Three Halloween Costumes (Clown, Dragon, Gypsy) from Liana’s Paperdoll Boutique

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As it happens, I’m entirely out of paper — I’m going to pick up a new sketchbook tomorrow or maybe later on today, but in the meantime the first of October passes without a single costume, which is very depressing. So, pardon me for falling back on my ten-year old boutique dresses once again! Here is a clown costume, a dragon costume and a gypsy costume for my ten-year old dolls. (Also, my devil costume and angel costume have links to the original Boutique versions as well.)

Look, an October poll!


Two Fantasy Princess Gowns from Liana’s Paperdoll Boutique

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Here are two of the fantasy gowns from my old Boutique site. The blue and white one seems to have a sort of military character to it, to me, like a Valkyrie ballgown, and I like the red on the other one…

I’ve been thinking about what constitutes a “Princess” gown, mostly because the three-pack of Kleenex my husband brought home when we were sick includes one box with the Disney Princess girls on it. (He was pretty sick too at this point, I doubt he thought anything but “wife needs kleenex, kleenex exists in these boxes, these boxes are available for purchase, go go go”) All of them have had some significant wardrobe additions since the Princess line came out: I’ve seen these gold dress variations a few times, and the Kleenex box has something similar to that, although the dresses are the original colors. Everything else is changed: every inch of fabric that can have gold scrolls or ropes of jewels or lace and embroidery now does, and there are other embellishments such as jeweled capes, lacy ruffs, tiaras and more detailed sleeves. Sleeping Beauty’s looks like she’s got a Venus flytrap on her shoulders, in my opinion, and I wish I could find a picture of this so everyone could agree with me. The box says that it’s the newest Disney Princess collection, “Jewels,” but I can’t find any pictures.

Anyways, I must admit that it delights my inner 10-year old, but it made me think of some of Amy Mebberson’s Disney drawings of the characters that didn’t make the core Princess group cut, such as Kida and Eilonwy — here’s one of the “Non Princess Club and here’s Disney’s Forgotten Princesses So I thought it would be fun to draw a dress for one of the girls left out of the Princess club in this poofy Bedazzled “Jewels” style… I’m not going to post a poll since there are so many options, but leave a comment and tell me who you think should have their dress redone!

Looking at the Non-Princess Club, I think it’d be fun to do a dress from the Sprite from Fantasia, but I’m open to suggestions on this one…


Three More 1800s Dresses from Liana’s Paperdoll Boutique

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I guess I’m not quite ready to return to that once-a-day ideal with this headache. That’s what you get for reading essays full-time! It’s too bad because now I’m all excited about paperdolling. But that’s OK, I’ll do one tomorrow… or Wednesday, perhaps, when I have a day off. But I’ll try for tomorrow!

These are the final outfits from the 1800 collection from my old site, Liana’s Paperdoll Boutique. I believe that the green caped confection is a reproduction of a bathing suit, although I don’t know what the reference was for that and can’t give any more precise details, as it was something like ten years ago after all.

Here, too, is this week’s poll… So in preparation for the plane rides I downloaded a bunch of short audiobooks off of Librivox, rather at random, and put them on my iPod, but I didn’t listen to all of them. Here are the candidates: what should I listen to next? (Keep in mind a paperdoll usually comes from whatever I’m listening to ;) )
The Big Bow Mystery, Carmilla, The Enchanted Castle, Otto of the Silver Hand, The Lone Star Ranger.


Three 1800s regency gowns from Liana’s Paperdoll Boutique

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Thank you everyone for the kind thoughts about our dear Maggie. It was a horrible time for all of us and all your thoughtful comments really made me feel better about her. The apartment seems so much different without her trotting around… Harume seems as placid as ever (we don’t call her Goldfish Brain for nothing) but she’s become more vocal, always meowing over and over. She doesn’t seem sad, though, but just chatty, so I guess she’s all right.

I’ve had a half-finished dress for a while now, so I decided to restart the process with some Boutique gowns… These are from the 1800s (though when I drew them I didn’t make any finer distinctions of time, so I forget exactly when they are supposed to be from). I put them up in honor of the kind link from Jane Austen Today, and also because I just finished Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and regency gowns are on my mind. I actually remember exactly where I was when I was drawing the gowns in this set: working in the computer lab at Tri-C back in high school, a job which entailed fixing jammed printers, cleaning up and signing people in and out. So I could sit at the desk by the door and have some downtime to draw, and I just thought I had it made!