An Aries Knows (this site is more fun when people read and comment)
First up on the writing playlist. I’ve replaced two more drowned albums…
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, Hard Promises, 1981
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, Long After Dark, 1982
…with smaller (if not quite tiny) CDs.
Up next after those are the new offerings from…
John Mellencamp’s Orpheus Descending followed by Wolf Van Halen’s Mammoth II
I look forward to the inspiration. =)
The kilt looks are finally completed, with some shirt exchanges once I sewed a new shirt. Now all the dolls are wearing belts I made, and I made and added their chains and sporrans (note the houndstooth), some embellished with their emblems. If you didn’t care about any of this to start with, I’ll put only one doll here and the rest behind a cut to save real estate on your monitor. If you do look at them all, thanks. I learned a lot of new things and spent my time on this project mentally plotting the rest of the Neverending Saga. That also gave me the opportunity to make good changes to the sixth book before diving into the seventh.
The Mogul
You might remember back in April of ’22 I shared my Eddie Van Halen Funko figure in which he was “jumping” and holding his customized red, white, and black Frankenstrat guitar. Funko obviously knows the way to my heart and my credit card because they’ve done it again, this time posing EVH with his custom-designed Black and White Eruption guitar.
Maybe next year, the Bumblebee?
Here’s Eddie playing the Black and White on “You Really Got Me.”
Below are tiny charms I used to embellish kilts.
I ended up with six finished 1:6 scale kilts. Then I realized the trouble I’d had modifying the pattern I found (for a human kilt) contributed to how I misread the actual arrangement of the kilt. Kilts open or fasten on the wearer’s right side, what we see facing it on our left. I got that reversed in my brain, so all my dolls’ kilts open on their left side and are incorrectly fringed on their left side. Since these are dolls representing characters in the Neverending Saga, Tom advised me to accept that I’ve created a mirror universe in my fiction. It’s always good to have a science fiction buff around.
Here are the six. From left to right (real left as you’re looking at it, not some fictitious left), their characters’ initials are AC, MA, DFS, BW, PA, and CA. I tell you that so I can give credit for the pieces I didn’t make.
I made AC’s white shirt (in the 1990s), vest, kilt, and socks. The shoes are Mattel’s.
I made MA’s kilt and socks and the strap with the ram charm. The green over-shirt, black long-sleeved tee, and shoes are Mattel’s.
I made DFS’s gray shirt, kilt, strap with the piano charm, socks, and necklaces. The shoes are Mattel’s.
I made BW’s kilt, fly plaid, belt with the crow charm, and socks. Black shirt and shoes are Mattel’s.
I made PA’s red shirt, black belt (many years ago), kilt, and socks. Shoes are Mattel’s.
I made CA’s brown shirt, kilt, socks, and chain holding flower charm. Boots are Mattel’s.
I can bring a little life to these characters by imagining dialogue. You might have to zoom in to read it.
Definitely a learning experience, and not only will my next kilts and shirts be better, but I’ll make sure they open on the dolls’ right sides. Literally.
This morning, I was checking to see if I had a couple of miniature charms. As I opened and shut some two dozen plastic containers, I realized craft organization works best when you don’t make a mystery of it. Out came the label maker! (And on the way, I better organized as well as purged a few things that found their way into my supplies and that I’m sure I’ll never use.)
No more wasting time on searches!
And I did find miniature charms that worked for what I wanted.
Love and peace, and if trick or treating is part of your evening, have a fun, safe night!
A very tiny jingle bell, smaller than a quarter, that’s been on a household keychain for years and years and broke the other day. Even Tom felt a little sad, and naturally, my sentimentality won’t let it go. It’ll be around for a while.
I needed a bathtub-type rubber duck for a photo shoot, and Lynne found one for me a few days ago. Definitely NOT a tiny duck–it even dwarfs Ken! He wasn’t part of the original photo, but this is a chance to show I decreased the size of his collar and removed the old “supersize” buttons to replace them with some of the smaller buttons I ordered. They are yellow like the duck!
I also used an uncolored coloring page in the original photo, which I then colored for fun.
And for Muppet fun, this.
Gaze into my crystal ball. What do you see?
“Moo! Your daily cow, that’s what!”
Today’s post is about a different kind of button from Sunday’s posts. Here to demonstrate is one of my character dolls. Hi, Elle!
This is how the average human-sized shirt button fits in Elle’s palm.
This is how the average craft button I can buy locally fits in Elle’s palm. I’ve used these buttons for doll clothes, and they work great as coat buttons or buttons on purses and other accessories, but the scale is a bit large for shirts and dresses.
Last week, I found a US Etsy account (important because of how I pay and how they ship) that sells 4mm buttons in large quantities at a great price. While this isn’t exactly 1/6 scale (i.e., human to doll size), it’s much closer. I fear actual doll size is best left to the manufacturers of dolls and doll clothes and those companies’ machinery. I have old eyes and arthritic hands, therefore need larger needles to be able to do the job.
But all the colors!
I tried to find poems or songs that somehow use “button(s)” in titles or text, but I wasn’t impressed with my search results. I decided to go with common phrases using the word “button.”
Can you think of others?
When I was staying with Pollock at Tim’s recently, I needed a clothespin and opened his junk utility drawer to look for one and found these. So cute!
He thinks they could have been made by a contemporary of his parents who he knew growing up. Very crafty! I just used the plain clothespin that I found to close a bag of chips, but I took a photo of these so I could share them here on some Tiny Tuesday. And now I have.