Super-Junk

I’m just now putting the finishing touches on a small batch of handmade dolls that I’ll be taking along with us on our trip to Tokyo (thursday!). I’m running around like a headless chicken making sure everything is taken care of so that we’ll have a stress-free trip.

Our first stop in Japan is Design Festa. Paul’s been cranking out lots of great work to exhibit and sell. I’m looking forward to soaking up some creativity (and shopping!) but I will be offering a few tiny handmade babies and pose dolls at the booth.

I’m especially looking forward to going back to Tokyo for the second time. The first time we went I was crazy with anticipation, having no idea the wonders we would see. This time I’m taking comfort in the familiarity of my favorite place on earth – like going home after a long, stressful day.  No doubt there will be wonderful new things to see (and eat!), new friends to make, and new little alleyways to get lost in, but we have our list of things we cannot wait to do again.

After a tweet exchange about the many flavors of Kit Kat tonight, It got me wondering just how many flavors I have collected over time ( I save at least one of each which I hide away from candy-cravings).

It’s time to break open the sealed container marked, “JAPANESE SNACKS”…

I was surprised to find that I have only found 14 unique varieties!  I need to get to the markets more often! My Kit kat scavenging rule is simple: I must find each flavor organically, meaning no eBaying or asking people to send them to me. This “hobby”’s all about the joy of the hunt.

Thanks for playing this round of Fastest Finger!

Well, I learned a lot tonight. Thanks for bearing with me while I experiment with my selling method. Next time I may try a comment lottery so more time zones can participate. (and I will make sure that there are no crossposts to confuse commenters!).

Guess I just have to make more poseys!

♥

I’m very proud of myself. I finally got bitten by the spring cleaning bug and cleaned up just about every nook and cranny of the house (and there are lots of them!). When I was sick (for two months!), I just let the dust bunnies multiply and the fridge got gross. I will spare you the details, but as someone who is usually a total neatnik, I’d been very down about my space.

One big problem I was having was that I was making dolls at my tiny kitchen table. It’s about 5 feet round, and visible from the main room of my little condo. Just a constant mountain of fabric scraps, doll heads, and thread monsters, making it impossible for the room to feel tidy and forcing us to eat dinner on our laps. Something had to be done.

I re-arranged the spare bedroom (the furniture placement was horrible and I didn’t like even going into that room) and now I love my craft space.The room actually feels bigger, even though the desk is now square in the middle of the room and I moved all my craft supplies in there. It just feels like it’s inviting me to come in and get right to work.

Makin' Bodies

The first order of duty was to put it to use! Paul and I worked all weekend in that room, and we managed to finish two-and-a-half big pose dollies.

These dolls use the pattern from dolly dolly 16, with slightly different materials after I made a prototype that needed a bit of improvement. I LOVE this body pattern. I’ve adjusted mine a bit to give her longer legs and slimmer hands – the original pattern has large hands that make it hard to dress her in sleeves with small cuffs. Oh, and did I mention that they fit Blythe clothes? Instant wardrobe! They have difficult-to-fit feet, so socks and tights have to be super-stretchy.  I need to buy a case of Volks fishnet tights!

Here’s my second girl.  Her face was a little  inspired by one of the sweetest little pose dolls I have ever seen, Eve. While I was painting her, I just kept thinking of what it would be like to be a fly on the wall while someone painted a vintage doll – I bet they did it in about 5 brush strokes! This face took me about 3 hours, including letting the paint dry between coats and practicing first on a styrofoam-ball-head. I like her a lot, but need more practice so that I don’t have to stress about shaking my hand and screwing up the eyelashes.

Paul's dollie is a wicked little pixie

Paul made one too. He did a great job, despite my constant interruptions to give him instructions (It’s the “teacher” and bossy big sis in me). She’s got sparkly green eyes, just like daddy. While I was agonizing over getting skinny yarn to lie flat on my pink-haired girl, he decided to give her big fluffy black curls, which worked out wonderfully and went on so fast! I decided to make my second one a mohair girl, which I think may have been even faster. I wanted her to look like a fuzzy baby chick.

They are kind of a hybrid between Pose dolls and plush dolls. their limbs are wired so they pose really well, but their bodies are all cloth and fiberfill like a plush doll. If you use the pattern as it is, the doll is about 13 inches tall, but my little blonde has a couple of extra inches in her legs, so she’s 15″.  They also can stand on their own if you make their feet really stiff, which is fun for photos.

