Monster High High?

Has anyone bought one?  I'm looking for a friend.  She is wanting to find a good price on it, but if it's popular, she may just need to buy it when she sees it.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/20968683?adid=22222222227015487046&wmlspartner=wlpa&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=&wl3=18148968790&wl4=&wl5=pla&veh=sem

Tiny Tim Gunn, part 2

 When last we saw Tiny Tim Gunn, he was still quite casual.  Fine for a weekend, but Tiny Tim Gunn has work to do!
 Following a link from another blogger (and if it was YOU please comment--I'm trying to find the original post but no luck yet), I ordered TTG a suit from Nancy's Doll Things on Ebay (http://stores.ebay.com/Nancys-Doll-Things/Jacket-Pants-Shirt-Tie-/_i.html?_fsub=4973847018&_sid=45091268&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322).  Her prices are great and clearly this is a woman who has worked out the kinks of sewing in such a tiny scale. 

 JUST LOOK AT THIS SUAVE TINY MAN!!!

 I bought the suit, which came with a white shirt, and bought an extra shirt to give him a little more flair.  I did make a couple of alterations to the suit because TTG is on a "teen" body--I took the shirt in some in the back (just hand tacked it to take up slack) and also tacked the ends of the short sleeves so they wouldn't bunch up.  Tiny Tim Gunn won't be taking off his jacket much.  I also put little cardboard "shoulder pads" since the teen body has very slopey shoulders.  I don't think any of these adaptions would be necessary for a standard Ken doll, but possibly for a skinny Model Muse Man. 

I have to say I'm very happy with Tiny Tim Gunn.  He now sits in my living room where he silently critiques the family's clothes.  I swear my kids have become much more fashion aware since he's been sitting there...he just has that power. 

Now all I need is the Tim Gunn Barbies and I'll have my own little Project Runway on a Shelf.  I can't wait!
  And neither can Tiny Tim Gunn.

Tiny Tim Gunn

Mattel came out with a line of Barbies styled by Tim Gunn of Project Runway fame.  While I do intend to buy the mattel dolls as money permits, I couldn't imagine having Barbies styled by Tim but no Tim!  So I decided to make one. 
First I looked through EVERY listing for an action figure head on Ebay to find one that would be suitable.  I think I really lucked out when I found this guy:

 

It's hard to find an action figure head that isn't scowling (because wars and action and stuff are serious business) so this guy's almost near half smile was a great find.

Next, Tiny Tim Gunn needed a body.  Luckily, I have a lot of headless bodies around.  This one was, I believe, a Hannah Montana character, long ago beheaded. 


 
The existing neck on the body was actually too long for the action head, and I didn't want to take a blade to the head since it was new, so I used my dremel to shave the body's neck down to shoulder level.  Very quick and easy.

 I needed a way to attach the two, so I formed a neck post out of some Billy Mays' power putty (it's a two part putty that you blend and then shape and it hardens.  I cut off a glob, blended it, crammed half of it in the neck hole and shaped the top part into a shaft.  I put the action head on top of it to mold it into the correct shape then removed the head and let the new post dry).

While waiting for the new post to dry, I painted the action head's hair greyish-white.  I may need to go slightly darker, but will see at the end. 

Next I added some glasses I had made previously,

And suddenly he's starting to take on a real Tim Gunn feel! 

Now he had to borrow some ill-fitting Ken clothes, but I'm going to do some shopping for him as soon as I can, so for now he's just going to Make It Work. 

I already feel like he's judging what I'm wearing. 

So how do I follow people now?

I can't find the follow button on the new blogger interface.  Someone help me, I'm e-tarded.

Great Thrift Store find

Sometimes in thrifting you find objects that make you wonder, "What on earth were these people thinking".  Other times you find objects that make you exclaim, "I know what they were thinking and what they were thinking was AWESOME".  This is one such find. 
Meet the Debby Doll  Clothes Knitter.

