It Started Life As a Pizza Box ...

About a month ago I bought a whole set of 10" steel die alphabets and about once a week I try to make a letter look different from the last.  First, I cut them out of corrugated boxes (my effort to recycle), or chip board then the fun begins....

The first one I added fringe to because my niece wants gold fringe letters for her "after the wedding" party.  I couldn't find short fringe anywhere so this was a test to see if I could make it out of some vinyl I had already.... It worked!

The next one I just covered with glittered balls ...  Unfortunately some have fallen off but you get the point....   I thought these would be pretty for Christmas ... Spell out JOY or HOPE.

  Then I bought a BUNCH of straws ...

 so I used them to cover a letter...

Last week I woke up trying to think of an easy way to make 3-D letter...and naturally I decided to use the hardest possible character!  The idea I had actually worked but I learned A LOT on that one!  What to do and what not to do! The next ones will be much better.  Maybe I'll make a video of that process... ???

Yesterday and today I doodled on one....

Sorta the Same, But Different - Halie

Does this one make you say "Really???....They don't make skirts that long"!  But scroll down further, this is a copy (sorta) of a runway outfit!  Huh???

The colors in real life aren't that much off... like the skirt actually has a white background...oh well.  And, of course it wasn't until I saw them side by side that I saw how much smaller my dog is.  Shoot.

Once a week I get an email with the Runway Inspired Challenge for cards.  I don't make the cards, I just enjoy seeing other folks interpretations of the inspiration.  This week when I got it I decided to incorporate it into my own personal challenge... Hence, today's look.

I have to admit that the skirt was somewhat intimidating at first glance but it was actually really simple to do!  When I drew it out i just jaggered the hem some then took a light gray marker and drew lines from the bottom to the waist, that's it!  The illusion was complete :-) Happy girl dance! :-)  I love it when things work.

Another "WELL YAY!" moment was the shoes.  I had already colored the whole doll flesh colored because I didn't know where I was going with it at first... once I decided it would have been easy to just cut the feet out again and color them the show color but I decided to test an idea.  I used the Spectrum Noir Blender pen to bleach out the color and it worked!  They said it would and it did.

Done.

   

Slowing Down Already - Dolls 19 and 20

Well heck, I'm already slowing down!  I am late posting yesterday's doll, sorry.  I used "Gracie" again... I think I like her best because she has a more natural stance.

To show that these really are "paper dolls" I took a picture of the clothes before I glue them to the body.  You'll notice that I only color the parts of the doll that will be showing after the clothes are on.  If I ever decide to make them so that can actually change clothes I'll have to color it all in, but in the meantime ....

   (sample of the markers)

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Here is today's doll.  The dress idea came from the "How To Draw Dresses" book... and the stamp is a modified version of Julie Nulling's "Natalie" stamp.

One thing I have started doing is lightly gluing them in an old book because I have already misplaced one of them.  This way I'll at least know where to find them when I'm ready for step 2.

Lady With The Red Dress ... Paper Doll

   (sample of the markers)

Workout Diva

The only way today's doll could have been easier is if I had not added the extra hair pieces.  All I did with this one was cut Set One (Gracie) out, without stamping her first. Then I colored everything directly to that cut piece... so I guess she isn't technically she isn't a paper doll... though I could come back later and add a little skirt onto it.  But the end results of this simple, simple doll is: a workout suit and tennis shoes.  Done!

   (sample of the markers)

Changing Things Up A Bit

I did things a bit differently today... I didn't use a Prima doll as the base..

I found this on Pinterest and decided to see if I could use this shape...with the girl at an angle. ...

This is what I came up with:

And the clothes from are from Pinterest as well.

I might as well mention the elephant in the room... that head!  It was already small but when I drew hair on it it got even smaller.  Hummmm... looks like the shrunken head guy in "Beetlejuice"!   HA!  Now that's all you will see right?  I should have probably done another one but lots of fashion drawings have strange proportions.  I might have to change it out if/when I actually use the doll for something.

Spectrum Noir Colors Used:

Flesh - FS7 and TN2

Top - BGR3 - BGR5

Jeans - BGR3 and BGR4

Boots - BG5 -BG7

Hair - TN6

I also have discovered and LOVE, LOVE Pilot's Frixion erasable black pen.  I use it for the outlines and detailing.  I got the first one in a set of 24 colors but could never find it so I ordered 3 more!

  

Sorry, but the set of markers does NOT have all the colors I used... I really kinda hate how they have them packaged but they are SO MUCH CHEAPER than Copic that for me it is almost worth buying them all.  They are also refillable so no worries about them drying out.

