blue

Masquerade Gown in White Lace and Blue Sequins with Light Blue Ruffles and Coral Ribbon

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A masquerade gown with a bodice patterned with white lace. The neckline is off the shoulders and slightly V-shaped, and is trimmed with a line of sparkling blue ribbon. The sleeves are three-quarter, and their edges are trimmed with more sparkling blue ribbon. There are long ruffles attached to the edges of the sleeves, and they are colored in a gradient from dark blue to light blue, nearly white, at the edges. They are decorated with a light water pattern. The bodice extends over the top of the skirt and is gathered at one hip, decorated with a bright coral-colored bow. From the bow, four rows of ruffles fall towards the base of the skirt like a waterfall. Each one is colored from dark blue to light blue at the edge, and each one is decorated with a light water pattern. The skirt is royal blue, deeply pleated, and patterned with sequins, so that at the top of each pleat they catch the light and sparkle vividly. The skirt is long, and falls to the floor.Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

When I selected this gown and started working on it, the purple sparkly dress was ahead in the poll, so I thought, sure, I can take a hint. This week is now Sparkle Week, because I’d like to practice making things sparkle. I really like how the skirt turned out on this one, but hey, there’s always room for improvement. It is all a matter of getting the brushes right… I have a lot of sparkly brushes to play with thanks to Obsidian Dawn, and the lace pattern is also one of theirs.

Let’s have a new contest!
Milo has received so many beautiful, handmade blankets from family members and friends that I probably could have started a baby blanket shop. Recently, though, one of them has become the favorite blankie. He likes to have it in his crib with him at night, and he wraps it around his shoulders and walks around with it like he’s the emperor of the house. (Which he is, but…) It has three colors in it. What are those three colors? The winner gets to tell me how to color this week’s gown!
Hint: I’m not being picky about color names. It’s not like you have to say royal blue, crimson and lemon yellow (for example), I just want the basic color names here.
One entry per new post per day, please. Update: Sarah guessed. I thought that would take longer than it did! It’s white, blue and green.

Also, I’ve set up a Facebook fan page and a separate Twitter account. I’ll use both of these for announcing new posts, but also I’ll try to put up some new content, like special recolored dresses and contests, and I’ll also post some links to paperdoll and fashion related things I like. So please like my page or follow me, depending on your choice of social media!

1930s Evening Gown in Light Blue

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A 1930's style evening gown. It is sleeveless, and has a deep V neck with ruching at the shoulders and chest. It has a peplum around the hips and a long, fitted skirt that flares out slightly at the ankles. It is a light bluish-green and has a small floral pattern all over.Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.
I’m back! I never can stop paperdolling for too long, even with a baby. As you can see, there’s something different about this dress. It’s one of my black and white dresses, and I’ve colored it in Photoshop. Please don’t worry that I’ve abandoned my colored pencils! I’ve decided to learn to use Photoshop to color for a project my husband Brian and I are working on. I’ve always used it for various things, but there are so many things I still have to learn about it. Melissa Evans’ Coloring Line Art tutorial has been the most useful tutorial I’ve found, although I’ve poked at other ones as well. I’ve got some quibbles about how this one turned out, but it is a first attempt. It is much easier than I thought it would be, once you learn how to break it down. (For example, clipping masks changed my entire outlook on coloring with Photoshop. It makes so much sense! I just never knew.) For this dress, I used a pattern made by Jen of Pixels & Ice Cream, Feliz Navidad Damask. I’m on the lookout now for good patterns and brushes, so if you know of any, please let me know!

You may have noticed an e-mail sign up form to the right. If you sign up, I’ll e-mail you whenever I have a new update. Of course, I won’t sell your address or spam you or anything like that. I hope it’s a good solution to my habit of erratic posting.

