Carefully Crafted Chaos

In which creativity runs amok and we follow where the ADHD muses lead

[spindledreams]

Okay, first post, guess this should be an intro.

I go by Spindle. Or Rose. Neither of those is my name but it's what I use online. I dabble in a lot of crafts and random projects and that’s what this blog will be for. Mostly crafting, DIY things, some cooking or baking maybe. Don't expect a lot of order here - as I said in the description, I follow where the ADHD Muses lead.

Quilting-specific blog here:

Follow @spindlequilts and get more of the good stuff by joining Tumblr today. Dive in!

[spindledreams]

Finally managed to get decent lighting!

This is Divya.

She was made to resemble my elder daughter, who is half Indian. Daughter chose her name. She is a custom-painted TM76 with a trimmed Moana wig and pierced ears. I chose the Diwali outfit for her because it closely resembles the lehenga outfit Daughter wore for her father's wedding when she was ten.

[spindledreams]

When the glue has dried and you've finally styled the wig but *now* you have to wait for daylight to get good lighting for pictures because it's nighttime and the lighting in your house is terrible for photography

[spindledreams]

When you've glued on the wig you've been waiting almost a week for and now you have to wait for the glue to dry before you can style it

[spindledreams]

When you get a notification that a part you've been waiting on to finish a doll has been delivered and you're stuck at work till 5pm

[spindledreams]

I'm currently making a mini-me doll for my middle child, who is half-Indian and likes to play around with intricate mehndi patterns on her hands and feet sometimes. So *I'm* playing around with how to apply non-permanent "mehndi" on vinyl dolls, so if she wants she can copy her designs onto the doll. Real henna will stain the vinyl, so I can't use that, and I don't own a Cricut or have any desire to hand-cut tiny mehndi patterns from vinyl stickers, so we're experimenting with the following on some damaged legs I had left over from repairing a different doll.

1) acrylic paint mixed with glue, which is the only method I was able to find online. This is a little difficult to apply neatly because the glue starts to dry faster than I can apply the mixture to the doll.

2) undiluted paint on dried Elmer's clear glue. Easier to control the paint, but I don't like that the glue dries very shiny or that the paint looks heavy.

3) acrylic paint diluted with an equal amount of floating medium on dried Aleene's Tacky Glue. Thinned paint was easier to control, but the glue dried shinier than the clear Elmer's. The paint is a little prone to flaking off of the glue.

4) acrylic paint diluted with an equal amount of floating medium on dried Elmer's white school glue. I prefer this glue because it dries matte. I had to draw around it in watercolor pencil to make sure I didn't paint outside of where the glue line was. I did get a little impatient waiting for the glue to dry all the way so there is some wet glue still between the toes here.

I'm going to leave these for a week and then see how easy they are to remove and if any method leaves any staining over time.

[spindledreams]

Just very normal things that every very normal house has in their very normal bathroom

[smallerplaces]

Dollar Tree enters the American Girl knock-off fray at $5

I did not buy this doll, and I do not shop for dolls in this size or configuration. I bring this up solely because the AG 14.5" Modern Era dolls are getting compared to other similar lines lately.

This is Olivia, whose head mold screams "knock-off," though I lack the expertise to tell you if she's knocking off American Girl or My Twinn. Her eyes look a little ditzy here because she's leaning back in my cart -- the shelf configuration at Former Rite Aid Dollar Tree gave me nowhere near eye level to stand her upright. She also does have all of her eyelashes -- the glare was bad.

DO NOT GO TO THE WEB SITE LISTED ON HER BOX. It redirects multiple times through Chinese sites and ends with what might be a 403 error in Chinese. Seriously, don't do it.

Olivia has a biography in English and Spanish. Her dream is to be a ballerina. Her first recital is coming up, and she gets to wear a pink tutu (not included). There are more words, but it's repetitive.

Olivia has four friends, none of whom were at this Dollar Tree.

American Girl happened after my childhood, and I really didn't have dolls of this size, so I have no skin in this game.

[magical-dying-human]

@spindledreams don't you have a Springfield collection doll?

