1960s Dresses and other projects

Wren*Feathers has been offering free 1960s dress patterns for AG dolls based on old Chatty Cathy outfits for the last few weeks, and if you make one or more outfits from those patterns before January 1, you can get two more free patterns.  So of course the human had to do this.  And so Sam and I are suffering through the latest bout of sewing.  Because you see, when the human tries out new patterns, she uses random remnants from the stash instead of the nice fabric that we know she has.

I'm wearing the Chatty Cathy smock dress (free pattern here) made in a lightweight turquoise corduroy.  The pattern came together really easily.  For the sleeve cuff, the human used the sleeve cuff from Samantha's Pleasant Company patterns.

 And Sam is wearing a pink cotton blouse (vintage Japanese cottons) and a floral stripe corduroy jumper (free pattern here).   think I got the better deal, honestly.

The human was busy doing other things instead of throwing us a Christmas party, but we got our fair share of loot.  Those are all the new books we got in the last week. 

From left to right:

• Jane Eyre
• Pride and Prejudice
• Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of the King, The Hobbit
• A Little Princess, The Secret Garden
• A Girl of the Limberlost
• The Wizard of Oz, The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, The Road to Oz, the Emerald City of Oz
• Peter and Wendy
• Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
• Robin Hood
• The Boxcar Children
• Little Women
• The Baby's Opera, The Baby's Own Aesop, The Baby's Bouquet (we got them for the wonderful illustrations by Walter Crane)
• A Floral Fantasy (another volume of Walter Crane illustrations that doubles as an herbal)

At this point I can safely say that we have every book that Pleasant Company/Mattel ever made for us historical girls.  And then some.  A good number of these books will show up on Etsy come the new year.

And R2-D2 is holding onto my new lunchbox for me.  I think he'll give it back.  Maybe.  Droids don't need food.

Shoujo Manga Extravaganza

The human may have gone overboard when I told her about the extreme lack of manga in our bookshelves.  After all, she has a manga collection, so why shouldn't we?

So I got to pick some, and my first choice was a set of Sailor Moon manga, all ten volumes, the latest 2014 edition.  The first volume is in English, but the rest are in Japanese.  It matters less for us than for humans, I think.  (Besides, the human reads Japanese anyways, and her good manga are all in Japanese, so it's only fair we get the same.)

And yes, it has actual images and text.  Each volume has about a chapter of manga.

But while I like the more modern (yes, yes, I know Sailor Moon is 90s manga.  But they're putting out the new anime still so it counts.) manga, I also wanted a few shoujo classics.  So I had the human track down some old Ikeda Ryoko manga from the 70s.  AND I'll be sharing those with everyone.  (The Sailor Moon manga are my personal property and no, I'm not sharing those.)

And these are the real classics that practically founded the shoujo genre.  We have 'The Rose of Versailles', which spawned at least 10 musicals, various translations, and one English movie 'Lady Oscar'.  It's the human's favorite.  Then we have 'Brother, Dear Brother'.  If 'Rose of Versailles' inspired the setting for Revolutionary Girl Utena (another 90s favorite), then 'Brother, Dear Brother' was responsible for the *ahem* drama *ahem* of the cast.  And finally, 'Claudine', which was super dramatic and super sad.

(Random interjection:  Did you know that Shirogane Naoto's persona designs (Persona4 and spinoffs) were heavily influenced by 'Rose of Versailles'?  That's how much of a cultural touchstone this is in Japan.)

As always, the human was kind enough to include real text and images in my manga.

So.  This is the one and only content warning I will give.  All of Ikeda-sensei's manga that I'm showing off here contain LGBT characters.  (In fact, all of the manga I have now contain LGBT characters.)  I hear some people don't like to be surprised by that or something.  So I'm telling you BEFORE you download it.  Oh right, additional content warnings include suicide (all of the above), and transphobia (Claudine only).  So, maybe not the right manga for someone under the age of 13.

We're dolls.  We're allowed to read anything we want.

