We are having a pretty meh time of it here, you know, with the whole bloody country being on fire and everything. I can't let the kids outside most of the time, or I may as well be giving them cigarettes. The Giant Baby's daycare didn't even let the kids outside today because of it. I have to carry a ventolin inhaler with me, even though I haven't needed one in years. And being stuck inside wheezing, with two bored kids is not as much fun as performing surgery on yourself without anaesthesia.
This is the view from our front door, yesterday morning
Terrible gardening (or complete neglect of the garden) aside, that's not cloud in the sky. That's smoke.
The goldy quality to the light, that's not sunset (it was about 10 am), that's smoke.
I actually took this picture to show my husband how bad the smoke was, but most of the smoke didn't show in the photo. Everything across the street was slightly grey and hazy. And this is not the worst day we've had.
And yet, I'm pretty sure the closest fires are at Mt Buffalo (which is a weird name for a mountain in a country that doesn't have buffalos) which is about a hundred miles away.
But I feel stupid complaining about it when it's so much worse for so many people, so let's move on.
I thought about making new year's resolutions but decided against it. I figure if I'm serious about changing my behaviour, which is what resolutions are, I'll do it any time I think of it, not wait for a special day. So instead, I've come up with a list of things I want to achieve.
1. I want to get face ups done on my bjds. Including settling on eyes and wigs for them. Including two I ordered in Iplehouse's Christmas event.
2. I want to make two full outfits (except maybe underwear) for each of my bjds.
3. I want to experiment more with printing my own fabric. Not just what I can print out from my computer, because that's pretty limiting. But I want to try different ways of fabric painting and block printing and eventually hopefully screen printing except screen printing kit looks crazy expensive so that's on the hopefully list and not the DO IT NOW list.
I've already done a bit of work on Paige and Zihu's face ups. But I'm not ready to show them yet. Zihu looks very pretty but I'm not sure how she'll photograph and she's still naked. Paige, got away from me a bit. She didn't turn out at all like I had planned or imagined and right now I'm not sure if I dislike her look or if I'm just confused and maybe disappointed that she looks nothing like I was thinking. So I've put her back in her box for the moment. I'll have a look in a few days and see what I think. I'm pretty sure both of their eyebrows are rubbish though.
I also had a little play with fabric paint yesterday. But I'm an idiot.
So that, is sheer, blue organza, stretched over a sheet of masonite with a paper template stuck to it. I used the template to show where to paint on the fabric. Yay. Fantastic. Except, as you're probably aware, I'm an idiot. I meant to cover the paper template with either plastic or packing tape. Yeah, I forgot. So when I removed the fabric from the template, heaps of bits of paper stuck to the back of the fabric. Like I said, I'm an idiot. Now I have to wait 72 hours for the paint to cure before I can even try to wash the paper off! Fingers crossed.
I never know how to end these posts, but I can't think of much else to say right now. Sometime in the next few weeks, I'll rearrange my dolls, then I'm actually planning on showing ALL OF THEM to you. Even if you've seen them before.
I hope the bush fires get under control soon! It's amazing how far smoke and/or ash can travel.
ReplyDeleteYou have very specific goals for making doll clothes. My goal is: make my poor dolls some clothes, because they desperately need some. And I can't take interesting photos with my dolls if they don't have nice clothes.
I'll be interested to see how your fabric printing efforts come out. I imagine with experience, you'll make fewer mistakes as the process becomes more rote. I want to experiment more with designing my own fabric. It will be fun to see what we've produced by the end of this year, I hope!
I know it sounds crazy specific but I really want those particular dolls to have clothes because they were so expensive. The two outfits each bit is actually me scaling back. My original plan was five outfits each! Which is a terrible idea because I would just get overwhelmed.
DeleteHi Rachael,
ReplyDeleteI looked at the sun the other morning glowing through the smoke and I'd never seen it look so orange. I am glad we had that great downpour of rain yesterday, and that we can finally see across the park opposite. :)
Sounds like you are attempting to take the bull by the horns this year, setting yourself goals nice and early. I hope you manage to achieve all you have set out to do . . . especially the fabric printing! I'm sure once the paint has set and the fabric is washed of the paper, you'll have something exciting to show us. :)
Big hugs,
X
I really do think having less stuff helps! The way things were before, the whole time I was working on anything, I was feeling guilty about all the dolls that had been waiting for years and that really slowed me down. Now it's like a huge weight has been lifted!
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