On the Art and Science of Color

I've been working on increasing my drawing skill, as well as learning about fabric design. It's doll related, because I would like to design both my own doll clothes, and fabric to suit. It's a huge undertaking, and will probably take me ages to get there, if I ever get there, but I'm working on it! Partially, this post is for Xanadu as well, since she likes to talk about the color wheel and color tones and shades in relation to dressing your dolls, as well as setting up rooms and backdrops for them. I had these books on my Amazon wishlist, saw them recommended somewhere, and Mr. BTEG and the Dancer bought them for my birthday last week.

The first book is called Palette Perfect - Color Combinations Inspired by Fashion, Art & Style. It talks at the beginning about the color wheel and how to use colors to create attractive looks. It then has pages and pages and pages of color groupings, with both their CMYK and RGB color graph numbers given, to help you get the correct shade you're looking for. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by this book!

I also received The Fabric Design Book - Understanding and creating patterns using texture, shape, and color.

I think this book will help me increase my "feel" for good fabric design. As I said above, this whole process is a bit overwhelming right now, because I'm such a beginner at design, as well as using design software. I feel that I owe it to myself, though, to at least try to get better at these things that I want to learn.

I know several of you who have skills that you use in service to your doll collection. Has anyone learned or tried to learn something purely for making things for your dolls? I know MC and RagingMoon1987 have talked about learning sewing to make doll clothes, which I totally support!

My Caboodles Collection (Doll and Human Sized!)

Has anyone outside of the US (and Canada) ever heard of Caboodles? The origin story varies, but someone was inspired by seeing a woman using a fishing tackle box to hold her makeup, and the Caboodles case was born. Caboodles are made by the Plano Molding Company, which started out in 1952 making tackle boxes. I still use my vintage Caboodles box, and when I saw that the American Girl 1980s doll Courtney has a Caboodles box as an accessory, I had to buy it. I got it with my Kirsten doll order, and now I have a vintage Caboodles, a modern Caboodles, an American Girl Caboodles, and a Barbie Caboodles. Caboodles Barbie was the very first doll that I acquired as a collector, given to me by Mr. BTEG in 1993 or 1994. She of course came with her own Caboodles case.

 

We'll start with the Barbie case, as that is the least interesting. The plastic handle stays straight up, and there is nothing on the inside. Still, I like having it in my Caboodles collection. I never knew that I would get another one in a doll size!

 

The modern Caboodles case is the least like the other three. I saw it for a good deal on Amazon Prime Days and picked it up. I use it to hold a lot of my eye shadow products. It's the only one that I own that has a mirror.

My American Girl case is very much like my vintage one, fittingly. Of course, Courtney's year is 1986, and Caboodles didn't appear on the market until 1987. It also seems that the very first Caboodles cases looked different, standing up taller and having two drawers that pulled out in the front. Still, I'm pretty sure I had my personal case by 1991, and possibly earlier, so they're not that far apart in age. Courtney just couldn't have had one in 1986.

As you can see, the cases look extremely alike from the outside. Courtney's even has the small rectangle indentation, where you could stick a plate ordered from Caboodles with your name on it.

The insides also look very much alike, down to the drawer compartments.

Here's what Courtney's case came with. I don't want to open up the pack of nail stickers, but they contain 4 sheets of stickers in different colors. When I saw the can of hairspray, my first thought was "LA Looks!" so I think they got the style right. Rave hairspray also apparently used something like this color scheme.

The outside of the eyeshadow case. I remember CoverGirl being the go-to eyeshadow for the younger crowd back then.

I haven't measured every dimension, but the American Girl case seems quite close to scale. My main problem is with the banana clip. It should be worn laying against the entire back of the head (I've worn them!) The entire length of this one only covers about three-quarters of the back of an American Girl head. I also feel like the hair pick is a bit small. I still needed to get this set for my Caboodles collection!

For a little fun, I'm posting two pictures of myself in all my 80s big haired glory, from 1987. I was going out for the night and had just gotten my hair done. :)