The Cranberries - Dreams.mp3

I did a load of doll-dressing yesterday. As you might recall, I undressed ALL twenty-one of my girls back in November, and have been slowly dressing them one or two at a time since. I had nine girls dressed, but twelve still standing around naked. I got some kind of bee in my bonnet, I guess, because last night I dressed all twelve of those girls! I don't mind saying it took a few hours. I wasn't even being super picky or trying on/rejecting lots of things. I just enjoyed each dressup, brushed out a few girls' hair, took a while to get out/put away again all of my dolly wardrobe stuff. (I have so much, after fifteen years of collecting.)

One of the first dressups I did was to put Holland in this 90s-ish babydoll dress from PrettyBomb, which I got FOREVER ago, in 2023; I included it in a haul video where I even said, "With a pair of combat boots and knee high socks?? Please." I decided to finally execute the look I was envisioning! I found some yellow knee-high socks in my stash and fortunately I had some black boots without heels.

I wanted to try and make a mood board to see if I could represent the exact 90s fashion moment I was recalling...

This was actually way more time-consuming than it should have been, because the internet doesn't want to show actual 90s fashion pictures when you look up "90s babydoll dress," et cetera. It wants to show you Gen-Z's ideas of what 90s fashion surely was, which is mostly inaccurate and what I would call "tumblr soft grunge" at best. I'm not mad at Gen-Z for this, though. I definitely think they should feel free to take 90s trends and do their own versions, incorporate them into a "now" look; the 90s did that with the 1970s, after all. Every fashion cycle revisits/reinterprets its predecessors. But it's really hard to find actual 90s images for some reason.

The 90s was my childhood (I turned 7 in 1990, and 17 come the year 2000) and I remember veryyy distinct phases of fashion as the decade went on. 1992 fashion (think Full House, still reminiscent of the 80s) does not look like 1998 fashion (think post-grunge: Spice Girls, baby tees, Madonna's "Ray of Light."). You weren't going to find Blossom hats past a certain year (in fact I've never seen anyone revisit Blossom hats -- only bucket hats). Early 90s and late 90s fashion are completely different!

The look I'm going for with Holland here is more early/mid-90s, maybe 1994-ish. Pre-Delia's catalogues. Pre-Hanson. I remember the celestial themes (what might now be called whimsigoth) and the Zodiac motifs all the Claire's jewelry had; the yin-yangs and the smiley faces. Chokers were "in" but those tattoo chokers were not a thing yet. I recall all the Nirvana/Loony Tunes/D.A.R.E. tees and plaid shirts and Vans and baggy jeans (pre-JNCOs). I had plaid babydoll dresses and wore scuzzy navy blue Converse high tops that I'd written/drawn all over. I recall the sheer knee-highs (a la Clueless, hence the inclusion of Cher on the mood board) and Doc Martens and the grunge/skater influence. Even feminine styles had a lot of that grunge influence with more masculine notes. The pink Power Ranger was wearing floral babydoll dresses paired with biking shorts and hiking boots, okay! DJ freaking Tanner looked like a construction worker with a cute bob and a choker.

All that about accuracy and stuff being said, I don't think of this hairstyle as 90s at all, but I don't want to disturb Holland's curls! At the same time, I really wanted to dress Holland in this dress. And I just had these bits of black yarn hanging around because I took them out of Zasha's hair. So, I am just a hypocrite.

Anyway, if I could add a single thing to this outfit, it would be either a little plaid shirt to tie around her waist or a denim vest. Often outfits in this era of the 90s were very bedecked with accessories; lots of silver jewelry, buttons and pins. I think she could use some more visual interest/clutter like that, but I'm not sure what...

Get ready for more doll outfit posts. I took some pics of Citron and Tiphanie today too.

