Vita Plastica

....It's Miss Fear's Mom! But we'll get to her in a minute. I'll wait for my rage to subside. First I just wanted to show you some pics of how my reroot and airplane are going. This was a few days ago, so now June has a bit more hair.  Ingredients: Later I used a demitasse of water instead of the spray bottle which got everything too wet except for the hair. I also stuck the needle in a cork (needle eye out) and started rooting the plug eye-first into the hole with pre-knotted plugs. Much faster.  Later Corset Kitten will show me how to make a reroot tool. Right, homegirl?  Here's where we are so far. I should have cut the hair first. Now I have miles of hair that keeps getting tangled It took a lot of paint but I've got my airplane painted. I think I'll take it outside this weekend and give it a big more. You can still see a lot of blue... But hey, I'm getting there! By the way, glossy Krylon for plastic has better coverage than the matte for ...

I finally got the opportunity to spray paint my airplane this weekend. It's looking pretty good so far. But customizing it the way I want is going to take some time. I'd love to find a nice leather-like fabric for the chairs and carpeting that is both retro and futuristic. And really after watching a million HGTV shows (just got our cable back after a couple of years of devout anti-televisionism), I need to work on layering, layering, layering. I want the airplane to look minimal, but I definitely need too work on my eye for detail! So I've gotten a jump on the Hair chapter. I ordered from Dolly Hair, but their customer service leaves a bit to be desired. So while I wanted to hear back from them, I decided to get my hair needs from Restore Doll . What a great decision. They had what I need (doll needles) without having to buy a "kit". And I was able to find the hair color I need in stock and it arrived in like a day! I will definitely shop there again. I have thr...

So I'm on one of my favorite photostory sites and I see that she has a very similar storyline. Orphaned girl, raised in the Alps who later finds out she's a princess when she discovers her father is a king of some tiny made up country. Seriously? The friggin' Alps even? In her defense, I never mentioned that my doll's father is royalty, (WAS an upcoming photostory shocker) perhaps glazed over the Alps, if I mentioned it at all. And really, take out the Alps and you've Princess Diaries. As my husband loves to say "The Universe has run out of original ideas." In this case, I know she didn't STEAL material, but I still have to rework my upcoming story. But what if someone DID steal your material? What could you do? As far as I know, we don't copyright our stories and we don't really make money off of them. It would just be principle. So if it happened to you, what would you do? Oh it's okay, Dani, we'll figure out why your father's i...

Okay so you remember the doll business I was starting with my mom? Yeah well it ain't gonna happen. YAY! Originally, I was really excited about it. So many of you sell things and I wanted to be a part of the doll community in that way. Now I'm grateful not to be! Ya see, I used to draw cartoon girls. Then I developed it into a business where I were draw a custom cartoon of you or anyone you wanted. But you know there are people who are naturally cartoon-like and inspire me to make cartoon versions of them. But there are some people who are not. Some people have faces that just didn't work in cartoon form. Or the person I'm doing it for had a million different "corrections" they wanted. These always came out terribly. An artist cannot make art with someone over their shoulder. An example of my cartoons: me and the Hubs for our wedding party (we eloped, then had a big party a few months later). Anyway, the point is doing things you love for other people can ...

So this weekend we had a yard sale, which is a really smart thing to do in 95 degree weather. We have very few customers, but made a couple hundred bucks. Mostly from my mother. Thanks Mom! But this was to benefit my husband's missing music collection. So all the money belongs to him. He proceeded to buy groceries with it. What a guy. Know what else he bought? I have been eyeing this washer/dryer for months but when I was ready to buy it, it was gone. So this will be painted red I think, with a silver ironing board. Not that it matters to the adult collector but I'm pleased to see that they spin. Mattel can be so slack on their play line. Also pictured, my button shank remover arrived. Another one for the toolbox! Thanks for the wisdom Smidgegirl ! I'm ready to cut the crap out of some plastic stuff! But now that I have it, I can't remember what I was so desperate to cut... My doll room is still like a construction zone, but it will be beautiful by the weekend. (I ho...

This post is to tell you there is no post this week. We are having a massive yard sale this weekend and the only place to keep the crap out of the clutches of tiny hands is to put it in my doll room. Sigh. The humidity has also kept me from spray painting my airplane anyway. Something tells me I'm not going to make my deadline. But I did buy some doll hair, brushes for repaint and a button shank remover, so I'm excited about getting to work. I haven't formally announced it yet, there's no sense in making announcements with no pictures, but my mom and I are going into business together doing doll stuff. I'm not telling anything yet, but I will tell you she's a seamstress. That's my only clue for you guys and it isn't much of one, considering the spectrum of doll work out there. This is why I have to work on my photography skills! Okay here's a picture for you. Me and Mom, 1976 We have some friends who are moving to San Francisco, so we got great deals...

Let's talk about Sugar. She's Byron Lars Sugar Barbie. What a beauty. I got her in 2005 I think and I loved her. This was the first time I had seen "natural" hair on a Barbie and on a light skinned doll at that! She was best friends with Aoki who we will discuss in a moment. I loved Sugar. Her heinous flocked gloves were awful. As soon as I learned to rebody, I gave her the bod of that preggo Barbie. She married Chad the trumpet player (some kind of old Integrity doll with a Drag Queen "Ken" body). They even had a kid, but that made her so boring, I had to go back in time and undo it. She had become something of a B-lister in my doll world.  Chad had joined a new band, had a group of new hipster friends and Sugar became a character you never see anymore. That "natural" hair had become a frizzy mess. I had no idea how to take care of it. So I had the STUPID idea to dump a little boiling water on it to "relax" it. Stupid! She ...

Well, if you're not familiar with the concept of guilt, breaking your kid's arm will definitely get you well acquainted with the term. So Saturday night, in the middle of our usual changing-into-pajamas wrestling match, I must have pulled Iris's arm too much because I dislocated it! It is a disturbingly common affliction called Nursemaid's Elbow. Man I'd hate to be the nanny for which this term was coined! Anyway, I think the emergency room was more traumatizing for Iris than the pain. Temperature taking, pulse and poking and prodding. All standard for us, but for a kid who's already exhausted from the previous night's slumber party and with parents who are freaking the heck out, it must have been pretty scary. So we're sitting there in the exam room, waiting for a doctor. My mother has shown up to care for the new baby but I can tell from the wails floating down the hall that she's having some trouble quieting her. I'm pacing, unable to help ei...

I finally did it. I bought my domain. What the heck took me so long? Anywho, go check me out when you get a chance: http://www.vitaplastica.com/ smooches, dani