Vita Plastica

Sorry for the teaser, I'm still all boxed up. Man, that room is big. I'm no Saucy Suiwi but it must be twice the size of the last. It's a pretty daunting task, building your dream room. When I unpack I'll find you the rough sketch I made. I'm sure the real thing will not measure up for quite a while. You know with the popularity of Facebook and blogging, real life social issues have been replaced by electronic ones. So when my social circle (followers) decreases by one or two numbers, I'm filled with self doubt and worry. What did I do? Is it because I haven't done photostories in a zillion years? Because my photographs suck? Because I'm not interested/capable of buying every Fashion Royalty that comes out? Is it because Johnny asked me to prom and not her? Waaah! But then I remembered that I'm a doll lover first and a blogger second. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up on this doll world. You look at other collectors and see what you don...

Presenting: My second reroot! Considerably easier and faster than the last. I'm already working on my next. Ms. Fear's new hair! Sexy, right? I still have  to style her. A little trim, a thatched part and maybe I'll give her bangs again. Homegirl has a fivehead. Yeah so in an excited fit of acetone removal, I took off most of her blue shadow but also an bit of her eyebrows. Sorry Atsumi! They'll be back and even better. I just want to keep that angry angle. So I have to reroot my Poppy Parker, Miss Fear's Mom and Sugar (decided against dreadlocks for her. Just going to have big wild mohair hair. The locks will be another doll's head.) But in between all these reroots, Dani and Felix get a home renovation! Before: Now:   I can't wait to get to work on this. I'm still glued to HGTV but I'm thinking of a neutral color for the downstairs since it's all open now. Maybe a gray. Or maybe that blue I have upstairs. Adding crown molding,...

My husband's friend was having a barbecue this weekend. There are few things in this world that I dread more than social situations. So I was delighted when my husband told me that I could avoid it and he would take both the kids to make an appearance. Sweet bountiful freedom!!! I was so psyched to get some doll work done, but what? I had to manage that time well. Two and a half hours moves quickly when you're working on doll things. So I started at nap time, sorting my "to be filed" bits of clothes and shoes that I never put in their proper home after using them. I spray painted that washer/dryer set I got recently as well as a bar I just received in an exchange.  I moved Dani's house down from the unreachable location where I had moved it. Clearing out space in the doll room is as dangerous as a big purse. You just KNOW you're going to fill it with stuff.  Anyway, Dani is the next doll (after Ms. Fear) to get attention, so I need her house close by. T...

Oh my friends, this is it, the end of my baby vacation. Three sweet months of pretending I'm a stay at home mom. So bear with me, the posts might have a delay. But I always say that and realize that I just love writing. It was my first baby long before (or long after) dolls captivated my interest. So I'll always be around. Anyway, let's get to it. My Doll Room: Since I am returning to work and my doll room is also my dressing room, it really needed some work. Again. Here it is before: And after: I get my workspace again, Dani's house (mustardy walls) joins the record store above the apartment building. The gypsy caravan gets stored. It just takes up too much room. My hutch was going to be a photo staging area but the shots came out terribly. We'll see. The euro sham pillow cases on the bottom are not glamorous but they hide the doll furniture well enough. It's hard to see how much nicer in there it is what with those damn cedar walls. Ugh, I can't wait t...

Hey guys, I had a few moments to spend with my new lighthouse. I cleaned it up, but not too much. I want it to have a weathered feel. It's bound to get grungy, what with all that sea air and such.  I removed the rope fencing thing on top and spraypainted the blue parts white. I'm going to make the topmost level the lens and little glass building, then build out the second layer so a doll can stand on it. Add taller rope or wire fencing. The bottom level is totally tiny. I don't even know how I can manage a couch in that space. Gotta be really creative. I'm thinking a sad looking WWII bedroll and some rations or something. The Hubs suggested having an attached cottage. I like this idea. I also thought I would wire the lighthouse so the light would actually be a light. I might even buy a lighthouse looking lantern and stick it up there. But for now, I'm going to build something on the cheap and throw an LED light in there or something. But the thing about ligh...

So last week the Hubs tells me the neighbors put some weird shelves outside. One in the shape of a boat, the other a lighthouse. I was intrigued, then obsessed. I have been thinking of a few things lately. My future doll room (done up like a little town), the name of the town, quality, location, etc. Sounds like I'm on a tangent, but it's all related. But first, pretend you are me watching this potential greatness on the other side of the fence. Watch this thing sit out in torrential rain. Unappreciated, unloved. So anyway, I had always thought of my doll town as Manhattan or Paris, but I started thinking about a smaller city. A small town even. But a posh one. I thought of mountains. I started researching mountain towns in southern France. There is one, Foix, I think that surrounds a little castle called "The Chateau". I started to imagine my upscale tourist village with spas and ski, etc. Okay so imagine a room with sky blue walls, a sun, some grass or whatever...

