Doll, living dead doll, pullip, sewing, Uncategorized

Here I am. Little Me.

It was about a year ago I brought home a Living Dead Doll, Hush, from my local Hobby Off and opened her baggie to be assaulted with the stench of nicotine. I wrote about scrubbing and scrubbing to remove the nicotine stains.

Eventually I got her down to an ivory white. She’d never be the same pink as her unexposed vinyl but it was good enough…then I waited for inspiration. She came to me in the form of Little Miss Muffet.

Little Miss Muffet was never actually made by Mezco Toyz, unlike Little Bo Creep. What struck me about her was that she was dressed like me. Maybe not the make-up and the tiny tie but everything else looked like it could have come from my closet.

I decided to make me.

Hush’s hair was string and smelled. It had to go. I started re-rooting her with strands of red and brown 100¥ shop acrylic yarn until I had a version of my bangs/fringe and ponytail.

In the last year I have discovered the wonder of buying glasses on-line. I’ve worn glasses since third-grade and needed them even earlier than that. Contacts aren’t easy for me to wear. Hard/semi-permeable contacts can handle my stigmatism but have caused scratches and pains in the past. Two week disposables can mostly handle my stigmatism but not perfectly and my eyes get itchy..I wear them for dance performances and little else.

For years buying good frames with the latest “as thin and humanly possible” lenses mean spending high hundreds of dollars…so I’d stick with the same frames for 4-6 years. Now for the first time I have one “safe/formal” pair of lenses that looks like my last pair (but with updated prescription) and two rather cartoonish over-sized frames…like the ones pictured above. My me would need glasses.

I had seen some doll sized glasses in a gochagocha machine a few months back and went to Akihabara and on Mercari to score some being resold.

Now, my doll has three pairs to choose from as well. the arms of the frames were too long so I had to snip them, drill to insert wire into the ends of the arms, and create newer “ear loops” with Apoxi sculpt….which I don’t appear to have photographed.

I’m glad I found oversized frames for her. I’ve drawn a cartoon version of myself with over-sized lenses since mid-college. Without the frames her face looks a little too sweet.

That’s one of the huge takeaways I’ve had with this. Remove the make-up from your average Living Dead Doll sculpt and it’s a very traditional looking base.

Face almost finished it was time to dress me up!

Someone in a doll customizing group suggested that 1/6 Yo-SD shoes would work for LDD dolls. So when I found these…which are nearly identical to a pair I wore in late college (except mine had a pink nose and pink inner ears) I bought them

Clothes!

I found a free pattern on Ravelry for “Raglan Sleeve Doll Sweater for 10″ Ann Estelle” which worked for LDD dolls and knit two sweaters, one in black and one in burgundy.

I found a free sewing pattern for a simple a-line (reversable) dress on-line.

Last I made her a skull skirt (no pattern because I had to pleat to the specifics of the fabric print I was using) and modified a houndsouth skirt I had in my stash to fit her.

Ta-Da!

Transformation achieved!

I know it was a success because when I sent my friend the above photo, without context on what I was going for, I received back a string of shocked LINE sticker and “It’s YOU!”

She even has a hedgehog!

And, last, here we are posing together…with the other oversized frames I bought.

So now I have two me-like dolls. Little Me and my first Pullip face-up.

And I suspect when singing Anna from Frozen 2 starts showing up in thrift markets…I shall make another me.

craft, Doll, Uncategorized

Orderly Craft

I have one full day left of Craftsmas before it’s time to go back to work. I also have a head/chest cold and..as of yesterday…PINK-EYE…which is disgusting. I’ve now got prescription drops and know where my nearest eye doctor is.

One thing I’m trying to tackle at the end of craftmas is the storage issues of my doll crafting. Last year at this time I had a single Disney Animators doll that I was making dresses for with the help of the Thimble People book. I’d also started on performing my first two face-ups: Archie and Rook.

I hadn’t even bought my first damaged Pullip/Dal.

Now I’m faced with the realization that I haven’t dedicated an organized space for my doll-making equiptment. Everything is here and there and quickly takes over the apartment.

