I love paper and fashion and what can be best than the 2 combined? After seeing the beautiful work of Eloise Danch, and reading the great post from The Crafts dept, I decided I NEED this book:

“Paper Illusions: the Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave” brings to us  the beautiful creations of the belgian artist, recreation of  the fashion of the past in paper. The few pictures I saw look astonishing.

And here the video I found on youtube, it has been filmed in her atelier (sorry, it is in german).

Alson on my shopping list (since a while!), “Barbie sogna Caterina de’ Medici”:

The book describes step by step the creation of an OOAK Barbie as Caterina de’ Medici, created for the event “Pitti Bimbo” in 2008. The text is english-italian. I found here a nice article but in italian, sorry  :-(

I was browsing around for some quality reading (AKA dolls reading) and I found the digital version of “Fashion/ Forward“, a mini magazine (a supplement to Dolls Reader) dedicated to fashion for dolls. I love that the outfits and accessories are presented and described as in real fashion magazines.

Brenda Cox is one the designers reviewed in this issue, look at her beautiful creations for our favorite doll: Barbie! and start to dream

Don’t miss though the preview of Gene paper dolls and the review of the a steampunk bride dress and pattern for Ellowyne: you can download the instructions and patterns itself here.

The only disappointment is that you cannot download the mag as PDF file but..oh well…we’ll survive.

If after this dolls and fashion galore you are still lusting for more check out the Dolls magazine. From the home page you can download (as PDF!!!) the digital preview of their December issue. They are just few pages but really nice I’m totally in love now with Goodreau Upside Down Oz collection!

ok…ok…I’m a bit single minded…but not really! I don’t always lust after dolls or dream about miniature furniture. Sometimes I also get fascinated by paper (dolls, models, craft) and I have a soft spot for fashion, even just looking at clothes lift my spirit and if I can buy even better. I love for example the new blog I stumbled upon:paper fashion! I’m tempted to write to the owner and ask to post a nice paper-doll as freebie, it would be stunning!

Another blog of fashion illustrations I like very much is Flushbunny, look at the fashion sketch inspired to Jem dolls, don’t you love it? And let’s not forget the fantastic Irina Ivanova’s flickr stream.

But here are my faves

I would really like to post tons of links, I think fashion illustrations are just art on their own and they remind me very often of beautifully crafted paper dolls (ok, so perhaps after all I AM SINGLE MINDED).

And this reminds  me also of what is most probably next on my wish list (the one for things I can actually get ): it looks like a nice set

It comes with patterns, a paper doll and much more.

And a new Barbie calendar for the year to come:

I will let you know if I ever come around buying them

So…for the first time since I opened my blog I didn’t post anything in a full month! September has been for many reasons a long, stressful, sorrowful month and I admit the blog went to the last place in my list of priorities. I decided though that I need a bit of cheering up and since I cannot always go out for shopping (sigh) I thought here is a good place to start with

What about starting with my shopping? LOL

In August and September I received many Barbie things I actually ordered the months before. Here are some:

My Barbie Fashionistas:

I deboxed till now only Sassy and Wild. You can see more pictures on my Flickr stream.

Then I got from Amazon the book I pre-ordered few months ago: All  Dolled Up by Jennie D’Amato:

It is just gorgeous!!! The illustrations are amazing and it comes with some reproductions of leaflets and booklets from Mattel. Here some pages:

Get it!!! You will not regret it

Then in Italy I picked up from my brother the Vogue special issue that came out in summer with the Barbie Booklet. I have no sister to ask to so he had to do it for me LOL. It is stunning as well, the only thing I don’t like about it is the small format, it would have been great in A4:

Last but not least the Barbie scarf I bought at P&C at the beginning of August:

and whatt have you all been up to?

Stay tuned…the posts will be coming again

Today we went again to a flea-market (love them!). I didn’t find any doll (but last week I found a nice case with Petra dolls and clothes), I still bought quite few things as cheap costume jewelry, a couple of vintagy Avon sets and other stuff but, more important, I FOUND THIS! :

It looks like a promo booklet for the upcoming Peek & Cloppenburg Barbie collection (hitting the stores tomorrow). My husband spotted it, I loved it at first sight and when the seller asked 5 euros for it I was over the moon.

