’d been eyeing airbrushes on Mercari, hoping to buy one as an “I got the job” me-gift . I instead bought one as a “Nope, didn’t get it” gift…and shortly after declared this the YEAR OF DOLLS OR ART.

In fact I got a whole bunch of stuff all from one seller.

Tamiya spray booth, two Tamiya/Procon boy airbrushes, a MR. LINEAR L3compressor, that little moisture regulator, stands, and things to attach things and spray them and rotate them with, original instructions (Japanese) all at once for under 200usd which has turned out to be a great deal.

And then I had to wait to play with them for a week and a half while prepping for studio stuff.

This gave me time to watch airbrush videos…and time to get over the culture shock of watching airbrush videos.

I’m so accustomed to doll videos: lilting female voices (sometimes with Eastern European accents), colorful, time lapse photography and calming background music, well edited and containing helpful voice overs when needed.

Airbrush: Dudes who still used the term NOOBS, heavy metal font, sometimes barebones video editing and a lot of ambient sounds.

They’re just so much more aggressive. I don’t think I’m used to men telling me how to do things as much as I used to be…I bellydance, work in an elementary school where all the head teachers and principals are women, and I do a lot of traditionally female DIY craft.

With the studio show over I’ve had time to play a bit. As some of what I need an airbrush for is matching and changing skin tones, I’ll often be best off mixing acrylic colors and thinning them instead of using fume-laden lacquers.

with acrylics I’ve painted the ears I made for a 17inch Clawdeen Wolf ages ago (to become a taller Starfire) the seam in front will be further hidden under her hair

I know I’ll have to sit down and do some practicing lines and hand-eye co-ordination at some point…although most of the time I’ll be just turning something a different color. I think.

I also cleaned up a Pullip in progress, this time with Mr. Hobby Acrylic Laquers. I’m making a Pris from Bladerunner and doing her face in chalk pastels resulted in too much pigment fallout, it got muddy, so I removed all my work and hit it with the airbrush last night. Tonight I’m layering it with Mr.Super Clear so I can add details.

And that’s how I’m currently learning to love my airbrush and leave the bunnies and skeletons (and wankers) behind.

craft, Doll, japanese, Uncategorized

Now even my doll has a mask.

Greetings from Japan.

In case you’re confused, the left is mini-me (in a mask I just made her so she doesn’t worry) and the right is me-me at work on the last day Japanese students attended all classes.

I’m not overly worried about coronavirus/covid-19. I wash my hands, have my hand sanitizer, stopped biting my nails last year, and am generally prepared for contagions because I’m an asthmatic who works with elementary school kids. Kids are nasty.

Despite not being worried about it, Covid-19 is impacting my life and the lives of those around me.

Japanese public schools, which generally end their school year mid-march, are now closed from March 2nd to April. That news broke on Thursday night, while I was teaching dance, and I was inundated with texts.

Friday I headed to school in the morning unsure of if I would be required to attend school until March 10th (like many teachers will be). It also only dawned on me on the morning train that I probably wouldn’t simply be teaching six periods of English classes as planned on Friday. English is far less important than wrapping up EVERYTHING. Sure enough, the cancellations rolled in shortly after I arrived.

It was amazing that I did teach one 3rd grade class. The students and teacher appreciated a return to singing songs and clapping.

We don’t know if the 6th graders will get a graduation ceremony at this rate. The second half of Friday at school featured a last minute “goodbye party” for them. Usually there is a large, school-wide assembly where each grade performs a song/dance/skit/thank you for the outgoing 6th graders. The out-going 6th graders thank each grade and encourage them.

it was planned for next week but was quickly moved. Instead of having the whole school in the gym. The 6th graders stayed in the gym and each grade came to separately present their performances….getting hand-sprayed with sanitizer going in and exiting the gym.

I was lucky to be able to watch it all. It’s hard to put into words how goddamned adorable and amusingly costumed this yearly event it.

Also, I was going crazy with the doing nothing. I’d packed up and organized the English room and had taught my only class. I still didn’t know if I’d have to take all my belongings home that day.

With 30 minutes left on the work clock I learned that English assitants (me) and IT staff will be attending student-less schools until the end of our contracts. I guess the English room will get more posters!

Disneyland and Disney Sea will be closed for at least two weeks, so my commute to no-student school might be less crazy each morning and afternoon (we’re one train stop away from the Disneys).

I’ve started to wear masks at school and one public transport. Not that I think it helps much, but I realize it will make others around me less worried.

And maybe the train sign will stop talking to me.

I also have a homemade mask and will make more. In part because, yes, if you don’t have a school providing you with masks…they’ve been sold out at stores for WEEKS.

f484e8b3-c9ee-497b-94f2-9779db3c291d

The bags under my eyes aren’t from worry. That’s just how I look at 6:30 am Friday after work + three dance lessons on Thursday.

Also, there were false rumors on social media about all paper products in Japan coming from China and thus shipping won’t happen and we’re about to face a paper-product shortage.

