The New Buys Work Out Beautifully!

I am now on home-time.  I first opened all the packages waiting for me.  There was the 2 wigs, the pair of eyes and the foods. 

I wiped Noah's face and played around with a new eyebrow shape, darkening around the eyes and finding that his new look is very pleasing.  Here is a before and after pic, but this is not the final faceup, only a quick test:

Before

 

 After (test)

  

This photo is washed out by the flash, but it shows how his eyes are more defined and less slanty looking.

 

 

I used a paper stump to rub black pastel around the eyes, in the eye crease and extended the eye crease across the entire eye.  I rubbed in the shadow of the brows and then penciled them in.  As I studied the photographs I took, I realized that they needed to come in closer to his nose.  He's lost his "lost boy" look and gained a more interesting face.  

His wig is an incredibly soft black and silver mix. It is made to part on the side, as there are ear flaps on the sides.  The front was swept up, but I dampened it and brought the front down, liking it better.  Once I am ready to glue the wig down, I can find the right style to it.

Evie's wig is fabulous!  So incredibly soft, so silky.  And the colour is so perfect for her.  

Before (wig is getting wild from being in the truck)

 

After (wig only and new eyes)

In the second photo, I did rub a bit of pastel over and under her eyebrows to darken them as a hint to what I may want to do when I re-do her face up.  She has gone from looking like Janis Joplin back to the soft Evie I remember.  But I have a few ideas for an even softer face, more luminous.

Today I am heading into town with fingers crossed that I can find a can of sealer at Hobby Lobby and pick up some new lashes.  Zoelina needs a lighter colour too for her eyelashes.  And last, but not least, I will wipe and redo Aloe Vera while I have everything out.

Simplifying

Whew, I have been busy without leaving my seat!

One of my personal goals this year is to continue to simplify, downsize, use up, whatever I can do to bring the level of stuff to a minimum.

I have been feeling quite fragmented with all my blogs, emails, forums, it seems that I have a little bit of me everywhere and no where am I quite whole.  If that makes sense.  I had several diet blogs and several dolly blogs and well, I cut them down to the minimum.  I would love to have only one place to write about everything,  but trucking, dieting and dolls are too diverse to combine.  Besides, dieting and it's frustrations are not what I want to broadcast to family, it's too private.  So I spent two days sorting through, deciding, deleting, organizing and feeling all the better for it.  I'm not done yet, I am still trying to decide on two blogs.  More on those later.

Audrey is sitting with me today.  Lovely, warm Audrey.  Golden girl, tan even in the gray of winter.

Life in a Basket

 

Zoelina:  Hammie, you can't pull my hair! It's not nice.

Hammie: I am nice, I am!

Pandora:  Sometimes.

 

Hamlet:  Besides, you wouldn't let me have any cake.

Zoelina:  Hammie, it was pretend cake.  You could pretend to have it.

 

Hamlet: You're giving me a headache.  There's too many girls.

Zoelina: Are you mad at me?

 

Audrey:  How come you guys are always fighting?  I think Nanny can hear you!

Pandora: I know she can.  You're going to be in BIG trouble when we get to Colorado.

Pandora:  Yeah!  BIG BIG trouble!

 

Zoelina:  I won't be in trouble will I?

Pandora:  No, I think Nanny will spank Hammie.

 

Hamlet: If you tell, I am going to pull your hair again!

Zoelina: OUCH!

 

Zoelina: I don't want you to get a spanking, but if you pull my hair just one more time...I AM telling!

Hamlet: I didn't do anything bad!

Hamlet:  It's not FAIR!  You can't tell Nanny I was bad!

Zoelina:  I think he's crying!

Audrey: Nanny calls them crocodile tears.

A Blue Sweater

 

My littlest angels.  What can I say?  The incredible joy they bring me on a daily basis.  I wish I could record all of the things they say and the cute things they do, but just as with real children, it's the moments that happen so fast, one cannot record them.  For me it is usually in the evening when it is too dark to take pictures and I can't afford to run out the battery on the small camera with flash.   But I took this picture when they were waiting for supper and getting impatient.  Never am I as important to others than at dinner time.  I have the ultimate power as a hungry husband and 4 little nisses look to me to feed them. 

I started a sweater in a lovely pale baby blue thin yard, as soft as angora, but not as fuzzy.  This one is for the girls. The first work up I did, I didn't like at all, so I ripped it up to the base and started again, deciding at the last moment to do a ragland type arm joining and will let the openings be across the front joinings with little pearl buttons and thread a pearly ribbon through the bottom holes.  I am having a difficult time knitting while truck bouncing, my tension changes too often, but I am not a perfectionist, and a handmade sweater looking handmade is ok with me.

