My Addiction to BARBIES!

BARBIES! I am totally addicted to those little Plastic Dolls, ever since I was a little girl making them dresses out of socks, nothing has changed…I still can’t help but walk down the Barbie isle when I go into a Toy Store. And have even made a few custom Barbies of my own.
So I was overly delighted to found this great site “One and Only Dolls”
This talented Artist makes custom Barbies that are just amazing. The details she puts into their clothes and hair makes them stand out, but she doesn’t stop there, she also hand paints each face…I know it’s awesome.
Anyway I’ll stop being a crazy uber fan, here’s the site. Check it out!
http://www.oneandonlydolls.com/galleries.htm

P.S. I’ve finished a few more Myxies this month and will try and post them soon. Thanks for reading!

~Caralyn

Making a Book Part 2

So last Blog I started telling you of the little journey I took to make a book for my fiancé, let’s finish that tale shall we :)
So after staining and stapling the pages of his stories together it was now time to make a cover for the book. I knew I wanted to use leather for the cover and I thought having large stitches a crossed it would add to the creep factor. So I picked up a few scrap pieces of leather and some twine and began sewing them together. Sounds easy… NO! this leather was obviously made out of the toughest cow on the planet! No needle I had would go through it and neither would scissors. The only way I was able to get the needle through was to first cut a slit with an exacto knife. UGH so after 2 hrs the book cover was all sewn together.
I then took a piece of cardboard and brushed the one side with rubber cement. Carefully I lined up the leather and smoothed it on to the cardboard. Hot glue helped to secure the edges. I then placed a thin paper with bamboo print (Cause it matched the leather so nice)on the inside of the folded cardboard to give the book a lining and to cover the unsightly glue marks.
I wanted his book to have something on the cover that would stand off a bit. Going for a mixture of the Necronomicon and the Book form Hocus-pocus, I decided an eye would be appropriate and a few claws cutting through the leather. I made these both out of polymer clay and painted them. Cutting the leather I slid the eye and claws into place.
YAY the book was complete! And yes he Loved it.
I learn a whole bunch of tips and things to do differently if I ever do something like this again but for my first book I think it turned out rather well.
Here are a few pictures of it completed, Enjoy!

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=201883352&albumID=1828666&imageID=34001531
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=201883352&albumID=1828666&imageID=34001548
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=201883352&albumID=1828666&imageID=34001552

Thanks for reading!
Caralyn

Making a Book

My fiancé is big into horror. He loves watching it, reading it, writing about it. He even tries to encourage me to try out a few horroresque type drawings…Too Bad Hunny, I don’t do scary…so I thought. Since he is a very talented writer, he has been considering having a few of his short stories published. Unfortunately circumstance has made us have to postpone it for a little while, to cheer him up I decided he didn’t have to wait to have his stories in a book. I started designing a way to make him a book that would compliment his stories. Something that would match his dark writing style.
When referring to creepy books, one comes to mind, the Necronomicon, ya know the Book from Evil Dead. No I wasn’t going to make him a book that summoned evil spirits but I was looking for the cover to be creepy like that.
The task began by printing about 12 of his stories off. I changed the font to “Parchment” an old Archaic looking font. After adding small sketches to a few of the pages I then printed them off front and back. I then started the tedious task of staining the pages. I wanted to give them an old, weathered look like ancient books have. Each page, there was about 60 of them, was carefully brushed with a wet tea bag. Interesting tip I learned while staining, regular tea gives you a yellow stain but flavored tea gives you a grayish stain. Yes I probably could’ve just gone to a printing store and printed it on yellow paper but I also wanted that weathered look you get from the wet pages after they dry. Stapled all the stories together along with a cover page and index, now it was ready for the cover.

Don’t want this Blog to be too long so I’ll tell you all about what I did next in my next blog. Stay Tuned :)
~Caralyn