Echinacea!

She is finished! My beautiful dryad girl!

I don't have that much to say except LOOOKIEEEEEEE!

 

I wound up not taking process photos of the flower crown and skirt ferns. If you're really curious, I'll just tell you. If you're not curious, suffer. I cut up a green t shirt into strips and stretched it out to the edges curled in on themselves n wouldn't fray. Then I sewed 3 strips together at one end, braided them until they were long enough to go around the doll's head, and sewed the free ends and the bound ends together.

Then I dug through my box of fake flowers from when flower crowns were a trend in 2014, and found small ones, and poked them in between the strands of the braid, dabbing a little tacky glue on the backside where the stem poked out. When the glue was dry I trimmed the stems. It was pretty genius, I say.

And the skirt ferns came from that same box, but I poked their stems in between the brown stitches where I sewed on the waistband. Nothing really keeping them there but tension. Hope they stay.

 

In other terrific dolly news, I visited an old boss/teacher/friend of mine after several years of not seeing her, and I was telling her about all my art projects, including the Echinacea project, and she revealed that she collects AG dolls too! She couldn't take me inside to show me her collection cause covid, but she sent me pictures later. Do you know how rare it is to meet another doll lover in real life? Super rare. I think she's the first one, actually, other than my younger cousin who got me into them in the first place. Do you know how rare it is to meet an AG doll lover older than my parents? Super duper rare! And of course she's indoctrinating her new granddaughter into AG with a Bitty Baby.

Andie and Rylan

Pride month is over. Like Way, way over. But here are Rylan and Andie, as gay and as proud of it as ever. So nice of that rainbow to show up for them ; )

I added it in PhotoscapeX, some free editing software that I'm trying to replace Aperture with. Aperture won't even open anymore. Has a little grayed out "no" symbol over its icon in the dock. Guess its finally truly dead. Photoscape x is pretty fun though. More features like adding rainbows.

 

(reminder to give your gf a smooch on she forehead)

 

Another one I've been considering trying is Photopea, which, i hear, is just photoshop copied element for element. Pretty poggers. But idk how to use photoshop so there will be a learning curve for using photopea too. If I learn how to use the clone stamp tool, then I can start using sticks to prop dolls up and have them do more dynamic poses.

 

This guitar is the only part of Tenney's collection I liked. Its exclusively Rylan's now. She likes to play Brandi Carlile covers on it. Here, she was singing Caroline. Now, she is practicing Wherever Is Your Heart. Andie tries to sing along, but she isn't any good. Not that Rylan cares- she thinks her girlfriend has the cutest voice in the world and is enamored just at her trying.

Happy pride month every month from Andie and Rylan! Long live the lesbians!!

-Gwen

Lily by the Kiwi

What up gang its been a BILLION years since I've posted. 

I've been in college and have had mental health issues like mad. WHOOP! But I still love my dolls and instagram is such a hard-to-look-at platform. So here I am.

 

The weather was GORGEOUS today and I just got back from a high school graduation party for one of my younger sibling's friends. I've talked to the same 8 people (my immediate family and my college roommates) for a year and a half, so I went just to have some novelty and socializing. There was yummy pizza and cookies, and I chatted with my old 8th grade english teacher and my elementary school librarian.

 

My family went off to another person's graduation party and I stayed home, one party is plenty for me. But the light was so nice outside, and the shadows were so bright, that I was suddnly struck by the urge to take doll pics again. Well, the urge is always there, but the energy and brainpower isn't. I'm on new meds now so I hope that this wanting-to-do-things streak will keep up.

 

Here's Lily in my favorite outfit for her under our big kiwi... tree? bush? Its a whole bunch of vines climbing up this pole by our deck, and it was pretty scrawny the first 3 years we had it, but now its branched out into this huge vine monster waving many arms and tendrils in the air. I love it.

Hope any of you still out there are enjoying the weather in your area. Monday is supposed to be 90. YEW!

Gwen

A snowy walk

Rylan and Andie went on a walk in the snow a few months ago, when we had a thick blanket of snow all over the property. It was such a nice break from the soggy deadness of winter.

