taking time to breathe...

I'm glad to say that everyone really seemed to like the shorts that I decided, basically on a whim, to make; and I managed to save up enough money to buy my first dslr, a Nikon D3100 ;3;

I mean I'd already saved up quite a bit before my fujifilm point and shoot started to crap out on me, but I never thought that I'd manage to save up the rest of what I needed as quickly as I did; so I'm very grateful to anyone who purchased anything at all from my shop the past several weeks 'cause I wouldn't have been able to do it without them.

I've had several requests from people for SD size dyed shorts, and I most definitely want to work out a pattern so I can include them in the next batch. But for right now I'm going to be taking a bit of a break to work on some personal projects 'cause I feel like I've just been so busy the past several weeks trying to make things to sell so I could afford a new camera that I just keep shoving stuff that I want/need to do for my own dolls off into the "I'll get to it later" pile.

So for the next couple weeks or so I'm going to put new things for the shop on the back burner and give myself a little time to just take a break and get to work on some things that I've been putting off for far too long, like clothes for poor Egg 'cause she's seriously lacking in that department even though I already bought a whole bunch of fabric awhile back to make her stuff.

I mean I may still make some things to list here and there, and commissions will still be open as always; there just won't be any big updates like there had been with the legwarmers and the shorts.

but yeah...

list of the things I'm planning to try and get done.

various clothes for egg (she kind of needs a little bit of everything)

bathing suit for lena

printed and solid color jersey shorts for lena (and probably some to sell)

various clothes for livi (she needs some more summery tops)

extended list that only applies if I can get some msc ordered, and the humidity goes down.

new faceups for pan

new faceups for avery

repaint ava (stupid testors is getting sticky :/)

paint ava's twin (base doll is skull shores frankie) that I'm going to sell/auction

maybe open up egg and start working on her, but idk 'cause I didn't want to open her until I can start her reroot too.

I'm also going to have to spend some time learning how to use my new camera when it gets here probably sometime next week.

I'm very new to the whole dslr thing, and frankly have no idea what I'm doing.

the only times I've used a dslr in the past I basically just had it handed to me and I did nothing but push the shutter button, so it was kind of just like a really expensive point and shoot xD

so it may take me awhile to get the hang of it and figure everything out, but I'm really excited to learn; and it'll be nice to have more control over the photos that I take 'cause that was why I'd always been planning to upgrade to a dslr when I had the money to spare anyway, the upgrade just happened a little sooner than I thought it would.

if you wanted a pair of those rainbow shorts...

be sure to head over to my etsy shop!

they've all been listed now, and 4 pairs of the rainbow ones are already gone; so be sure to check them out now so you don't miss out on the pair you want.

each pair is one of a kind. even though some of them have similar color patterns, no two pairs are exactly alike.

I'm not sure yet if/when I'll be making more, it'll all depend on how well these go, and how quickly I can get a pattern made for SD size dolls 'cause I want to be able to do both sizes next time if I do decide to make more.

and don't forget to go "like" the fan page for my shop on facebook 'cause post updates there as things are listed so you can be the first to know.

you can find a link for that in the sidebar ^_^

overdue update...

so I said that I'd post a blog about the rainbow shorts when I actually got to work on them.

I'd fully meant to do more blogs throughout the process to show progress pictures and what not, but if you follow me on flickr I had been posting stuff there (and on instagram within the last couple days 'cause I got my fancy new droid xD)

I went into it thinking it was going to be super simple, but I also didn't originally plan to sew 29 pairs of shorts xD

if you read the last blog you'll already know some of this, but whatever.

only 23 of those 29 pairs got bleached and dyed, while I left the 6 extra pairs as the light denim color that they were to begin with and just distressed them.

I spent about 15 hours the first day cutting out the pieces for and sewing all 29 pairs.

the next day I spent about 8 hours doing as much distressing as I possibly could.

the day after that I finished with the distressing and rinsed/dried them all to make the frayed bits look better and more actually worn.

the next day I got started with the bleaching which took something like 4-5 hours 'cause for whatever reason the bleach I bought sucks and just didn't seem to want to take the color out of the denim in a timely manner.

that night after I'd finished with the bleaching and had given them some time to dry part of the way I applied the dye to all of the shorts and let them sit and dry for nearly 48 hours before I rinsed and washed them.

it was kind of more work than I'd figured, but I'm really happy with how they turned out in the end 'cause the parts where I thought the colors looked really muddy actually don't look bad after they were washed since you can't really see where each color set when they're still covered in dye, so in some of the places where I thought too many colors mixed it wasn't actually bad because not all of the colors set where they bled.

I'm hoping to get pictures taken of all the pairs that will be for sale within the next couple days 'cause I know some people are waiting for them to be available already, it's just going to take a bit since I have to take pictures of the front and back of every pair since they're all different.

I'm also hoping to get an SD size pattern worked out 'cause some people expressed interest in them, and I don't generally like to sew fitted  things for dolls that I don't have in house; but I think if I can get a friend to help me with the measurements I'd need, and trying on a test pair or two then I can manage it.

anyway...

enough babbling, here are some shots of the finished shorts!

this was when the dye was still wet.

lena wearing the first pair that I decided I was for sure keeping. 

instagram spam of a bunch of the finished pairs.

some of those pictured will be for sale, but some are pairs that I'm keeping for myself.

and I'm eleanoranne on instagram by the way if you happen to want to follow me on there ^_^

drowning in denim fuzz...

so I've been working my poor fingers pretty hard the past couple days, but hopefully it'll all be worth it soon.

