Value-adds and Value-ectomies

 I know, I know.  More photos of toys will be coming.  I'll get to that in a minute.

First let's have some constructive blathering.  I got this house last September, and the couple in the RV next door moved out two weeks later.  More power to them for getting some land, but I wanted to get to know Mr. and Mrs. Sheriff.  C'est la vie.  A few months back they dropped another house on that lot.  It's not right right next door (unlike some in the neighborhood, poor souls), but nobody should have to look out their hall window and see me hunched over the island eating breakfast like the cave creature I am at 0700.

No lie, I spent a couple of months casually looking at privacy film and window clings on amazon before suddenly remembering I have the materials and the capacity to do it myself way cheaper.  I berated myself for having an extended senior moment, me and myself both laughed about it, and then we all went off to the crafts store.  Luckily both Michaels and Hobby Lobby sell Gallery Glass paint, because between the both of them I got the colors I needed.

I used one of my collection of disposable pub promo coasters to do some basic layout and a ruler to connect the boxes...badly...but that's authentic in this case. Wink, wink.  I printed off a diamond pattern from online and did some tracing with a dry erase marker.  One week later:

The kitchen window.

The back door.

Both of the neighbor-facing windows have been dealt with.  I would only be visible from outside from the shoulders up, if I chose to be seen, which means I can still spy on the street whenever I hear something or the dog alarm goes off, and I can still comfortably mean-mug every potential buyer over there who looks iffy.  The yellow is a mix of Sunny and Amber, and looks awesome up close:

That's not craquelure, it's the screen on the outside.

It looks better from the inside of course, but did get a double-take from Leasing's Little Helper the other day.  The outside view looks better when backlit, as you'd expect.  The windows on the other side facing Mike Next Door remain unadulterated, but I'm tempted to at least paint the top panes to match these two.  And of course I can just peel it all off if I want to.

I also picked up a couple of beads and whipped up a new glasses charm, because treat'choself.  Happy Pride, fellow invisibles =p

Work-Related Project #1

 

I woke up one morning with a vague lead on the one childhood doll I've been idly trying to find, and in the process of half-awake-ly scrolling through ebay...happened on this little guy in the listings.

The thumbnail is the best way to present this, because at this size he's an entire mood.  Of course I had to share this with the chat at work, and then send pictures (as one does when someone in the team is doll-phobic in the please-send-pictures kind of way).  And since he also made them giggle, and made several more appearances that day, I dared them to make me buy him and turn him into a boss baby.  The rest is history.

He's a 1988 Newborn Welcome Home doll by Playmates, and I clearly didn't pay enough attention to the description, because I fully expected him to be at least 12 inches long.  He's an 8-incher, actually.  This is Li'l Ike, namesake of the one guy on the team who was afraid of dolls but was 100% behind this idea.

He came with that fabulous puffy coat, which is fashion doll sized and someday I'll find out where it comes from, and a simple diaper which was probably original.  Both items and Ike himself got a bath.  Ike then spent a few days wrapped up in a yellow washcloth (and hated it), and when I finally got my sewing stuff together...a prototype dress shirt (and hated that as well, even more).  But I finally got everything settled from the move and spread all his bits and pieces out on the kitchen island.

Fabric hot glue is my new love, by the way.  The shirt, pants and dress jacket are all the usual Fashion Doll Stylist Kenswear, tweaked to fit Ike better.  The shoes are from a doll shoe pattern I'd found ages ago, with craft foam soles and painted details.  The newspaper is a collection of several I got from Printmini, printed on parchment paper, and folded.  The cup is LOL Surprise, and the pen comes from a dollhouse stationery set I think I grabbed either at Michaels or Hobby Lobby.

It's a little slapdash - I did almost all of this on Thanksgiving Day while avoiding showing up at David's kitchen warzone as long as possible.  He looks better from a distance, but I will also note he looks infinitely happier in his little business suit than he ever did before.  Li'l Ike's found his place in the world after 35 years.