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miniature pillows (or, the care and feeding of my soul)

Yesterday I was feeling pretty heavy and discombobulated, after a few vexing days -- on top of Everything Happening In The World, you know. It has lately felt like life consists of little other than the endless grind of stuff I really don't want to do, but have to do anyway, and unpleasantness, and worry. I knew I needed to do something fun. Something for me and not for other people. So I decided to make some little pillows for my doll furniture. I'm in a miniatures phase right now and recently reacquainted myself with the other little cushions and crochet blankets I made in years past. I've only made a few cushions, actually!! I think three? So I decided I need to make scads more!

I found this floral fabric with a very small scale (so satisfying when you're working with doll stuff!!) in my stash and also remembered that last year my wonderful friend Anne sent me a whole little box full of really fun sewing/crafting notions! Miniature buttons in every imaginable color, lots of trims of various sorts, little silk flowers, jump rings -- even more than I can name off the top of my head. It was so exciting to bust out all these extra materials and find the ideal pom-pom trim!! The olive color matched the tiny leaves in this floral fabric PERFECTLY!

So, I intended to make a square pillow and a round pillow. Figuring out how to add the pompom trim to a pillow kind of blew my little dumb sewing mind. I began to sew it on but realized belatedly that once I turned the pillow right-side-out to stuff, the trim would be stuck on the inside of the pillow. Order of operations in sewing really matters and I have messed this up on many occasions in the past. So I ended up just finishing sewing on the trim to one of my circles of fabric and deciding it could be a little tablecloth of some sort!

It fits this little antique store wicker table pretty exactly! (For the circle shapes I was using, I literally traced around the bottom of a can of cranberry sauce. Use what you got!)

On the second go at the round pillow, I managed to figure out the method needed to sew the pompom trim between my two fabric circles. It was sort of tough when it came time to turn the pillow out properly and stuff it, because I had about an inch of pompom trim to tuck between the now right-side-out fabric layers and also I needed to try and fold the fabric layers in on themselves as well. It made for a very rough patch of visible stitching (in the picture below you can see it along the bottom of the pillow) because I don't really know stitches or techniques to better deal with this kind of thing. I think it is neither noticeable nor important, haha. These little pillows are just photography/video/setup props.

On the square pillow, I randomly decided to attach an applique I found in my stash. I got a bunch of these little miniature doily appliques from the Michael's dollar section ten years ago (at least) and I still have a few packets of them. I was going to pop a button in the middle of the pillow anyway, because I like that look, and decided to make the button the middle of the flower shape. Eeee!

I just had myself the best little time sewing yesterday. I kept thinking, "I am just having the time of my life right now!" It was such a profound balm to my sore and ragged soul.

I've mentioned this a couple of times, I feel like (here and there), but it is difficult to thrive amongst continuous news cycles and social media algorithms that bury you in bad news on the daily. That is by design, because scary and negative things get a lot of attention. More views, more clicks, more discussion. One way people try to protect themselves and deal with scary things is by knowing everything possible, to feel prepared and in-the-know about the latest horrific development in the news or in more random internet rabbitholes -- whatever. But then their algorithms get trained to feed them more of that stuff, until it feels like the entire world is a horror show consisting of nothing but awful people and conspiracies and the latest thing certain evil people said. I'm not strictly talking politics, although that's a huge part of it. But even seemingly positive things like staying self-educated with regards to health topics can get twisted by the algorithm into health fear-mongering and distrust in medical professionals, et cetera. Most people aren't being careful with what they digest online, or considering their sources.

I have a couple of family members sucked into this type of self-perpetuating engine. Constantly sucking down soul poison. I do care about the state of the world and about my fellow humans; I care about corruption and injustice and evil. And I will vote against them, and protest against them, and live my life according to the things I believe are good and right. But just don't want to think about and discuss the latest alarming development in an ongoing bad news cycle every single day. I just can't inject myself with soul-killing stuff on the daily. Maybe a lot of people are stronger than me and can do that without huge mental health ramifications. But I can't. I have to want to live in this world. I have to live in a brain, a body, that works against me and tells me enough bad things already. I have to use my limited time on this planet in a way that makes me glad to be here. If I'm not feeding my soul, if I am not nourishing it with the things it needs, then it is not just sitting around, stalling in neutral, unharmed. No. It is getting constantly worn down and damaged by outside forces and it will ultimately wither and die. I have to, I have to, take care of it. Or else what is the POINT of anything.

