Dancing Skeletons!

Yard sales are great for finding bargains.  At the same yard sale where I got a Gazelle  (not the animal, the exercise thing) I found a shirt with this pattern.  There was no way the shirt would fit me, but one thing I keep an eye out for is holiday stuff for my dolls.  I figured the sleeves would make tube dresses for my Pocahontas Twins, if nothing else.

Seriously, how could I not bring these guys home?  My favorites are the ones playing Leap Frog.  Backwards, even.  They just look so happy.  We living could learn from them.  

I got out my sewing kit and my handy-dandy pattern (bastardized from My Froggy Stuff) and got to sewing!  I'm no seamstress.  I can make it strong or I can make it attractive.  Sometimes when I watch her DIY videos, I yell at Froggy.  "How do you do that, woman?!  I'd be blind and cross-eyed!"  

The pattern is a tank top.  The hole in the center is the neck.  This way I avoid sleeves and my seams are usually hidden.  Luckily, this material isn't the fraying type, so I didn't need my April Lilly lace trick.  Thanks, Froggy and April, for having ideas I can steal!  

I started with the biggest project.  Rusty has a Halloween shirt, but her britches/skirt supply is lacking.  I basically just wrapped a piece of appropriate size around her, put elastic through the pre-existing hem (bottom of the original shirt), and sewed the back shut.  Since my BOUSs are just for display, no one is likely to see the hideous seam.  

The tube dresses looked horrible.  The cuff at the wrist was the bodice and instead of looking empire waisted, it looked like a maternity dress.  I sacrificed some length, removed the cuffs, and used my pattern.  On these, instead of the sides being sewn, the tops of the shoulders are.  The seams actually turned out okay.  One is also sewn down a side - I did not center the pattern on the "tube" and it ended up lop-sided.  I had to take it in.  It's still full enough to effectively hide the seam, though.  The belts are pony-tail holders.

I vary from the pattern a bit.  The guys are all modeling the standard cut, of various length.  Since my dudes are of varying size, I make them a little large.  Or try to.  My first attempt was skin-tight on Joe and almost reached his belly button!

I was running out of large enough sections to fit the adults.  No problem, I just down-sized the pattern!  Nikki is modeling a square-cut shirt.  Maybe I should call it a smock?  Stacie has a cute little sundress.  Have I mentioned those bent arms really annoy me?  

Tris has a skirt with a wonky waist line - to accommodate larger waistlines on her friends.  

Remember my first attempt?  Tris wears it well.

When Barbie was created, the fashions were extremely detailed.  Home workers hand sewed them.  Perfectly.  Props to them - I spent a few hours, off and on, doing a poor job with little detail, and I'm ready for a hot soak in the tub, some "headache pills", and maybe even some muscle rub.  

My dolls better appreciate this. 

Flea Market Bonanza: Part Three

Well, they're done.  Washed, groomed, dressed, and stacked neatly back in the bin to await their fate.  I was asked how exactly I go about doing their hair.  Basically, wash it with conditioning shampoo or fabric softener before brushing gently (starting at the ends, not the scalp) and only cutting what cannot be brushed out.*  I mentioned gum in a previous post - one of these girls had clear nail polish!  I washed her hair a few times before I figured that out!  If the hair is long, say past the small of her back, I give her a single braid.  Shorter hair can be left loose or put in a ponytail.  

Most of the clothes came out of the wash in good shape.  The dolls I managed to identify were dressed in what I could salvage of their original clothes.  Arabian Lights lost her gem headband, but I found a red ribbon to match.  Once Upon a Princess Jasmine still had hers.  Both have britches and top.  Oops, the big Jasmine's shoes need to go on her!  She won't be joining my BOUSs after all because that line is meant to be toddlers and a toddler with boobs has too high an ick factor for me. 

Donny and Marie in what's left of their stage costumes.  Note Marie's microphone!  

Dazzling Princess Belle and Enchanted Swirl and Style Cinderella only have their dresses.  Cinderella's bun is now a high, bouncy ponytail.  Belle, like the two Jasmines, has a simple ponytail.  The big Jasmine sings, Belle's rose (chest) lights up and she makes a ding sound.  Cinderella's underskirt changes patterns when you push the button on her back.  I've not dug through my batteries yet to test the smaller Jasmine's light-up gems.  EDIT - Her forehead lights up but not the ear rings. 

I forgot what high heat does to doll hair and ran the soft bodied dolls through the washer and dryer.  Kida's head basically disintegrated after the head swap.  I don't know why and I'm not happy. I guess she just couldn't survive without her embedded chest jewel.  Roxy's face mold I decided was a bit too Uncanny Valley for my Barbieville, so I gave her name to the articulated Stacie.  EDIT - 90s Kevin has been named Ricky after the very first "boy" friend of Skipper!  And that's where it stands until yard sale weekend!  

*For more information, I suggest you watch one of April Lilly's doll makeovers on You Tube.

Lazybones DIY

There are a couple of reasons I don't do a lot of DIY.  I'm not generally crafty and, frankly, things tend to break.  I do have a couple of YouTube channels I enjoy, but I use them more for ideas.

MyFroggyStuff is mostly focused on doll photography and gentle play.  She does a fantastic job and I would tell anyone who displays their dolls to follow her lead.  Since I'm hearing impaired, I also like that she speaks very clearly!  I don't have to rely on the captioning!  The only problem is... my dolls don't do gentle play.

The bleachers are bastardized from Froggy.  She did two projects - a movie theatre and a basketball court with bleachers - and I stole bits from each.  A local store gave me an old Mountain Dew display (thick cardboard) and I used the bottom as a frame.  I used the part I cut away to make the center support and the benches, covered it with Contact Paper, and added stickers for "graffiti".  The bleachers at my brother's little league games had metal seats, so I used gray duct tape for the seats.

The picnic table I've based on the ones at highway rest areas, with concrete posts for leg.  I had the wooden slats but what to use for the supports?  Then I saw this: 

I turned the round lampshades into supports for one bench and the square ones to supports for the other.  Tables became supports for - duh - the table.  I was a slat short for one bench and none of them match the others, but that's okay. That just means my dolls found a mismatched set (at a discount?) and painted the concrete blue in hopes no one would notice! 

Angus didn't have a bridle so I made this out of elastic and an old necklace.  When the connector on his saddle broke, another bit of the elastic and some super glue fixed it.

I don't remember where I saw this craft.  It's a double bed made from a simple storage box.  The headboard is cut from a colorful box and the sheet is a scrap of fabric, both glued on.  The "pedestal frame" can be used for storage.  I made this since double beds for Barbies are hard to find - then I found one!  

I'd like to also mention April Lilly.  Her YouTube videos focus more on the dolls themselves and on customizing the clothes.  It was April who taught me to use lace to hide my clumsy stitching.  Not that her sewing is near as bad as mine...  I do have to use the captioning with her, but that's because sometimes she gets excited and talks too fast!  

If you're into customizing dolls or this kind of DIY, April and Froggy are my recommended starting points on YouTube.  Froggy is also on Instagram and has a written blog (where you can totally steal her patterns and backdrops) but I'm not sure about April.

Next post:  Story Time!  I'll tell you the story of how Pike met Rose-Grace!