Where have I been!??

Holy moly it was been quite a few months!

For those of you that don't follow my Instagram or may not be aware, my city was hit with a biblical type monsoon flood in early February 2019. Biggest flood in history I might add, and it smooshed over 70% of the city.

 

As well as a big ol puddle of water, all the sewerage lines broke so everything was contaminated and super smelly on top of being wet. The sheer weight of the water even cracked out foundation and was left unsanitised for months. By the time my building company agreed that I needed a cleaner, this is ow the cracks looked under the flooring. Completely full of mould, slime and what i can only call as poo goo. Disgusting.

It was a huge job replacing the bottom half of my house, and naturally because there is thousands of houses affected, it took months before contractors could come to work on my house. While I was waiting for repairs, another plague hit my city. Epic amounts of mould. What furniture did survive the flood was now covered in the biggest forest of mould I have seen. All of our remaining furniture was gone after that. Being a severe asthmatic, anything porous like wood or fabric, was thrown out.

Even my dog passed on his blessings as we waited for the council truck to pick up a little of the furniture.

But after a lot of waiting, my house repairs are, finally, almost complete. Replacement furniture was arrived and I have been slowly putting stuff together and trying to take and invent of all the craft items I need to replace. which is pretty much all of it, I might add.

 

Thankfully my feature wall survived for the most part. There was some damage along the bottom and around the window sill, but a small sand and touch up did the trick.

Storm got his pillow corner back. So he was fairly happy to cuddle on the new pillows.

Replacement shelving is in and for the past week I have been organising and storing craft bits and pieces that i managed to save in time. Since I pretty much left it all intact for 5 months, there was a lot to go through.

All in all, this is why I have been absent for months and there is still a little bit to go before I'll be back making miniatures. I have put in a huge order for clay so hopefully that will arrive within the next month.  Once the builders have put on the final touches and I have my order of goods, I should be ready to start up making minis again.

Thanks for reading though all this and I promise I'll be back soon. cya xx

Prom gown

One of the things I love best is the feeling that I am helping others to learn and enjoy sewing. I try to encourage anyone I can to this end.

Here is a requested prom gown tutorial that is very simple and easy to follow.  Learn how to make your own pattern to suit the type of doll you want to make the dress for!

Watch the full video here:

Camera death

Hay everyone! I have some terrible news. While filming my next youtube tutorial on my brand new adorable miniature ball jointed doll, my camera desired to commit seppuku! It froze up and even melted the SSD card inside. Couldn't possible break my heart more...

I will be taking it (throwing it out) to a technician tomorrow in the hopes that the SSD card data can be recovered somehow. Otherwise I'll make another ball jointed doll showcase and tutorial as soon as I can.

Just a little frustrating about my camera...just look how cute my BJD is! I was really looking forward to showing her off this week.

She's crazy tiny and a lot sturdier than I expected. Mind you that's not an invitation to be rough, she's still delicate haha.

Her face is very well painted and fixated well, so it was nice not having to bee too concerned about damaging her make-up while painfully trying to dress her. I was more scared of breaking something than anything else.

My god is her hair fluffy though. I believe its made of angora goat hair, and the wig cap itself looks to be leather or part of the original hide. I plan on putting some keratin oil in it just to minimise the fuzzy fly-aways in the future.

I'll let everyone know as soon as I order a new camera and it has been delivered.. ho hum
Dont forget to check out solersart's shop on ebay to get your very own miniature ball jointed doll!

Puppy pillow

Every pooch needs a comfy place to nap.  I will show you how I made a bed worthy of any pampered furpet. 

 For this bed I used high quality mattress foam, but you can use anything that is cheap and available from your local craft or retail store. This bed was made for my friends large pooch, so medium density foam was ideal. I chose quilting fabric or 100% cotton for durability since they are large dogs. I also used a craft glue stick, zipper and piping string.

These are the colours I chose. 

I started by measuring the fabric against the foam bed. Leaving 1cm extra fabric on all sides. For the side I wanted the zipper on, I folded the fabric in half lengthwise and cut.  Next I ironed a seam on both pieces. This will be where the zipper is placed later. I sewed the two seams together to form one piece of fabric. Now with the seams facing up, I glued the zipper face down along the seam. This is to make sure the fabric doesn't move when sewing.

I sewed down each side of the zipper then picked apart the seam to free the zipper.

Now I ironed the seams on the remaining  pieces of fabric, including the piece for piping. For the piping, I ironed a stip in half lengthways and glued the piping rope along the seam. Next I folded the fabric over the rope and sew end to end. Lastly I sewed all the pieces together like a regular cushion.  

Perfect pillow for my friend's pampered pooch. Quality tested by my pocket pup.