White Christmas Dress with Red or Blue Candy Cane Striped Sleeves and Santa Hat

Click for larger version (PNG):red stripes, blue stripes; click for PDF version: red stripes, blue stripes. Click here for the list of dolls.

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it! To those of you who don’t, I hope you can bear with three days of Christmas-themed stuff. If the candy cane stripes are just too much to bear, I think this wintery blue version is rather sweet, too.

Actually, this dress started life as a princess gown that had three layers right down to the floor, but the first two were too long compared to the third, and the proportions bothered me; then, I thought that the candy-cane striped sleeves looked kind of cartoony for a formal ballgown, but just perfect with a sassy above-the-knee circle skirt and a Santa hat! When I was sketching this gown out, I was thinking of the collectible holiday Barbie dolls of my youth: I don’t believe I ever had any, but I appreciated them. (That would explain the extra-puffed sleeves: I was a kid of the ’80s.)

Because of the placement of the skirt and sleeves, if you were to cut this out, you’d have to cut a space for the hand inside the skirt, just under the sleeves. If anyone attempts it, please let me know how it goes.

Whenever I put up two colors of something, I always have to ask…


White Natasha Liana Gown from Holy Clothing’s Design Contest with Flower Garlands

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

So last year I entered a contest run by my favorite clothing store, Holy Clothing. Rather than “favorite” it is probably more accurate to say that they are the only clothing store I have any regard for whatsoever! This might be a surprise, but I actually hate shopping for clothes: I just find it tedious and frustrating, I don’t like hardly any of what I find in stores, I’d rather spend money on other things and I don’t care for fashion in the least. Since I found Holy Clothing, one of their skirts paired with a plain white shirt has pretty much been my uniform.

They held a design contest late last year, promising to make the winner’s drawing into a real dress: I sent in three potential designs and one of them was chosen as one of four that were then voted on by the company’s Facebook fans. (I can’t find the link to the voting anymore, which is a shame, as all the sketches were very lovely.) I got $100 in store credit for winning, and the dress was supposed to be called the Liana Dress. It took longer than they expected to translate the sketch into a dress, though, and then they wanted to release it in the right season, so it just went on sale this month.

Here’s the original sketch, as well. This wasn’t my favorite of my three designs, and actually it’s not one I’d generally rush to buy myself because I wear my Holy Clothing stuff every day, so I don’t really have much interest in the garments that seem too costume-like or impractical. The reason I designed it is that a fair amount of people use Holy Clothing dresses as wedding dresses, and so I was thinking, what would my ideal Holy Clothing-style wedding gown look like? For this reason, I hope that the next run of the dresses comes in white as well, but in the meantime I drew my own white version for today, with two garlands to choose from. (I don’t own it yet, though, so I don’t know the details of the finished product; please don’t take my drawing as representative of the real thing.)

Unfortunately, by the time the dress came out (almost a year after the contest ended), it seems that some wires had gotten crossed and they neglected to name it after the winner, calling it Natasha instead. I had really been more excited about that than the $100 store credit, so I was disappointed and wrote about it, asking for the name to be changed; after Christmas, they did change the name to the Liana Dress! (Thank you to everyone who agreed it should be changed – I don’t know if it affected the decision, but personally I appreciated it!)

Well, in any case, if you want to wear something I designed, this may be as close as you’ll ever get! Check Holy Clothing out, as well as their very active Facebook fan page.


Light Green Tea Length 1950s Prom Dress with Green Tulle and White Lace Sash

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Today I started drawing so late that you are all lucky not to be getting the paperdoll equivalent of coal in your stocking! Even though I was tired I think this came out fairly cute, though. I don’t quite know why I thought a 1950s prom dress was just what I needed tonight, but they certainly are adorable. This one may even be a little understated, but did I mention I’m tired?


Black And White Short-Sleeved Princess Gown with Wave Patterns

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

I wanted to draw a princess-ish dress today, but it’s too hot and even drawing loads of fabric seems unappealing. (OK, so even with short sleeves, even if you imagine the fabric to be fairly light this is still quite a lot of imaginary fabric, but Ivy doesn’t have the same concerns in her life that I do, so it’s all right.) This one seems a little boring to me, but colored (maybe in light, cool colors) with a little pattern here and there, I bet it’d be really cute.

Brian and I saw The Secret of Kells today, a fantastic animated movie about The Book of Kells. The art style is absolutely gorgeous and intricate, and the story was charming as well. The waves here are kind of influenced by it, come to think of it, although I didn’t really realize until Brian pointed it out!

Time for a new contest! Winner gets to pick any one of my black-and-white dresses and tell me how they want it to be colored. The last one got a mite tedious, so this one will run from now until 9:00 PM EST, June 2nd.

How many visits did my site get between (and including) April 1, 2010 and April 30, 2010?

Don’t forget the rules…
1) If you’ve already won this year, please don’t enter.
2) One guess per person per post.
3) If no one gets the exact number by 9:00 PM EST, June 2nd, I’ll pick the closest guess.
4) I’ll give one hint each day the contest goes on.

Edit: It’s Sunday, and I’m not posting a paperdoll today but I am posting a hint! It’s between 10,000 and 30,000.

For my poll, it looks like summer has pulled ahead slightly…