ToyMuchInformation! - Girls of Summer

Technically part 2 of the first July post.

I bet you thought I died.  Or gave up.  Not so.  What happened was I caught COVID for my birthday.  It took them three years and a lot of trial and error, but they finally developed a strain that could catch me...and didn't even give it a name!  Not gonna lie, I'm a little disappointed.

But I digress.

Rawr Babe (Leo) from series 2 and Jubilee (July) from series 1

Some July-specific LOL ladies.  Both of them are from the Present Surprise line.  I don't go much for the regular LOLs outside of a select few and sticking to a theme or ones I find particularly clever.  They're kind of like Funkos in their own way.

FursuitCutie Reveal Barbie - Cozy Cute Tees series (the latest one) Lion.  Because Leo, geddit?  That cocky smile and the dimples are definitely out of the Barbie norm.  I put her on a MtM body because she deserves one.  She'll be getting a better onesie eventually.  I also have the Snowflake Sparkle deer doll who'll be getting similar upgrades.

Now for ladies who share my birthday - here we have a 1978 Mego Candi in pretty fab condition.  Namely that her face isn't spooky faded.  Her arms are a little gungy and her hair's absolutely spent, but I like her.  This one came in a two-piece baby doll ensemble, but here she's wearing some 1:3 scale cozy clothes (Proudoll on Amazon) and a B Kind bucket hat.  Considering she's the same age I am she's wearing all of it quite well.  It's also neat to see the square-jawed face that was popular at the time in doll form for a change :)

Currently chilling on the couch with Franco (OG) and Paola (My Twinn).

This is one I knocked off my bucket list for my birthday this year.  Mom would never allow me to have a Kid when I was young (and she's likely powering Vegas right now having witnessed this).  We went to Babyland General for this treat and spent the day there and in the original location (it's an antique store now but they kept the water feature).  The boys don't come with yarn hair anymore, so I picked out this little girl because she reminds me of another childhood doll I've been on a casual and fruitless hunt for for years.  We got her some extra clothes and shoes as well.

I didn't go full experience and do the birthing event - I witnessed that as a kid on a Girl Scout trip and found it both bizarre and a little traumatizing at the time.  It's still trippy to think back on.  It is fun seeing the kids at the store in present day picking out and receiving their little friends, though.  CPK was American Girl before those got big, and I have to respect that even with all the controversy.

Martine here is plenty cuddly and I appreciate her smile.

Sim got another new body during my hunt for one that would fit the Sindy head I got a while back.  I think this will be her final one.  More importantly, Sim also got a mini-me.  Same head construction, just on the smallest size of BG box, and this one's on one of those articulated dollar store KellyChelsea knockoffs I found at 5 Below.  Mini!Sim was made in a hurry and in between bouts of attempting and failing to sit through an entire work shift (COVID...), so her clothes are a bit on the quick and dirty side.  She got carved down Chelsea shoes instead of handmade slippers like the full sized Sim has, and all the "sewing" was accomplished with fabric hot glue.  I know, shame on me and my cow...

I think I'll make the 24-inch deluxe Sim next year's project XD

Project Upgrade - Not!Vespa

Another one from 2021 I only posted on Twitter, I think.  Every now and then I like to go through Dollar General/Family Dollar, if only because every one I've been in has that same chaotic-yet-empty Last Days of Kmart feel to it.  The one around the corner from the house here is like a literal cave inside.  That's where I found this $5 moped (and knockoff Kelly Chelsea clone) set.

Mmmm, yes, Bilious Pink and 90's Purple, the standard for girls' toys.

It's actually not half bad for Chinesium - there are some molded details, and the wheels actually turn, and it steers.  It's no 5 Below clone doll set, but it isn't the worst I've seen.  Looking at you, Dollar Tree.

Five whole pieces, if you count the two halves of the body as separate ones.  Not even glued together as these things sometimes are, which was a bonus in this case.  The minute I saw it I knew what I was going to do with it.  All these pieces got a pass with the sandpaper first.

