Spring is officially here, if you haven't noticed. Here in Vermont, spring doesn't usually show it's face until some time in late April, but this year, either nature is playing quite a trick on us, or spring is a bit early. We have really no snow to speak of and we saw the first robin in our yard this week, signaling spring's unofficial arrival. The yard has just started to show a tiny bit of green, which I just noticed today. Nothing to get too excited about if you aren't from the north, but if you are, it is plenty to get excited about, believe me.
Whether spring is really here or not, I can't say for sure, but I am feeling the need for spring colors. Pale green is really my favorite spring color, along with pale blue and English rose. I made Blanche, my Hujoo, a few spring hats in those colors and I think she wears them well. She also has a new blonde wig, which she is wearing here for a couple of the photos. I think I have started talking to my dolls, which is a little scary. They haven't really started talking back yet, but you never know. I've been indoors far too long! It must be time to get outside and get some fresh air and sunshine! Yay spring! I hear it is going to hit the 70s this week, which seems like a miracle to me. 70 degrees in April in Vermont! Unheard of! Can't wait.
Hope everyone is enjoying the first weeks of official or unofficial spring. If you are further south, you probably have had flowers for awhile. It's going to be some time for us way up here, but keeping my fingers crossed they come a little early as well this year. In the meantime, silk flowers on hats will have to do me.
I've got Blanche's hats up for sale on Etsy. Still feeling my way around there. I've been working on pictures, and that takes seemingly forever. Nothing is ever quite the way I want it, but it is definitely moving in the positive directon at least. I'm also thinking I will try to stick with fewer styles of hats and fewer sizes and see where that leads me. Pricing, well, that's a whole other ballgame. Working on it. While I get it all figured out, I'm enjoying dressing my crazy Hujoo, Blanche, in as many hats as I can make. 
I promised I would put pictures up of my little plastic ball-joint-doll, Blanche. She came to me from a store called Junky Spot in San Francisco at the prompting of my friend Yve, over at Freaky Little Things. I found her on Ebay relatively cheap and bought her, not having a clue what one does with one of these little goofy dolls. Here's how she looked when I got her:
Looks a bit like a cartoon alien, right? Nothing too impressive in any case. My friend Deena over at Fabby Dolls said it was an "awful doll" and basically implied that I was out of my gourd to pay anything much less $30 for this doll. That comment kept me laughing for a week, because Deena is not one to pull any punches, and well, when I got the doll, I thought the same thing really. But, I thought I'd give myself a try at this face-up business (painting a face or makeup on an otherwise blank doll).
I got out the spray (I used an archival flat spray, not the correct one probably, but it worked out okay) and went to work with paint, pencils and pastels. First try: Horrible. I was nearly in tears, quite frankly. Long story short, my Hujoo, now named Blanche, has been through lots of trials and tribulations. She has had 3 faces wiped off with mineral spirits, several different wigs, pictures taken until the cows come home, trying to get the right light, the right backgrounds and so on. If she was real, she would truly not be amused.
I want to use her as a model for my hats (my whole Etsy store has pretty much become a shrine just to poor Blanche). I have waited over a month for eyeballs from Hong Kong, only to like a different pair better, and on it goes. Anyway, I think she is finally in her last reincarnation and she is up for view on my site (and here). She is a funny little thing. Only about 12" tall. I guess they call that 1/6 dollfie (is that right Yve?!) and her body is a lot like Blythe's and Pullips and a few other dolls in terms of size and proportions (if you don't know either of those dolls, do a search on Etsy).
I made up a few fancy dresses for her in about an hour and I am beginning to think she is quite the thing. The big eye, big head thing starts to grow on you, believe it or not, and you come to rather like it. I have hats galore for her, all for sale in my Etsy store. Of course now that I have done one Hujoo, I'll probably have to get another. Sheesh!
I have recently been infected with the ball-joint-doll (BJD) fever by my friend Yve over at Freaky Little Dolls. She has a fine collection of dolls, gets me going on the internet, searching for this and that doll to make hats for, and truly, I am afraid I will at some point wind up spending all my money on dolls! You may just find me down the road at the old pensioner's home, still playing with dolls. Yve had me make a black silk hat with sequins (a lot like the one I made for my Gentlemen Prefer Blondes doll) for one of her fancy-schmancy dolls, Isobel, in trade for a lovely outfit for my own goofy BJD, which is an Obitsu Hujoo named Blanche, who gets used a lot as a hat model (I'll post her one of these days). Isobel, Yve's most beautiful doll, is an Elfdoll Sooah, which is a really gorgeous ball joint doll that Yve has been kind enough to show off in the hat I made. I have a couple pictures here of the hat I made for Yve, but you will have to check out her post of Isobel with her hat to see the hat on a much grander doll than I have available. 