This is untrue because most of the pulp used to produce paper products here is from here…Japan.

It’s also now sort of true because, thanks to people freaking out, there’s no toilet paper to be bought anymore. I have a stockpile of tissue because of allergies so I’m safe.

Hand sanitizer and rubbing alcohol is also scarce…but I work with kids AND made a fair amount of my own cleaning products so I have enough rubbing alcohol to add to distilled water/glycerine and maybe some aloe-gel as a base..to continue to fill my own containers…on top of regular hand washing. Wash them hands, folks. WASH THEM.

If I were in a more precarious head space the empty aisles would probably give me 3/11 Earthquake flashbacks. As it is they just annoy me.

So, that’s why my doll now has a mask.

I figure I can use some of the time going crazy with nothing to do at work to better research the Japanese terminology around ADHD for my March 6th appointment.

I’d sort of hoped wouldn’t fall into the “must come to work” category and could start playing with the airbrush I now have…but going crazy at work has the advantage of a paycheck.

costuming, craft, dance, Uncategorized

Let’s hear it for good workmanship!

By the time the night before the studio anniversary show rolled around I felt like I’d been altering costumes forever, before even tackling my own.

It wasn’t forever but I had altered three costumes for my dance partner and had a student who’d bought her first ever costume. It was new to her but previously owned and..well..WORN.

My students had been worried about finding any costume because she’s chubby by local sizes and already had a lot of insecurity around showing her body. I wanted it to be as fixed up as possible so she could enjoy wearing it and focus on her dancing. For three lessons she’d bring her costume, and before and after the lesson, I’d see what work was to be done. Each time I did a fair amount of sewing to show how to do the work (explaining sewing and alterations purely verbally to someone who doesn’t sew is hard enough in one’s own language, I didn’t think it was worth it to try) and send her home with more pins in her costume.

On the eve of the show I had to make sure that I had a costume that would complement my dance partner’s choice for our duet. She still can’t locate her duet costume so she’d be wearing another bra/belt I made in 2006 that she now owns. Luckily I’d made that costume for myself, in colors I know work for my completion, and had other handmade choices in similar colorways.

My bra/belt from 2007 would work. It’s an example of me playing with layers of plastic lamp-fringe, ribbon, and Kuchi jewelry embellishments to make a light-weight, quick-to-sew, “Tribaret” (tribal-inspired cabaret) costume, the sort I used to wear more often.

It still fits but the bra edge has always been a bit shallow so I added to the cups on Saturday night. The edge looks floppy here but when filled with cleavage it does the job.

The show opened it’s doors at noon, a lunchtime block, so I had to be there in make-up by 10:30. Well, I didn’t officially have to be there in make-up…but when you know a place is going to be crowded with dancers getting ready, probably poorly lit, without enough mirrors it’s best to come made up.

A student show isn’t a place to spend time doing my own face anyways. My job before a student show is to have supplies on hand to add MORE make-up to student faces: add highlights here, a pop of color there, help with false eyelashes until everyone feels lovely and confident.

Then, after we’ve checked blocking and made sure everyone knows the schedule, where to enter and exit the stage and such, I run around with safety pins double-checking the fit of everyone’s costumes.

It’s only after that when I can catch up with the other teachers, my dance partner, our guest musicians/dancers and such…and then worry about my own costumes.

Of course, my costumes are then under a groovy cover-up until stage time. Other people choose Middle-Eastern cover-ups. I raid Mrs. Roper’s closet.

The first set I watched my students perform my veil choreography and then got ready with my student of 8+ years, Yuko, and Jnana (a former student and now teacher) for my Turkish Roma choreography. My skirt, vest, and belt are all self-made.

Second set meant changing for my duet (and unfortunately missing other students who were performing a finger cymbal choreography I taught in a workshop last year) and performing with H.

https://videopress.com/v/y9RGpRyJ?preloadContent=metadata

Duet

The final set I could get back into quirky teacher garb and just enjoy.

Here I am heading back to my home with two bouquets of flowers from students and peers.

On the train home there were a groups of JR school girls on some sort of team low-key freaking out about me. I tried to ask why (in Japanese), they then asked me if I was Japanese and I replied that I’m American and they squealed more and I didn’t ask anything else.

The last time I encountered a similar reaction, and pushed for an answer, it turned out to be girls who thought I was a Tokyo Disneyland/Disney Sea face character actor getting off my shift. It’s not a crazy assumption to make on the train line that serves both parks…except that time I wasn’t one of Ariel’s sisters, I was just in very tropical dance face.

This time, if that’s what they thought, I can only wonder if they thought…

Because Evil Queen, or Lady Tremaine, are the only face characters this make-up would have explained. ..And I was in all black .

craft, Disney, Doll, Uncategorized

Unsticking Bubbles.

It was on Bubbles that my series languished. I’d chosen one of the two Auroa dolls I have. It’s not a face sculpt I much like. The eyes feel too large and wide apart but I thought it might work for Bubbles.