First, what to do with the BoxDoll squad.

I made two extra (removable) shelves in my craft room! This was during a cleaning spree.

Before:

After!

I also took the time to organize all the doll clothing I now have. I have a source who gives me a crazy amount of used doll clothing. This isn’t all items I’d made or from dolls I bought

I scored simple organizer things from the 100¥ shop and now the clothing lives in one area, not three.

While getting shoes organized I had a doll in progress that I removed a boot from. Her ankle snapped. Because the doll is almost a gray-pale I knew I couldn’t get a good replacement so I used Tamiya Epoxy Putty to fix the joint as best I could.

And I bought a second Ikea RASKOG. The Ikea near me now offers online purchase and delivery…which is a game changer. The delivery cost me about the same amount the train would cost going to and from the store.

I’ve yet to move everything to this cart but…pink eye and head cold means that I’ll probably be to bed early tonight and will try and tackle it later.

If you know any good blogs or videos for organizing craft rooms, let me know. I’m always into organization videos. ALWAYS.

Doll, pullip, tutorial

Replacing broken knee joint

Rehab:

While cleaning up my craft room (as part of a Mom/Craftmas is coming I’m also tackling “to do” unfinished work.

This might be my inability to avoid distraction or it might legit be reducing my clutter/ getting things prepared so that craft work can begin whenever I’m ready.

Dal surgery:

A baggie Dal I picked up recently experienced a broken knee joint when I tried to put her in her bunny outfit.

The knee joint broke off inside the thigh….wedging itself there and in the shin.

Upon further inspection i realized that this rescue Dal has forearms and shins a pinker color than her body…so she’s not new to surgery.

I had an extra knee joint from rebodying the footless Monomono/Bedhead Dal, but first I needed to remove the joint.

I took my dremel tool and carefully drilled a hole into the broken off joint. Then I screwed a smallish screw partway into that hole. I used my leather man tool to then pull the screw and joint out.

I repeated the action to the other half of the broken joint.

Then I used my extra joint to thread everything back into place.

Surgery finished, broken parts disposed of, doll ready for future modifications!

craft, Doll, pullip, Uncategorized

Coffee Nook/Doll Trunk half.

Let’s see if I can use my craft backlog of undocumented work to create…dare I say it…multiple entries based on a theme?

Welcome to the rabbit hole of Doll Trunks I’ve fallen into.

Alice was my first entry into the idea.

The two entries for the construction of Alice’s doll trunk are:

The size of the boxes I could find at a 100¥ shop (Seria) determined that my first trunk/container would be for Alice, as only a Little Pullip ( in this case a Little Pullip on a Picco Neemo body) could fit sitting/standing in the boxes…and I had just one. Then.

Later I found larger boxes at Seria and thought AHA! These are larger boxes and a Google search tells me that Dal Dolls are only 26.3cm.

When I got home I learned that my Dals are slightly taller than the 27cm of the inside of the boxes I’d bought. Time to rethink. I did decide that Bedhead/Monomono would be the primary occupant for this trunk.

I decided I still wanted a combined drawer/sitting area, because I like the idea of the trunk containing useful storage space & the only way a doll could fit in the trunk once closed was to create a platform for it to sit.

I originally got the idea for a case where the doll sits from the Angelic Pretty doll case made for Pullip dolls. It has a seat (with extra storage) for the doll to sit in when in transit. When the case is opened the seat can be removed and the space that has been freed up becomes a closet.

I also decided to make the other half of the doll trunk a bedroom with….a Murphy Bed! So when the trunk is open it would be possible to two dolls to hang out if so desired. I’ll cover that room in an upcoming entry…as it is awesome…but it’s awaiting finishing touches.

Here are both halves of the trunk in progress. I’ve included Alice for scale. I finally got around to buying better wood cutting tools at a DIY/builder’s store so this round of measuring and cutting wood for shelves/boxes/bed went smoother.

I worked on the bedroom first and the decor started to take on a very 80’s flavor…which I ran with. I decided that I wanted the sitting nook to be inspired by 1980’s kitchens and found some inspiration photos that reminded me of the kitchen floors of my youth.

