My Last Halloween Project - Not Doll Related

I made this costume for the Dancer when she was 15. She wanted to wear it to a gaming convention called Origins. She's worn it a few times since, and she wanted to wear it to work today. The bodice desperately needed new binding, and I originally made the off-the-shoulder sleeves too large and too loose. So the Dancer and I drove out to a quilt store to pick out new cotton fabric for the binding, then I made some bias strips. The Dancer helped me rip off the old binding, I machine-sewed the new material on, then flipped the binding over the raw edges and hand-sewed it down. I also folded the sleeve material in half, tacked it together, and re-sewed the sleeves back on to the bodice by hand. She freshened up the fabric paint on the front and back of the bodice. I made this back in the original Frozen I heyday, so I was fortunate enough to find pre-printed material for the skirt. It doesn't look exactly like the movie, but I wasn't up for making a paneled skirt, and hand-painting several panels with the movie-accurate pattern. :P I also found her necklace, and the hair comb that Anna wears with this costume, on Etsy. I'm glad the Dancer has gotten as much wear out of this as she has, and of course she's planning on wearing it when she goes to see Frozen II.

I hope you all had a great Halloween. We don't get trick-or-treaters here, which I find sad. Maybe someday I'll have grandchildren to go out with.

October Instagram Challenge Day 18: Owl

Since a lot of you aren't familiar with the Ever After High characters, here Ever After High character Cerise Hood is helping Ashlynn Ella travel through the Dark Wood safely. Ashlynn is startled by the strange noise, but Cerise knows it's just an owl. Since Cerise is related to wolves (although few people know it) she feels safe traversing the scary forest near Ever After High, as opposed to the Enchanted Forest. I picked Ashlynn as her traveling companion in part because this particular doll is Through the Woods Ashlynn, who is in a story where Ashlynn and some of the other girls become lost in... the Dark Forest. It's also a little bit of a play on birds; they figure largely in the Cinderella story, more in some stories than in others, but Ashlynn doesn't know much about nocturnal birds. That might be overthinking it.

Still working on "we need to look like we're in the dark, but it needs to be light enough so we can actually be seen in a picture" photography. Owl was on loan from the collection of Mr. BTEG.

October Instagram Challenge Day 17: Favorite Treat

Who can decide on their favorite treat? I can't! I decided to just go with some festive sugar cookies.

October Instagram Challenge Day 14: Orange

This theme was blessedly easy to do. I even used the new dress that I won from Xanadu's giveaway, and that she made. I bought several mini pumpkins to put throughout our home, so I used one in this photo. The background is scrapbook paper, and it makes for such a great all-around fall backdrop.

I skipped yesterday's theme. It was "Conjure," and I just wasn't getting any picture ideas. Tomorrow's theme is "Magic," and I'm not getting a lot of inspiration for that one, either. There are several coming up that I will be doing, though, so the Halloween fun is not over yet.

October Instagram Challenge Day 12: Haunted

"Oh, Barbie, I don't want to watch this movie. You know haunted dolls creep me out."

"There's no such thing as a haunted doll. I'm a doll collector, JT; none of my dolls are haunted."

"Well, at least you have most of them in your spare room, so I don't have to see them."

"They're all in my spare room."

"Well, what about that little one there on the table?"
"I didn't put a doll there."

It would be easier with these pictures, if I could do some sort of special effects, but since the picture has to be taken with your phone or your tablet, I find it sometimes limiting for this sort of thing. However, most of the people participating in this are not doing overly complicated pictures, so that helps me feel better. It's still good practice in photography and creativity. There is another doll Halloween challenge going, where the topics are more complex, and the photos have more props and action going on, but I wasn't prepared for that one, as I didn't see it until a day or so before October started. How do people on Flickr and Instagram find out about challenges? I suppose it's just following the right people.

October Instagram Challenge Day 11: Costumes

Barbie found this lovely red satin in her fabric stash, and she's trying to decide what kind of costume she could make with it. Maybe the Queen of Hearts? Do you have any suggestions? :)

Also, I found a NRFB Anne Klein doll at a garage sale for only $12! She will get deboxed at some point, and you'll get to see her clothes and jewelry and a better look at her face.

October Instagram Challenge Day 10: Monster

If I ever wished that I owned a Monster High doll, today was definitely that day. I came up with the idea of having some of the Ever After High girls watching the first Monster High reboot video. This involved making a flat screen TV frame, and getting the image color printed. We don't have a color printer yet, so getting the image done required going to a store. I like this image, but if you lived during the 70s in the US, the paneling is sort of giving me "rumpus room" vibes. :)

October Instagram Challenge Day 9: Yellow

This one was a tricky one for me. I couldn't think of a lot of things related to autumn that are yellow, besides leaves. I did have a picture of one of my dolls next to some yellow violas, but that didn't feel very seasonal. Finally, I just went with Madeline's yellow hat. Fiona has just found it, to complete her Madeline Halloween costume.

Some of the upcoming challenges are a little bit tricky or overwhelming too, but I'm looking at this as a good exercise in discipline. Sometimes, if you really want to get a project done, you need to do the work even if you just don't feel like it. Sometimes, there are real physical or mental health issues, but many people, I think, just don't feel like doing a creative project if the spark isn't there. That's definitely been me in the past, but there are so many things that I want to accomplish, that I want to develop better discipline.

