Hope you enjoyed the first day of '13 !

Current Mood : Delighted !

Happy 2013 ! How’s the year treating you so far ? I posted some resolutions over at the message board, ‘cause they asked, and it was ‘make more, play more, enjoy more, learn more – spend and buy less’. Then I remembered that I still hold out hope for a Slow-Moe doll, as well as a Heath Burns dude, and I’d kinda like a Caterine De Mew, so I added them, too. So much for ‘spend less’ !

But I am cheep in other ways. Ya’ll may remember – although I barely do – that I didn’t buy the 2012 Monster High wall calendar ‘til April, and that was mostly because Calendars.com had it marked down to less than four bucks. Delivered ! I’m kinda hoping for the same deal this year, too, but I like having an MH calendar. What to do ? Well, I can always pull up an online free calendar page, print it up and tape it over the January 2012 part ! New-to-me calendar image, up-to-date calendar. And yes, I have done this before. I’m cheep and shameless, even when there are thousands of cute kitty calendars for just a dollar. Don’t want more kitties, want MH. This way, I get it, extra-cheep. January (2012 and 2013) gives us the ‘Slumber Party’ image from the back of the Dead Tired doll boxes.

Um…has anyone noticed that both the full-size and mini calendars this year don’t have anything like that ? It’s all posed stock character art. Kinda boring. Even when they do get marked down, I’m not sure if I’ll buy one or not. There’s a billion themes to work with, and new art that’d be so easy to do – if you want my $13.99, you’re gonna hafta make more of an effort than stock images dealt randomly like playing cards.

Not much I could do to the purple glitter-dot Dollar Tree dress, but take it up at the sides and add a line of Fray-check to the bottom hem. It was stitched oddly to begin with, the front piece was wider than the back. When I took it in at the sides, the unbalance made that pleat, but I like it, so I kept it. The original plan was to stripe the top and hem with red ribbon. As you can probably tell from the photo, I was wearing a red shirt today.

That leaves just one DTree package left – the faux-denim skirt dress with the socks that match the bodice, and a fuzzy green tube dress with an orange ruffle accent that’s almost identical to the one I altered today. It’s funny, but I’m kind of getting excited about opening those Deluxe Packs, and sewing from scratch, now that there’s a ‘gotta do this first’ limiter on it !

One thing I should say about both the tube dresses. If you were to ask a kid to cut out a shape for a doll dress, it would probably look like these – wide at the top, narrow at the waist, widest (almost billowing, and invariably sharply triangular) at the bottom. Thing is, without barbs or a slip, or anything to hold the inverted ‘v’ of the skirts open, the fabric just folds in on itself, and hangs straight. When I look at the penny-pinching measures taken on these clothes – and I’m not complaining, these were two outfits in a package for a dollar, retail ! – it’s funny that they pretty much wasted quite a bit of fabric on flared skirts that simply don’t flare.

While I had the ballpoint needle and white thread loaded up in KJ, I went ahead and fixed a blouse that suffered a torn sleeve hem in the wash. It’s probably a waste, since that shirt’s about two months away from being relegated to the ‘only wear around the house’ drawer, but it’s good for a few more public wears. Plus the ‘house wear’ drawer’s getting pretty packed, since only worn-to-rags things ever get pulled outta there !   

Oogh. On a new medicine, and it makes me a bit woozy. Gonna have a lie down for a bit. Hope your first day of ’13 was fantastic !