I cannot remember what specifically Miami-ish shade of blue that is on the body, but it wasn't custom mixed - it's straight from the bottle.  Seat, fenders, and the detail panel on the front got a coat of plain white, and everything else metal got silver.  I also painted the wheels.  The basket got a Standard Three treatment, and the headlight and taillight I went over with metallic paint and then a layer of thick jewelry glaze that I pressed some hatchmarks into before it dried fully.

Some duct tape on the handlebar grips and footboards, and painstakingly molded craft foam for a seat pad.  I'll probably go back at some point and line the basket with either paper or felt.  The decal on the rear fender there is from a sticker sheet that came with the repair kit I got for my phone at the time; I'd had to man up and replace the battery before it exploded.

This one's actually a little too large for a Chelsea - the doll that came with it, her feet wouldn't have touched the footboards even if she'd had bendy knees.  It'd work slightly better for a Lori, I believe.  I have more dolls in the 6-10" range now, so I should give it a fitting.

Project Kitbash - (Mini) Tv Time

2023 note - please appreciate how much hunting I had to do on the new and totally unimproved Twitter to find the original tweet thread wherein I did this...lol.

This was one of the first things I did creatively after being rescued from Roanoke...make a new head for Sim.  It was partly just because well...I wanted to, and partly to explain to a friend online how I did it in the first place.  Also I just like to take things and make them smaller every now and then.  So the world got a mini recreation of the TV head from 2020.

"Perfect fit", you say?  I can't see anything!

It all starts with my hoard of tiny cardboard boxes.  Luckily I save these things when I find them, assuming I'm not making more of them when I'm bored.  In this case, I had an array of Boxy Girls boxes to choose from, as well as potentially the TV-shaped box Danboard came in.  That one's more of a console TV size, though.  The smallest size Boxy box won the contest.

We all have that one pair of scissors the public at large are allowed to touch.

This is basically all I needed for the construction, and the acetate was optional - I ended up not using it for this one.  Not pictured are things I added: toothpicks, PVA glue, and some tissue paper.

Much like with the original, I traced around one of the sides onto a piece of cardboard (a cereal box) and cut five or six squares.  Since these were going on the inside, they didn't have to be exact.  They all got glued into the inside of the box to shore it up.

I cut the pointy ends off some toothpicks and liberally glued these into the corners and seams for more strength.

Measured against the general size of the neck knob (at this point Sim was on a Duchess body, but the knobs on those and Monster High are about the same) and carved into the bottom of the box.

I'd left the top flaps open specifically for this part - sketching out and cutting the screen hole.  It didn't have to be pretty, because I was putting a facing over the outside anyway, and still going for that cartoony look the original had.

I sanded around the edges a bit...not that it made much of a difference, lol.

The screen surround didn't have to be perfect either - the key thing here was that it was slightly smaller than the initial hole, to accommodate the material I'd be using for the screen itself.

In the original, this was a large piece of acetate.  I could have easily done that here, using the same method to curve the plastic, but instead went for a piece of black felt.  This I cut large, glued to the back of the cardboard piece, and then stretched so it would curve outward.  I then watered down some glue and used that to stiffen it on the inside.  The return of Felt-Tech (TM).

That piece got glued to the front of the box, and then I just tacked the final piece of cardboard on the top to seal that up.  I laid on a few layers of tissue paper papier-mache to smooth things out, and scraped out the mouth-grille under the screen.  Dropped a couple more dots of hot glue on there for knobs.  These ones don't turn.

The aerial in this case is just two pieces of wire bent around a short scrap of toothpick.  That got mounted in a blob of hot glue on the top of the box, and I added the classic antenna knobs to the top.  They're poseable :D

I think the naked bottle is burnt umber.

Same basic drill as always.  Base-Wash-Drybrush.  These are all the colors I used for this one.  Mod Podge to seal the whole thing at the end.

