I got into AG dolls as an adult, only a few years back.
Back then I bought my first doll, Just Like You #22. I turned her into an OC as an excuse to sew a dress for her using Kiersten's pattern book.
💬 0 🔁 0 ❤️ 5 · Custom Croatian AG doll 🇭🇷 · I'm still pretty new to this community and I only have 1 doll so far. I wanted to make my own
I've always wanted a Girl of the Year doll that matches my birth year but my birth year is 2002 so there isn't one. Then I remembered that Kaya was released that year and made it my goal to one day get her.
And I finally did!
She was 70 bucks on Ebay plus another 70 in shipping and additional costs.
She only had her dress so before I buy the rest of her outfit, I gave her #22's boots, 2 necklaces I made myself, a random trifted headband as a belt substitute and the shells in her hair are cardboard+nail polish.
This is just temporary because I do want her to be as accurate to the original as possible and I don't wanna pretend like these substitutes are fitting with her cultural dress.
I can't wait to read her books when I find time. I believe Kaya is very underappreciated.
She deserves more love and recognition because, to me, she is THE American Girl.
This idea popped into my head in the middle of the night, per usual. As if I don't already have WIPs waiting to be finished from 2019...
Here's the inspo:
I used Stitch Fiddle for the pattern and edited it a bit. I removed some rows and columns to make the image smaller so as to give myself a chance to finish this project before it finishes me.
I added more blue to the sky to make it look sunnier and tweaked the colors a bit because I don't own 20 shades of brown seed beads.
For the fabric, I frankensteined an old stained tablecloth and added some sparkly ribbon on top. I will add the handles(?) on top as I go because I can only guesstimate where the end of tapestry will be. Probably on those cherries on the left.
And yeah, the rows are a bit wobbly because the beads I'm using are not all perfectly uniform in size and shape. I thread 4 at a time and secure them in the middle because securing every bead individually would take forever.
All bead work I've done in the past has been with a drawn pattern on the fabric, not in this pixel art style, so the uniformity of the beads didn't matter that much. I can only try to pick the best beads from my limited stash.
Oh, and I don't have a needle designed for beading, just a very thin regular one. If I didn't have to wait 2 weeks for shipping, I'd buy one and pass through all 4 beads after securing the middle to make them straighter, but oh well, patience is not one of my virtues.
Any tips regarding speed, efficiency and so on are highly appreciated lol ❤️🩹
I'll definitely post the finished version soon, hopefully by the end of next month!
I bought this Barbie Fashionista #109 years ago when I first got into doll collecting and for the longest time, I had no idea what to do with her.
I decided to turn her into Donna Noble from my favorite show ever, Doctor Who!
Here's a little quick edit I cooked up in Picsart because I refuse to use gen AI.
I added the wig, some random shirt so she's not a floating head, changed her lipstick color and added some eyeshadow, and blush. I think her face mold and screening fits Donna. She looks vibrant and I love her kind smile.
If you aren't interested in the process of making the wig, feel free to scroll to the bottom for the results.
Anyway, I made the wig cap out felt. It didn't need to look perfect, just serve as a good base. Mind you, I've never reroooted a doll's hair or made a wig using this method.
I used embroidery thread for the hair wefts. I cut 2 pieces of identical length, brushed them out to separate the strands, ironed them out and joined the strands with glue on one end making sure the strands were laying flat next to each other. Or at least I tried.
Basically, just glue the wefts in rows and leave space on the crown of the head for the part line. For the part line and bangs, glue the wefts in the opposite direction and flip them over when dry to hide the "roots."
The hardest part for me was the haircut. I tried to create layers on the bottom to make the hair look more natural since Donna also has layers. I held my breath while cutting the bangs and face-framing parts.
In the end, I used some hair spray and my finger to shape the bangs.
The Results
I used this outfit from 4x01 "Partners in Crime" since it was the easiest to make and I already had this blazer in my doll clothes stash. I think it might have been from an Aliexpress outfit I purchased years ago.
I made her a beaded statement necklace and a skirt. I have no clue where the boots are from and the bag is just a random plastic bag I painted black.
Also, I had to slightly reduce the saturation on the photos since her hair photographs as much more vivid than it is. In real life, her hair is closer to Donna's hair color.
What do you think? Did I manage to capture her likeness?
I recently got into Nmixx. I've always admired them from a distance since debut (I will always love and defend O.O) but Blue Valentine was the comeback that made me dive (no pun intended) into the rest of their discography 🩵
I made one of these silly creatures since I can't buy one at the moment.
I used white felt for the base and the fur was made with yarn. I took two strands, brushed them out, ironed them straight, folded them in the middle and stitched them together onto the felt body.