I was itching to be able to actually get some of the awesome rainbow dyed shorts done, but I don't want to waste the dye since the tie dye kit was a little on the expensive side.

I had a pair of light colored stretch denim jeans to cut up and use for the project, and I decided to make as many pairs as I could get out of one pants leg; which was 29 pairs.

I spent about 15 hours saturday (working sort of on and off, and taking a break to cook dinner for the family) cutting and sewing all 29 pairs

then today I spent quite a few hours fraying the edges of all the pairs of shorts and starting to otherwise distress all of the pairs.

the leg edges of all of the pairs are frayed, and I got through putting holes and what not in 11 pairs before my fingers were too sore to keep going; plus it's nearly 5am so I should probably sleep...

I'm hoping to get all the rest of the pairs distressed tomorrow; then I'll rinse and run all of the shorts through the dryer so the frayed bits look better, and bleach 23 pairs 'cause I'm leaving a handful of pairs the color that they are, but the rest will all be dyed pretty rainbow colors :D

rainbooows

so I was on tumblr awhile back and came across this picture of a girl wearing these amazing distressed rainbow stripe denim shorts.

I knew right away that I just had to make some for Lena 'cause they're just so very her, but I wasn't really sure how to go about dying them since generally in the past when I've tried to dye things that are striped or specifically patterned where you don't want too much running/blending I've managed to make a mess; then  I saw AndreasChoice post a how-to video, and apparently the colors bleeding isn't actually that big of an issue since you kind of want them to blend at least a little anyway.

so I picked up a tulip brand tie-dye kit and some bleach at the store since I've always had nice results when working with tulip brand dye in the past, and oh I'm going to make so many pairs of shorts xD

the kit I bought comes with enough dye to make up to 20 t-shirts, so I'd imagine I can get a whole bunch of pairs of doll size shorts out of it; and I actually have a pair of jeans that got a big hole in them awhile back that will be perfect for dolly shorts 'cause they're pretty thin stretchy denim.

I'll probably make some pairs to list if I can manage to make enough pairs that fit nicely 'cause I generally fail at pants/shorts making, but I'm going to give it a shot xD

I don't know yet what I'd charge for them if I do end up listing some, it'll depend on how long they take me to mak.

I've embedded the video by Andrea below, you should definitely take a look at it 'cause even if you don't want to make shorts, you could really stripe dye anything.

 

late night.

late night sewing.

busy working on one wig commission, and might at least start on another depending on how late it is when I finish this one.

I'm also working my way through the seasons of Being Human (UK) 'cause a few different friends had insisted that I should give it a second chance, and am currently halfway through the third season.

the first time I tried to watch it I got really turned off of it after just a couple episodes 'cause I just really didn't like Annie, and she bugged me enough that I just couldn't really get past it.

but this time around I decided to stick it out and I feel like she got less annoying as things went on; and I really do like other things about the series so I'm glad I gave it another shot.

it's turning out to be a lot different than the American version than I thought it'd be.

I'd say that they do sort of follow the same general plot line to an extent, but there are a lot of things that are really different too; and even some things that are done in both storylines but in different order or are handled differently.

over all from where I'm at in the series now, having seen all of the American version and most of the UK version, I'd say that I do like both pretty equally for various reasons.

oh, and I signed up for a trial of hulu plus to watch it 'cause; but I definitely won't actually be paying for the service after the trial is up.

it costs as much per month as netflix, but it's still got stupid commercials :/

I don't know if the commercials are because it's a trial, but that makes no sense 'cause isn't the point of a trial to actually try the service as it is when you pay for it; so I figure that the commercials are normal.

but why in the world are the commercials on a service that you pay for, that's kind of a rip off in my opinion.

so yeah, I guess it's sort of convenient, but netflix is a whole lot better so if I were to go back to paying for one or the other it'd definitely be netflix

so much for being productive...

so I've had all these great intentions to really get busy sewing and get a bunch of stuff done 'cause I've only got about 1/4 of what I need to get a new camera, so I really need to get some more stuff listed asap.

but then Fee pestered me to play this game called Eden Eternal with her...

yeah, guess how much sewing I've gotten done...

I mean, it's not entirely the game's fault 'cause in generally I've just been feeling a little meh the past few days or so, and that generally results in me not being in the most productive of moods; but if I weren't distracting myself playing the game I'd probably try harder to get busy and actually accomplish something.

it's so fun though ;;

it's kind of very much like WoW in my opinion, but free (aside from the item shop thingy that they have with like luxury items that you don't really necessarily need to play and have fun) plus it's all cute and anime >3<

I also feel like it's easier for a beginner to get into 'cause in general it seems a lot simpler than some mmorpgs that I've played, and has some built in features that remind me of this extra thing called quest helper that I used to have installed back when I played WoW

so yeah, that above is my character.

I play on diamond server, and am generally on channel 4 'cause it gives me the least lag.

so if you already play and happen to be on diamond server, or decide to start playing you should definitely add me.

I generally keep to myself in game 'cause in my history of playing mmorpgs I fail at the whole multiplayer bit and generally prefer to solo.

but I definitely don't mind playing with people that I already know from other places, I'm just a bit of a hermit and don't always play well with strangers xD

tomorrow I really do need to try to keep off the game and get busy though 'cause I do have a couple of wig commissions that I need to bust out; so even if I don't get anything to list done I do at least need to get those started and hopefully finished.