Miscellanea

As the title indicates, this is yet another bits and pieces post. Things are a little crazy over here, since I'm packing up to move on Friday. Please pardon the metaphorical dust!

1. It's been forever since I did a Sunday photo shoot, and almost as long since I featured a paper doll! This one solves both problems by showing off my latest creation, Cerise Wolf.

I took these photos when on vacation with my family. We went camping, and the woods seemed the perfect place to showcase Cerise's wolf side. 

As you can probably tell, these photos weren't actually taken in the woods - I love photographing my dolls, but not enough to get poison ivy and spider bites. So I compromised by posing her on a wooden ledge. Her cape, when folded out, functioned so well as a stand that she barely needed tape to keep her posed. 

I'm really pleased with how she came out - to me she's more beautiful than the actual Cerise Wolf - but I'm also thrilled with how the pictures turned out too. These were all taken with a cell phone camera, and yet I managed to get a nice blurry woods background without the use of fancy lenses and settings. (I say this not to boast but to encourage you - Paper Doll World is all about achieving the results you want on a budget, and if I can do it, of course you can.)

If you liked these photos, stay tuned because I have a tutorial on how to make your own Cerise Hood! (Yes, in addition to finally having a Sunday photo shoot, there will also be a Tuesday tutorial. I haven't completely abandoned you!)

2. I hate to be self-promotional, but I really need your help in the Doll Wardrobe photo contest. My entry is #3, and if you would just take a few seconds to vote for me I'd be extremely grateful. Since I don't like doing these sort of vote pleas (that's why I'm never going to run for government office, haha) I'm making a deal - if I win, I'll set up a giveaway here as a thank you for your help. Everyone benefits! Just click the photo below:

3. All right, this is the part of the miscellanea that's sad for me to type. Like I said earlier, I'm moving in less than a week to university, and as you can imagine I'll have much less time for dolls and blogging once the school year starts again. (I'm also not keen on bringing my entire doll collection, limited as it is, and freaking my roommate out.) After a long talk with my dad, I decided that the best thing to do is to put Paper Doll World on hold. I don't want to give up on blogging altogether, and I do want to get the store fully running, but for this next semester at least blogging will have to take a backseat. I've been a fairly sporadic blogger this past semester, so while I would love to say that this has just been a rough patch and to expect more posts, that isn't true. I'll pop in from time to time, but (and I truly am sorry about this) don't expect regular posting. I will try to schedule as much as I can in the limited time I have, so we'll see about maintaining some level of blogging normalcy.

That's all for today, so thanks for reading, and I'll see you in a few days!

Surprise Again!

Well, my final surprise is out, and though you've probably seen it I'm going to post about it anyway because I still can't believe that it actually happened. I'm not quite sure how to properly share this without sounding boastful and arrogant, so I'm just going to stick this screencap here:

I've got a guest post up on The Toy Box Philosopher! It's been four days and I'm still over the moon. 

As you know, I have a thing for commemorating special occasions with Ellowyne Wilde, and have fallen for "Flora, Fauna, and not so Merryweather" ever since she was released as the January convention exclusive. So when I saw that Wilde Imagination had marked her down and threw in a deal for 25% off plus free shipping, I thought she'd make the perfect graduation gift to myself. So I snapped her up just before she sold out, and when she arrived in mid-June I was so in love with this Ellowyne that I asked Emily of The Toy Box Philosopher if I could send in a guest review. As you can tell from the fact that I'm writing this post, she graciously agreed. 

It was a wonderful experience, and I am so overwhelmed by the fact that I was lucky enough to have it.  In my emails to her I couldn't stop thanking her for the opportunity; not only is Emily a really fantastic person, it really enhanced my enjoyment of this new Ellowyne. Now whenever I look at the doll I think about the fantastic time I had putting together the review, and that makes me adore her even more. 

Some of my favorite photos of the new Ellowyne Wilde doll, who I've renamed Florence Ophelia Wilde (as you can see, I stuck with the trend of giving my Ellowyne dolls Shakespearean names):

I really wanted to get a picture of Ophelia leaning over the bridge, but the scale was all wrong and I was petrified of dropping my new doll into the river, so I settled for this instead. It turned out nicely, though, so all's well that ends well. 

This is one of my very favorites, though I had to rush to get the pictures taken because this area was a mosquito haven. Lucky for Ophelia that mosquitos don't care for plastic. 

I wish I had a photo of myself taking this photo to show you how crazy it looked. I was in front of my house contorted like a Cirque de Soleil acrobat so I could be at just the right angle for the photo, holding out Ophelia at arm's length with my phone in the other hand and her jacket in my lap, and just as I was trying to position Ophelia just right to take the photo, my neighbor drove by and gave me the strangest look. Oh well, at least the photo turned out nicely.

Just like Viola, Ophelia shines in the late afternoon sunlight. Both dolls have such beautiful hair that is so fun to photograph.

I would be remiss if I didn't include a picture of Ophelia with a few paper dolls, since this is Paper Doll World, after all.

Miniatures upon miniatures - these photos got somewhat meta, especially when my sister decided to help arrange the dolls (I didn't share those photos because of internet privacy, but suffice it to say that it was pretty cute), but to me it encapsulates my feeling that no matter what three-dimensional dolls end up on my shelf, my first priority will always be my paper dolls.

I'm going to close off with one of my top favorite photos:

 I love this photo so much - Viola and Ophelia are so different, yet both extraordinarily beautiful. The green tulle on Viola's dress and the olive shantung of Ophelia's jacket are very close matches for their eyes.

That's it for my surprises; I hope you enjoyed them as much as I did. I'll be back soon with, hopefully, some new paper ideas and a few 3D projects as well. Come back soon!