It is roughly 40 cm long, quite heavy and it comes with a CD. The cover is all drenched in pink glitter. Here are just few of the initial pages:

Then, half through the booklet are some sketches of the piecese from the collection with prices:

and the dolls!!! The Fashionistas:

So tomorrow  after work I will go to the store. I decided to go crazy and if I find them I want all the dolls, 1 or 2 T-shirts, the clutch and one schal. Wish my credit card good luck

What a lazy start of Friday evening…

Downloading…

StyleZone

Free Fashion Doll Printable eBook (pursues/handbags)

Patty Reed Paper dolls from Simplicity

Watching…(trailers)

Astroboy!!! I cannot believe it! They made a remake

here the trailer

and Wonder Woman! I cannot watch it without thinking to Linda Carter:

here the trailer

Browsing…

few books on Google Books. I love it, you really can have a good look at some books before buying like:

Les Petite Dames de Mode: an Adventure in Design

Fashion at the edge

The Jumeau doll

Hope you are having a a nice relaxing Friday evening as well

I really enjoyed my first day back home. What can I say? I’m a creature of habit. I just love to sit on my sofa, my cat beside me, my laptop close by, my husband just a kiss away

To make the day perfect I received one of my Amazon preorders: “Cinderella-Paper dolls and 17th Century Costumes” by Brenda Sneathen Mattox and “Michelle Style” by Mandy Norwood.

I also found a new blog!!!If you are a lover of paper dolls  as well check “Passion 4 Paperdollz”, it is a beautiful blog and each month the author offers great pd for download. My favourite ones are the Modern Deco paper doll and “It’s a fashion thing” but she has many other nice ones, included Reese Whiterspoon.

And if you are also an admirer of Michell Obama, read the long interview published by Time, found via Mrs.O blog.

Tomorrow it is time start working again but…I even missed my colleagues, just don’t tell them so that’ s ok . I hope you are all having a nice springy week.

….but it will be out in October:

“Barbie doll photo album- from 1959 to 2009″ by J.Michael Augustyniak. I cannot wait to have it in my hands but still quite few months to go

I love the stories of queens of the past like Elizabeth the first, Sissi from Austria or Marie Antoinette. At the moment I’m reading “Queen of fashion: what Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution” by Caroline Weber:

I really like the way she tells Marie Antoinette story, with a fresh perspective on the social and cultural implications and impact of the clothes wore by the queen.

To celebrate the reading of the book here is a nice free paper doll I found, of Marie Antoinette of course!!!

from Totally Severe, thank you so much, I really like her

I also would love to get the DVD of “Marie Antoinette” movie from 1938 with Norma Shearer and the paper doll inspired to it, the costumes look just awesome.

After dinner I switched  the TV on and started zapping around. I caught on a kids channel the last part of Pinocchio 3000 K. Obviously it started much earlier and so I could see only the last 20 minutes of the movie but I really enjoyed it. Watch it!

As the title suggests it is an adaption of Pinocchio novel, just set in the distant future and the wooden puppet is now a robot. Really lovely. I checked on youtube and they seem to have the whole movie in parts (why  does this always surprise me?) Here is part 1

While watching it I was not actually remembering the Disney version movie, as most probably many other people will do, but the italian version with real actors from the ‘70, directed by Luigi Comencini.

Here is the clip where Geppetto (Nino Manfredi) wakes up the night after creating the puppet and finds out he has be given “life” by the blue fairy:

The story is quite close to the original one written by Collodi, as far as I remember, but since almost the beginning Pinocchio is actually played by a real child.

Of course these were still not the only TV/cinema adaptions of the novel. I remembered for example having watched a sweet cartoon in the ‘80, always based on Pinocchio’s story, here you can see the first part of the first episode. According to the description on youtube it is a japanese production from ‘72, strangely enough this is the same year the italian TV serie with real actors was released.

And another great version was the one from 1947, always an italian production, directed by Giannetto Guardone. I never managed to catch the movie on TV in Italy and I don’t think there’s a DVD available, but here you can watch the scene where Pinocchio and Geppetto are trying to escape from the whale’s belly.

While I was writing it also came to my mind Benigni’s movie but that really would deserve a post of his own LOL.

And you, my friends, do you know any other TV or cinema adaption of the novel by Collodi?