I’ve recently become a little obsessed with another type of doll. The vintage pose doll. I’ve been planning an article on them for awhile now but digging up information on them proves more difficult than digging up a beautiful doll at a swell bargain! One blogger writes, “Certainly, Bradley Dolls don’t have the stunning quality of Madame Alexander dolls or those dear Betsy McCalls, but they’ve got nostalgia in spades.” I have to agree with that, just one glance at that kitschy face and many are hooked!

These dolls, manufactured in Korea and Japan by Bradley in 1954 to 1984, were most popular in the 1970s. They were known as boudoir dolls most often although they were also known as stockinette dolls, pose dolls, cloth dolls, southern bell dolls and more. A small selection of these kind of dolls have the big eyes and craved-for kitschy appearance. Many more of the dolls made by Bradley had more delicate and realistic features according to a catalog I saw in another blog.

Lucky for us, in addition to the dolls with victorian fashion, Bradley also put out a line of mod cloth dolls in the 1960s. These dolls had cute, cropped haircuts, big hair bumps and sweet, mini mod dresses and costumes.

In the center is a doll by the multi-talented Boopsiedaisy!

I found my first pose doll years ago in a large thrift store. She is a bunny doll which I’ve found, upon searching online auctions, was another semi-common style of pose doll. She won me over with one look and I’ve been hooked ever since. I had been hoping to find a pose doll for ages after falling in love with both Ayumi Uyama’s and Boopsiedaisy’s work. More recently I’ve been ogling these dolls again and I’ve decided to buy a girl for customizing. How exciting! I’ll show you her soon. Hopefully you’ll get to see a before and after!

Do you own or want to own any of these beautiful dolls?

All of the photos seen here are by Boopsiedaisy, Ayumi Uyama and myself.

AND it gets better. I happened to be surfing around Flickr, another obsession of mine, when I found out that Super*Junk actually makes and sells pose doll kits. Gasp. The day I have one in my grubby hands is the day I am a very, VERY happy girl.

Remember the trill of gumball machines? The magic of finding the machine that has what you want and putting in a quarter only to have it pop out a tiny prize?

I LOVED them as a child and I have to admit that I still do. I still eye the quarter machines in the mall in case there’s a Blythe-sized treasure waiting to be found, I still pour yen into gashapon machines when I’m in Japan hoping for the cutest of the cute, and I still love every minute of it. They’re almost like little gambling machines that you win at every time. What could be better?

According to Wikipedia, vending machines were widely used in Europe before they became popular in the United States. In the early 1880s, the first commercial coin operated vender was introduced in London and stocked with postcards.

So this post is in honor of the gumball machine, quarter machine, gashapon (or gacha) and the chicken machine. Each of them have made my days a little brighter and a little more whimsical with their plastic, surprise balls. And you know how much I love surprise balls.

In fact, in honor of my love for the gumball machine I decided to craft my own cameo gumball rings and supply them to you in a plastic gumball capsule to remind you of those wonder-filled childhood days. I’ve also moved the shop here to stay (an economical decision!) so you don’t have to go far to browse. I hope you enjoy them!

I’ve also joined this Blythe Swap Flickr Group recently and I’m joining up in my first swap this holiday. My partner is new as well so we’ve both been excitedly chatting about it a lot. I’ve already been spoiling her and purchasing REALLY CUTE winter gifts for her dolls. I want to blab all about it but I’m being polite and keeping it a surprise. I’ll be sure to update with photos after we swap.

Remember in the surprise ball post how I offered to swap them with anyone interested? Well I’ve already crafted 7 surprise balls since (including Christmas balls for Ben and Jamie!)! Whahaha! I think I’m finally becoming a pro at tucking those presents in and keeping it ball-shaped. LOL, what a valuable skill!

So since I got asked from a few of you about swapping and what kind of things I send and receive I thought I’d do a post on it. I use my Flickr as a blog sort-of, if you’re interested, I update it almost daily and often add photos of the swaps I send and receive.

Recently I was in a Matryoshka Dotee Doll Swap and I sent these but I haven’t received mine yet. I’m really excited because my partner messaged me and said they were really detailed. I love matryoshka dolls. I only have one but she’s sweet, holding a cat that looks like Hobbes. If you don’t know what a dotee doll is welcome to the club. I was completely confused as to what they were so I read up on it before joining and creating a Kawaii Dotee Doll Swap.

I’ve also been in a ton of ATC swaps so I’m posting some that I’ve sent as well as the small collection I’ve built of ATCs and swap cards found/received and kept. ATCs are fun — I draw shaky these days and I love using textured paper so they’re not perfect but they’re fun. They’re getting me to draw and paint a lot again which is great. I’ll do a complete post on making ATCs soon.

Here’s a sweet black lamb and bluebird to cuten up your crafts and collages. To download right click the image and load the link in a new window then save the image to your hard drive.

This is an easy charm quilt pattern for a beginner. I am COMPLETELY new to quilting. In fact this is my very first quilt so I’ll be learning along with you! Because I am so new I looked at a few patterns, one for a rag quilt, one for a charm quilt and one for a baby quilt, and altered them a bit for my Blythe-sized doll quilt. Remember this is a rag doll quilt so it’s not going to look pristine unless you are a seasoned quilter which I definitely am not. Also be sure to read to the end of this post for things learned upon making this.

