American Girls Photo Project

Hey, did you catch this link?

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/11/a-mirror-on-growing-up-in-america/

A lady took pictures of girls and their dolls in New York, as a way to look at young girls in America. Pretty neat, worth checking out.

You can see the actual photo project here.

Craft Discussion: The Russian Join

Just as a foot note, for all you yarn folk out there, when you get to the end of your yarn, what do you do? Do you know how to do a Russian join?

It's pretty easy and it saves yarn. It's prolly my favorite trick. Check it out at this link:

Russian Join!

Doll Size Items

I found these at Wal Mart, they were too cute not to share:

Mini Barbies! They look more, err, Barbie than just giving your doll a Skipper. I found them close to the crafts, just a bit off from the cards ... no idea why they weren't with the toys. Maybe because they're pens too?

what you see above are the only varieties my Wal Mart had, let me know if you see more.

The AG Playthings Forum has also been buzzing about doll size Apples to Apples games that Wendy's is apparently giving out. Man, they have good chicken nuggets, too.

I Did It!

Last Friday, I told myself that I HAD to take doll pictures. It had been to long. And then! I did it!

First off, I did the Playthings Earth Day challenge. (Vote for me!)

It's not the most original picture, but growing food is important to me. It's another way to fight the man. Runs in the family, too.

Then, I got a few of Draculaura and Frankie:

"Is for girls!" said Chloe, our cat. "Is thing I knows, because car has a dolls, and also has a gray." Cats can't see color. She meant pink.

It took me for-frickin'-ever to get everybody stuffed in the roaster. I never had a Barbie car.

Hey! HEY. You use your turn signal, little missy! I'm not having my insurance go up because of you!

I got a few of Operetta with my bass, too.

Then, Stica and I took our Puddle pictures. (Check out Puddle! Vote for me!)

Weekend Plans

You guys, I need to take doll photos this weekend.

For one, I have to get my Earth Day photo done for Playthings. You all are entering too, right? I think I know what I'm doing, I just hope it's ... Earth Day-ey enough. I thought about taking a picture around our recycle bin, but eww. Our garbage is pretty gross.

Although I'm not going, I do want to get a photo in for Puddle. They hold a pullip photo contest every year, and this year, I actually have an idea!

And, Monster High. Because general. Everybody ought to take more MH photos.

I'm thinking I'm going to make myself take some special time this afternoon. What are your weekend plans?

General Flickr Doll Groups

Here's some Flickr groups that cater to all dolls, since I know there's lots of you that collect more than one kind:

Dolls.FM: Pullip, Blythe, Dollfie and Other Dolls
"Plastic People" or Mannequins, Dolls and More -- they allow you to post 50 pictures per month. I try to hit my limit every month, but I haven't done it yet! :O
Doll Collections
Doll Circus

Let's Talk Velcro!

Let's talk velcro, shall we?

Some people are going to only put their doll clothes together with snaps, or buttons, or hooks and eyes, or fairy wishes and moon dust, and that's fine, but for you and me, we velcro our stuff together. Having the right kind is important. Let's discuss what is the right kind.

Anything labeled "sticky back" is NOT. the right kind. For one, don't get fooled, it won't stick permanently to doll clothes. For two, you can't sew it. The glue on the back makes this stuff thick and impossible to sew. I've tried ... even with pliers, it's way too hard. Don't run it in a machine. The glue will get into your machine cogs and ... no. Just no.

Watch out, because sticky back velcro hides in the wild!

Look really close. This is sticky back velcro.

First of all, you don't want to be associated with anything "fusion." You're sewing. You sew. Get that fusing web out of your head. Second of all? Sticky back.

THIS is the correct stuff. It's thinner than normal velcro, very similar to the kind AG uses. It'll run through a machine. Perfect!

They changed the label on it, though. I know it says it's for cables, but they meant doll clothes. Trust me. This used to be branded as thin velcro for sewing. I guess it sells better this way?

Organizing

I get bitten every so often to organize ALL THE THINGS. Not a bad thing to do.

This is what I just installed next to my sewing machine: two cork boards and one of those ... file ... thingies. One cork board, as you can see, is holding all my important doll patterns. I have no idea why I have two sleeve patterns and two bodice patterns, but I do. That pant pattern is folded like it is to do double duty as a legging pattern.

What am I going to use the other board for? No idea. I'll tell you if I figure it out.

I ~think?~ I might use the metal file ... doohickey for pattern storage. I have a drawer, but the fit is getting tight if you're picking up what I'm putting down. I don't even own that many patterns! But it'll be nice to stash my patterns that I don't use quite as often. (I mean, I love my homemade doll qipao pattern, but how often does that come up?)

By the way, over there on the left edge? The light in my sewing space sucks big time. That's one of those Aero Gardens. It grows bunny food for me AND doubles as a sewing light. When you use them for double duty, they are a total steal.

Playground

I took these at a local playground back in January. Hope you dig them:

Doll Collection Organization

Someone was asking a while back when I was posting it on my personal LJ about how, exactly, I have my doll clothes organized, so I figured I'd put this out here for everyone to see.

I am totally aware that this is overly OCD of me, but here it is.

I've got these bins, one for each American Girl:

I used to have smaller bins, and everything fit, but I found that it wrinkled less if I gave it some room to breathe.

Anyway, each doll gets 12 outfits, one for each month. You can see each bin is labeled:

(Hey, it's my handwriting!)

Anyway, this is Kirsten's, since it's all filled out. When it comes time to dress the doll, all you do is look to see what month it is and what outfit she should be wearing. None of these are hard and fast rules -- October can also be Halloween costumes, for example -- but it's one way of sorting out who gets what. I don't even know if this is the best way to do it, but here it is.