And there we go.  Mini TV head, in under 24 hours.

All her little emoji pieces still work just fine due to the felt adhesion properties - even her glasses.  How Sim feels about this is irrelevant.  She's me, so if I like it, obviously she does.  It's certainly less obnoxious than her original head, and with the added antennae, more expressive.

Now I have to do this in two more sizes.

Project Kitbash - TV Time

2023 note - actual date is an approximation, life was fairly upside down when I did this project for reasons beyond the Flu-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, but I'll get to that.  I do remember I finished this right before the work shift I wore it to, however, so end of October it is.

This is how you make the best of numerous unfortunate situations.  In 2020 I was doing my second stint at Y'allmart, still on the stock team (but on the verge of moving to the online department they'd started up due to the pandemic).  The company finally did get wise about one thing since the first time I'd worked there and had started actually telling prospective marks employees they'd get paid to exercise.  This is true, but it's also significantly harder to handle when you're over 40 than it is when you're around 21.  You do get beaten into shape...but at what cost?

Sanity.  It costs you your sanity.  And most of your fingernails.  And in my case, one rib and a left knee, but those are stories for another time.

The other upside to working on the stock team is you have free access to as much cardboard as you want.  You ever look at a box and picture it as something else?  I bet we all have at least once.  This particular one ties in with another project (a roombox) I have waiting to be done.  This one just got done first.  This particular Tampico juice case came in looking much less destroyed than its brethren, and all I saw when I got a good look at it was a cartoon television.

Some people have coffee table books.  I have coffee table projects.

In my defense here, Andy had just moved out back to Arizona and I had the whole place to myself, so there was nobody to fight with for the space =p

I cut a hole in the bottom for my big round melon and did some hot glue magic to get a circle of packing foam from the Furniture department (I think) into the top of the box to keep it from rattling around once I'd put it on.

Cut another hole in the back to stick this Dollar Tree plastic basket on, both for ventilation, accuracy, and as a place to put my hair since I usually bun it up at work.

Cut out a grille/mouth under the "screen" hole...

Filled some gatorade caps with hot glue and stuck a couple of wood craft sticks in there.  They're actually pretty straight; it's the box being abused that makes them sit funny in the image.

I traced around the sides of the case on some foamcore and cut panels.

The case is now all reinforced.  The screen surround got cleaned up, I glued a couple of sheets of felt to the bottom to help it hold up and also hide/cushion the neck hole, and filled the corners in with more hot glue.  Got the basket glued to the back...

The infamous "plastic from doll packaging" Froggy always has on hand.  I hoard it too, and luckily had a piece just big enough for this.  I cut it slightly larger than the screen opening and creased the corners to give it that rounded TV screen look before attaching it on the inside of the box.

Halfway there..ish!  It looks very backyard, but it's kind of supposed to.  Everything got outlined in more hot glue.  I glued some felt into the grille so I'd be audible and could still breathe, and poked some holes to either side of it for the craft sticks.  Working TV knobs :D

Getting closer...

The aerial is half of a styrofoam craft ball painted silver.  I wired a pair of wooden fast food chopsticks together at one end, glued them into the middle of the ball, and made a couple of hot glue knobs at the top ends.  They're semi-poseable, but mostly there to be a little wiggly.  I also cut a piece of that window-cling car tint to put over the inside of the screen.

Base-Wash-Drybrush, paint all the glue outlines in flat black and the knobs in gold, and we're done.  It has that cartoony-clipart look I was going for.  The sealant coat over top of it fogged the acetate packaging plastic on the screen, though.  This is an effect I knew would happen and I've used it on purpose in the past, but I think if I had it to do over again I'd skip that part.  The window tint is enough to keep me anonymous on its own - the plastic being fogged made it impossible to see anything with the head on :'D

Off to work.

I didn't win anything - we had more important things to worry about than costume contests that year - but the store manager did say mine was his favorite costume of the day.  I'll take it.