First cut out 25 1.5 inch wide squares of your chosen fabric(s) and lay them out as you would prefer them to look by your sewing area. If you want a rectangular quilt you’ll need to cut 5 rows of 8 squares = 40 squares.

Next sew 5 rows of 5 squares each with a 1-2 cm seam allowance. After you’ve sewn all of your rows press them and sew them in numerical order to each other (see how messy I sew??).

Next cut out a thin piece of fabric in your desired pattern the size of your quilt and piece them off sides together if you’re quilt stitching. Quilt stitching is the part I don’t understand so after doing extensive research online I found out that there really is no easy way to do it. You can do it yourself or ask a quilter to help you out. You can find a pattern online and follow the pattern by hand or machine. I chose to skip it.

To give your quilt a more finished look you’ll want to bind the borders with fabric — or make it easy and use thick-ribbon. I’m also new at binding so I decided to skip it this time and sew my quilt to the other panel as though I was making a pillow. I put them right sides together and sewed around the edges leaving a small (2-3 inch) space. Then I turned the blanket right-side out and, because I am not a quilter, sewed a line from one corner to the other making a big X to keep the pieces together.

Things I learned: Next time I’m going to make it 5 squares by 8 squares for a Blythe-bed sized quilt. I didn’t think about how small it would be getting upon sewing it, duh!

You’ll Need

• crepe paper streamers (in a couple of colors!)
• 10-20 candy and small gifts
• a plastic capsule or small box
• a sticker or label

Collecting the gifts is almost as much fun as making the ball! If you’re making it for someone be sure to include things they like. Some ideas of what to include: candy, small toys, jewelry, stickers, memo pads, erasers, rubber stamps, ink pads, glitter, craft supplies, tea, keychains, beads, charms, small tubes of glitter glue, etc.

Start with your plastic capsule or small box and fill it with one of the gifts. Then wrap the crepe paper around it until it’s covered.

Next add another surprise and wrap it up. Make sure you keep wrapping a bit after each gift so that they don’t fall out too fast!

Continue adding surprises and wrapping them up until the ball is finished then tape the end down and top with a cute sticker or label.

Now.. as if it wasn’t enough fun to *make* these I actually received one as well (from the original swap). I was so excited about opening this rainbow-covered ball that I giggled the whole time as candy and kawaii gifts fell into my lap. This ball was extremely large and took quite a long time to unwrap! My partner is a surprise ball pro! Thank you so much!

I decided for this article I would need something around the house that needed a makeover so I found a natural wooden frame, a table worn on the top and an empty cocoa tin.

If you want you can use actual decopatch paper, glue and sealant but I did this with things I had around the house.

You Need

• Mod Podge (glossy)
• Paper scraps
• Something to decopatch

First I collected torn pieces of paper that sort of followed a theme. My theme was kitschy-sweet as usual. Too excited but nervous to start with the table I decided to start with some junk I had saved, a cigarette box and an ATC-sized (2.5 x 3.5 inches) card. I used the same thin paper for each that I had torn into small and medium-sized pieces. Then I covered my box/card in Mod Podge (glue) (I know there’s decopatch glue and varnish but I’m a Mod Podge addict.) and smoothed down the strips of paper. Last I covered the paper in a layer of Mod Podge (varnish) and let it dry. How easy was that?

Next it was time to try my luck on the tin. I tore out assorted pieces of paper this time and followed the same instructions above. Now I have a kawaii place to keep tea, coffee and small things.

Stay tuned for next time when I’ll be decopatching a frame and table with decopatch paper from France.

Today’s freebie is a vintage kitty cat with a yellow bow and rose. So cute!

To download right click the image and load the link in a new window then save the image to your hard drive.

I really adore art journals, ATCs (artist trading cards) and decorated mail. Don’t you? I love the time and effort that goes into creating them and the mixed-media collaging that tends to take place. I’m kind of new to the scene, I have to admit, and I was never much of a scrapbooker so I figured a great creativity challenge for myself would be to start an art journal.

Why don’t you start one with me? (If you already have one start a new one, we’ll be doing more spreads in the future.)

First off, if you don’t have a journal (I needed a new one) you’ll need to get one. Composition notebooks work great and they’re inexpensive. I’m using a small Moleskin because I like to do things small-scale. If you have an old notebook lying around with some old notes that you don’t need anymore feel free to use it. You can always cover the notes with paint, marker, paper and decorations.

You’ll also need to prepare the pages beforehand with gesso, glue sticks or rubber cement and maybe some Mod Podge to paint the page with when you’re finished?

Let’s start the journal off with a self-portrait or representation of you, your name and 5 things you love (this is to inspire your decorations!). For this spread you’ll need to cut out photos of things you love either via magazines or your printer, to find patterns on scrapbook paper and fabric that you like and a colorful selection of paint/markers/pens.

My list of 5 things I love was coffee/tea, hearts, stars, unicorns and Japanese candy. I am represented as Rainbow Brite because my brother wanted to name me that when I was born. Also, my name is in Katakana because once upon a time I left my heart in Japan.

How did yours turn out? Please email it to us so I can post it here.

If you’re interested in learning more about Non-Digital Art Journaling there’s a great article to get you started here and an AMAZING ecourse I just found out about (and that I really must participate in) here — looks like a great class to get your inspiration juices flowing and to learn a lot about yourself!

Here are some gorgeous journal pages I found while surfing Flickr to get you inspired.