Browns, yellows, and orange! Hints of leftover avocado green from the 70’s still hanging around. Medium to dark woods!

I’d also found a magnet shaped like an espresso maker so my nook would be dedicated to COFFEE DRINKING! Were espresso makers very 80’s? I didn’t care. I feel strongly about coffee.

I once more went to the 100¥ shop and found a small trunk I could saw open to make tables and some adhesive finishes in fake wood/ fake reddish leather/ burlap with leaves.

I experimented with painting the burlap finish to bring it slightly more into the color theme I wanted. It became the drawer cover and the kitchen wallpaper trim.

Then I set about to sawing the mini-trunk into pieces and covering and gluing bits together. I used fake-wood washi tape for an edge on the wallpaper trim. I also admitted the green ceiling had worked fine in the bedroom but that this kitchen was a breath away from having had popcorn ceiling panels…so I went with a few layers of white acrylic on the ceiling. I painted the inside of the drawer and put adhesive corkboard inside it. Then I used a dremmel to create a small hole in the drawer and glues the shank of a button I had on-hand to work as a drawer-pull. This also helped tone-down the too-bright green hue I’d accidently applied to the drawer fabric.

I thought about adding a hanging fern above the coffee machine…as I encountered an alarming amount of 1970’s and 80’s hanging ferns in various macrame hangers while image searching for ideas. I have a mini hanging pot…

But the Dal Dolls dominate the box in a way that adding a fake potted plants might overwhelm it. Perhaps I’ll find a small fake fern with a stand to slip into the drawer for when smaller dolls are using the nook.

Dolls check out the nook and enjoy some coffee.

Now here’s a sneak peak into the bedroom. I’m debating if I’m still going to attach the two halves or if I’m going to change how the individual boxes close…

Yeah. You want those sheets….meeeeeee too.

craft, Doll, pullip, sewing

Dal Lipoca

Ebony and I visited Dollyterria again during one of our Ikebukuro meet ups in July. Again, I came home with a new friend.

Dal Lipoca is a 2008 Groove doll release. She retails new/mint condition for about 100USD/10,000¥. My Lipoca was around 3,000. Dolly in a baggie deals! She was FILTHY. She obviously lived with a smoker. Her white jumpsuit was brown. Her hands were stained. She smelled. She was missing her pitchfork.

New VS. Baggie Deal

Who amongst us hasn’t seen some rough times in the last ten years? Some of us just hide it better than others. MINE!

I hand washed everything. The jumpsuit will never be 100% white again. I’ve tried. Her wings molted a bit but they’re good enough for now or until I feel like replicating them. When I eventually copy them, expect that half my doll crew will be sporting wings.

The original wig suited her so I pried it off and washed it (shampoo) and conditioned it (fabric softener) and let it dry on my makeshift wig head (styrofoam ball from 100¥ shop of a plastic bottle. I liked her face and eyes as is, no repainting.

Then it was time to scrub the body. I had some leftover arms from when I replaced Monomono/Bedhead’s body that I swapped in because her hands were permanently tabacco stained.

Here’s a photo of the face with just a quick localized soapy wipe on one cheek.

I disassembled her and washed everything. EVERYTHING.

I’m not against doll nudity but I feel better if the dolls in my room have some sort of clothing prior to their final outfits. You can just tell she has no love for the extra Barbie Gear in my stash. Dal dolls are petulant 24/7.

I found some black fabric with a. red and white lipstick motif…left overs from making to Moana Wrap Dresses. I stitched her a quick skirt to replace the jumpsuit she’d word. I then returned her original outfit to her, minus jumper, and plus a skull hair ribbon. I do love her devil hat…but the others are taking turns with it…and I was drafting some new headwear based on it.

She’s now joined the crew and can usually be found with a coffee mug and one of the many coffee tables I’ve set up.

A friend recently remarked on how she never expected to envy the clothing of dolls…she’d always thought them too…something….but that it did make sense that my dolls would reflect style.

They do, they reflect my style and my life. Which is why I now have a collection of coffee mugs, a few beer glasses, and chairs and tables for my growing collection.

craft, Doll, Uncategorized

Like Grandma

A friend checked in on how I was doing yesterday.