This top was ripped out:

 

Better:

 

  

For DZ BB's, it seems on sock weight yarn,  that a cast on of 32 stitches for the body and 22 for the arms works fine. I started with a single rib pattern for 4 rows. The hole pattern is kit 2, Yarn Over, knit 2 together and repeat.  On the next row, repeat and then switch back to knit and purl. 

Lambs and Dolls

 

Audrey:  Pandy, do you think dolls are real?

 

Pandora: Lamby is real, I don't know about dolls.

 

Audrey: Well my dolly is real.  She cries and wets too!

Pandora: Lamby doesn't wet. That would be gross.

 

Audrey: I love my dolly more than peanut butter!

 

Pandora:  I love my Lamby more than....uhm....more than butterscotch!

 

Audrey:  You don't like butterscotch!

Pandora: Ok, more than Lamb Chop!

Audrey: The puppet or the kind you eat?

NAPTIME!!!!!!!!!!!!

Audrey and Pandora lay down and pretend to sleep.

 

 

Audrey:  Pandy, are you asleep?

 

Pandy:  Nope.  I am awake.

 Audrey:  Where are you going?

 

Pandy:  I have to go potty.

  

Nap enforcement is a must this afternoon!

A Tea Party

 

Hamlet: I don't want to come to your dumb old tea party.

Pandora: It's fun, Hammie, you can be the mysterious gentleman who comes to call on the princess.

 

Hamlet: I don't want to play with girls.  I want to play cowboy and indians.

 

Hamlet:  Besides, they don;t have REAL tea in the cups and there's isn't any REAL cakes.

 

Zoelina: NO!  Hammie, you can't come to the party! You are being bad!

Pandora: Yeah, BAD.

 

Zoelina: Pandy!  You are spilling your lemon cake!

Pandora: It's only pretend!

 

Audrey: I have lots more cake!  Raspberry, lemon, choclate, vanilla!

 

Hamlet:  You do?  Really?  REAL cake?

 

Audrey: NO HAMMIE!  You can't have any!

  

Zoelina: I'm telling Hammie, I'm telling you pulled my hair!

Pandora: zzzzzzz

 

~~~~~What is all the fuss NOW?~~~~~

Audrey:  Nanny?

New Faceups for Evie and Noah Pending

I got really bold and daring and decided that I NEED to re-do both Evie and Noah faceups and change the pitiful limbo they are in.

I really have liked most of the faceups I have done on Evie.  But when I go back and look at old photo's, I feel a stronger pull when Evie had light coloured hair.  I also had a stronger reaction to Noah when he had black hair and not the red headed, freckled face he has now.  Evie seemed gentle, softer, younger in her pale days.  I see a progression of darker face ups, darker hair that only seemed to match her "dark days" in her relationship to me. 

Ack, I just realized that I have none of Evie's photo's from those days on this new laptop.  Rats.  When I get back on home time, I will upload one from the external drive.

I bought a honey-ash blonde wig, with a general soft straight flow of hair, not too short, not too long and bangs to bring back a more youthful look.  I also bought the most unusual colour eyes, I realize that the colours may have more to do with the lighting and the red background reflecting, but I had to try them. 

 

The wig:

 

  

I like the softness of the wig, nothing too feminine or too character filled (which Evie hates).  It doesn't pin her to an era or time, and looks similar to the wig she once wore when we were so happy together.  I plan on doing a very misty, soft fawn and pink faceup.

For Noah, the same seller had a black and silver wig that caught my eye.

 

 

I would like to give him a completely different look, with the charcoal eyes I already have, thicker soft black brows and pale peach lips.  He's worn the eyes before, and I liked them. He also looks good in the torqouis, so I'll see which works best.

 

 

Noah looks practically sick with red hair and eyebrows are way too high:

 

I may even do a bit of modding on Evie too, I have been thinking of rounding the tip of her nose and creating an upper lip, just slight and gentle mods, nothing dramatic.  Here is when I added more upper lip colour, but just as in the DZ sculpts, the upper lip is so thin.  I think I can sand down a bit of lip in order for the colour to look less like colouring over the lip line.  lol.

And although this is getting to be a huge photo show....here is my Evie when I first had her (default DIM faceup)

 

I do like her red hair too.  I think the new eyes will go with either wig, so the end result for Evie may be different too.  We'll see.  I am looking forward to seeing them both look refreshed and not so darn sad and repressed.