Andie is wearing the fair isle sweater outfit, that had that nice puffy jacket sold seperately or something. Its easily one of my favorite AG winter outfits. Rylan is wearing a Lorilizgirlsanddolls flannel. It is my favorite Etsy purchace ever, but unfortunately Loriliz is no longer active. Her mittens are AG, but I don't know from what outfit, likely before I started collecting in 2013.

They breifly debated making a snowman, but decided it was too darn cold for that and decided on walking instead. 

Maybe they shared a snowy smooch, who's to say

In this one, I'm unsure if Andie fell over or if she's trying to make a snow angel. Whatever it is, Rylan is egging her on, or laughing at her for falling. 

Another shot of the abandoned snowman endeavor.

Bye from Andie and Rylan!

Do you miss the snow as soon as it melts or do you get so much snow you are glad when it leaves?

We don't get that much snow in western washington.

Rylan and the Face Melting Tunes

I bought Rylan Tenney's guitar for christmas and she loves it!

Previously she had been playing with the human sized guitars laying around my house, and I decided I needed a doll sized one.

 I bought it at the little pop up AG store in some mall near portland, making off with a heavy bag and a light wallet. In the bag was Logan's performance outfit, Z's camera set, and Tenney's guitar. It was the first time in a long time I had bought anything from AG. Logan's outfit was only $10, though, which was amazing.

This shoot was done with a black scarf, my dad's line 6 amp, and a couple plant lights. I was super proud of them, but they didn't do too well on Instagram. I think it's because I organized my feed and have 3 pictures in a row and post them all at once. Do any of you use Instagram and can offer me advice?

Rylan typing now. I want to help out with posts too. I wish I was playing something really face meltingly terrific but I've only had this guitar for a month. So I was doing my best to pluck out Immortality by Pearl Jam, which is terrific, but its just me, haltingly and by myself. Maybe I'll learn to sing too!

This is Gwen, back to talk about pictures some more. I really like the feel of these, the energy in them, but they might be a little dark or hard to look at for the average person scrolling on by. Aside from really wanting to show off the new guitar and have a lifelike shoot, I also went to the Museum of Popular Culture in Seattle with my aunt and uncle, where we saw Mick Rock's pictures of David Bowie. They were something else, I tell you. I hadn't listened to or seen David Bowie before, only heard the name. But the idea of a genderqueer alien from mars with a bunch of spider friends was right up my alley. I got home and listened to some Bowie, and didn't like it all that much, but that man's style and creativity was really fantastic.

Of course, none of this shoot is at all reminiscent of Ziggy Stardust, but the pictures on the wall did make me want to do something with darkness and color photographing a musician, even if the musician is an inanimate 18 inch vinyl girl.

Magical Andie

This post is dedicated to everyone who says american girl dolls are creepy. My original idea was for Andie to summon a demon, which is what happened in the last picture, but it turned out that she would rather mess around with angelic power, purple light of elves and awesomeness.
This magic has been brought to you by glow sticks and long exposure shots.

Hah if i waved the sticks around behind her it looked like i just photoshopped a grainy doll pic onto some old mac screensaver.

I would love to give andie magical powers but i think i already had lilly di that. Oh watever. All my dolls can live in a fantasy world. Something to think about.

I MADE A THING

Good day, friends! Recently I attempted sewing, and I must say it was a success. I have said previously that I don't know how to use a sewing machine, but my grandma got me one for Christmas and I have figured out how to use it fairly well. 

I made a few shirts a couple months ago, and then this Twenty One Pilots shirt yesterday night, and it turned out the best of all of them. 

I hemmed the sleeves and neck and bottom and everything, something I usually avoid doing. That went okay, except for some stitches got too close together.

And I used VELCRO! I used to just tape the backs shut because I was too lazy to go find the velcro.

If I get good at this, I'd make an etsy shop. You know, the hypothetical one I mentioned a few months ago- My dolls need a store like Hot Topic or something. I've never been into a hot topic, but I hear it's like fandom gear and band shirts.

But on top of that, we also need punk clothes and hipster clothes and clothes that don't conform to either "girl" styles or "boy" styles and, I don't know, dinosaur costumes. Everything not normal.
But I don't know how to sew.This should be easier to achieve now that I am learning to sew.