October Instagram Challenge Day 8: Pumpkins

I took this picture at the same time that I went to the farmer's market/pumpkin patch for my Day 5 picture. The white "pumpkins" that you see further back are called ghost pumpkins, but I'm pretty sure they're just another type of gourd.

Mr. BTEG dug out his old recipe for homemade pumpkin pie last Thanksgiving, and the pies were a huge hit. We can wait awhile to buy pie pumpkins, though.

ETA: Nope, ghost pumpkins are just albino pumpkins, and they're orange on the inside, to boot.

October Instagram Challenge Day 7: Baking

I was thinking about getting out a bunch of my doll-sized baking supplies, but then I realized that I really wanted an end result that looked Halloween-y, so I just went with this pumpkin pie. It's easy to find mini cookie cutters and so on that look like Christmas baked goods; finding stuff for other holidays, not so easy. The other advantage to this photo was that I didn't have to worry about the lighting overly much. I think this has the look of overhead kitchen lighting.

October Instagram Challenge Day 6: Cozy

Skipper and her friends are cozily wrapped in blankets, and telling ghost stories by the fire. The fireplace is an old Sindy piece. The fuzzy blanket, I knitted myself. :) If you want to read the story of how I got a new light bulb for this old fireplace, read on here.

I imagine I was involved with ghost telling at some point, maybe a sleepover or Girl Scout camp, but I have no memories. I just wanted to have them doing something related to Halloween.

October Instagram Challenge Day 5: Harvest

I decided that going to the local farm market might be a good place to take a picture with the theme of Harvest. I had my choice for pictures, but I decided to place Masha with the corn. She's one of my Madame Alexander Travel Friends dolls, who hails from Russia. I should have framed this pic better, but I didn't want to stand around too long.

You'll see another pic of Masha at the farm later on in the challenge, but for now, here are a couple of other pics that I took to show some of the other features that a pumpkin farm can include here in Ohio.

Here's a wagon pulling into its "station," which was a bunch of hay bales where people can sit and wait. There's very often a wagon of some kind to take people back to the pumpkin patch to pick their own pumpkin. They can be tractor-drawn or horse-drawn. Just for fun, I'm including a pic of the Dancer, when she came to this same pumpkin patch on a preschool field trip, sixteen years and ten days ago.

Here are some pictures of the corn maze. I got a picture of the entrance, and then played around with the panaroma feature on my phone camera to get a picture of the entire corn field. Apparently it does take a little bit of time to get through the maze.

I also grabbed some produce: apples, grape tomatoes, and mini pumpkins. I like the apples, the Dancer will like the tomatoes, and the mini pumpkins are for decoration. Do you have any special fall produce that you like?

October Instagram Challenge Day 4: Red

Sorry, this one isn't so great. I had a manic attack today, so I've been doing a lot of big decluttering downstairs, and didn't feel like sitting at my craft desk and fussing over a picture. At least the living room and foyer are better off.

This doll is Cerise Hood. She was part of Mattel's Ever After High line, and she's the daughter of Little Red Riding Hood. However, we don't know at first who her father is, or why she always keeps her hood up. Are those wolf ears under there? Yeah, it sounds kind of twisted, but Cerise's dad can take a human or wolf form. Actually, Professor BadWolf teaches at Ever After High, and Cerise's sister Ramona BadWolf also attends the school. They all want to keep their family secret until the girls are done with school.

This version of Cerise is the Legacy Day outfit. That's the day that every student pledges to follow in the fairytale steps of his or her ancestor. At least, until Raven Queen isn't sure that she wants to become the next Evil Queen.

October Instagram Challenge Day 3: Candy

When my sisters and I went trick-or-treating, the first thing we would do when we got home was dump all of our candy on the floor and sort it out. I don't remember us doing a lot of trading, although I've never liked chewing gum, so I'm sure I gave that away. But having our two girls above dump out all of their candy would have involved me making up a lot more miniature candy than I wanted to, so these two youngsters are already digging through their bags and trying to make trades. Fiona, the redhead, is wearing Mini American Girl Felicity's dress, and the brunette, who needs a name, is wearing Mini American Girl Kirsten's dress. I made the orange bag, and the cloth bag, which is supposed to be a pillowcase. Mr. BTEG and his sisters always took pillowcases trick-or-treating, and I remember him saying that they would fill multiple pillowcases. Those were glorious times, when we kids were old enough to go trick-or-treating by ourselves. My sisters and I didn't fill up pillowcases, but it was fun running around the neighborhood after dark, trying to hit as many houses as possible. We made sure our daughters had fun Halloweens too.

October Instagram Challenge Day 2: Decoration

I think my dolls will be doing most of the decorating this Halloween. :( Right now our home looks like a tornado hit it. I'm trying to sort and declutter things. Currently, I'm at the stage where everything is out of place and a crazy mess. Plus, Mr. BTEG and the Dancer are going to be involved in a gaming convention this weekend, so a good part of the living room and all of my dining room table are filled with their prep. Maybe I will able to get stuff done when they're out of my hair, anyway.

October Instagram Challenge Day 1: Leaves

Since I'm taking part in a doll-related Instagram challenge, I thought I might as well share the pictures here as well. Also here, we can chat about them!

The grass that Stacie is lying on, is plastic turf that I bought at a craft store. I can't believe how nice it looks in the photo.

Did you get to play in the leaves when you were a kid? We had several large trees in my front and back yards when I was a kid, so leaf raking was a way of life every year. I'm old enough to remember burning leaves and yard waste in a big metal barrel with holes in the sides, too.