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.