I haven’t knit for at least eight years. In fact I’d cleaned out my knitting yarn stash a few years back (keeping all my needles and supplies, just letting go of the odd yarn) in a Kon-Mari spree.

My stash was a reasonable size because I knit small things….and my friend (above) knew my knitting history in Japan as he is the happy owner of my knitted Yoda.

I figured out how to knit in the round with multiple double pointed needles and started making my own creatures. For some I took detailed notes that I still have in a notebook, although with years of not knitting it at first reads like the diary of a madwoman.

Nope, no patterns. Those just flowed from my brains through my fingers. I seem to like multiple heads and solitary eyes.

Yet I never thought I’d knit doll clothing. It’s silly to say that now. No one who knows me and my crafts would think that I’d have a weird block about knitting doll clothing..but I did.

Knitted Doll Clothing? That’s a grandma thing. That’s, specifically, a Grandma Leah thing.
Grandma Leah knit doll clothing for my Barbies. The dresses were nice, the sweaters were maddening (Barbies hands would catch in the sleeves and they had the tiniest of buttons) and the underwear ungainly. She also watched bowling, called the dog Stink Ass and could sigh and complain in a passive aggressive manner that will never be forgotten.

My Grandmothers were two very different women.

Grandma Christine was educated and strong-willed, able to extricate herself from tough situations and start out on her own power and brains and find the skills to do whatever it was she needed to do to survive and raise two kids…time and time again in her life. She could also sew anything.

Grandma Leah was never in charge of her own destiny and I have no idea if she could read much beyond patterns and catalogues. Life sort of happened to her and existing family helped her. That’s how she came to live with my father and step-mother when I was young. But…she could knit and crochet. She could sit down, follow a pattern, and make a thing. The thing wasn’t usually artful but it was executed with precision… Her sense of color, texture, and grace was lacking: cheap acrylic yarns, the worst colors, bulky scratchy things. Things she made served a purpose…often that purpose was to be sold at a craft meet so she could make some money.
I have her knitting and crochet supplies now. I even have three oddly written pages someone sent her explaining how to make an infamous pair of slipper booties. EVERY family member got these booties. She was always crocheting these booties. They were warm and ugly.

Someday I will have to make sense the notes I have of hers… if only to make my father and step-mother a pair of booties each…out of the worst acrylic yarn colors I can find. You know, for family traditions to be remembered. I’m not tackling it just yet because it’s crochet, which makes far less sense to me than knitting. I can do it but it’s never become an automatic skill I can easily freestyle in.

How did I get to knitting a sweater?

I made my Monomono doll a pair of pajama bottoms and thought…”She needs a comfy sweater for bad days.”…I guess it is time to knit for a doll.

I found a Blythe sweater pattern on Knitty and picked up a substitute yarn, figuring I had all the supplies at home. I looked at some black yarn and thought “No, your home lounging sweater isn’t your out-and-about sweater. It’s the odd one that is more about comfort than looks. It’s how you hug yourself when no one is there.

Then, once home, I learned I didn’t have a pair of size zero needles.

You don’t understand how shocking that was…. THIS is my needle collection.

I had everything BUT. And I mean EVERYTHING. That baggies is full of 4-5 double sided needles from 1-7. There’s a whole ROLL of hooks under that baggie you can’t even see. I have at LEAST 3 of each size of single sided needles.

I figured out the gauge and managed to knit up the sweater on size 1 needles. A gauge swatch being slightly off on large projects means HUGE difference but for a tiny project? not so much.

I knit for a day, relearning what knitting abbreviations mean, and had a doll sweater.

Your new favorite synthpop band.

Your new favorite Golden Girls remake.

I think she needs a pair of bunny slippers, or skull slippers, or bunny skull slippers next.

craft, Doll, pullip, sewing, Uncategorized

Reggie.

It’s come to my attention that when I post updates of what I’m working on, dollwise, it can be a little hard to follow if I show multiple dolls. Fair. I mean the “Groove” dolls (The company that now makes Pullips/Dals/Ect) are rather inter-changable once you remove their wigs and clothes and are sanding their faces.