I am expressing this here instead of just dropping a fun little post with some pics and vamoosing because Cure Touch is entirely emblematic, to me, of my constant, consistent choice to try and center any joy I can for myself. I have needed it for that purpose since its inception. And I need to reiterate its purpose now. And my purpose. To myself, if almost no one else. For a long while now my about page has stated: "I believe creating and defining happiness for yourself, and in maintaining a healthy relationship with online content." I wrote that, I'm pretty sure, ten-plus years ago. Curating and being intentional with the online sphere has only become more vital. It has become harder, too.

And I am posting all this with this post because I am being so serious and for real when I say that making little pillows for my doll furniture was so good for my soul. It made me so happy. I was hurting for something like this activity.

I am going to make some more soon.

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strawberry springtime

Got a yen to do another little setup with some miniatures. Recently I dressed Fidelia and Beatrix in some duds from the Strawberry Shortcake fashion sets I blogged about here (and which I scored from Five Below). I really, really love this plaid dress with the double ribbons at its drop waist! I'm not sure that it's a drop waist on the doll for which it is meant, but on Beatrix, it sure is.

(Other outfit roundup deets: Fidelia's skirt is from PrettyBomb and she's wearing Didee Eureka's stock Mary Janes. Beatrix's sneakers are from thehandflower.)

Another Strawberry Shortcake thing I got from Five Below recently is this Teeny Tinies! Strawberry's Bake Shop Set. It was $5, of course, and came with 20 pieces, some of which I like and some of which I don't. But that's a great price for a handful of miniatures I do like. I'm kinda miniatures-crazy right now so I actually got three sets of Teeny Tinies! miniatures... Anyway, I used several items from this specific set here!

Most from the Strawberry's Bake Shop Set -- the cart and everything on top of the cart -- but the doughnuts on the lower tray, the teacups, and the pink lemonade bottle are craft store miniatures.

I got out one of my Michael's not-doll-furniture benches from a couple of years ago, some 1:6-ish scale cushions I hand-sewed eons ago, and this little bunny! Because of course! Easter!

I was pretty tickled just setting all this up and taking photos. But I decided to take some footage with my phone, too, and edit together a small reel or short or whatever you want to call it. Here 'tis:

Notes on this little video:

• I don't know how to edit videos on my phone. I must admit my ignorance here. I have abandoned social media several times since 2016 (due to mental health/feeling unable to cope with the state of the world at large), don't use TikTok at all, etc. I'm not a short form content girlie. So I kind of missed the boat on editing together content for platforms that have made strong moves towards it. Like, I do not know what app people are using to make their videos?!!?! iMovie? Capcut? What is the proper workflow for that? I only know how to use Adobe Premiere on my desktop computer. So I used that to edit this, uploaded it to the cloud, and used the Reels app on my phone just to put a slight lighting filter over the finished product, to try and get the virulent colors to be more true to life.
• Yes, the background music is me playing my Omnichord!!! Because I am really interested in using it for stuff like this. I just placed it on my desk where my keyboard is and aimed a mic at its speaker! So, you can hear not only the output, but you can actually hear me pressing the buttons. It sounds to me like a music box with that kind of clicking. And I am just playing through the first verse of "In the Golden Afternoon" from Disney's Alice in Wonderland on it. I'm really tickled this worked alright.

I'm spending so much of my time on band stuff -- pretty much since I joined it, last summer, my time's really been sucked away by it -- but lately I'm feeling a lot of desire to try and pack my own individual hobbies back onto my plate. I want to do doll stuff, I want to sew more little cushions and pillows for my doll furniture, I want to sew some little clothes!

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filling a miniature shelf (+ Gavin and Miette)

There are Blythes in this post. Can you believe it!