Ready for Summer!

       Today's doll was inspired by a hat I found in a book I got from Amazon yesterday:

The book is filled with SIMPLE little drawing of all kinds of clothing, hats, shoes, etc.  There is NO HOW TO, it is just little drawings on the left side and blank space on the right side for you to play.  I like it personally but don't get it expecting to learn how to draw anything because you won't.

So, anyway, there was this hat... and then there was a version of this dress that I thought would work with it:

The little flower on her hat is actually 3-d and too cute!  I wish you guys could see all these girls in person... SO much better than iPad pictures or flatbed scanning!


    

Simple and Sassy

Not much to say about this one.  I used a die to cut the girl and did the rest freehand.  I hate to say it but I have about decided I would rather skip the stamping of the doll all together and just add the lines myself.... I'm not great at that yet but I'm hoping that with practice I will get better.

I tried to get a better picture of the glitter but didn't manage that, sorry.... It is a very sparkley Art Institute glitter.

                             

        

I put that I used the dark set of the Spectrum Noir, but honestly, I have them all so its hard to say which set I used from.  I will try to do better showing exactly what I used (after tomorrow...that one is already done and I don't remember) ... I just pull from my stash without thinking.  I'll try to do better, I promise.

Just as a side note....
Today I put on a shirt that I haven't worn in a while and realized that it had some glitter stuck on it with SCOR tape... both the glitter and tape were in perfect condition!  after who knows how many washing ???  Now, I'm not saying that either are sold for, or make claim to being machine washable, I really haven't put that to the real test... but I will... I have some t-shirts that can be tossed if it is a fail.  But I think it will work!  I know that the glitter on my cell phone is still as good as new!

Gesso Test

At the beginning of the year I thought I wanted to join the "Documented Life" group so I bought the recommended Moleskin calendar but quickly learned (again) that I am not much of a follower and that I WAS NOT happy with my moleskin calendar!   If you look closely at the picture below you can see why...you can see everything through the extremely thin paper!!  And all that I used on the back side was a ballpoint pen!  Argh!

Last week I watched a YouTube video where the girl used gesso on one side of her journal page.  I'm sorry but I can't remember her name. I'm pretty sure that this is old news for most because I have always seen people use gesso on journal pages but I thought it was for texture, or to change how the paper reacted to whatever was being used to color on it, I didn't know it blocked any bleed through .... until her video....So I tried it. And then I put it through the ultimate test...black broad tip marker, plus gelatos, plus water. 

Eureka!  Perfect results.  The only little bit of black showing through is where the page wrinkled up as I was covering it with gesso..and that bit didn't get full coverage.

Also see that the page is smooth now.  It buckled up like paper does when it gets wet, and the edges curled, but all is good now that the book has been closed flat for a few days.

I'm not certain if all Gesso is created equal so I bought the brand she uses:

And this is the set of Gelatos I have:

Zoe In Jeans

Today's doll was all made pretty much from scratch .... hair, clothes, shoes, and of course the glasses. I did start with the body from the Zoe #2 die/stamp set but it took some tweaking once I found the outfit I wanted to put on her.

Every piece, including the hair was hand drawn using a light box to make each part fit.  After I got her all put together I noticed her legs looked all wrong... the bottoms looked way too fat for the thighs and hips, something you don't notice with dresses...so, I had to trim things down.

Through Rose Colored Glasses

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I had said that I wasn't going to share my paper dolls here but when that is about all I do to share I figure I might as well share it... You can read it or not depending on your interest.  I actually do doodle on each one its just not my standard kind of doodles.  Right now I am LOVING "playing paper dolls" but I don't tend to stay very long with any one thing so who knows how long this will last.

Like, for example, last week I discovered "SkillShare", a website with TONS and TONS of art type classes and I have spent the better part of three days watching videos!  I LOVE LEARNING and I may just have to start working on some of the things I'm learning!

Anyway, I am showing you today's doll in this post, if you want to see the first 11 dolls you can see them HERE:

Now, about today's doll:

I wanted to hurry and get today's doll done so that I could test out an idea I woke up with this morning ....  Glasses.  I saw a doll on Pinterest with glasses and I WANTED them!   No clue where she got them sooooo...

