Since I saw the trailer for the movie I cannot wait to watch it in February. It looks great. As I think you understood by now I love stop motion movies and the story seems enchanting. The password to enter the site is “buttoneyes”, but you will need more of them, read the great post from Toycutter blog to find them out. Waiting for it I will most probably buy the book.

The first thought that came to my mind when I saw the trailer was actually how to get hold of some dolls, ok…I admit I’m a bit single minded I would have loved for the moment some paperdolls or even better a papermodel but I couldn’t find any of them. If anybody knows where I can find a papermodel please let me know! I found though the italian trailer for the book

thanks to JacketFlap site, thank you

I saw Forbidden Planet will sell some figures starting in february but to be honest they look more like static figures rather than dolls. I found though these interesting serie of articles on Mary  Robinette Kowal journal on how she created three OOAK dolls commissioned by Subterranean Press. I just browse quickly through 2 of them but I plan to read them well and carefully after I’ve done the boring bit of the day (AKA ironing)

Here I found pictures of the Neca’s puppets and then again a great article about the set of the movie from Animation World Network site.

I still want some papermodels though

So, as I already said, I really would like to make a quick Halloween Diorama this year. I’m still not sure about the doll but I think  I will use my cute  Bratz  witch from the Bratz Costume Party line. Absolutely not scaring at all

On the other side the first rush of bills for this month stormed trough our bank like a tsunami and I already splurged on 2 chinese pieces of furniture in 1/6 scale  (pictures to come)so the sad truth is : no dollies funds left till next pay day

The only logical and wise decision at this point was a browsing trip, looking around for some additional free goodies to be used in my diorama.

As usually tons on stuff on the net, mostly in 1/12 scale but lot of them will work fine also with the 1/6 scale dolls. I found for example some nice Trick-and.Treat bags from the Hitty Print Mini, delightful site. The printies are intended for Hitty dolls but in my opninion will work fine in other scales as well.

What I really loved though was this skeleton paper doll !!! I bet it is a nightmare to cut it out but still looks very good. I found it on My Small Obsessions Site, a truthful name.

On the same site by the way you can also find the link to an absolutely lovely page full of mini printies for an italian restaurant. I know, I know…not Halloween-related but too good not to mention it:-)

So, that’s all for today and for my german readers: have a nice long weekend I will be working tomorrow

Just browsing around and saw news on some US groups of these lovely dolls: Peek-a-Boo Petites. They look so cute!!! I need to have them, well…not all, but at least a couple. Have a look here, they really seem modern versions of Little Kiddles.

And have a peek  here at some of the repros Barbies announced for 2008/2009, if the production version will be really so close to the original one I definitely want the Superstar.

If you have time to kill check www.deviantART.com, tons of amazing pictures (plus much more) including some of beautiful dolls, I love for example the Toy-Triplets, have a look, it is  wonderful. Most of the artists authorize you to share the pictures yourself trough blogs. Have a look, it is really worth it.

Growing up in Italy I don’t remember to have ever seen Sindy in the shops, on the other side I was a Barbie Barbie girl  when I was a child At the time I started to collect dolls though I was living in UK and there she’s a queen. Sindy has been produced by many companies (I think 4 up till now) and has undergone many transformations but what I really love are the big headed Pedigree Sindy. They have such a sweet face and even if they look all similar I find each single doll is slightly different from the other ones. Here are some of my Sindy (mainly Pedigree and a couple of early Hasbro) to give you an idea in case you never saw the doll:

I will not go into the history of the doll since there are plenty of good sites about her but two nights ago I was surfing the web (surprise, surprise) and googled Sindy up after a long time I didn’t do it. I found few wonderful sites I never saw before and I want to share them with the Sindy’s fans out there.

Here you can download some beautiful Sindy paperdolls and comics, the drawing are really vintage-looking and even if you don’t care for the doll itself you should love them if you are collecting paperdolls . I think even printed and framed they would be a delightful decoration for a dolls or children room.

If you are looking for some repro vintage outfits for example, much more affordable than the original ones, sindyclothes looks the perfect site to check out. The really cool sections though is the DIY one, the owner very generously shares with her readers and customers not only tons of patterns to do Sindy hats and shoes boxes and other printables,  but she even uploaded copies of instructions sheets for all the main furniture sets in case you lost yours or never had them. Really a site to bookmark!

And then if all these talking about Sindy made you hitch to dug your childhood doll out or buy a vintage one, here you can find plenty of chance to ID her. Club-Sindy site offers on the other side beautiful pages dedicated to the Hasbro dolls. Here one of the most beautiful Sindy dolls produced by Hasbro (and no so easy to get hold of): Soiree Magnifique. The picture is not so clear because the doll is NRFB:

So, what can I say more? Have a go, happy Sindy collecting!