I went from bottom to top and used a bit of glue to hold down some wefts and stop them from revealing any bald spots in between the rows.
I added my favorite sea turtle bracelet and a hairclip that resembles an extension cord for a bit of a cybercore-inspired look. The clip is from a Novi Stars doll called Tilly Vision, she's so cool!
Got bored, made a tiny Mondasian Cyberman. Ignore the glass, it's for display since the poor guy can't stand on his own. And the purple hands, though I think they look kinda neat
Got bored, made a tiny Mondasian Cyberman. Ignore the glass, it's for display since the poor guy can't stand on his own. And the purple hands, though I think they look kinda neat
During the past few years I've embarked on a few TGCF inspired DIY projects, starting with my Puqi Shrine diorama.
💬 1 🔁 34 ❤️ 125 · Puqi Shrine Diorama · ༄˖°.🍂.ೃ࿔*:･
𔓘 A few months ago, I shared how I made my Hualian dolls. In that blog I mentioned
Of course, I had to make dolls to go along with it.
💬 3 🔁 10 ❤️ 46 · Custom Hualian dolls · 𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ𐀔
I started this project in February 2022. I originally made a Puqi Shrine diorama out of
And finally, there's my Mu Qing inspired beaded pouch that took 10 years off my life.
💬 1 🔁 40 ❤️ 103 · Mu Qing embroidered coin purse · ⋆ ⭒ ˚ 🍒 ｡ ⭒ ⋆
I wanted to get into bead embroidery so I took this panel from the TGC
For this project, I wanted to make something dedicated to He Xuan and Shi Qingxuan for once.
I was inspired by this beautiful jewelry box my mother found secondhand. It was grimy and covered in 10 years worth of dust, but I cleaned it up.
There used to be corn leaves(?) folded up and glued around the flower as decoration, but they were so dirty I had to throw them out. So I glued these faux pearls on instead.
As for the dolls, I made them out of very thin jewelry wire and tiny beads. I covered the limbs in layers of gel polish and finally topped it off with some pearly chrome powder.
I know they're a bit bumpy, but to me they look like tiny spirits made out of pearls which is the look I was going for.
I made Shi Qingxuan's dress by combining a strip of pale yellow ribbon with microcrochet.
And the hair was just glued on pieces of thread. The front face-framing part is tied off in the middle to create the illusion of a middle part.
Here's my hand for scale to demonstrate just how small they are.
Oh, and I gave Shi Qingxuan wings to fit my vision of Fem Beefleaf if they were a fairy & a mermaid. Canon is merely a suggestion in my realm.
The interior of the... Whatever the hell this is, is meant to resemble a beach. I threw in some black yarn, light blue ribbon, a blue gem I stole borrowed from my friend when I was little and this sparkly rock I found on the ground years ago.
I wonder if the sparkly stuff on it are salt crystals. I'm not gonna taste it to find out, though.
And on the "shore" we have a cute seashell, some orange and beige beads and a few green ones you can barely see to add some... Greenery.
I'm good with words if you couldn't tell.
Here's an aesthetic blurry photo I took on accident.
Found this porcelain clown doll secondhand and it's the cutest thing I own. I'm not even a clown person, but I decided to adopt him anyway and I even knitted him a little sweater vest.
What should I name him?
EDIT: thank you to @frogwen for suggesting a plant inspired name! I've decided to name him Pepper!
✦•┈๑⋅⋯ 🧁⋯⋅๑┈•✦
There's a chip on his eye paint so I slapped a nail sticker on it lol.
I wanted to get into bead embroidery so I took this panel from the TGCF manhua, cropped it and got to work.
I started with a sketch on this beautiful cotton fabric. Ignore the tape on the edges, it's there to keep it from fraying lol.
I originally wanted to include some cherry motifs but I didn't know how to include them. Maybe I'll make a microcrochet cherry charm for the zipper pull.
Here are some progress shots. This took FOREVER.
And here is a better look of the finished piece. I decided to add this ruffle on the 3 sides to hide the uneven edges.
It's very hard to keep the edges straight because 1 - I lost my embroidery hoop and 2 - these beads were very cheap and thus uneven in size.
I'm still pretty new to this community and I only have 1 doll so far. I wanted to make my own character that takes inspiration from my culture even though these dolls are supposed to be American. Maybe she's an immigrant like Kirsten, I haven't figured out her story yet.
Here are some pics I took today before I explain my inspirations.
The dress is handsewn using the free pattern for Kirsten's school dress since the silhouette reminded me of some dresses I took inspiration from. More on that soon. I do wish I made the dress shorter so you could see her white boots. Maybe I'll alter it, what do you think?