Alas, her hair parted on the side and I found no way that I could make her hairstyle work. I chopped off her hair and thought I’d make a wig….but I never did.

Last week, in surveying projects to finish up, I knew in my heart it was time to move on…and try making Cinderella into Bubbles instead.

When I first got Cinderalla she was sporting some facial stains that I finally bleached off with 10% Benxoyl Peroxide acne cream this summer.

I figured that she had a middle-part hair and would work…but it was difficult to really make out the full part because of how matted her hair was.

I conditioned and brushed and conditioned and brushed. At first I did so without gloves and then realized that if I’m going to increase doll work I’ll also need to increase protection to my skin and body. Gloved up.

It was only once it was fully dry that I realized the top part was great for pigtails….but the hair becomes too sparse in back to support that style.

I’m never going to fully reroot a Disney Animator doll again, that was a special hell, but her hair seems easy to match and I’m fine with just adding a part and longer bangs in front.

Which is how Bubbles came to get the back of her head removed so I can more easily glue and access skull bits without removing her head.

I’m not going to have time this week to get more hair, so I don’t expect to get any further on her until after the dance studio has it’s show. The rest of my night tonight is for cleaning and costume alterations.

costuming, craft, dance, Doll

Parameters

I know I will need to create some structure for a year of art…because making (or writing about) creating/changing physical art objects everyday isn’t do-able. I’ll burn out.

I do consistently create (dolls, clothing, useful objects, decorative objects) every week…it’s just somewhat haphazard. The mood and inspiration strikes often but how much am I feeding it so it can thrive? How can both streamline my process and widen my scope of possibilities?

And then there’s the fact that my other art is physically demanding.

I wrote yesterday’s post on the train to my second job….the OTHER other art I do. On Thursdays after a 8-4 Mon-Fri full energy job with about an hour commute each way, I go home for a nap and food, and then go to the studio to teach three dances classes (7-10)….and wake up the next morning at 6am.

Consistently feeding my dance self is a battle I feel I’ve been loosing. I currently teach 7 lessons a week. The studio I work at is about to celebrate their 10 year anniversary…with a student and teacher show.

So, my student attendance is up…but most everyone is focused on practicing the choreographies I’ve already taught so there is more running through whole songs and drilling tricky moves and less slower explanations…and this is true for my beginner students as well as myself and some peers. I’m drilling three choreographies and teaching a fourth one.

This is what I do when I’m not sharing my DIY. This is also a large part of my extra time this month.

My duet partner (and studio owner) H and I are reviving this choreography (with finger cymbals) I made and we performed 2015.

My Turkish Roma class had a student who wanted to perform a choreography I made two-three years ago. I’ll be dancing with her AND another student who learned it then but is now a fellow teacher. I like my choreography but it’s one I created to mirror “How I’d dance” instead of translating my choices to a more teachable/student oriented choreography. It’s VERY heavy on the heel bounces. This style is why massage places ask me if I wear heels a lot. I don’t, those are just the calves I get from this.

My beginners are doing a 3 minute choreography which has three distinct sections…veil work, slow moves, and FAST ALL THE SHIMMY. This is the veil work. Looking at this clip I realize that I’ve also lost weight since a few months ago because busy. Not intentional it’s just how my body ebs and flows. Enjoy my “lesson wear”

And last there’s the choreography my intermediate students are starting (not for the show) by a dancer I love learning from, Serkan Tutar. I have permission to teach it and alter it as needed. His choreographies always work well for me AND when it’s student appropriate and I DO teach what I’ve learned in his workshops it gives me some time off from creating new work…

And it’s finding ways to feed this, my other art, and myself, that can be hard.

craft, Doll

Maybe we go deeper.

Setbacks and stashes.

What kind of person am I?

After getting some disappointing but not unexpected results in my life, I take stock of what I have,l and then take two Ambien (the full dose) so I won’t stay awake with worry I can do nothing with.

And the following day, as I head home from work, I’ll get a flash of the night before and check my emails.

Yes. Indeed. Ambien me did order “Thr Artist’s Way” on Amazon. Because, my friends, is the kind of person I am.

The kind who thinks, things aren’t as I’d hoped….maybe I just need to be more of an artist.

It is time to stop searching for more projects and use what I have…

Because last night I did take stock… and these are only the dolls I haven’t started working on…my used doll stash. This doesn’t include my in progress pile.

19 Disney animators dolls
One giant monster high doll
One 17 inch monster high

One tall Rapunzel (plays music)
Two My Scene dolls
Seventeen monster high dolls
Two EAdolls

One TaeYang
One Namu
Two factory Blythes
One Dal

March, 2020, the year of the dolls begins.
I’ll still dance, and teach dance, and work my day job. …and need Ambien from time to time.

But we’re going on a doll adventure, folks.

Do It Yourself: WFU

The dolls and art of a woman in Japan trying to be better.

Category Archives: craft