When I first saw the box I thought it was a neat idea--I love anything that encourages craftiness at a young age and hey, I wouldn't mind learning to knit on a spool.  So I dropped the 1.98 and opened her as soon as I got to the car. 

 Well hey, Debby!  Now clearly the previous owner never quite got the hang of spool knitting.  But they were kind enough to leave both spools in the package and leave Deb in her super sweet lemon jumpsuit AND go-go boots.  She had kind of the typical hollow barbie knock off feel to her, until I stripped her. 

 Check out that articulation!!!  Articulation at the shoulders, neck, waist, hips, knees, ankles, wrists, elbows, upper arms AND lower arms.  DAMN!  And I guarantee this was a cheap doll when it was made (the hand mold is very cheesy and badly done), why can't they make cheapo dolls like this now? 

 Now her pupils are not even.  But that is easily fixed.  Debby has earned a spot in my collection just for being such a surprise.  Now I have to scour ebay to see if I can find any more little Debbys. 

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love thrift stores. 

Amazon.com is clearing out LIV dolls and accessories

While looking for a play set that my 7 year old wants, I came across some Liv dolls/accessories on sale for 5-6 each.  They even have "black" Alexis, who is a great skin match for a lot of the brown barbies.  Go!

Another sale

http://www.gilt.com/sale/children/barbie-7975
Gilt group has a sale on Barbie DOTW.  I have ordered from them before and they have good prices.  A word of warning, though--they process orders and ship them very slowly.  The last thing I ordered (I believe it was Grace Kelly) came about a month later and the box was badly packed so the box was damaged.  It didn't matter to me, but if you're an NRFB person, you might want to consider that.  Happy shopping!

Hurry! Cheap princesses!

Good today (6-18) only, the online Disney store has 4 of its classic princesses on sale for 4.99.  Even if you don't need a princess, these dolls have articulated elbows and wrists and the old style click-bend knees.  http://www.disneystore.com/donalds-daily-deals/mn/1001262/
They have Tiana, Ariel, Rapunzel and Cinderella.  Go look!

Ru Paul for president!

Integrity Toys' RuPauls are on sale right now--http://www.integritytoys.com/shop20/home.php?cat=12
Thanks to the post on the doll page for the heads up!

Gilt group sale on collector dolls

Anyone else get the BarbieCollector email about gilt group having sales on some collector barbies?  http://www.gilt.com/sale/children/barbie-collector-cla is the link, but I don't know if it will take you directly there.  If not, go to gilt.com and click on baby and kids and you should see the link.  They have the To Catch a Thief barbie, Barbie loves Elvis and Barbie loves Sinatra for $19, a repro of the 1959 babs for $19, and the grace kelly wedding doll for 79.  I have ordered from them in the past...if I remember correctly the shipping was a bit slow, but the prices are pretty great.  Go!  Now!  Sale is only on for 2 more days. 

My Josephine Baker

So I saw someone post about Josephine Baker on FB for Black History Month,

and then I saw a Josephine Baker doll for sale (way more than I could afford) so I got inspired to make my own.  She was an interesting, groundbreaking and brave person, beyond being absolutely gorgeous, so she was just begging to be in my Barbie collection. 

Josephine starts life as a Hula Hair Christie

Shorn.  All that multicolor hair gone!

I used straight acetone to wipe her eyebrows off, and taped off where they'd go back.

First try. I like the right brow but not the left and the eye liner takes all the sparkle out of her eyes.

Face touched up and scalp painted black.

Flocked, waiting for glue to dry.  Don't mind the body.  She's on a spare body temporarily to make her head easier to work with

Painted, flocked, and ready for a nice Artsy body, which I can hopefully get tomorrow.  Not a twin, obviously, but close enough for government work. 

 Next up?  Fashion photos!  Because it's just not Josephine Baker without gorgeous fashion photos!