Here, have some pretty pictures of flowers I pressed:

I have acquired another plush dragon! Problem is, I'm not sure on the names. I tried food names, but they don't seem to work. I was trying to think up fancy names, but I'm not a fancy person. Perhaps inanimate objects? Compact Disc! Toothbrush Bristle! Hand Sanitizer! No. No. This is silly. Perhaps math terms. Parabola. Sinusoid. Asymptote. Cosecant. Yeah, those work a little better.

Anyway, this is the new guy. He doesn't have wings or an extra head. His name is Asymptote. In a tangent or cotangent graph (and a few other things that I forgot), the line can go up (or down) FOREVER! IT JUST WONT STOP! It could go in the Y (Or X, but i'm mostly concerned with Y right now) direction for infinity. But it will never make it past a certain line. That line is the asymptote.

Think about it this way: Walk halfway to your front door. And then half of that. And half of that. And half of that. And half of that. And half of that. You're getting closer and closer to the door but you'll never make it, no matter how long you keep going halfway there. The door is the asymptote.

HERE I'LL SHOW YOU ON DESMOS:

Here's a tangent. y=tan (1.5 x)

Look how after the curve it goes almost straight up, but never touches the line x=1.

What if we scrolled up a bit farther? What if we zoomed in?

It looks like it touches in the first picture, but that's just cause the line is too thick. The second picture is zoomed in and you can see it still doesn't touch x=1

That aside, the other dragon, the one with wings and two heads, is now named sinusoid an parabola.

Parabola. y=x^2

Sinusoid. y=sin (x)

Go here, to Desmos to play with graphs.

When the sun sets, it turns the tops of the trees orange. It looks like they're on fire!

An idea sparks

On Sunday afternoon, Rylan knocked on Lilly's door with a request.

"Get out of your pajamas and meet me and Andie under the fir tree. We're going on an adventure!"

Lilly looked up from her sketchbook, where she was attempting to draw a banana waging war on a small town. "What kind of adventure?"

"The the kind with lots of combat." Rylan replied conspiratorially. She then turned smartly and pranced down the hallway, imagining what sort of battles could be fought with three people and an unknown evil.

When Lilly made it outside in what was socially accepted as daytime clothes, she found her sister and her housemate under the fir tree discussing Cool and Creative Ways To Torture People, a topic explored so often that it got it's own capital letters. As of now, they were pondering leaving an artist in a room with a no-nonsense neat freak.

"Ah! Lilly!" Andie said, interrupting herself. "Have you brought a weapon or is that just a purse?" She said this in a way that clearly indicated she knew nothing about just how helpful a purse can be. Or perhaps she was just biased, because she fully understood just how helpful fanny packs and cargo pants could be.

"It is a purse. With a knife inside. And some snacks if this thing lasts too long. What's the sombrero for?" She said this in a way that clearly indicated that she knew nothing about just how helpful sombreros can be for fighting... whatever it was they would go fight. In fact, her tone may have also indicated that she did not believe sombreros were helpful at all. 

"Fear tactics." Andie replied with a truckload of self-assurance.

Lilly squinted at her.

"So. Lilly has a knife, I have a sword, and what do you have, Andie?"

"A BIG POINTY STICK!" She replied, a little louder than necessary.

She waited excitedly for her comrades to say that it looked like just a round-y piece of wood, and then pulled the top part off.

"LOOK AT THIS BABY! I FOUND IT IN GWEN'S CLAY BOX! You can use it for stabbing people, stabbing things, roasting marshmallows, crosshatching clay so you can stick two parts together and they won't come apart, dissecting dead things--" She stopped and gazed lovingly at it.

"Now, I see we all have sufficient weapons," Rylan said "All we need to decide is whether we want to save the world- or destroy it."

_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_

ALRIGHTY, FELLAS!

Should they save the world or destroy it? A little bit of both perhaps? Who needs saving? Who needs destroying?

That is for YOU to answer! Put your ideas in the comments, and I will try my best to carry them out! I want to hear all your ideas. Even the least feasible. I have other dolls to work with and a willingness to create things.