So I got this cute arched miniature shelf thingie at Michael's. It seems like every spring they have some accidentally-doll-sized something. In the past it's been chairs/benches. I cannot for the life of me find this small decor item anywhere on the Michael's website, and it was the very last one on the shelf at my local store. But I think it was part of the "Next Chapter" collection they had this winter/spring; it was in that area and is a similar color to other bigger shelving in the collection.

I've really been living for the possibility that there might be something that's accidentally Blythe-sized at craft stores this spring, so I was so happy to score this. It was 60% off, too, which really took the price down, from ~$15 to $6.

For the past many years now I have been slowly but regularly adding to my collection of miniatures, a few pieces at a time. I got a couple of spring miniatures from this year along with the shelf, and when I got home, I got the urge to style the shelf with some of my springy/floral/gardening-related minis!

Some things for you to espy:

• Top shelf: tiny snails!!!
• Middle shelf: I painted that little light blue mushroom back in 2010!
• Bottom shelf: The little turtle acting as a bookend!

Placing each item one at a time into this little shelf brought me incredible amounts of joy and satisfaction!!

But I couldn't leave it at just the little shelf. I had to dress a doll and add her to the scene. Not just one! But two!! And I added even more miniatures into the scene.

One: On Gavin, I put these teeny-weeny purple flower hair clips! Two: I bought these miniature pastel macarons forever ago. I set them on Miette's lap! Three: I also had these miniature shopping bags from circa the same miniatures collection (from Michael's) and had never even opened the package. This one that says "la petite bookshop" matched the lavender/lilac vibe. Of course anything French is right up Miette's alley! Four: I really wished I had a miniature dog or cat to place in the loveseat next to Gavin! The closest I could get was digging out this dog-printed cushion from Didee Eureeka's stock (!!!) but it simply looks like a pillow to me, and not a companion. Still, what fun to actually use that random bit of stock.

Other stuff in the scene: Some wicker furniture I scored a long time ago on Etsy (not sure when but they were in Lamb's dressup video in 2015!) and some stuff I crocheted over the years (a tiny ripple throw and a rainbow-shaped rug or throw, whichever) and tiny cushions I sewed (helping to support the dolls).

It's been so long since I've indulged in playing with my miniatures and doll furniture and setting up a scene. I'm not as good at this kind of thing as many doll photographers are, so I always have to remind myself that it's fun to do it for the love of play and not perfection. It does bother me that the rug and shelf aren't perfectly aligned, but I just gotta let it go, man. I really, really benefitted from playing around with this today!

I imagine that Miette and Gavin got dolled up in their springy frocks, went shopping (perhaps to "la petite bookshop" and/or to a bakery), and came home to gossip. Gavin kicked her shoes off.

Finally, I really try to cite where I attained all my dolly duds for any interested parties, but I got almost all of what Gavin and Miette are wearing secondhand. I'll make my finest attempt anyway.

Gavin's dress: I think sleepforever (I was gifted the dress last year and I already don't remember!)
Gavin's hot pink Mary Janes: eBay circa 2015 is my best guess
Miette's dress: secondhand in 2012 (it's one of my FAVORITES!)
Miette's petticoat: MINIJIJO in 2017
Miette's white strappy shoes: thehandflower

I have made a couple of posts about putting miniatures in little shelves before! Here and here! There's one item that's been in all three posts.

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ditsy/down with the decoupage

Hi; happy March!

Today my mom and I worked on some prototypes for an Easter project we want to do with our knitting club ladies: decoupaged wooden eggs. They turned out so cute, in my opinion! We used various old leftover party paper napkins taken down to one ply, wooden eggs from the craft store painted white with some coats of gesso, and of course, Mod Podge.

This was really, really fun. Mine is the egg with pink flowers, all harvested from a floral napkin that had a ton of different variously colored flowers printed on it. My mom did the blue and white egg (she added in some beige napkin bits for an antique look). It looks so impressive for such a simple craft. I learned a technique to help with smoothing the wrinkles out of such delicate material as a single napkin ply, which was putting my whole hand in a plastic sandwich bag and gently rubbing the recently-Mod Podged flower with the smooth plastic of the sandwich bag covering my fingertip. It worked a treat for getting things to lie smoothly and evening out the application of said Mod Podge.

