Work, work, work

     I didn't write a post yesterday because I could not think of anything to talk about. And I was super tired. I got home from school and as soon as Travis got off the bus I took a nap. I meant it to be a short 15 minute nap, but it was more like an hour. I have been so exhausted lately. I feel like it is a carry-over from my crazy sugar binge of the other day (did I admit to that? Well, if not, I just did). Anyway, I did manage to get a little bit of doll work done. I cut out and sewed one outfit. Here is a pic of things I have in the works. There are clothes (before they were sewn), craft foam and a variety of wood. Today I actually bought some white craft foam, I think that will be easier to deal with than pink. But some of you know what craft foam means around here...

    Today in the mail I got a package from Molly Pengra. She has been gathering and shipping items that Sheila Bishop owes people. Or things to compensate. Several years ago Sheila and I worked out a trade and I sent her 5 dolls. Things happened, or didn't happen, and finally today I got back 3 of the dolls I sent her, an unpainted Mira resin and two mini Brio resins. I am keeping on mini Brio and gifting one of them to a good friend. But Mira will be up for sale as soon as I get the energy to take a couple of pictures and get her listed. Probably on Model Horse Place, I do like that site. And the dolls will of course be for sale. It's kind of fun to all of a sudden have 3 more to add to my stash. I am thrilled that Sheila is working on making things right with the people she owes things to. Not everyone does after all. 

     I also got some very red hair in the mail today. It was sent by a customer who is making Batman dioramas and needs Barbara Gordon. Today I really wanted to work on the equitation doll I started yesterday but that didn't happen. I had to do some errands and that took so much longer than I expected it to. And I really needed to see if I could make this new hair work. It is acrylic and much thicker and more unruly than the viscose I normally use to hair doll heads. I was not sure I could make this stuff work so I set aside the other plans and worked on this head. It really starts off pretty insane!

     But one really great thing about acrylic is it has a good memory. I pulled the hair down flat, in the style I wanted it to be in, wrapped a rubber band tightly around her neck to hold it in place and heated it up with a hot hair dryer. Then I let it cool off and voila! Hair that is much more well behaved and looks somewhat like the style from the reference pic. But seriously, this hair is crazy! So this is the best I can do with it. I am not a fan of acrylic hair. 

     To help it hold the style, and stay neat for shipping, I wrapped the heads in a strip of plastic and taped it on. This is actually basically how Yvonne and Gracie heads come anyway. So now the hair will stay neat and the extra time being held in the position I want it to be in should help. It can't hurt anyway. 

     So again/still I have a somewhat extensive to-do list and not enough hours in the day. I have a variety of dolls in my order book that I need to get to and seem to have very limited "free time" to work on them. I also have several new projects in mind to get ready for Medieval Madness, which is in 2 weeks. Why can't I just stop thinking of new stuff to make and show what I have? I do have some fun ideas. And I don't think all of them will take very long. I really want to get the equitation doll done this weekend, even though I try not to work on the weekends. That almost never works! So I need to get her done and then I got an order yesterday or the day before that if I can swing it she'd like it for the 18th. We'll see, I do have other dolls ahead of that one, but they have no deadlines. Well, one of them does, but that is for Breyerfest. I need to start getting things done. I think I can knock out maybe one more small project tonight. That would be great.