It's time to try and make new clothes for the dolls. Poppy Parker is languishing in drab cast offs, and deserves something colorful.
With the sun shining this morning, this pretty blue cotton print needs to be used!
Fun Effect To Play With... And It's Free!
Don't let the Japanese scare you away when you go to Bakumatsu Koshashin Generator's website: http://labs.wanokoto.jp/olds. They have a handy link to translate it to English, and from there it's a snap to use.
The service offered for free? Add an 'old picture effect' to your photos, either by uploading them to their website or directing them to the image link. It's sort of an Instagram effect, but it's so very cool and authentic looking. I wish I'd known about this before Halloween so I could have taken and posted some old timey, Gothic looking pics of my dolls.
You do have to upload your pictures to their server where you have to trust they are only stored temporarily, and trust that when you download the altered photo you're not getting anything you don't want on your computer. But I have good antivirus software on my machine, so I feel safe using this service. If someone else has heard of any issues, I'd appreciate hearing about it in the comments section. I'm not endorsing this service for anyone else or guaranteeing it is safe for anyone else, I am just sharing how excited I am with what I've done so far. For a free service, I'm very impressed, and willing to take a little risk for the end results.
Here are just a few pics I've applied this effect to. This is going to be a very addictive toy for me...
Marilyn Monroe:
Ellowyne Wilde:
With this picture I toyed with the original photo's contrast, hue, and saturation several times before I got the result below. At first you couldn't even make out her face, but after several iterations, I finally got the contrast and hue on her lovely face stark enough on the original so that the effect applied turned out well. The fact she has dark brown hair, is wearing black, and sitting against a black backdrop both helped the effect, and made it challenging to get a good result.
As far as I could tell there's no limit to how many times you can use the "lab" for free, so I just kept trying! I love the final effect I got with this picture.
And my personal favorite so far, Fashion Royalty Veronique:
I didn't make any changes at all to the original photo. I had very good lighting on the original, and with Veronique's dark hair and makeup, the effect still lets you see her sharp features. This one definitely has that Gothic feel to it.
Red Silk Cashmere Mini Dress For Fashion Royalty
Sometimes the things I knit decide they want to be something completely different than I envisioned. In this case I had pictured a sleeveless sweater top for Ellowyne Wilde or Tonner dolls. I had it knit up, it fit (snugly!), but just needed some finishing touches to make it look better. I wasn't bright enough to take pictures of it in progress, but it needed a clean edge for the hem, armholes, and neckline.
So after I spent a couple of hours knitting on a three stitch i-cord edge for the hem, and two stitch i-cord edges on the armholes and neckline, it looked great! Then I tried to get it back on my 16 inch fashion dolls. D'oh!
I could no longer get it on the doll. If I did, it would only be if I ended up ruining the sweater and snapping stitches. Not acceptable!
So I looked to my twelve inch fashion dolls. My Fashion Royalty Veronique gazed at the rich red color ("Lipstick Lava" is the yarn name) longingly. In the next few minutes I swapped out her current outfit for the sweater, adding thigh high black boots to complete the look. It fit! It was definitely a mini dress on her (mini to the point of scandalous. Hollywood mini.), slinky and clingy, but still not quite right.
Enter the magic of blocking. I soaked the sweater (now sweater dress) in Soak for about an hour. This would have been necessary anyway to make sure inevitable cat fur was removed! After that I blocked it aggressively, stretching the length out, and making it more narrow as a result. It only took an hour to dry, and the results are better than I ever hoped.
Still scandalously short, to the point you wouldn't sit down for risk of flashing everyone and their cell phone cameras, but on a doll it works!
So another happy knitting accident! Now I just have to remember how I did it so I can do it again in a different color. This one is up on eBay as another test for interest. I'm hopeful I can get my asking price.
If anyone is interested in the general pattern, feel free to leave a comment! Enough interest (heck, even if one person is interested!) and I'll make a "how I did it" post soon.
Now off to more thankless tasks. And avoiding the look of discontent my Veronique is casting my way now that the old dress is back on her. :D
Fashion Royalty Baby It's You Poppy Parker Restyle
After a long layaway I finally received my very first Fashion Royalty Poppy Parker doll. I know some people consider her lips to be too big, a too dramatic "bee stung" look, but I like the pouty style on this doll. I've wanted one of these for a couple of years, and finally managed to find a company that would take a layaway plan (Gigi's Dolls), and also had a doll in stock.
The Baby It's You set wasn't my first choice, but it was the only one I could get my hands on. The Chip doll in his tuxedo is going up on eBay this weekend, as well as Poppy's poufy prom outfit. I think I would have liked her dress better if it didn't have a big fake flower at the waistline, and if the fabric felt nicer. Otherwise I love the color! But off to eBay it will go, which on the plus side may actually net me the Poppy Parker doll for nothing! :D
I did not like her hairstyle. At all. Sure, it fits a certain decade well, but it's not the style I envisioned for her.
So I removed the pins and clear bands, and gave her a nice shampoo. I used the same thing I use on my hand knits, which is Soak. It's technically a 'no rinse', but since this is a doll head and not wool, I rinsed until there were no more suds.
After carefully combing her hair out and into place, and working to flatten the hair on the top of her head so it was no longer 'high rise', I'm much happier. I think it's a testimony to Fashion Royalty's doll designers for this doll that even though I took her hair out of their style, I didn't need to trim it in any way. It was ready to fall around her face and shoulders nicely without more than combing and a little fussing. I've had other dolls that I restyled, and had to give them a major hair cut to make them look normal, and sometimes even had to add extra hair to cover bald spots!
So here is my first Poppy Parker doll, hair restyled, and redressed in some random 12" fashion doll clothes I'd scored somewhere along the line. I like her in this more modern look!
For Sale-Fashion Doll Size Sofa, End Tables, Lamps
I'm auctioning off the first set of doll furniture I ever made. This includes the loveseat, two end tables, two "lamps", and coordinating pillows. (The doll is not included!)
This is sized for fashion dolls, such as Fashion Royalty's Veronique modeling here. R&D Susie also sits very nicely on the loveseat, as did my Silkstone Barbie.
This is listed on eBay currently at the following link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300748084265&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT
I started it with a $5.99 price, but do have a Buy It Now of $21.99 plus shipping in case anyone wants to snap it up! If this auction goes well, more furniture will eventually get made. :D
Update on 2012-08-06 17:22 by Fashionable Figures
This set is now sold!
Hopefully I will have new sets up for sale soon.