I haven't done decoupage in a billion years. Over fifteen, probably, or else I probably would have posted about it here, and I can find no such post. The last thing I decoupaged was a decorative box, I think. And I'm fairly sure I cut up some ancient Seventeen magazines for the images I slathered upon that box. So it's definitely been a grip.

Once I finished my prototype egg, I spent quite a while cutting out a lot of shapes from napkins, because I am not sure everyone who attends knitting club and might be interested in this craft is going to be able to handle scissors themselves. It seems prudent to have flakes of various decoupage-able things already on hand instead of having people cut their own.

The ditsy floral look is really appealing to me... always. But definitely right now. Here are my last two selfies, taken weeks apart.

Two different days, two different shirts, If You Can Believe It. I am currently into wearing my hair pinned back behind my ears. I got a haircut in February for the first time in a few years. While it is still long, my hair is no longer Pentecostal-length.

(Screencap from band video just 'cause. Still at it and it's still taking up half my time.)

Other notes:

• I've gotten to play my Omnichord a lot more than I expected to in band! High-key thrilling tbh.
• I was asking myself all morning: "Why do I hear 'decoupage' in a Strong Bad voice?" Turns out there is a sbemail. I had zero recollection of this particular sbemail, but one single tiny braincell must have packed this association away. (My brain has a fair few Strong Bad-oriented pathways. I should do a post about Homestar Runner-isms that I still use...)
• I've been rewatching Outlander since the final season just premiered. I want to be properly emotionally primed. I'm on season three right now, so season two is still fresh in my mind, and can I just say, what silliness is this "Faith survived" business? There is no way a newborn (if she did indeed survive) infant could remember a song. SILLINESS!!! They have got to explain this biz.

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Omnichord corner

Oh BOY oh BOY oh BOOOYYY, it's hard to exist right now! To quote Cathy: ACK!!! I'm definitely of the mind that creativity and finding joy in this world are acts of resistance, and extremely necessary, not only for one's own soul, but for the sake of humanity's collective soul. It is vital to not let the things that bring comfort and peace in this world be overshadowed and extinguished by the unending, ever-encroaching darkness. But wow. It really feels like doing My Little Things is very Who Cares right now. I'm distresed by everything all the time. People aren't meant to live this way.

Look. I just really have to dress dolls and play music and work on projects and appreciate the good things in my life. I have to do it or I might as well just die.

So, here's a post about my Omnichord corner.

My sewing table has recently become my Omnichord corner. (I rotate out what I am doing with this little desk at any given moment. Were I to film a doll video, or take a picture of a doll with one of my many fabric backdrops, I would do it here.) I can plug it in nearby and use this little bendable grippy arm to film clips of myself playing from overhead, if I want. I've been doing that lately, using my backdrops to make it very tidy and ~aesthetic.

Video screenshot:

I have been recording covers here and there, as I have felt like it. But have also felt too shy and self-conscious to share them on my Instagram stories. Even though I post band clips there sometimes, to my "close friends." The Omnichord stuff feels more self-indulgent and personal. Maybe because my voice is quite close to the phone mic when I'm recording from overhead, and I am of course playing/singing solo. So, I dunno. I have wanted to post clips somewhere, but not inundate people who follow my Instagram due to doll stuff. (I know why people follow me!! And it's not for music content!!!)

Sooo, I made a side Instagram!

🎀 HERE 'TIS! 🎀

You can follow it if you are at all interested! No pressure! I seriously just post clips here for fun, at random, when I feel like it. I don't care if anyone follows it. I'm not trying to be a musician or singer. It's more just like a little archive for me, and a way to share some clips of it with my friends. I figured I'd post about it in case anyone is actually interested, but I don't expect that.