Browsing around in search of nice ideas for my dollhouse, I found pictures of a Victorian Barbie Mansion. The creator and owner of the house is Tara Terminello. From what I understood they are actually separate room-boxes, not a full built house but it looks amazing and I’m going back now and have a closer look to see if there’s any idea I could “steal” for my modern dollhouse.

UPDATE: sorry, the site seems to have been removed since a while.

Do you know the feeling when you start looking in Google for something and then you get totally carried away? Landing on beautiful sites you never looked for, getting lost in pictures, projects, articles?

Well, this is what happen to me today and I want to share with you all some great links I found. Writing a post here is also a good way for me to not loose them.

The search started innocently enough, well at least I though so. As you know I’m furnishing my 1/6 scale Dollhouse and I’m getting deeper and deeper into the world of miniatures. I just wanted to find some projects on how to build dolls and a dollhouse for my girls, so basically few inches sized dolls and a 1/144 scale dollhouse.

I found tons of sites but one I really love is this one where there are tutorials on how to build Kate Greenaway dolls and mini teddies. I think I could ask my sister-in-law if she feels like helping me at trying to make one of them, they look so sweet. I also found this very good site with nice tutorials including one on how to build a 1/144 scale dollhouse. There’s even a tutorial on how to create a shop in a matchbox.

So far so good, I was right on track (or almost) but then situation span out of control and I found myself going trough tons of websites, mostly related to paper models, uauhh, I couldn’t believe what is out of there. I’m really fascinated with this hobby and one day I’ll give it go at it.

Amongst other stuff, I found this beautiful paper model of a japanese house and the San Marco Tower in Venice (you need to check under the menu TEST on the left hand-side from the main page).

What can I say? I really find this “paper world” amazingly interesting. The great find of the day though was this absolutely gorgeous set of Paper dolls Furniture in 1/12. Have a look, they are stunning! They belong to the the”Pretty House Collection” by Odyssey. I found this link through a newly discovered blog, Mini Modern, blog about modern dollhouse miniatures, great blog and it is now on my blog roll.

Well, I will post some other links another time, if now you want enjoy a bit of culture visit the Dollhouse musem in Basel, great pictures

All right, all right, they are not properly “dolls” but the historical figures created by George Stuart are just amazing! Plenty of inspiration there for OOAK artists and anybody loving historical costumes and costuming!

The site is still under constructions but at least for France and England all the figures are already in the Gallery, for the other sections there are still just the overview pictures, but still plenty to enjoy!

If you have few minutes, well…actually, a bit more than that, check his impressive gallery and let this incredible pictures bring you back into the past.

Just to mention it, I came to the Historical Gallery trough the Historical Dolls News and Acquisition blog by Mary Harrsch, very very nice, definitevely worth a look, and it is now on my blogroll.

I’ve been sick for the past couple of days, a terrible flu, I can hardly breath, so no much energy than anything else than laying in bed and occasionally surfing

After I got the cute link about the paper dollhouses from the japanese site the other day (see this post) I decided today, between a sneeze and another one, to see what is around on the web about paper dolls, my….I found tons of stuff but most amazing I realized how paper dolls evolved. Not only are they now often created with software applications like Photoshop, Corel Draw and similar but they also have sort of “evolved” into Dollz, basically “pixel dolls”.

I still prefer traditional paper dolls, that can be printed and played with, but even here you can chose your way of creating, either in the old-fashion way, drawing, or with one of the many fancy graphic applications available on the market. You can also use Open Source (most of them are for FREE) software as GiMP or Inskcape.

Here a couple of nice tutorials I found around:How to Draw Paper Dolls by Judy M. Johnson, or How to Create Paper Doll in Adobe Illustrator by Jacquelin Vanderwood.

Always related to creation of paper dolls using software you need to check this out, it is a tutorial on how to use Photoshp layers Rhiannon created: The Paper Doll Creation by Rhiannon, I think the girl is an artist and the site is worth a look just for the amazing graphics. The layers are not for free, they are on sale, but I think they look really good for the price asked for. Layers in GIMP works similar to Photoshop so you should be able to use the Open Source application, here is a guide to working with Layers in GIMP.

I still didn’t find any nice tutorial about creating Dollz, so if you have any suggestion please raise your hand

As usual, when you visit the above mentioned sites please be always careful with terms of use and conditions, these are all generous people who share their wonderful work with us and just because something in published on the internet it doesn’t mean it is free for us to take and do whatever we want to do with it. Most part of these tutorials are free for personal usage but not to resell and when mentioning them please always give credit to the original Site/creator.

My husband created a new template for me! Here it is, online! The doll on the banner is a repro Barbie, the Picnic set, with her nice Vespa. I’m definitively in a pinkish mood lately:-).

I promised him a bit of shameless advertisement in exchange for the nice wee template, here it comes…if you need technical support, check his IT site: www.weitzel.biz, if you need dolls and dolls accessories here the sister site: www.mini-lifestyle.de.