At risk of sounding like a broken record (ack, what’s a record, right?)… I feel frickin’ good. And it’s lasted all week.
I’m more awake in the morning. I have more energy. I’m more “up.” There is more banter going on. I like this. Could the minor change I made really have affected me that much?
I’m being productive, too. Check out what I did with Xanthe! Plus, work was good–and I have tomorrow off, woo hoo!
The trees are changing, and it was a lovely day outside. Audrey wanted to take a walk, wearing her new poncho from Chun. We actually had received another package from her today, and Audrey was thrilled to discover a dress just for her.
To my surprise, I managed to get out all four sets of Xanthe’s eye chips. The orange set was hopelessly scratched up (from sawing open her head), so I replaced them with Audrey’s old pink chips. First I gave them the Mandy treatment: I painted the backs purple, gently scratched the paint off the raised sections, and applied glitter before putting them back in. So far, everyone seems to like them the best.
The other set of pink chips were foiled with purple holographic paper. I think they might be my favorites. I used the same paper behind the blue chips, and drew a rim on the paper with a black sharpie. The green chips were foiled with silver holographic paper, on which I added another rim.
What’s your favorite?
Such a triumphant experience: I succeeded in sawing Xanthe’s head open last night. Yay! I’ll be putting a different body on her, but first I’m messing with her eyechips.
Her head is on my lap as I type, because I was sanding the rough sawed edges while surfing.
And I’m still feeling chipper. I mean, it’s before 8 a.m., and I’m functional!
The Volks mini EB body I’d ordered arrived yesterday from Hong Kong. Yayyyy! SpiritMan picked it up at the post office for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to do anything with it last night. Actually, there are a few steps I need to take before I do anything with it at all.
Xanthe will need head surgery. I bought an Xacto-type hobby knife for the occasion. I’m going to have to do this, which should be interesting. While I’m in there, I’ll probably mess with the eyes some, too.
As you can imagine, I’ll need more than an hour. (Which is all I have left before work this morning…to shower, get dressed, make coffee, etc.)
I’m definitely feeling more chipper than usual this morning. A good part of it, I think, is a happy accident. See, I ran out of my OCD meds over the weekend… so I took a half dose on Friday and Saturday, and none at all on Sunday.
And it seems to be taking away my morning sluggishness, even if it’s just my imagination. So I’m cutting back to the half dose for the long run. I’ll let you know if any undue anxiety crops up.
My hair took two hours last night. But the streaks, they were worth it because I don’t have the ugly two inches of dark roots anymore. Impulsively, I asked for a shorter cut and got it. It feels good, and I hope it looks good. (I’m still unsure.)
As for Xanthe, I’ll try to post about that where it belongs.
1. I’m going to the salon tonight. Woohoo!
2. The Volks mini body I ordered for Xanthe has arrived. Pete picked it up at the post office for me.
I bought the cutest outfit from Chun, who goes by Pupchun on the TIB forum. As soon as I saw the monster bunny, I knew Angelica had to have it.
Between sleeping in, going to an orientation at Campus, having an extra-long church service this morning (because of a hymn-sing-along to honor our organist), and working out, time slipped away from me once again. Now it’s Sunday night, and I’m looking ahead to another week. Already.
But we did do something kinda cool today: we checked out the new Overture Center downtown. There were quite a few free events so we even enjoyed some live music. Pete and I went sans kids, so it was even something like a date. In a few weeks, we get to back, to see the MSO and chorus perform Beethoven. I can’t wait, because we didn’t get to see Overture Hall or the new pipe organ.
Last night, I sat in a classroom and listened. Today I got to be up in front, as a representative of the Campus during a high school career day.
Good thing I don’t mind public speaking. High schoolers are an interesting audience, though. This particular group was at a private school in a small town about 40 minutes away from Madison. They selected four different half-hour presentations to attend. Enough students signed up for ours that I was asked to present twice. I was alone the first time, but my favorite instructor joined me for the second one.
What brought back memories was hearing the announcements over the PA. That, and the bell.
Weather really does affect my moods. But I’m a little backward. Somehow, winter doesn’t bother me so much. February can be a bit of a drag, but I don’t get overly depressed about it.
On the other hand, summer gets me down. I don’t always realize that heat and humidity are impacting the way I feel–but the mental lift I feel when the thermometer tops out at 65 degrees is a real jolt.
I’ve been suffering this week, because it’s been 80 degrees and humid. It finally rained yesterday, bringing blessed relief. (Am I complaining too much? I know some people are dealing with hurricanes, and I wouldn’t want to trade places.)
Anyway, the fog in my brain has lifted a bit, and (dare I say?) my energy is returning. Tonight I tackled the refrigerator and blanched some more of our farm veggies. Our CSA box overfloweth. The house is a mess, but it doesn’t feel as overwhelming as it did a week ago. I’ve got plans.
My last vintage Skipper photo shoot. Angelica modeled the Sleepytime outfit. I still can’t believe how new it looks after almost 40 years!
Green glittered eyeshadow
Orange chips, painted brown
I took a few more photos for posting at TIB. Audrey looks pretty dreamy, no?