And now, the manga you've been waiting for:

Manga

Instructions

Instructions Addendum:  The binding is going to be different for these.  There is no cover to cut out.  Instead you'll be using duct tape to bind these.  Follow the instructions until the part where you attach the cover.
1.  Cut out two small pieces of cardstock the same size as the pages.
2.  Glue the cardstock to the first and last pages.
3.  Spread white glue down the spine.
4.  Cut a piece of duct tape the same length as the book is tall and 1" wide (half the normal width of duct tape is fine)
5.  Place the book down the center of the duct tape (so treat the duct tape like the A/B piece in the instructions) and fold the duct tape to cover the spine.
6.  Fold the dust jacket over the book.

If you liked these, please visit our etsy shop at JinjiaMixedGoods for more printable books for dolls.

Also, we're holding a book pattern giveaway until 12/31/2015.  Leave a comment here with what book published before 1923 (aka 'in the public domain') you'd like to see made in doll size to enter.  The winner will get a full 18 patterns for a complete Hogwarts textbook collection.

Paper Puppet Stages

We've been lax about showing off mostly because the human has been insanely busy trying to graduate on time.  She should be done any day now (certainly before Christmas), so we'll have more time to do stuff.  She still owes us a gingerbread house and a holiday party.

But first, some of the new toys we got this fall:  paper puppet boxes!

Each little puppet stage has a handful of characters (they have different expressions and costumes on the back) and a handful of background scenes that you can swap out to tell the whole story.  The human sized versions were found here but the human shrinked these for us.  These were printed out on cardstock and glued with plain white glue and glue sticks.

We have 'Little Red Riding Hood', 'Cinderella', and 'Hansel and Gretel' boxes.  The real fun will come the week between Christmas and New Year's.

Get these boxes here:  (be warned, you'll want a pair of super sharp and super tiny scissors for some of the cuts)

Instructions

Cinderella

Hansel and Gretel

Little Red Riding Hood

If you liked these, please visit our etsy shop at JinjiaMixedGoods for more printable books for dolls.

Also, we're holding a book pattern giveaway until 12/31/2015.  Leave a comment here with what book published before 1923 (aka 'in the public domain') you'd like to see made in doll size to enter.  The winner will get a full 18 patterns for a complete Hogwarts textbook collection.

1950s Space Magazines for Dolls

This is Shepard, and welcome to your sporadic dose of space exploration history.  At some point, AG put that that Maryellen short video about AstroGirl, and astronomy and all that good stuff.  And during the video, Maryellen mentions something "I read that in Collier's." when talking about space travel with her friends.

Most people probably went 'Oh, that's just some random background thing AG put in there.'  It's not.  In 1952, Collier's Magazine put out a series of 8 articles (6 of which had cover art) on how "Man Will Conquer Space Soon".  It covered everything from basic space travel to astronaut selection to lunar bases and getting to Mars.  The articles were written by people like Fred Lawrence Whipple, Dr. Joseph Kaplan, Dr. Heinz Haber, and Wernher von Braun.  The concept art is absolutely stunning.

Obligatory Wikipedia link: Man Will Conquer Space Soon!

In 2012, for the 60th anniversary, the Houston Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics did a complete reprint of the series in their newletter.  You can read the original articles at http://www.aiaahouston.org/newsletter/.  Scroll down until you hit the 2012 newsletters.

Since there were only 6 covers but 8 articles, I've combined some of the issues.  For once, the print is really too small to read, but you and your local space cadet can still enjoy the gorgeous artwork

Collier's Magazines

Instructions

If you liked these, please visit our etsy shop at JinjiaMixedGoods for more printable books for dolls.

Also, we're holding a book pattern giveaway until 12/31/2015.  Leave a comment here with what book published before 1923 (aka 'in the public domain') you'd like to see made in doll size to enter.  The winner will get a full 18 patterns for a complete Hogwarts textbook collection.

Slik, Velvet, and Leather

Once upon a time, I bought a piece of lovely glove weight royal blue leather and had no idea what to do with it.  And then I found a piece of dark blue silk velvet in a store in Beijing.  So after torturing some of the dolls with holiday fug, I decided to see if I could make some gorgeous outfits as well.  I think I succeeded.