The colors are from the Croatian flag and the cherry motif makes sense since I gave her the name Višnja (pronounced: veeshnya). This is a kind of old fashioned name that translates to "sour cherry" - a type of cherry found in central Europe. I had a sour cherry tree when I was younger and I miss the taste of them.
My main inspiration was the character called Draga from the Croatian movie Vlak u Snijegu (A Train in Snow). This was a childhood classic, kind of like the Polar Express in the US.
It follows a trio of best friends and their class as they embrark on a winter school trip to Zagreb, the capital. On their way home the train gets stuck in a pile of snow and after some conflicts between the characters get resolved, they dig it out with their own hands.
These two dresses were my inspiration for the general silhouette which is why I chose that pattern.
Croatia has a wide range of traditional folk attire that vary greatly from region to region.
For the hair, I chose simple twin braids since this doll is secondhand and her hair is a bit damaged. I definitely didn't even wanna attempt to do those complicated braids.
For the end I wanna share a fun fact about a really cool souvenir from my country.
These are Licitar [lǐtsitaːr] or Licitar Hearts, decorative ornaments/mementos made out of sweet honey dough and decorated with natural dyes. They are a part of Croatian and Slovenian tradition and are often used as gifts to loved ones or as Christmas tree ornaments. If properly cared for aka kept away from direct sunlight and heat, they can last up to 15 years.
The craft is passed down through family so they're not mass produced, obviously. I ordered mine from a local seller who gave me the cat shaped one for free lol.
And... I think that's it. I'm happy with how she turned out and I'd be thrilled to hear your thoughts as well ❤️
I love fics in which the author takes the canon apart like an old cupboard, repaints it, puts it back together, looks at the extra little screw they can't figure out what to do with and they just chuck it in the bin
As with most of my crochet projects, I pulled this pattern out of thin air.
I used white chennile yarn, black polyester yarn that I brushed out a bit to make it fluffier and pale yellow satin ribbon to make it look fancier.
I originally started knitting a coin purse out of the satin ribbon and somehow the project morphed into this lol.
Oh, and the wings are made with this stainless steel nylon-coated jewelry thread. If anyone is interested in making the wings, I'll try to explain it here.
Take around half a metre of thread and pull it under a stich. Thread one of those tiny beads you put at the end of a necklace (I believe they're called crimps?) onto both ends and squish it with pliers to secure the knot.
One half of the thread is for the wing so thread as many beads as you like to form the wing shape and then pull it through the starting crimp bead and preferably through the body of the bee.
And then use the other half to thread smaller beads for the wing detailing. Go upwards and through some of the beads on the tip of the wing then downwards and repeat the last step as with the previous half of the thread.
This thread is like wire so I was able to just pull it through to the underside of the bee and cut off the excess. If your thread is more flexible you could try doing the same with a darning needle and securing it like that.
I recently found this yarn my mom had stashed for over a decade and decided to make something with it inspired by Monet's water lilies.
ִֶָ𓂃 ࣪˖ ִֶָ🐇་༘࿐
The yarn is a cotton and viscose blend, perfect for summer.
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃
I originally wanted an all white bolero, but since I only had 3 skeins I decided to insert the water lilies in the middle section.
The pattern was improvised to say the least. I started from the bottom, chaining 70 and then made the grid pattern more filled in toward the middle for coverage. I did the reverse on the top white section and did 4 rows of treble or triple crochet instead of double crochet for the sleeves.
The middle section was made with half double crochet and many color changes to create different shades of water and the grass on top. I made sure the grassy portions lined up in the end across all 3 panels.
And finally, I embroidered the water lilies, lily pads, water reflections with shimmery thread, flowers and cute animals.
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃᠃
˚⊱🪷⊰˚
Thanks to my mom for helping me take the outdoor photos and my cat for being there for emotional support (there were wasps around 🫠)
I got this idea from Pinterest, of course. I used this solid granny square tutorial and assembled it according to this tutorial.
Well, I made the handle using a pattern I made up lol.
My reference was a photo of a similar bag from Pinterest I recolored and photoshopped things onto.
Credit for those adorable illustrations goes to mayarartsy on IG. Please check out their art :)
I became fascinated by sharks last year and even more by manta rays this year. They are majestic, gentle giants and have the biggest brains of any fish!
I purchased this tiny 5x5cm toy model and I painted it. I used gel nail polish and matte gel top coat which is probably not the smartest idea, but oh well...
The markings are probably not that accurate but I'm happy with the result 💙
This is the yarn I used. I got it from a local store. It's a 75% acrylic and 25% wool blend. I ended up using 2.5 skeins (around 425 m)