Although I was a tiny bit restless by the end of the day, I thoroughly enjoyed being part of the Body Mind Spirit Expo. Pete tagged along today, and boy, did he get his $8 worth. He went to most of the talks, walked around and met quite a few exhibitors, and generally smiled a lot because he was in his element.
I brought Audrey with me and amused myself by taking pictures. But rest assured, my counterpart and I were not goofing off! We did plenty of work on behalf of the Campus, both days. I’m sure we enhanced our name recognition and spread the goodwill.
It’s not our fault that we had time to hang out and talk about life, and family, and boys.
There was a lot of good energy in the place, and I can still feel it in my body/mind/spirit. (Say!) Oddly enough, I didn’t really have a weekend, but I’m looking forward to going into work tomorrow anyway.
Angel photos and happy mums!
Our special assistant
Hmm…a bigger head than mine!
I want these boots… and…which coffee has the ginseng?
Audrey went with me to the Body Mind Spirit Expo, because she really wanted to experience some metaphysical stuff. She wore her Tinkerbell outfit for the occasion, and several of the attendees asked if she was a wood faerie. Rather etheral, she was! Getting into the spirit of things, she tried out a wand, had craniosacral therapy and adjusted her chakras. She also was up close and personal with the crystal singing bowls. Her vibration was certainly raised. So was mine.
So I spent the day at the Body Mind Spirit Expo, and it wasn’t just about metaphysical stuff. There was a shoe vendor there, too. I kept glancing over at their display, and I finally had to go over and check it out. They were selling Earth shoes (remember then from the ’70s? I do) and I ended up buying these in shiny patent leather red. They are soooo comfortable, even better than my Birkenstocks.
I finally, finally got brave enough to open Audrey’s head all the way, and take out the eye mechanism. It wasn’t easy–for one thing, I thought I was going to break the side of her face–but I did it. I decided not to take the whole thing apart, though. I carefully painted the eyelids with two coats of acrylic paint, then coated the lids with a thin coat of varnish sprinkled with extra-fine glitter.
Using the directions I posted a few days ago, I added glitter to the orange eye chips I had taken out earlier. They turned out so well that I decided to remove Audrey’s pink chips and use the newly glittered ones instead.
While everything was drying, I sanded Audrey’s eye holes and applied chalk pastels as eyeshadow. I put her back together (hooray!) and added a row of eyelashes as a finishing touch. Audrey will be getting a new lip sticker, and then she’ll be ready for her big debut.
Remember the Skipper clothes that were so generously given to me? Well, I finally got around to re-shooting a photo of the swimsuit. (Angelica was my model.) P had also saved the inserts from her dolls, so I scanned the drawings of Skipper herself, circa 1963. I’m amazed by how new the suit still looks!
Mandy from Bon Bon Blythe and ZooBeZooBeZoo was kind enough to share her technique for painting and adding glitter to eye chips.
To change the color, I use regular acrylic craft paint (the kind you get for $1 per bottle in most craft stores). In the first picture (Disco Boogie), I painted only the inside ring of the eye chips, where the ridges are. I thinned out the paint with just a little bit with water (be gentle when mixing, so that you don’t create a lot of bubbles), then painted it all around the inside area, making sure to get paint into the corners of the little grooves.
After it was dry, I used a dry toothpick to gently scrape the paint off of just the raised parts of that area (and also any that might have gotten on the outer edge of the chip), leaving the paint down in the grooves. Then I went over the raised parts again with a wet toothpick to further clean them up and get rid of any cloudiness. This technique gives a lot of definition and depth in the eye color, rather than a flat, all over color.
In the second picture (Love Mission), I used this same technique for the inner part of the chip, and then I also painted the outer edges of the chips in the same colors as the inner parts. The outer rim requires 3-4 coats of slightly thinned paint (make sure you let each coat dry thoroughly before applying the next). I recommend using paint that is cut slightly with water because it goes on smoother and thinner, and therefore won’t add too much extra bulk to the inside of the chip (this is especially important if you are going to add glitter, which is the next step).
On both pairs of eyes, after all of the chips were painted and allowed to dry overnight, I painted on a thin layer of decoupage glue (I use Mod Podge; you should also thin this out with a tiny amount of water), then I poured extra fine grain glitter on the wet glue (I got my fine grain glitter at a craft store like Hobby Lobby or Michael’s. It’s MUCH smaller than regular craft glitter). Let that sit for a few minutes so the glue can set up a little bit, then carefully pick the chip up and dump off as much of the excess glitter as you can. Allow these to dry for a couple of hours, then come back with a soft, wide paintbrush and gently brush off any leftover excess glitter. And that’s it! It sounds like a lot of steps, but it’s actually quite easy.
I’m going to work with the chips I had painted brown. I’m also thinking about opening up Audrey’s head, removing her eye mechanism, and painting the lids. That will also allow me to do a better job with the shadow. Eep! Now I just need some bravery.
Audrey’s face is now silky smooth. I tried to put eyeshadow on her using chalk pastels, but it came out blotchy and uneven. I ended up re-sanding her, and I’m a little reluctant to give her makeup now. Maybe if I took her entire head apart, but that is so scary. In other news, her extra eyelashes came out when I was doing the eye chip removal, and I lost one set. Urgh. Poor Audrey!