And that's about all you're going to get as an apology for my picture quality today. I was rushing so I didn't even bother trying to get a good picture out of this. I did loads of work this weekend, mostly the fun part which is putting little details in the rooms. Dani and Felix's kitchen: Tea Time in Josephine's Living Room: Josephine's Foyer: Josephine cozying up with Gypsy Ken. That's temporary flooring by the way: Josephine's kitchen. Voila! Brie avec baguette et vin. Tres magnifique! Nadia sees her crush Miho at the record store. "Did I wave too hard? Look too happy to see her?" The Vinyls audition a new keytar player. And boy is she cute... The Dynamite girls meet for dinner. Finally figured out a personality for Alanna (Dynamite girl TJ): Super rich spoiled socialite. So she HAD to have the Jonathan Adler couch. Josephine's balcony door. Meh, I'm not thrilled with it. Consider it a work in progress. Let's talk about another...

You guys, this summer has brought some very unusual bugs to my home. I can't even identify all the species. It's somewhat expected in the kitchen and maybe the bathroom but once they breech the perimeter of the three bedrooms (ours, baby's and dolls'), I go into some kind of a manic cleaning frenzy. One such incident in the doll room caused not only a cleaning but a much needed reorganization. Since I'm pregnant and had to take momentary breaks, it took all day with frequent breaks. I've eliminated my box-keeping fetish. Now only the fashion royalty boxes are still around. Nearly all the doll rooms are set up, the dolls are dressed for Josephine's dinner party, the men have their own pad which my husband calls the "gay bathhouse" seeing as they're all undressed right now. And as I suspected, purchasing my gypsy doll has revived my interest in my caravan. I've done something I've never done before. I undid work that it took me time and...

Man, nothing like fabric to really get your mind going on future projects. Like I mentioned earlier, a trip through Mom's sewing room garbage can yielded some really excellent material. I was looking for fabric for Josephine Baker's dining room chairs. I decided a nice tapestry with some light blue in it to match the walls or as I explained to my mom, "You know, something rich people would have." Most of what she had patterns that were too large. So in the trash, I found this orange fabric embroidered with little flowers. Oh this orange is gorgeous. Very Indian looking. Like it's been interwoven with gold so the colors change a bit as it moves. So I figured the Indian flowy fabric mixed with the vaguely British straight lines in the room would be a perfect (mis)match. My finds did not end there. Mom was throwing out loads of this heavy gold and red striped fabric, good for human sized pillows and tablecloths. My husband suggested curtains for the Spanish house. Gr...

This has ended up being a very personal post, but I'm publishing it anyway. You know, I was reading Smidge Girl's blog the other day and I was so excited for her when she got the call to do furniture work for an upcoming HBO project. I daydreamed to myself that someday maybe I'd get that call and how I'd respond. My answer surprised me. I'd say no! I'd say I wasn't good enough yet and pass them on to one of the more talented 1/6th scale furniture makers. (I don't even make furniture, mind you.) It got me thinking about my other artistic talents. My cartoon girls that I refused to market and get out there on purses and tshirts and stuff. Why? Because it wasn't good enough. My writing? I stopped writing novels why? Because they weren't good enough. I'm not into self deprication, but I am honest with myself. My doll work is just plain sloppy and I rush too much to get things done. I put things out on a blog because not doing so is like keeping a...

Hello folks, I had a nice 4 day weekend. (I took an extra day off after the holiday). I was very productive. My husband, on his own birthday no less, took me to the dollhouse shop! It's about a 30 minute journey which doesn't sound long when I'm driving to work but somehow this seemed to take forever. It's a great shop with lots of ridiculously overpriced beautiful things. Here's my haul: A little lantern, ceiling medallions (wait, are they medallions if they are square?), moulding, velvet carpet, ceiling material, wood flooring, white plastic tile and little stickable paper tiles. And I spent like $100. Huh? Anyway, I wasted no time! You guys remember the Versailles sitting room, right? Why on earth did I stick on the panels, THEN paint? I painted them white, then tried to do blue around it. Oh it was just a mess. So I removed the panels and cleaned them up. I was just depressed at all the work, all the measuring, wasted: So anyway I painted it all. Oh god, it look...