Surprised Pocahontas is Surprised

Found this lady at the thrift store today.  Hair is in awful shape, but bought her because of her expression.  All the other Pocahontas dolls i've seen look somber...which makes sense since the story of Pocahontas is really pretty sad.  But this one has such a different expression...i'm not sure what they were going for with those eyebrows.  I'll probably be repainting those.  But she's still interesting. 

Details of a Rosie head surgery

I got some questions about details on altering a regular Barbie head to fit the Rosie ODonnell body, so I grabbed another spare head and took some closer, clearer pictures.  I'm bad about forgetting to take pictures while I do something, so maybe this will make the process easier to follow.  You have to start with one of the bigger headed barbies, otherwise the head will look too small.  I used Raquelle because the skin match is so good, but any big headed playline barbie head will fit. 

 I'll assume most of you have beheaded a Barbie before.  If not, How to Play with Barbies has a great tutorial that shows you what the inside of a Barbie head looks like (let's have a minute for the Pop Life Christie that was sacrificed).  So to make a regular barbie head fit Rosie, you have to remove part of her throat (the visible underside of her head) and part of the column of rubber inside her head. 

Where the green line is drawn is where you will be cutting.  You're basically cutting a crescent moon shape from her throat.  Stick the exacto knife in far enough to go through the rubber column in her head, OR shave the neck down and then saw the column out--neatness isn't really an issue here.  You can always neaten up the cut later, OR ignore it since it's under her neck.

Mine came out in two pieces, and it really looks like my finger in this picture, but the thing at the end of my thumbnail is the half of the plastic column with the piece of her throat at the top.  What you pull out of her head will look something like this, but it may be in pieces.

This is what the inside of her head should look like now.  The back of her head/neck is untouched, but the front has part of the skin removed and the front half of the rubber column inside her head.

Here you can see the difference between the new Rosie head and an uncut barbie.

This shows Barbie's carved out head sitting on Rosie's neck.  This head could probably stand to be shaved down a bit more, and is obviously the wrong color.  I also wrapped a bit of duct tape around the neck post to give the head something to grip to. 

And of course, here's Rosie's actual new head, the lovely Raquel. 

Now go forth and re-head those Rosies!

New find and a head for "Rosie"

Went to Walmart for cleaning supplies and took a quick jaunt down the doll aisle.  I was looking for another Raquelle to separate into body and head.  I found Raquelle (last one) for 10 and some change, so I went ahead and got her.  I also saw something interesting in an unexpected place--apparently there's a new "Barbie Mermaid Tale" movie coming back, and they have a variation on the face of one of the dolls I've never seen, so I grabbed her too.  I put a different head on her body and will give it to my kids.  Don't have a body for her yet, but I really like her face.

The Raquelle, meanwhile, has come home and her body given to a Model Muse who is over there showing off and shouting "Woohoo, look at this!" to all the other poor Model Muses who are still stuck in one position.  Raquelle's head became sort of an experiment, but she turned out great.
I love the Rosie O'Donnell Barbie's body size, but hateHATE the Rosie head (I don't dislike Rosie, but the huge teeth on that head are very offputting).  So I've looked for other options for her head, with two problems: 1.  Her neck is bigger than a regular body, so you can't fit a normal sized barbie head on it.

  2. Because her neck and body are bigger, some barbie-sized heads look way too small.  Luckily, the newer "big headed" barbies are a decent size for her, so the only thing I had to do was adapt the neck hole. 

The first few tries involved splitting a barbie head up the back--which works but will not stay without some gluing.  I have one Rosie hybrid that I did that with, and while I like her, the neck looks sloppy.  But the other day I had the idea, instead of making room at the back of the neck hole, why not make the room at the front of the neckhole?  I used a practice head:

This is the mark around which I will carve with my exacto.

This is after the cutting. 

This is not the same head (this is raquelle) but you can see the size of the holes compared to the holes on a normal barbie head. 

 This is the practice head on the body--it finally sits on, but is obviously too small.

And here is Raquelle on the body.  Great color match AND the right size.  I'm really tickled.  Not a bad day when I manage to finish a doll AND get a new victim, er, doll.