Remember her?

She’s the first doll I ordered from DollyTerria in Ikebukuro…and when I did I’d mistaken her from the Monomono Dal with the elf ears I’d eventually buy in person.

So I had a Pullip doll with no blinking eyelids or eyelid bars. This sent me on an adventure of buying eyelids/eye mechanisms only to learn the subtle differences between generations of heads/eye-mechs. Eventually I had eyelids and wink bars for her AND a whole different head from another doll with eyelids and wink bars AND picked up an extra Obitsu body for the new (2nd) head.

I see why this is confusing.

This is the doll that literally had a dead bug in her head, eww.

This is the face I removed. It’s not the original face of the original doll. Someone had already done one “faceup” on this and had put in new eye-chips that had once been intended for teddybears.

Eye chips are flat underneath so when using eyes intended for stuffed animals the prong that goes into the fabric (and then gets anchored with a safety screw) has to be cut off and sanded.

This is her face most of the way through repainting. Some of the pigment I used is actual eye-shadow instead of just chalk pastel and watercolor pencils, thus the shimmer.

I ordered these eyes from ChewyRabbit on Etsy. I ordered a 12mm which is a smidge small but work.

I sewed a dress…once more using the scraps of that skeleton fabric I STILL have. The gather is a little uneven but it adds “character”.

I picked up those boots (Azone) and a dark blue/black wig used (1,000 yen each) at Mandrake Akihabara. I don’t think I’ll ever want to make shoes. This is an Obitsu body, I’m using it as the base body and have given her original body to the extra head. Confusion. No real reason for it.

Then I went to America for 10 days.

Meet Ozma the Cat. I am Ozma the dancer (stage name) and my mother sometimes signs on-line replies as MOO, Mother of Ozmas. She doesn’t watch Game of Thrones.

Returning to Japan, I was happy to see my ChewyRabbit eyes had arrived! The next day, as I waited for my luggage to be delivered, I assembled Ronnie. I have a few weeks before I’m back to working both of my jobs, so expect many crafts to get completed…or half started..probably both.

The wig originally covered her half of her eyes. I trimmed back the bangs. She’s obviously a little evil and scary. The eyes strike me as too matchy-matchy with the eye color, but it’s grown on me.

A friend noted that she look a little Evil Veronica. That led to me I’m calling her Reggie (short for Regina) as the trio remind me a bit of Archie, Reggie, and Jughead.

She’s getting a fabulous jacket later…but riiiiight after posting her on Instagram and FB THIS awesome thing happened. Meet my on-line buddy Caty T. WOOOOOO!

Caty is a MAC MUA who also bellydances and is AMAZING and young and talented. And I’ve already stolen a bunch of her looks for an inspiration file and am marinating on a Caty inspired doll because that’s the sort of person I am.

From Bug-head to Judhead’s Bud, that’s Reggie’s journey.

craft, Doll, pullip, Uncategorized

The shelves have eyes.

All my heads have working eye-gimicks.

Heads in progress;

Make-It-Own (MIO) kit Dal in Mocha*.

The kit came with everything. I’m feeling a little conflicted about the eyes I painted.

On the right eye I think the lighter hue around the iris worked, on the left I think it just looks like a blotchy iris.

I’ll see what it looks like in but I might just swap them for these.

From Chewy Rabbit Shop

The MIO head in progress is above.

Below the MIO is the “THERE WERE DEAD BUGS IN THE HEAD” head. That had the rudimentary eye mech but no working eyelids or blink bars. I finally located a type 2 eye mech with eyelids and blink bars.

Don’t worry, this is earlier in the face-up process. I was just testing parts. I later tested it with eyelids but forgot to take a picture.

I ordered these eyes from Chewy Rabbit on Etsy https://www.etsy.com/shop/ChewyRabbitShop?ref=l2-shopheader-name

Last is Asuka, I’d accidentally first ordered a type 3 eye mech with eyelids and blink bar…so then I just ordered a type 3 head to go with them.

