Friday, June 26, 2009

Halloween Doll Inspiration







I know it seems a little early to be talking about Halloween, but being as it's Halloween Hunt time for me, I've got it on the brain. So I've been trying to flesh out my ideas for some Halloween Dolls, here's a little hint as to what I'm thinking.
(J.W. Waterhouse is my favorite painter, I could really find inspiration for almost anything in his paintings. I expect a lot of dolls to resemble his paintings in some form or fashion!)






New Pics Tomorrow!

This week has been one of those where I'm having to scavenge for bits and pieces of time to slowly progess. But this weekend I'm free! This will be the first weekend since April that I'll be home and have no guests to entertain, and couldn't be more excited. Here's a short list of things to accomplish:

Dolls!
Lars Birthday Present (of the kitchen textile variety)
Finish my Swap Meet Stool Makevoer
Giesel Library for research/inspiration (My favorite thing to do ever!)
More Dolls!
Possibly estate sales? (Will be checking Craigslist Shortly)
Bike Ride
Start on my new Vintage inspired doll pattern
Post pics of progress!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Coming Soon!

I got a little work done this weekend. Saturday morning started out as kind of a bummer (I think it had to do with the heavy June gloom.)

Sunday was the official start of the Halloween Hunt. Halloween Hunt?

Long story short, my mother in law owns the best Halloween store you'll step foot in, and she does everything from building the shelves to running the store to packing it up herself, with the help of her long time best friend. Erik and I spend a lot of time helping with the set up, which is our favorite part. It's not your typical Halloween store, in that it's kind of a haunted house, Disneyland, and gift shop rolled into one. Lots of ridiculous displays. Since it's a temporary store (Sept-Nov. 1) we never know where the store will be until about July. Right now, it looks like it's going to be the biggest store she's had. That means LOTS of displays. So Sunday my bro and I scoured a few thrift stores and the swap meet in search of pirate loot. We scored at the thrift store, swap meet was a bust. Except I found a nifty little sewing chair for $12. I'll post a before and after, it needs paint and a new cover.

Sunday afternoon I got to work on the dolls. My surfer girl is almost done. I figured out the patterns for a bikini top and boardshorts, as well as the hoodie, which I thought would be really difficult but was actually the easiest part. Last night I got most of the sandals figured out. So I just need to give her a face and finish the sandals and she'll be finished!

Scary Bird Lady is fairly close to completion also. I finished the trim on her pinafore and bought new fabric for her shoes. Her shoes have been a real pain in the !@#. But I think I'm close to having them figured out. I may actually make a new body, I'm not sure about the color of her face, but I've gotten good feedback so we'll see.

Seashell collector (she's been named Melanie because as I didn't even realize until Erik pointed out, she creepily resembles a good friend of ours who happens to be an avid shell collector), is only awaiting shoes. So it looks like all signs point to tonight being shoe night?

I hope to have more pics posted by Thursday at the latest.

Friday, June 12, 2009

When it Rains, It Pours

So I took off the Friday before my 30th Bday on Saturday, solely in order to be selfish, spend the day in the studio and work on the dolls.

However.....

Erik's friend from college came down, as well as my brother, to hang out with us for the weekend. My mother and father in law also came down to take us to dinner, which was a fantastic time as always.

But that meant house cleaning, and major reorganizing. I had started on this during the week, unfortunately I needed a little help, and we had swell (surfable waves). As anyone who is in relationship with a surfer knows, when there is swell, especially after there hasn't been in a while, NOTHING else gets done.

So I was a little peeved, but the house cleaning got done on Friday, with the help of my husband.=)

But then, we realized, the water heater had started leaking. At which point we discovered, it was 18 years old. Apparently, this is ridiculously old for a water heater. So off to Lowes, where they wanted to charge $400 to install a $300 water heater, at which point we call my dad, and decide to install it ourselves, with Dad on speaker phone. Thank goodness we did have company, I can't imagine Erik and I trying to do that ourselves.

The next day, the radiator fan in my jeep broke. So now I have no car. Awesome.

This was not meant to be a whining session, just a way to make me feel better about not meeting my deadline. The good thing is, we finally have a weekend with no company and no events planned, so I am all about doll making starting 5:30 this evening. Hopefully I will have more pics to post tomorrow.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Thursday, June 4, 2009

So I started working on my new Doll collection late April, and was hoping to have at least 5 prototypes done by June 5. I have 8 semi-done, does that count? Anyway, I took a day off of my day job in order to try and make my self-imposed deadline, and am hoping to finish 5 tomorrow. More details to come, but I took some pics this morning, enjoy!

Sneak Peek!


So I started working on my new Doll collection late April, and was hoping to have at least 5 prototypes done by June 5. I have 8 semi-done, does that count? Anyway, I took a day off of my day job in order to try and make my self-imposed deadline, and am hoping to finish 5 tomorrow. More details to come, but I took some pics this morning, enjoy!

Monday, June 1, 2009

A Little Background


Hi Everyone!

Thanks for reading. I guess I'll start off with a little about myself. I didn't think I had that much to say, but my profile started getting kind of lengthy so I figured I should re-direct.

