She's a real doll

Yesterday was a challenge. Sunday's restless night of sleep led to Monday's brain fog that just wouldn't quit. And yet, I managed to function at a basic level: I worked on costumes for two different shows (one I'm designing, the other I'm assisting the designer), I completed Sunday's creation, and even made it to my poledancing fitness class. And, yea, the fog was lifted! It's astounding how a little exercise can lift one's energy level; I walked out of class ready to go for a few more hours last night.

Which was good, because I hadn't even thought of a creation for Monday. I checked out a January holiday calendar to see if 1/9/12 had any special food or activity to celebrate. Yeah, turns out yesterday was National Apricot Day. Not too inspiring, at least not at 9:30 p.m.


So back to surfing the interwebs. A little Ryan Gosling, a little facebook, a little Pinterest. I also checked out The Bloggess; she hasn't posted anything for a few days, but she had a new post yesterday. And there was the inspiration for my creation: a paper doll. It's not so much a creation on my part, as an embellishment of somebody else's design. The Bloggess' friend @fattieart created the paper doll of the Bloggess, available to print, color and cut out; just waiting for me.

I didn't make a paper doll, though. I made a fabric doll. With printable fabric. This is a real thing, inkjet printer fabric. Quilters and crafters use it to make pillows, quilts, or tote bags with personal photos on them. Images can also be uploaded from the internet and printed onto the fabric. I've used it to make nametags and company logo patches for costumes (including a *possibly illegal* U.P.S. logo for a driver uniform costume!) It's kind of magical, to put paper-backed fabric through an inkjet printer, and produce the desired image on the fabric. So, I printed the bloggess paper doll onto fabric.  To give the fabric some body, I fused it on to some parchment paper.

Then I painted the Magical Red Dress and Beyonce the Giant Metal Chicken.

It's hard to tell in this photo, but I used gold glitter paint on the bodice, similar to the gold trim on the Magical Red Dress.  I'm particularly proud of how Beyonce turned out.   And using my wine glass to hold down a corner of the fabric: sheer genius.

I don't have a miniature cemetery for a photo shoot, but I like the pose with my toadstool box.

And thanks to this creation and post, I've figured out how to embed links in my blog.  I rock.