The whole outfit collection has:
1 long sleeved peasant blouse made of vintage Japanese kimono silk with machine embroidery on the sleeves and hem
1 short sleeved peasant blouse made of the same, but plain
1 leather vest lined with vintage silk
1 reversible leather/gold brocade corset
1 blue velvet skirt
1 blue velvet jacket with vintage mother of pearl button accents
1 pair of blue leather pants

Here's Cauthrien in the long sleeved blouse, the leather vest, and the leather pants. 

And here's Nora in the skirt, jacket, and the corset with the brocade side out.

Nora again, showing off the short sleeve blouse and the leather side of the corset.

And then we switched things up a bit to see how well the pieces coordinated.  The jacket and corset just make everything look so formal, and the blouse and vest dresses it down.

Cauthrien looks so very military in the jacket and corset

Nora looks old fashioned and all renfaire/SCA ready in the blouse, vest, and skirt.

Ugly holiday sweaters and not-so-ugly holiday books

And this week, in 'the human has too much time and not enough to do' category, we introduce our new collection of ugly holiday sweaters.  Made from ugly holiday socks.  The human is no longer allowed out on Black Friday.  (Not shown are the new hats that were formerly jar toppers from the Yankee Candle Company.  Those are for the party in December.)

But, there is some small consolation, as we are now back on track with our papercrafting projects after a break last week.  This week, to go with our holiday sweaters, we have some new kitschy vintage holiday books.

We have a book of Christmas Carols (courtesy of the John Hancock Insurance Company, 1950) and three vintage Christmas Little Golden Books from the 1950s:  Christmas in the Country, Jingle Bells, and The Christmas Mice.  These are the right period for Maryellen, and would be adorable little stocking stuffers.

 Christmas Carols

Christmas Carol Instructions

Christmas Little Golden Books
Little Golden Book Instructions

Instruction addendum for Little Golden Books:  Glue pages of book together.  Do not follow instructions for making cover.  Run a line of white glue down the spine of the block of pages.  Wait to dry.  Fold cover at lines.  Match first and last pages of the block of pages to the inside of the cover.  Glue.

If you liked these, please visit our etsy shop at JinjiaMixedGoods for more printable books for dolls.

Papercraft-a-long Week 5: Classic Nancy Drew Mysteries

Welcome to week 5 of our Papercraft-a-long.  This time we're getting into some fancy papercrafting with doll-sized versions of the original Nancy Drew books.  We have the first three books:  'The Secret of the Old Clock', 'The Bungalow Mystery' and 'The Hidden Staircase'.  First published in 1930, these books have been updated over the years and are still incredibly popular.  These would be great for any girl, but be particularly accurate for Kit, Molly, and Maryellen.

Next week we're taking a break from bookbinding and switching to making games and toys out of paper for the inevitable winter gift giving holidays.  (Over here we celebrate the secular version of Christmas for giftgiving.  Your mileage may vary.)

We have the first edition dust jackets for our books.  Each book is not quite 2 inches tall, and has around 20 pages of text and illustrations.  Keep in mind that these are still under copyright in the US, so make them for your personal use only.

Instructions

Addendum:  Trace out parts C, D, E, and F onto index cards or cardstock.  

Fold dust jacket around book as the final step.

The Secret of the Old Clock

The Bungalow Mystery

The Hidden Staircase

If you liked these, please visit our etsy shop at JinjiaMixedGoods for more printable books for dolls.

Sneak preview of projects to come

Sam here.  The human is taking a break from her regularly scheduled thesis to bring you a sneak preview of some more papercrafting projects in the pipeline.  We don't have time for a full photoshoot of everything right now, but we promise they'll be up in the future.

First off, a pop-up alphabet set for the classroom.  Just a warning right now that this is a 20 hour minimum crafting project, and involves very small pieces of paper.  But the results are super cute.

Next, paper puppet storybook playsets.  This one is for Cinderella.  We also have sets for Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood.  There's actually even more, but the human hasn't made them yet.

Finally, what everyone loves best:  even more mini books!  There's a set of old fashioned (think 1890s) Japanese fairy tales.  Sixteen books, all complete with text and illustrations as a matter of fact, and Kana has them all.  The human was getting a little grumpy towards the end of trying to make all of them.  (Kana has, for the record, ran of out space in her room for the books.)  And for something festive, vintage Christmas Little Golden Books.  The print quality isn't so good this time because the human used her home printer instead of the one at work.