Rainbow Redo

I spent most of today reworking two of my dolls.

I removed the star/abalone eyes from my first Rainbow Soft Girl and gave her new gold glitter eyes.

This is the new version of my ROY G BIV girl:

This is the former Miss Rainbow:

The star eyes were just too much. I had envisioned this Soft Girl as a sort of Rave Kid or Glammy Girl.

I like her better withthe gold eyes. Don’t you love the Hello Kitty shirt?

Just her size.

Transformation 2 was meant to fix the neck of my Pink Punky Girl.

Her head was a little fat at the bottom where the neck should have been.

I added more hair, too.

If I showed the before pix you’d never notice the difference but I just didn’t like the look of my first try at joining head to body.

I love her purple pedal pushers with little pink dots.

She has very nice embroidered lips, too.

Good work today and I’m still loving making the rag dolls. ♥  ♥ ♥

Nine

Frank and I had the pleasure of going to Prime 11 Cinema in Anderson yesterday. I love that place, it looks great and has the most comfortable seats. It is always filled with the aroma of popcorn but better yet, and with me it’s hard to be better than popcorn, the vibe of sincere cinema lovers permeates. Thank you, Prime 11 owners.

We saw the film Nine. There were many interesting things about it. I love Daniel Day Lewis but couldn’t feel him in the part. I love Italy but even the location shots somehow seemed lackluster or,  maybe, lifeless, uninhabited. The musical numbers were all performed with gusto by beautiful, talented women but there was no soul or cohesion to the film. It just seemed like separate parts cut together. Like a really boring instructional manual or a tedious book, it was hard to stick with it.

Fellini is Fellini and his magic is not always transferable out of context. Fellini has heart and charm. Nine has none despite the best efforts of good intentioned actors and the dearness with which, I’m sure,  Fellini is held in the hearts of the producers. Sad.

Fergie and Kate Hudson rocked the F$@& out of their numbers. Nicole Kidman burned with wisdom and sincerity in her weird small part.

It is a sort of cardboard, stagy version of the cad’s dilemma: We are afraid of disappointing our beloved, now saintly, mother. We love women in the abstract, there are too many, we can’t resist. Eventually we feel empty. Shampoo?

This filmmaker’s art is written on the bodies of women. The muse comes with an excuse to abuse. The male artist is a self-contained entity that does not need mutual emotional connection . . . until he’s too old to F$%&/Create and then he must face himself.

It might have been a compelling story in the right hands. It was  a grotesquely beautiful thing in 8 1/2.

I wonder if men find Nine more interesting.

What do I take away from the experience? You can always trust your costume designer and you can stage a film about ineffable romantic hedonism in England.

Still Raining, Still Dreaming

Watched The Hurt Locker last evening. I loved Jeremy Renner’s performance. Everyone was good. It was intense but worth watching.

I thought Anthony Mackie was great and he is my candidate for a convincing Jimi Hendrix in a fresh Hendrix biopic. The last one was a sad affair with horrible casting.

Frank and I have seen more Academy Award nominated films this year than we have in any previous year. The biz is lessening the time from theater to DVD. This is a cool thing for movie and awards season lovers.

It will be a long wait until March 7 but we still have a few films to watch until then. I will be rewatching Bright Star. Yummy, Jane Campion.

So many exciting projects and so little time! My next rag doll head will be a Frida Kahlo memorial.

I did some quick sketching last night. The dolls have very round faces, moon faces and I noticed in the Frida book she has a sketch of the moon with tears.

One could create a whole line of Frida dolls. She is a real force, still today and forever.

I like the idea of including a little stuffed item to tie onto the dolls wrist.

For Frida, maybe a moon or  a little calavera skull with a headdress of flowers.

I may try more of these but this time they will be made of muslin. I’ve learned it’s much easier to embroider than polyester fleece.

I have noticed polyester dulls scissors and needles dead fast.

Boo. How does one sharpen a scissor?

I added a heart with my Cinnamon girl.

Redhead with Heart

Finally finished and packed off all my orders from the Etsy shop and spent a day creating a Cinnamon Soft Girl.

I may be prejudice but I love the redheads and I have so much fun doing these. She has green button eyes and a sideways smile.

My very first doll was the prototype Cinnamon Soft Girl but I needed to try another for the DarcyArts shop.

I made her a little stuffed heart because her debut is so close to Valentine’s Day.

I love the xoxo socks that make her top and the little leggings i made for her from a shirt I found at the thrift store a couple of weeks ago.

It made a nice ensemble.

I happened on to making a really cute belt from part of the pattern on some fleece I had. The flower shapes on rainbow ribbon (thrift store) look great.

These two blue flower shapes is from the back.

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy.

Light in the Yellow Range

I was out this morning to return a RedBox dvd. Had a craving for a Harry Potter flick yesterday and brought home Half-Blood Prince. I am only halfway through the first book so I have a lot to catch up on story wise.

Watching the most recent film for the second time I realized there are great holes in my knowledge.

I don’t want Snape to be evil. I suspect that even though he kept his bargain with the Malfoy’s and killed Dumbledore when Malfoy could not, that there is more to it, a deeper reason for having done it.

I want to rush through all the books but my reading time is limited. I’ll get there.

I returned the Potter flick and brought home Inglorious Basterds and The Hurt Locker. I have a real distaste for murder and destruction but these two will be biggies at the Academy Awards in March.

I took my camera to the grocery store with the RedBox dispensary. I captured a lot of warm color.

Lemon juice bottles all lined up nice and neat.

Our Lady of Guadalupe twins. Located above the hot sauces,  taco fixings and Mexican seasonings.