Milo smiling and walking around in the rose garden. How is Milo doing, you might ask? He’s doing beautifully! Just look at him. That’s where all my free time goes. It’s also why my desk is piled three feet high with books. (He likes to take them off the shelves, so I have to rescue them.) Another reason why, for the time being, digital coloring wins over ten plastic bags of colored pencils…

I have a long ways to go to get good at digital coloring, so I’m going to try to do a lot of it in the next few months. So let’s have a contest!
What is Milo’s favorite food?
The first person to answer correctly gets to tell me how I should color this 1930s black and white gown. (I’m going to color other ones eventually, but for now I want to practice on this one.)

For this contest, even if you’ve won one of my previous contests you can enter. Let’s call it the great contest reset button. One entry only, please, and my mom and husband are excluded. (You guys get a free suggestion without having to enter, how’s that?) Get your entries in now, while everyone else has forgotten this blog exists!

Black and Blue Assassin Princess Gown

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A dramatic ball gown with a black sequined bodice and long sleeves, puffed blue sleeves at the shoulder and a full, shiny blue skirt with a black sequined hem. There's a wide purple satin sash around the waist and purple satin at the wrists.Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

A few weeks ago, there was a thread on Metafilter written by a woman who works as a party princess, talking about what her job is like. That is, she gets dressed up as Cinderella, Rapunzel or so on, then arrives at the birthday girl’s house to direct games, tell stories and otherwise let the good times roll. Her tales of how much the little girls love princesses are hilarious, and they’re accompanied by some adorable, funny illustrations. (They’ve also made me wonder why I haven’t found a good way to make millions off my paperdolls. The dresses seem to be a major selling point with this whole princess adoration thing.) They’re posted on the Something Awful forums, so you can’t easily read through them all at once, but here are links to the ones currently available. one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

Since I’ve been enjoying these stories so much I thought I’d make a paperdoll for them, based off the name she uses on Twitter, Assassin Princess. What kind of outfit might an assassin princess wear? I imagine she is going to the ball not to win Prince Charming’s heart but to stab it. In such a lovely dark gown, snatching the prince’s attention away from a simpering beauty in pink is hardly a challenge. A few dances later, they are standing on a secluded balcony, making small talk about the moon and stars, and he leans in for a kiss… Unfortunately the poofy skirt hides several pockets, one of which holds a dagger. As he’s laying on the ground, the last thing he sees is the *sparklesparkle* of the sequins on the swishy hem of her skirt.

poll by twiigs.com

Blue, Black and Gold Angel Gown for Low’s “Long Way Around The Sea”

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A flowing, loose gown made of three layers. The innermost layer is a light blue tunic with wide sleeves that fall to the wrist and a full hemline that reaches to the feet. The hem, edge of the sleeves and neck are edged with gold trim. Over that are two sleeveless tunics. The one on the outside is dark blue and open in the front, while the one underneath that is dark blue and crosses in a V at the front near the waistline so that the light blue of the first tunic is visible. The entire dress is belted at the waist with a gold rope belt, which is tied in a bow at the side and has long ends that fall to the knee. The edges of the two top tunics are draped in soft folds which show the gold reverse side of the fabric, and the edges are staggered so that you can see part of the black tunic under the blue one and part of the light blue tunic under the black one. The edges of all three skirts fan out in a trumpet shape near the hem.Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it! To those of you who don’t, happy end of December, and apologies for the incessant Christmas cacophony.

Lyrika asked me and a bunch of other bloggers to write about one of our favorite Christmas carols this year for one of her Random Magic tours. You can – and should – see the other bloggers’ picks by checking the schedule: Songs of the Season.

I love most Christmas carols and know a whole lot of them, thanks to playing the piano as a kid, so it was tough to decide on just one; I decided to go with one that I wouldn’t expect most readers to have heard before, Low’s “Long Way Around The Sea.” Low is a group that my husband is really into, but I know very little about them other than that I love their Christmas album. “Long Way Around The Sea” is a melancholy song with a classic feeling about the three wise men being warned by an angel against going back to see Herod after visiting the baby Jesus.

I have a real weakness for such dark-sounding songs, and somehow this one puts me in mind of dark colors like black and blue. Even the angel is dressed in a relatively subdued way because she doesn’t want to call attention to herself. No, no, don’t look at me, I picture her saying, just hurry and head back that-a-way instead, OK?