I think I will keep the two I have made so far for myself, only because they still have some flaws I want to work out, but I would love to make these to sell if there is interest in them. It’s fun to watch them come to life!

Anyway, I know I went off course from the tiny dolls for a bit, but I just had to try this pattern. I’ll be working on another batch of the micro pose dolls in the next few weeks.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. I’m really looking forward to the warm weather we’ve been promised, and some time to craft!

The little clip above is of some recent eBay purchases. My Japanese nodder collection is getting nice and diverse! I’m up to 8 with the addition of these two little pups and the elf girl. I’ve gotta cool off the eBay ing and focus on making things to sell!

(could this post use a few more exclamation points? Clearly I am just excited that my work week is DONE.)

It probably is, but who’s perfect?

A couple of weeks back, we were at the Volks store in Torrance and picked up dolly dolly vol. 16 (to try the pattern for the teeny dolls) and I fell in love with the big dolly in the same article!  I can’t believe I didn’t get this issue sooner.

I was a bit nervous to try it because soft-sculpting is tricky and I was terrified to mess up painting the face. the head has 5 layers of fabric/batting and I would not want to wreck one and start over! I finally got over my fear this weekend and made this girl. I followed the instructions to the letter, except I wired her so she can pose (the instructions didn’t show putting wire in her, but they must have, since she would be really floppy.)

She’s tall, but her waist/torso size is close to Blythe’s measurements (a little thicker in the waist but she’s soft so she can “suck it in” and share some clothes. I did buy her this sweet blue Volks dress just for her, though. I’m currently trying to figure out what size shoe she wears so she can get some maryjanes.

I strongly recommend trying out this pattern, the shapes are great and the photo-instructions are really thorough.

Mine’s not quite finished, but I had to take some pics to show. I can tell already that I won’t be able to get rid of her.

Hi guys,

There was a little mix up with a buyer on etsy, so I’m going to try an eBay experiment!  Midge, the brunette pose doll in cute tartan plaid – is up on eBay in a 3-day listing.  I’m starting her at my original price of $39.

I’m so glad that people like my little dolls and snap them up quickly.  However, I am worried about disappointing customers/friends when dolls sell out in less than a minute.

I will always have limited quantity runs of my dolls – I’m just not a high-volume kind of gal. If you saw my workflow you would laugh – I’t’s like, “make a shoe, eat a sandwich. sew on some pom-poms, watch RPDR…”

I like setting a price that I think it is fair, but I think eBay might be a more practical format to sell in, since it gives people a chance to at least bid if they want an item badly enough.

To be completely honest, the goal of these sales is not to make a profit – I make way less per hour on crafts than I would making websites.  Crafting though, is very theraputic for me and trust me, I need it right now (work is stressful and if I’m not careful I will get depressed and get nothing done). Ff I don’t sell what I make, my house will fill up with knick-knacks, and I hate to dust.

I’ve received a couple of requests to sell “preorders,” but the truth is that this is not a format I am comfortable with. The quantity I can produce is directly related to how creative and inspired I’m feeling, and that motivation disappears as soon as I have orders to fill. It starts to feel like work, which defeats the purpose!

What do you think is fair? etsy? eBay? quit my jobs and make dollies all day?

I consider myself more of a seamstress than a crafter, but today after finishing a batch of  these little micro pose dolls, I realized that I like making them so much because they do not involve the sewing machine at all! It felt good to break out the  craft supplies and just watch these little dolls evolve from blobs of clay and wire. I felt like I was back in my mom’s kitchen with the tacky glue,  ribbons, paint brushes, craft paints and sculpey scattered all over the table (heck, it’s the same table!).

As soon as the last dot of makeup goes on, they get their teeny little personalities. The redhead emerged as the leader of the group – she’s got a lot of sass in that 3-inch frame. The little pink and blue ones are both pretty mild mannered. The brunette (I call her “Midge”) is a bit of a narcissist, probably because it took me so many tries to get every hair in her pony-tail just so.

I worked out a bunch of kinks from my prototype – the ones I made to sell have softer hair, sturdier hips and ankles, and paler faces. I still want to improve the hands and feet – sculpting in miniature is not my strong suit.

Next weekend, I promised Paul (and myself) that I would try the other end of the spectrum and make a BIG doll. I’m excited and scared to try both soft-sculpture and actually painting a face that is more than a couple of dots.

I’ll announce soon when I am putting these girls in my shop – I want to perfect some clear tubes for them to ship and display in.  Pose dolls need tubes to be complete.