She is my favorite though some of the Jesus (heyzeus) candles are cool. He often looks so sweet and unassuming, like someone you could turn to for comfort. That’s the idea, eh?

I love the radiant lines in the Guadalupe image.

This pop out card caught my eye.

I didn’t catch the theme. Maybe it was jusy for fun. An invitation to FUN! Couples in Jetsonesque Ferris wheel pods. Very colorful.

Reflective gnome with book. He’s chill. I think he needs a large hat.

His ears are a little big for this one. Wonder what he’s reading. Harry Potter?

Before my grandchildren  join us on the planet I am going to read many magical tales and explore the history of magical thought. By the time they get here I will have my position on real vs magical in place for their busy questioning minds.

Small children remember more from the other world. When they first get here they remember past lives and still have impressions of the world of light and love from which we come still swimming in their heads. Ask them sometime where they came from and take then seriously when they tell you. Open your heart and mind.

They begin to forget by the age of five.

Here are some plastic animals:

Sweet Green

I’m not talking about my morning spirulina smoothy, though that was fab, I am talking about my sassy lil’  girly dragon.

This is the second one I’ve made and she’s cute.

She’s wider than the others and I like the slightly altered proportions.

Color is a strange thing or I guess I should say the psychological effects of color are interesting.

The whole time I was working on the dark blue dragon/draik I was sort of bothered by the dense color.

I could see every speck of lint and fuzz that got near it. That drives me crazy but there was just something about the color that made me feel yucky.

Working with the lime green was a relief.

The little girly dragon is on her way to Ohio where I hope she is loved for years.

February Vegetation

The sky continues to be mostly gray though the sun is peaking through on occasion.

I wanted to catch the tiny violets in the yard.

They came early in the rain. The purple violets came first. The white are new.

The parsley refuses to die, It was very hearty through very cold temps and is still green and growing.

I wish I liked parsley or knew of a recipe that would somehow use it’s taste yet transform it.

I thought I was buying cilantro. That’s what the tag in it’s tiny container said late last spring.

The catnip is going to stick around, too. I guess that means these herbs are perennials.

I just read that parsley is a biennial. Catnip, of the mint family, is a perennial. Yes! I had a very healthy crop my first season and stuffed over a dozen catnip squid toys with it. Buyers tell me the cats loved them.

The camillia bushes, which always remind me of a sort of dour 50s aesthetic even though they are pretty, bloom at completely different times of the year.

The bush that produced this flower is doing its thing all by itself. The buds seem to stay on the bush all year and then sort of pop put whenever. Strange.

I know nothing about horticulture.

Go listen to Jimmy Durante’s song, Vulture for Horticulture.

Baby Dragon

I finished the baby dragon or draik and sent it off to San Antonio today.

It was a fun project and I have to say I loved doing it.

These colors are sort of out of my range but I think the intended recipient will dig it.

The wings were the most interesting element. I’ve never made them before.

Here’s what the buyer said when she received the photos:

“Oh my gosh, it looks great! He’s exactly what I wanted, thank you so much!

And the heart is precious.

From what I can tell in the pictures, he’s perfect perfect perfect. Great job!”

As I sat down to send a convo to the buyer I noticed I had sold a girly dragon. Goodie!

I love to make the those. this will be my second one.

I added the girly touches to my Albi-like dragon because the first one was meant for a young girl. I had the impulse to add a butterfly to her as a flourish and it turned out the little girl had developed a new love for butterflies not long before.

It was so cool to hear the dad’s amazement over that detail.

Busy is good. Following my bliss.

Energy for the Bod

Okay, I admit I was up waaay too early this morning but I’d had lots of sleep. The thing is we are falling asleep ridiculously early these cold, gray days. The bed is so warm and comfortable and it is where we watch TV. It just sucks you right into dreamland.

I figure I’ll be ahead of the game when we have to spring forward in April.

Listening to the radio is one of my greatest pleasure. I learn so many good things from NPR programs.

The People’s Pharmacy always seems a little odd to me but they give good info. I found out all sorts of good things about fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue today. I learned from Dr. Jacob Teitlebaum, about ribose and probiotics. It was cool.

I’m going to the health food store as soon as they open. I started the day with a fruit smoothy beefed up with a paste made of vegetable powder and spirulina. The ribose is supposed to help muscles. Yes.

I’m well on my way to finishing the custom dragon project.

I will finish it up today and tomorrow. The wings need stays sewn into them. The tail need’s to be stuffed and attached.

This morning’s picture of the head came out fuzzy.

He’s coming out a little bit of a bad-ass baby dragon. I think I’ll put a dart, a little fold in his tongue and claws on his feet.

He also needs a few fronds and flairs on the top of the head and cheeks.

He’ll look pretty good by tomorrow.

I had a strange/good idea this early a.m. involving big rug needles and shrunken doll heads.

Tune it later in the week for more.

Morning Sky, Glitter Buttons

It was beautiful Thursday morning just before the sun was up.

The morning was bright and the break from the rain was much appreciated. The snow capped mountains, to the north, east and west, against the pinkish sky and clouds made the drive out the college a visual delight. The air was so fresh.

Though I swore I would not go to JoAnn’s and be tempted by products I don’t need I would up there yesterday to buy a bag of stuffing.

I found irresistible buttons with the tiniest bit of glitter at the outer edges. All buttons were half off. I bought them in pink and yellowish camel colors.

They will look great on future dolls.

The light was poor this morning when I took these photos. I like the fact that director John Waters is looking over the doll heads. See him on the candle in the window sill? He’s kind of tiny compared to the heads.

Girl and boy heads on my homemade chop- stick head holder are cheery even in the gray morning light.