Finally, I'd like to mention the stand I recently attained for my Omnichord specifically, haha! I have been needing a bespoke safe place to put my Omnichord out of fear of knocking it over and/or stepping on it. It's often just leaned against something, or left flat on my bedroom floor. I stepped on my little yellow ukulele years ago on accident and broke it, so this fear is not unfounded. The Omnichord is too small to fit in either of my guitar stands, though. And there don't seem to be stands manufactured specifically for Omnichords out there. That makes sense; it's kind of a niche little instrument.

Most mentions I saw in my search for Omnichord stands seemed to be for the type of stands that one can use whilst playing the instrument live, not for, like... storage while not being actively played, which is what I personally was in the market for.

So I thought, "Maybe a violin stand, or something?" And looked around for something that seemed sturdy, and also like it wouldn't scratch my super freakin' expensive instrument.

I ended up getting this (pink!!!) ukulele stand from Amazon.

The pink is VERY cutesy, I know, but, well... consider whose blog you are reading. I was like, "This may look super cheesy, I don't know... It might not be the right size, I don't know..." But actually, I'm glad I went with this one, in this color. The Omnichord fits perfectly and it feels sturdy, but also like it's not going to leave any marks or dents. It has a soft touch covering.

I know I have mentioned Omnichord-related stuff a bunch of late -- or so it seems to me. My bad, y'all. Sometimes I am just into something specific and become one-note about it. I'm trying not to be self-conscious about it being my whole personality right now. I could be soooo much worse. I could have so many more annoying hobbies. You have no idea how close I have come to getting into Jellycats.

P.S.: How Kirsten Larson-core is that blue floral backdrop!

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sick daze

Being sick is a heckuva way to kick off a new year. For two weeks I was on a rollercoaster of feeling better only to yartz half an hour later, or whatever. I kept thinking I was on the mend and then I'd have an evening of chills and nausea.

I can't rightly recall what I even did for some of these endless evenings where I felt too bad to really do anything much. Oddly I did some cleaning and organizing. I played a lot of merge games (I play almost no games on my phone other than Solitaire, usually), to the point where I was having merging-related dreams. Speaking of dreams, I had Stranger Things dreams even though I haven't finished ST5. And speaking of TV I haven't finished, I tried to watch Heated Rivalry, but got irritated when episode three abruptly switched focus to the other couple -- the juice bar guy and other hockey guy -- so I paused in the middle of the ep and haven't gotten back to it yet. I'm not sure that I even like it but I'll probably finish it up.

I'm officially on the mend now; I was able to attend band practice this week and knitting club this weekend.

Between holidays and illness I didn't have band practice for a month, so by the time I got to attend again, I was feeling really intimidated and nervous about the idea of playing and singing in front of people again. I am actually very shy, aha! Our drummer was out, so the practice was more low-key, and I ended up being really thrilled because I got to bring my Omnichord!

(These pictures are screencaps from video footage -- hence they're pretty grainy!)

I mainly wanted to demo it and get their thoughts on its usability as a keyboard/synth element for us. It was so cool to plug it in and hear it amped in this setting, and to play it along with other instruments being played. We ended up playing through "Daniel" by Elton John a few times and the Omnichord really filled in the sound of that song. I was actually completely stoked!!! I was also stoked because I was able to keep up fairly well. I did mess up here and there; I'm still in that phase of learning the instrument. Sometimes it's a lot to try and process in the moment, what note is needed and where that button is on the instrument, on top of perhaps singing the song. It becomes a pileup in my brain and I just fritz out and mess up. But, in my opinion it sounded great, and the band guys were very supportive. I was honestly elated at how well it works for "Daniel" and I think we'll hit that song again and polish it up more in future sessions.

I'm also kinda stoked because the gingham backpack I bought (which I featured in my last post) has ended up being the PERFECT size for my Omnichord. This was nothing I had in mind while buying it. But I can fit my band chord notebook, my Omnichord, and several smaller bags for my cameras and external batteries and a number of cords in the backpack with ease. It's nice because I don't want to tote the Omnichord around without some padded covering and I feel this backpack offers it better protection than me trying to chuck it into a tote or something.

To end this post: I took all the Christmas ornaments off my pink tree and put on some heart-shaped ornaments to make a Valentine's tree.

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