(also op in pretty sure they're not knockoffs or at least not just that, I've seen them enough to be pretty sure they're a line in their own right)

[spindledreams]

Yes I do! I found mine at Goodwill. From what I can find online, they used to be exclusively sold as kits in craft stores in the 1990s and then started being sold as fully-assembled dolls. I don't know if they were *meant* to be a knockoff or a copycat, because some of their dolls do look a lot like AG dolls from the same time frame, but they've kind of developed into a line in their own right.

This one is mine. Her name is Abby and she's one of the second generation ones with articulated limbs. I did repaint her lips and eyebrows because they were just NOT working for me - her lips were bright pink and her brows were too dark for her hair color. (Current version on Amazon doesn't have bangs.)

Here's what she looked like before the repaint:

And she really does have the most interesting eyes:

[jointed-custody]

Doll-of-the-Day project day 28: during COVID lockdowns, I got a wild hair to recreate mythical beings in child-shaped forms. This is Asterion, a.k.a. The Minotaur. I like to think he might’ve turned out to be a sweet kid, if his parents hadn’t rejected him and locked him away! Certainly this little one is very sweet — he’s made from an Our Generation posable doll and a Highland Cow stuffie. (Yes, yes, I know it’s unlikely that a mythical bull-headed creature from a Mediterranean island would look like a Highland cow, but it was so cute!) I like to think that he’s very shy, and perhaps tries to hide his face when he knows someone is looking.

[spindledreams]

Oh, right. Finished the first block on Monday! I've taken a couple days off to rest my hands.

I also put the boy back together but I don't have any clothes for him yet so he's hibernating until another doll I'm waiting on (for a custom) arrives. That one will arrive with clothes I will put on the boy, and I will give her different clothes.

[in-the-dollpalace]

“To jump over centuries In one step is impossible. Jump too high or far, You’ll be way too late”

American girl dolls that are seperated by amost exactly a century or 2 apart.

[spindledreams]

Three days till the end of the month is the best time to start a project you were supposed to finish during said month...

Post by @spindlequilts · 7 images

💬 0  🔁 1  ❤️ 4 · January 28th and I'm JUST getting to this. Partly I've been busy, and partly I've been putting it off because it's scary.

[spindledreams]

It's almost 3am and my eyes are tired but what am I doing instead of sleeping?

Dying of dysentery, of course. https://oregontrail.ws/games/the-oregon-trail/play/

Well, I'm not, actually, but two of my party of made up people did. One died of typhoid and one got a snakebite and I drowned because I crashed into a rock while floating down the big river 100 miles from the end.

What a trip down memory lane 😂

The Oregon Trail - Play game online

Play The Oregon Trail game online, in a web browser.

[runawayorphantrain]

I realized I hadn’t made any clothes for Raquel yet, so I decided to spend the long weekend making her a little winter dress!

For this project, I used the Pleasant Company pattern for Samantha’s party dress and a velvet shirt I thrifted for $2.99.

I actually used Sam’s party dress pattern for my first sewing project (a green holiday dress for Nellie), so it was a fun full circle moment to see how much my skills have improved since then.

Now, ironically, all of my dolls from Samantha’s canon have a version of Samantha’s party dress … except for Samantha.

[spindledreams]

I did find some new arms but it's practically highway robbery, the prices they want for a single left arm. Soooo I filled in the scratches with vinyl putty:

and sanded it smooth again.

Next step is paint to cover that stain. Which I will probably do tomorrow when I don't have errands to run in the middle of my prime working hours! It gets complicated once the kids get home and all the after-school chaos is unleashed.

[spindledreams]

Last night I attempted acetone on the highlighter. It lifted a little color onto the qtip but didn't make a difference on the vinyl.

Then I tried an Oxiclean paste and that made zero difference to the stain, AND it highlighted some rough spots from yesterday's sanding that were smooth but the scratches are more visible now and they feel rough again. And I used up the last of my fine-grit sandpaper yesterday.

So I'm thinking about tracking down a replacement arm and relegating this one to the Practice Limbs box. If I can't find a new arm I will fill this in with vinyl putty, sand smooth again, and color match paint. Sending the doll in to the AG doll hospital isn't an option because I've already customized the head and they probably won't take him.

[caroline-draws-stuff]

American Girl historical chibi stickers - wave 1!!!! Get them here