Venus Mantrap

Meet Venus. She is a custom repaint/reroot of a Monster High Operetta. As Venus, she entices men by her beauty and entraps them in her voluminous hair. Unfortunately, she eats them for breakfast. Her favorite plant, no surprise, is the Venus Flytrap. She respects a plant that works for its food. She is not trying to be evil. It is just her nature. She actually feels quite sad about her "gift," but, a girl's gotta eat.



This is a custom doll I did a month or 2 ago. Time seems to be getting away from me and I can't actually remember! It has since gone to someone in New York, but I wanted to put up pictures before I forgot about her.



These Monster High dolls are really fun to do. I have had time lately mostly only for Blythe, since I started a custom list, but I hope to eventually get back to doing a few more Monster High dolls. They are really fun. And SO bendy.



This girl's hair is hand-dyed shades of pink and burgundy, with natural, undyed silver blond mixed in. It is yearling mohair and very soft. It has been rooted into her scalp and hand-knotted on the inside. It has been washed and conditioned and allowed to dry in long curly waves. I really like how this hair turned out. It is really lush and I think it goes well with her story.



I did her up in a little acid green silk/rayon velvet and silk twill hand-dyed short dress with green tulle edging at decolletage, and a sleeveless burgundy velour jacket with silk organza edging. I altered a pair of the Egyptian girl, Cleo's sandals and gave her those. I think they work.



I can't believe we are already so far into summer! Aaaack! Where does the time go. I feel like I am working nonstop, which is good, but there isn't enough time to do all the things I need to do. The yard is a shambles. So is the house! I have simply put blinders on and keep on making dolls :) Hope you are having a good dry, warm spell and staying cool enough to be comfortable!

Ai-Quen

This is Ai-Quen. She is a selkie, which by Celtic legend is a seal who can shed their skin and take human form. Also known as Seal-Fairies or "the Roane." The females shed their seal coat and become beautiful humans once ashore.



The legend says that if a human can capture her skin, the selkie must become wife to the human, but it makes her very sad. If she can find her seal coat, she can return to sea, leaving her husband to cry out for her.



Ai-Quen cannot find her seal coat. She has been very wistful and sad. You can see by her eyes, that she has been crying out for the sea. Poor thing.



Ai Quen is a Monster High Lagoona with a hand-dyed mohair reroot and repaint by me. She has a teal blue dress with netting over top randomly caught in decorative stitching.



This is probably not a doll for everyone, but I actually love this doll about as much as any recent doll I have done. Her fish-face is really attractive to me. Sad, yet amusing at the same time. I like that in a doll. I also love the Celtic selkie legend. I saw a movie a year or 2 back with this theme, and it stayed with me.



Hope you are avoiding the heat, unless heat is your thing, that is :)

Purple Haze

Two dolls in a row using the color violet! Not sure what possessed me, but right after customizing 2 purple dolls I bought a Prima Dolly Violetina. Also a purple doll. I must be in a purple haze! This is Astoria "Storey." She is a Simply Vanilla Blythe (FBL) I customized by overdyeing her hair to silver and adding in color all around.



My friend hal halcut her hair, and in my opinion, she turned out smashing. She is very elegant, very stylish, just an all around glamour girl. Very happy with how she turned out. She has a bit of a tainted history at this point, but nothing that can't be fixed. When I overdyed her hair, I guess I was too impatient or maybe just distracted and didn't get all the dye stabilized. I had her here a week and nothing strange occurred. I wrapped her up really well in tissue and bubble wrap, and I think it was probably the bubble wrap and the heat of this time of year. In any case, by the time she arrived all the way across the country, some of the dye had bled out. Unfortunately up near her hairline, giving her face some unpleasant grayish spots.



Long story short, stabilize your dye before you mail! Eeek. She will be repaired as soon as I receive her back, and she should go on her way as if nothing ever happened, I am pretty certain. The thing I have learned about these very expensive dolls is, all manner of things can happen. And I mean all sorts of things. I bought a Pure Neemo Flection body a few weeks ago and received it this past week. I had played with it for no longer than 20 minutes when I, no kidding, snapped the foot right off. The joints are loose and they come apart fairly easily. But I didn't just pull the joint out. I actually snapped off the peg that serves as a joint. Broke it right in two. That body now has a polymer "cast" on the foot and will only be able to wear boots unless I paint it real well. Those bodies in the US come to a $40 expenditure. Basically $40 out the window in 20 minutes, because it can't be used for any for sale doll obviously. Not a huge market for dolls with casts! :)



What can go wrong with the hair, the face and the bodies of the Blythe dolls while you are customizing them, well the list is long, believe me. It seems easy enough to customize a plastic doll. If you do, expect to ruin some, to have things in the eye mechanisms that drive you to insanity, to have to deal with unruly hair that won't go right no matter what you do, to have strings break, eyelashes fall out or ones that won't go in place properly, eye chips mar or crack, scratches appear where they weren't 2 seconds ago, Pure Neemo bodies fall right out of the doll's head, screws strip and be near to impossible to remove, eye chips that refuse to come out of the sockets when you are trying to change them to something different, finishing spray that pools up in the wrong place, makeup smearing right after you just thought you had brought it to perfection, lip gloss that runs onto the face before it dries, resistant spots in the blush that are lighter than the rest of the cheeks, clothing that shouldn't stain, stain the doll legs so they now look like they are wearing pants permanently, and so on. The list is nearly endless.



It's all a learning process, and so far nothing major that I haven't been able to make better has jumped up and bitten me, but I learn all the time. I guess there I am forgetting the doll whose nose I pierced and basically obliterated one whole half of her nose. Even that can be rebuilt. I haven't yet, but it is within the realm of possibility anyway. No wonder I am in a purple haze! I won't forget Storey. She's a really cool doll. In the end it's really just playing with dolls, and certainly not rocket science! :)