Lots of words and pics  await you after this cut!  here is the abbreviated version for the tl;dr crowd:

• we moved
• some stuff sucked really bad
  • old wood is delicious to termites
• but mostly everything is good
  • old wood is really pretty and smells like nice old people

We had a really stressful time househunting. I wanted to move during the holidays – I figured not a lot of people would elect to move during such a busy time, so I figured the competition would not be as steep (we rent). Not only was that an incorrect assumption, but the selection was pretty weak, too. The few houses that I/we really fell in love with were snapped up by faster  check-writers. My better half lived 100 miles away, which made timing things pretty tricky, too.

Long story short, we found a really lovely old place so the headache seemed to clear up pretty quickly. It’s super-close to where I work and the neighborhood is charming and quiet.

We discovered right away that there were some big problems masked by all the pretty old details  – things like the almost collapsing detached garage and the old plumbing. We have been slowly rebuilding the rotten garage (with landlord’s permission and reimbursement, of course) so that Paul has a nice place to work. It’s almost done but now needs new roofing when the rainy season ends.

We’ve already had two plumbers come in over the course of one month – one for a backed up drain that was causing laundry water to flood the backyard and another for a cracked water main (damn tree roots).   Oh, and the place is being eaten from the ground up by termites.  We’re learning good lessons about the price of living in a 90 year old house.

Anyway, on to the good stuff!

I am so happy to be living in the same space as the very talented, understanding, master chef Paulkaiju! That has been the best part – for all the headache of getting here, we are both (well, I hope both!) still glad we did it. I am so glad that we have similar tacky taste and that he has pretty much let me put things where I want them and have the bigger spare bedroom (after years of living with a sister who always got the bigger bedroom, ha!). He also has a nifty lamp and art collection and makes a mean quesadilla.

Oh yeah, and the house is cool!

The house was built in the mid 1920’s, in a Moorish revival style. All of the light fixtures are original, but apparently the house was burglarized in the 80’s and they stole all the original door hardware. Also the landlady was very proud to inform me that a male masseuse/prostitute once lived here. That explains the string of red christmas lights in the window.

It has the most important of our househunting criteria – “clean funk”.

One thing I find funny (not ha-ha funny, weird funny) is that this beamed ceiling is purely cosmetic – the outside roofline is completely different. This ceiling creates an attic space with a useless peaked floor. I’m glad they did it though, since I love beams and it makes it look like a church. We joke about putting a crucified Kewpie right over that little door in the middle of the front room.

We haven’t bought any new furniture or doo-dads yet. All of our money is going into little fixes and food.  I’m getting used to our stuff blended together -  for a while, it just looked like our stuff kind of smashed together but things are growing on me. In the last place I lived, the space was so plain and contemporary that I felt it was just blank canvas for my stuff, and some parts of this house are so ornamental already that I am trying to keep certain areas more spare.

So Much Brown!

I have always coveted wood. So often, beautiful old window casings and trim get painted white in the interest of easy maintenance and neutrality. I just about fainted when I saw all the great wood tones in the front rooms. Once we got all our stuff moved in though, I realized that there was a LOT of brown going on!  I’m trying to get more pops of color in without painting this time (ugh, I painted the last place – with permission – and almost had to sue my landlord to get my deposit back), but at the moment it is very woodsy. I’m on the hunt for the perfect rug to bring more color to the front room.

Who ever uses the Dining Room, anyway?

When we were hunting, since Paul and I both need indoor studio space, we were looking for either a 3 bedroom or a 2 bedroom + dining room. This house was advertised as the latter. We planned to use the dining room as a studio. I was surprised to find that this house had a secret third bedroom, so the dining room was up in the air. For the first month, it was packed to the crown molding with moving boxes (literally).  We’ve turned it into a TV room now. We had the TV and couch set up in the front room (the one with the beams) at first but it was creepy sitting with your back to the big front windows. Every time a dog walker passed, I’d spin around and wonder if anyone could see me  watching something shameful like “Tool Academy”.

Bed. Room.

That’s about it! My favorite room to be in is the bedroom because it’s so comfy and simple. No computers, no TV tchochkes, no chaos. Perfect room to re-set for the next day.

Projects!

The back rooms are stark white boxes and so are presenting the most creative-solution-head-scratchings. Paul’s room is of course monster toy heaven. My room is looking more and more like a crazy doll lady room but I’m working on keeping it under control. I’ve got a plan for a rolling cart to replace my big black desk and I’m building the shelves up all the way to the ceiling.

The kitchen is cute but has a few projects underway so I will share those photos in a later post.

The yard is a rambling mess (and I have zero landscaping experience so far). This will be an interesting spring.

Phew, thanks for making it to the end of this post!  I want to write more about our household projects, so I felt an introductory tour post was necessary. I’m really enjoying living in a “real house” again after being in a condo. I am excited about all the possibility!

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.

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.

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!

♥

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 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?