Costumes for doll

July 31, 2006 at 10:15 pm | Posted in Craft - Inspirations, Craft - Websites | 1 Comment


Jerry and I discussed the “diversity” of handmade dolls a few days ago. People with different backgrounds are making different dolls. Some like classical dresses, say Victorian, while some always dress their dolls with the most stylish suites.

As for myself, I usually copy my friends’ outfit or what I see on the street for my dolls. For instance, Jo’s tshirt, white jeans, the black shoes and her little purse are all inspired by one of my Korean classmates. But, it doesn’t mean I dont like those beautiful old-time gowns. The historical fashion is what I am unfamiliar with. I dont think I can ever tell the difference b/w Jacobean and Recoco…..Never! Besides, the classical dresses are always too completed for me. Most of them has more than 1 layers, and sometimes tons of laces or a lot of bead embroidery are neccessary for decoration. T(research of historical styles)+T(implementation) >> T(my limit). Well, my time limit for making a doll is 2-3 days, and no more than 1 week…..

Although historical dolls wouldn’t be part of my doll projects, I am still willing to get some knowledges of all-time fashion. One of the best resources are the paper dolls. Dont get me wrong. I’m not talking about those naive paper dolls made for little babies but more professional ones, particularly the paper doll series published by Dover.

You can take a look of some pictures online.
1. Random sample
2. Celebrities
3. Fashions
4. Marilyn Monroe
5. Fill stars
6. Victorian styles
7. Gone with wind
8. Orientals
9. Historical
10. Weddings

hmm….now, I’m quite curious about Ming-ju Sun.

fox-al from Russia

July 30, 2006 at 11:08 pm | Posted in Craft - Blogs, Craft - Websites | Leave a comment


The first thing that catches my eyes by fox_al was her cute little fox icon.

She makes delicate lovely mini teddy bears. You can find some gorgeous flowery embroideries on the bear’s little tummy. She has also created some interesting “irregular” kittens. I dont know Russian. Obviously, according to her previous gallery, she is also quite good at making dolls. Her version of “le petit prince” is exactly how the little prince looks like in my imagination(in a dark starry coat).

P.S. She used to post a nice tutorial book for waldorf dolls in her livejournal.:-)

Pink snail from odd yarns

July 29, 2006 at 9:09 pm | Posted in All Finished Crafts, Craft - Books | Leave a comment

After the non-craft week, I can’t help looking for some simple stuff to try. And I found a little cute snail from a Japanese book 麻ひもで楽しむクラフトBOOK(Enjoy with hemp strings?).

ISBN4-277-43017-1

This book is about applications of hemp strings. I dont have any, so I just use what I have: some leftover yarns (My amigurumi cat using the same yarn).

The snail is very simple. It took no more than 15 min. I’m quite satisfied with the result. She is crawling on our ceramic picture. 🙂

Sarah Kay

July 28, 2006 at 4:20 pm | Posted in Craft - How-to's, Craft - Inspirations, Craft - People, Craft - Websites | 12 Comments


I used to buy 2 boxes of butter cookies because of the wonderful drawings on the round boxes (the boxes are left in my parents’ home. I can only find a picture with a little part of the box in it.). I finally found out who creates those sweet girls: Sarah Kay.

Compared to Sam Butcher’s teardrop-eye children(Precious Moments, 水滴娃娃 in Chinese), Sarah Kay’s children paintings have more details. The kids created by Sarah Kay are always wearing fabulous outfits. Some of them have cute bonnets or hats, which remind me of Sunbonnet Sue. I especially like the girls in jeans. Maybe I can dress my doll in this way next time. 😀

Coloring–Book.info provides a few coloring pages of Sarah Kay’s girls, and other interesting pages. It would be good pastime to do some redwork based on these patterns, when I am really bored……

There are also a group of free cross-stitch charts for Sarah Kay’s drawings. But……I’m just not a x-stitch person. 😛

Country crafts

July 26, 2006 at 3:29 pm | Posted in Craft - How-to's, Craft - Websites | 3 Comments

People talk a lot about “country crafts” and “country dolls”. But, what does “country” mean? I can’t find a strict definiation. There is an entry of “rural crafts” in Wikipedia, but I dont think that is what I am looking for. Maybe “country” style can only be in an ambiguous way.


No matter what, country style is always favorite of many craftsters. Everyone has its own definition of a country style. Country dolls in Japan are not exactly the same as those that can be found in Europe/America. The dolls in the “country doll(カントリードール)” magazine are very typical Japanese country style. (I would rather call those doll “rag doll“. ) There are many Japanese sites dedicated to country dolls. For example, Clover Lollipop I found today.

All the dolls seem to be from the same pattern. They differ from each other in the materials, especially the costumes. I always envy people who can consistently stick to their own style.

Many other similar sites can be found in Clover Lollipop‘s link list.

Also found the source of these famous craft patterns today. Those birds have appeared in different craft designs, e.g. embroidery, tote paints……Kerry’s Kollectables provides a great deal of nice freebies, including a bunch of beautiful bookmarks for print-out. My favorite is the following blank tag template, which could be useful for gift-wrapping.

Sewing jars all around

July 25, 2006 at 4:55 pm | Posted in Craft - Inspirations, Craft - Misc | 3 Comments

I haven’t written anything in English for quite a while. It’s a little difficult to make up my mind to start another blog, especially an English one. At least it is a new challenge. Please forgive me for tons of mistakes you may find in my blog….^^

Let’s start with something really popular recently.

So far as I know, at least 3 persons from flickr have made such a sewing jar(1.2.3.). The jar can be any shapes, and it holds various sewing supplies. Particularly, the lid is transformed into a big pin-cushion, which is very practical. The tutorial for this “sewing jar” is available in flickr.

I was surprised when I found out such sewing jars are shown on Tiara‘s homepage, a famous and popular Japanese “zakka” brand. Those jars are almost the same as the ones in the magazine, except for the cross-stitch monograms on the lid. (Tiara is full of zakka inspirations. Their linen collections are really adorable. There is also a blog for this brand. Check out their 2006 autumn collection, and you may be able to sense some zakka trends in Japan)

I almost kept every glass jar since I moved here. But none of them is “Mason jar” with 2-pieces metal lid. Should I also start looking for one? 😛


Honestly, I’m still satisfied with my current sewing kit, which was a box for ice cream. It holds almost everything I need for sewing. I’m not that organized. I just have to be, coz my “territory” is not big enough for me to spread my tools. -.-

See how small my “craft corner” is? >_

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