Periwinkle Blue, Countess of Vinca Minor, the favorite sister of Lavender Blue. She is a notorious courtesan who is gifted with fluency in six languages, notable for her distinctive perfume and telepathic abilities. She is instantly recognizable by her wealth of stark white curls and her devastating cornflower blue eyes. She dreams of being the queen. She often sings this song to her boy friend, Dilly Dally:
Lavender's green, Dilly, Dilly, Lavender's blue,
If you love me, Dilly, Dilly, I will love you.
Let the birds sing, Dilly, Dilly, And the lambs play;
We shall be safe, Dilly, Dilly, out of harm's way.
I love to dance, Dilly, Dilly, I love to sing;
When I am queen, Dilly, Dilly, You'll be my king.
Who told me so, Dilly, Dilly, Who told me so?
I told myself, Dilly, Dilly, I told me so.
As you probably know, I am participating in the Art Dolls Only Traveling Doll Project this year. My first doll, as I have already posted, went to New Orleans last month. I received the second doll I would be working on from Nicole Johnson of Mealy Monster Land in Upstate New York. Nicole's doll is called Harper. She came to me nearly naked and with very big teeth! I decided Harper really needed quite a grand story; so I gave her one. I gave Harper some underthings of animal prints an gold lame', a hat and bag and a purple stretch velvet chair with animal print cushions, and in keeping with Nicole's style, I think she is pretty amusing. You can let me know what you think. Here's her story and some pictures to go with.
HARPER'S JOURNEY TO THE BIG APPLE MAGGOT
Harper quiet? Nicole said she was. But when she came to me, I could see that she really had something to say. It's hard to get a word out when people are constantly admiring you for your looks. People just never realized she was not just another pretty face. She was smart, and she had plans!
BIG ones!
Harper was always considered the "good-looking one" in her home town of Eerie Falls. Since she was a wee one, even strangers would run into her on the street and say, "my gosh, you could be a model!" For awhile she even considered it. That would be too easy, too obvious, she thought to herself.
"No," Harper said to no one in particular one day at the ripe old age of 20, "I need something I can really sink my teeth into." So she left Eerie and headed to the Big Apple Maggot..
At first things were difficult. There were lots of pretty girls in the big city; she just wasn't getting the attention she had taken for granted in Eerie Falls. Her first job, the only one she could find, was as a night janitor at the prestigious fashion magazine, VAGUE.
Being an ambitious girl, it wasn't too long before Harper had read every tossed memo in the editor's trash bin and had worked her way up the ranks to become Assistant to the Editor. There she learned the ropes, met the people who mattered, and before too long, she knew the job of her superior by heart.
Harper considered it especially good luck when her boss tripped on a light cord during a photo shoot and was laid up in bed for a month. At that point she took it upon herself to take charge. Within a month she was hired to replace her bedridden former boss, to become the highest paid person ever to come from Eerie Falls.
Within a short time, Harper noticed she just wasn't feeling as challenged as she wanted to be. In a flash of brilliance, she made the decision to break off and start her own fashion magazine, and HARPER'S BIZARRE was born.
Harper has been the reigning Queen of Fashion and Beauty ever since. Her style is impeccable, her beauty without rival. If it is fashionable, she knows about it. If people are talking about it, she probably started the talk. She has shoes and bags and hats coming out her ears. and her shelves are lined with every beauty product ever produced.
Beauty is just one of the many perks of being an editor of a major magazine. There is also a great deal of clout. And, of course, EVERYTHING she wants she practically gets for free. People send her outfits in just the right size in the hopes of being featured on one of her glossy pages.
She once was even sent a hot pink car to promote a leading lipstick color for Recover Girl.
It’s a great life! Harper loves her life and she wouldn’t change a thing. Or would she?....
Colleen Downs of LoopyBoopy Art in New Orleans has her next. She tells me she might be taking Harper down a step. Can't wait to see what she does!