When all my heads and eye-mech were in front of me I took some photos

On the left is the type 2 head. The type 3 is on the right.

On the left is the type 2 mech. The type 3 is on the right.

On the left is the type 2 head. The type 3 is on the right.

Here’s how the eye gimick fits into the skull on a type 3. The process is the same for all heads.

First you place the eyelids in. Yes, only one eyelid has eyelashes right now.

Then you screw the eye mech in place and attach the springs of the eye-lids to it. Tweezer fun.

The two slots below the springs are where the wink bars go. The pink/skin lever is the switch to move the eyes from side to side.

Then you screw the back of the head back on with the wink bar nubs and switch extending out of the holes in the back of the head below the wig.

Now you can close the individual eyelids and shift the gaze from side to side.

Asuka is pretty as is. I might just put her on a body, add a wig, and dress her without redoing her face.

Tomorrow is a day off and I plan to just make stuff.

craft, Doll, pullip

Wiggity-whack

I’ve never been confused by a wig.

I’ve been confused by people’s choice of wigs, sure, who hasn’t? But to fundamentally not understand a wig’s construction and intent is new to me.

Maybe it’s just the lack of wigs in my life. If I had more connection to wigs, a great number of them interacting with me in my life, perhaps this would have happened earlier.

But it hasn’t.

I don’t cosplay anymore.

I have bland straight Caucasian hair that conforms to eurosectric beauty

dtandards so there’s no pressure on me to process my hair/add hair via wigs/extensions/weaves to hold a job.

I just stare at this mess of a doll wig wondering “why are you what you are?”

I removed the hair wire from the areas it was attached to the wig.

See? It’s now a wig that’s sparse in back and…that thing.

The string/base the hair is attached to seems to have been tightly wound around that…hair wire. That unicorn tail of sadness.

If the wig is to be saved I think this is the key: detach the hair strings from the wire, stitch to wig-cap where hair is sparse.

craft, Doll, pullip, sewing, Uncategorized

The mail contains bad news and a head.

Yesterday, Friday, was not great.

I could get into it all but I won’t.

This is a huge change from my early Live Journal days when I would reveal all intimacies (with certain filters in place) and find it therapeutic to do so. I’ve already told this story to a few close friends and will repeat the story over the next few days to others. Yet the idea of typing it out and drafting that and exploring my words until I have THE way to say it all? Not here. Not like this.

I wanted something.

I didn’t get it but I didn’t NOT get it.

I’m literally in the in-between.

There was a brief letter with three options on it:

Accepted
Accepted if an accepted person falls through.
Rejected.

And the middle one was circled. Not metaphorically but in a Do you like me?: Check Yes or NO way except “Check: Yes, You’ll do if something better falls through, or No”

And I got a doll head. Bad news and a doll head.

The art over my shoulder, the performing bear, is by Phineas X Jones. You should get one of his shirts: https://octophant.threadless.com/

I shared my story with a few friends, set other plans into action as if it were a properly circled rejection, and didn’t do anything with the head.

I did finish a pair of pajama pants for Monomono who has been channeling my mood.

I drafted those pj’s…twice as the first pair didn’t ride high enough. She needs a lounging sweatshirt/sweater and a coffee mug.

Now it’s Saturday and I’m home after teaching three back-to-back dance classes and a brief nap.

(This is some of what I teach Saturday mornings…thus the nap. That’s a lot of little hops)

I think I’m at a point where I’ve located most of the parts I need for doll rehab and can create three new/whole dolls soon.

Except for this regrettable wig purchase that is reminding me why I buy used wigs in person.

Yahoo Auction Photo:

Fun fact: A lot of doll videos and sites warn you ahead of time about DOLL NUDITY…because it seems some folks can’t handle DOLL NUDITY.

Wig from the side photographed:

And the view not shown in the listing:

There’s some sort of WIRE with hair running around the wig in the back. From one side the hair cascades the correct way but on the other? NOPE

So…I’m just going to think about that later because I have no way to understand why that wig is….like that.

But now it is time to handle The Professor who has put up with me tpying and bothering him

Do It Yourself: WFU

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

Tag Archives: dal doll