I have been on a major quest in search of glasses for my girls.  Yes, first I tried the obvious, just drawing them but I'm not so great at symmetry anymore.... Heck, a straight line went out the door years ago....you'll notice there are no straight lines in any of my doodles.   I digress... guess what, there is no such thing "out there" that you can buy... No dies, no stickers, no brads.... Until now :-).  As always I had a "well der" moment... "You can make them yourself!"  So I did:

This is what they look like after I cut them out.... white then I hand color as desired.

I cut them out of white vinyl so that I can color them with any color, lense and frame.  The idea is to color each piece then layer the frame onto the lense (if you use one) then place it onto the doll before adding bangs.

If you would like some glasses that you can color yourself I will sell you 15 assorted pairs (including 15 frames/lenses) for $2.00 (FREE shipping).  These are ALL WHITE vinyl (I used alcohol pens and permanent ink pens to color mine) and are about .8" (fit the popular DIE CUT dolls ... not the stamped dolls)...click the "Buy Now" button below:

 

I used the doll and dress from this set:

   

I got the pad of paper from Hobby Lobby this weekend for only $4 ... it was the 6x6 version, not this oblong one.  I used the sheet of white polka dots on pink then put a black dot on every other fold of the dress to make it appear that I used two different papers.

 And the Hair (I drew the bangs in myself) from this set: 

   

The leggings and shoes are just colored directly onto the original white stamped/cut doll, no extra cutting...I do that when I'm in a hurry. What I usually do is place the clothes down onto the girl, without gluing it down, to see what needs to be colored flesh color and whatever (like the leggings). This time I had done a really bad job of cutting the foot so there was a big black line running through her foot...problem fixed by coloring the whole foot black and calling it boots. I then thought she needed some lacy socks so I just used a white pen and doodled those in.

All of the coloring was done with the Spectrum Noir pens.

Pinspiration For My Prima Dolls

Playing with the actual stamps for my Prima Dolls didn't last long...there is just so many poofy dresses and puffy sleeves I can stand since I an neither a poofy or puffy kinda girl.  

Yesterday and today I pulled from Pinterest for ideas...

No, I know they aren't exact but it was the ideas I was going after, not exactness.

The secret to making clothes without a pattern or die:

Of course it shifted as I took the picture...they don't make it easy to take a one handed picture on an iPad!

I think I am going to challenge myself to a doll a day, but I will probably share them over on my other blog (link in the top menu) since I am a wee bit off topic here.

Prima Paper Doll Play!

My new favorite thing! .... THIS week :-).  Would you believe that I just recently discovered Prima dolls by Julie Nutting ?!  Truth.  But, I'm actually glad I waited until the dies for some came out because I don't really have the patience to do much fussy cutting.

So, last week I bought all three die sets currently available and this weekend I played paper dolls!  WHAT FUN!

Stamps and Dies Used:
Here are the stamps that go with each set:

And, thankfully, there is a die for each piece.

   

I love having all three sets because you can mix and match some of the pieces, not all, but some....like the hair and some of the clothes.

I got tired of switching the stamps around on my acrylic blocks so I found two long blocks + one smaller block and put all the stamps on them so that now all I need to do is ink up all the stamps I want to use at once. 

I have decided that I want to make lots of dolls for a project idea I have for later on in the year so I started mass producing elements:

But back to the dolls I made this weekend... on the 1st, 2nd and 5th I used patterned paper but on the rest I just doodled on and colored with my Spectrum Noir markers... my alternative to crazy expensive Copic Markers.  I'm afraid my iPad photo didn't do the markers justice though,  the colors are not showing through like the originals.  OK, and to be honest I didn't do such a great job of coloring the hair either.

I LOVE! LOVE! playing with these sets!  The only thing that I was a bit disappointed with was the fact that she uses the same two bangs in each set.  I did a little bit of extra cutting on the 2nd girl myself.  Honestly though, the ability to modify them yourself is what makes it fun.  I will definitely buy any new sets she comes up with. FUN! FUN! FUN!

Markers Used:
I am showing all the different sets of Spectrum Noir available...you would have to buy all sets to have all the colors...which, of course, I just had to have



They are very much like Copics except for the number of available colors and the price of course.  Thankfully I never got on the Copic bandwagon because I couldn't justify the expense in my own mind... paying between $1-$2 per marker makes more sense to me.

Papers Used:
I used plain white cardstock (random no name) and two different paper pads. I'm sorry but I can't find the cover to the flowers one so I don't know the name but the paper for dolls 1 and 5 came from:

OH! and the white/black polka dot stocking were made with washi tape... I accidentally drew on her leg so I need to cover the mistake up so I just covered some cardstock with the tape then cut the legs out again with the die....easy fix, happy solution.