First off, I'm starting this blog as an off-shoot of my brand spankin' new Etsy Store, BloomAndBarnacle. Yes, I did indeed name my store after my dog, Barnacle (Barney). I haven't always been a crazy dog person. I had dogs growing up, and I was always a "dog" person, in the sense that I would much rather own a dog than a cat. The crazy part developed about 2 years ago when I became a boxer owner. As any boxer owners out there know, a boxer is not a "dog", but a four-legged, furry, better-than-human best friend. And seeing as he sticks by my side through countless 15 hour Saturday sewing/painting/crafting sessions, he should get some kind of retribution. More about Barney later.

I've blogged a little here and there, mostly while I was planning my wedding purely to keep track of all of my inspiration pics. My family is always giving me a hard time about being a "clipping" junkie. As in having a million torn out magazine pages and printed photos from websites all over the place. These blogs were essentially e-clipping binders with a few journal entries thrown in to keep it interesting. Regardless, that is the opposite of what I'd like to do here. I'm hoping to keep an organized, readable, interesting literary account of my artistic pursuits in order to keep myself on track. And seeing as my entire wedding was planned through the generous posting of pics and diy tricks from others, I thought it was time I put some of my own ideas\inspiration out there and hopefully someone else can get something out of it.

That being said, expect to read about a few varying ventures here. Anything from painting, sewing, papercrafts, etc.

However, I'm hoping that the gist of this site will be in reference to my new venture, Dollmaking. I guess it isn't exactly new. I started making dolls with my Grandma when I was probably about 6 years old. I'm from a tiny town in the Mojave Desert, and it gets unbelievably hot there in the summer. I'm talking record temps of 130 degrees. There were three options that my brother and I had as children during these months: talk someone into taking us to the river where we'd spend the day happy as fish in the icy water, find a friend with a pool, or stay inside. When we resorted to option three, we were making something, and most often this was at my granparents' house.

We were very lucky as children in a lot of ways, one of them being that our family was incredibly creative. My dad can build/fix anything, from playhouses to real houses to trucks. My mom is an incredible painter who had a day job as a hairdresser and can build a killer float and sew an amazing Halloween costume. My grandmother is an incredible seamstress and made a career out of doll crafting. My Grandpa is a carpenter/welder/taxidermist and makes some of the most incredible knives you'll ever see.

I digress. So I started making cloth dolls as a small child under the expert tutorage of my Grandma. Eventually I moved onto Barbie clothes. I honestly got a little scared as a pre-teen that I was never going to grow out of Barbies. I know now that there are more of us out there, but at the time I really thought I was kind of a wierdo. I would still secretly get Barbies for Christmas when I was like 12 years old. I would only ask for the collector's editions because I figured that was slightly more excusable. Anway, my Barbies had the most eclectic wardrobes of anyone I knew. I was crocheting Barbie bikinis before Ashley Paige had ever been heard of. In college, one of my last projects was an installation involving two different Barbie houses. Okay, maybe I am a weirdo.=)

So, now that I've graduated from college, I'm happily married, and have finally purchased a house with the incredibly gracious help from the best father in law ever, it was time to sit down and really think about what I want to do with my life. I had a short stint with a faux finishing studio right out of college, and had thought that maybe I'd be a mural painter. And although I did enjoy it, it never felt quite right to me. When I decided to leave that venture, I sat down and had a heart to heart with my fiance, and told him what I wanted to do, my ultimate dream, my goal in life: I wanted to make stuff.

I'm not an eloquent person. It's not that I couldn't be, it just doesn't interest me, I don't have the patience for it, I don't like the hoity toitiness that it ephemerates. (Ironic?)

The problem was, I couldn't figure out how I was going to make that work. I don't know anyone else who does anything like this in the big city. (My family made their entire living through local craft fairs and word of mouth). More importantly, I wasn't sure what I wanted to make. I like doing too many things. And I couldn't bear the thought of being pigeonholed into one idea for the rest of my career.

More and more, as I was looking up wedding ideas, I kept coming across tutorials for rag dolls. That's something I was actually really interested in. I could make rag dolls with the coolest freakin clothes/hair/personalities you've ever seen. Then I discovered Etsy. Pure brilliance! The thing is, I didn't realize there were that many people interested in handmade products. There are millions! And believe it or not, there are people that are actually doing this FOR A LIVING! Now I'm not naive. I know that probably like .05% of Etsy sellers are making enough money to live off of their handmade products. But I am determined! I was not meant to be an Office Manger, I can tell you that. With my 30th birthday looming, there's no time like the present. If it is possible, I'm going to make it happen.

(I also found a great book, Craft Inc., through one of my favorite sites, DesignSponge. They say that many times you can identify the one moment/idea/inspiration that you set you on path in life. I have to say, this book set me in motion. Sorry if this sounds like a shameless advertisement, it's not, I'm just really happy that I found that little push that I needed.)

So my goal is to make a quality, handmade doll that will blow your socks off. Something that you can buy for that kid who has EVERYTHING. Or that adult who has everything. Dolls that are quirky, that you can't find anywhere else. Dolls that are inspired by historic sources and current social trends that are just right for your friend/cousin/co-worker with that eclectic personality.

So please stay tuned! I'm hard at work to have a line of about 30 dolls debut late July/early August. I also have a hand-painted kitchen textile line in the works that should be ready shortly after the dolls.