Making Ghostface American Girl Doll Edition

 Sydney is my favorite - in some ways - of my 3 American Girl dolls. It's funny, because I originally wasn't too keen on the dolls, and got her (and her twin, who I gifted to a family member) on a late night spur of the moment the year that they came out. 

As soon as I opened her up, Sydney began to form. She's a very pretty doll. And I have a lot of fun with her personality. She is my football fan, loves horror and Halloween. Her best friends (aside from her twin, Amber) are my Woof pups - I can't remember the brand, but I got them from Walmart this Spring. They are soft, but jointed and posable upright pups. I did a "monster" glow up on 3 of them, and therefor, the WoofMunsters were born. So Syd hangs with her 4 Woofmunsters. 

The first year that I had her, I made her a Jason mask out of felt. I loved the way it turned, and Sydney lived in it for weeks, refusing to take it off. (That's Sydney for you.) While the Jason mask was cool, it was only the mask. I dreamed of making her a Ghost face costume, but it seemed pretty impossible.

The next year came and went, and I barely even put her Jason mask on her. Now this year, I actually managed to make Sydney the costume of her dreams! 

How this came into being was an odd path there. Here's how it came together: First off, I had bought a BJD skull head back in the Summer on Etsy. Well, a long story short, due to all the problems the seller was having with casting the head cap for the head, I ended up just getting a refund for the head. (I have no ill feelings for the seller - she is very nice, and the problems were just beyond her control.) So, this put me on the path of trying to sculpt my own bird skull head. That didn't turn out - I loved what I was doing, and it was actually turning out looking like I wanted, but unfortunately, I didn't get back to working on for about 3 weeks, and somehow in that amount of time, the darn thing molded, so in the trash it went.

This experience, though, gave me some confidence that I could actually do some sculpting. I have made plenty of polymer clay food in the past, but sculpting heads and faces isn't something I have much experience with, if any at all. Then, the next thing that led me to making Sydney's costume, was the antique doll broken eye. I'll do a blog post simply on this project later, but again, long story short, I bought some Hearty Air Dry clay because it adheres to glass. I didn't need much of it for the above mentioned project, which meant that I had a lot of clay left over to use for other things.

I got to thinking, hey, maybe I could sculpt the Ghostface mask for Sydney after all! The Hearty Clay is different from the regular paper clay type air dry clay, in the sense that it is light weight and also dries like foam. Not exactly like foam, but if you ever have used it, you'll see why I am comparing it to that. The problem here was finding the time to do it. I expected time to - as usual - get away from me, and I would once again find myself filing away this project for next Halloween. On Thursday night a few weeks ago, I decided if I wanted to do it, I might as well do it now. So I turned on what was left of the Thursday Night Football game, and got to work.

I used a floating wigless AG head that was rolling around here to be rehomed to sculpt it on. I covered the head in plastic wrap, and started slapping the clay on it. I got the basic shape to where I was fairly happy with it that first night. It probably took 2 hours, maybe? I let it dry and then tried to fill in any rough parts and fleshed out any of the features that I felt were lacking a day or 2 later. 

Then it sat in my room for a good while, maybe 2 weeks or so. The other night - again, during a football game (I think this one was a college game) I worked on sanding down the face to smooth it out, and trimming the excess around the edges. This clay doesn't sand down great. I did see that it was a little smoother, but not like I had planned on. Once I figured it was as good as it was going to get, I painted it. Filling in the black of the eyes, nose and mouth wasn't as simple as I expected it to be. I had to do it as neatly as possible, and naturally, I had a few spot to patch with the white paint. A day or 2 later, I painted the final layers. I had I tiny edge of the mouth that I needed to fill in, so on this last Sunday (yesterday, as of the time I am posting this blog) I touched that up, and then mod podged over it to seal the whole thing.

After the glue sealer was dry, I turned my attention to gluing the white felt on the inside of the mask to cushion it for my doll's face. That went simply enough, once I switched to a paint brush and mod podge. The squeeze bottle Aileen's Tacky glue wasn't holding. I am sure it was because I wasn't able to squeeze enough glue onto the mask, but there was no getting that lid off to just dip a brush into it. The mod podge did the trick. I first glued down the middle part, let it dry, the shaped around the inside of the mask with the felt, making the necessary cuts to get it to fit inside neatly within the curves of the mask. I let that dry overnight. 

Making her costume was simple, and it isn't done with much detail. I just laid Sydney out on the no sew cheap, low quality costume fabric, pinned the shape I wanted around her, leaving the neck hole to be cut later. After I cut the front and back out, I held it up to Sydney and cut the neck hole where I wanted it, keeping in mind that it could stretch and make the hole too wide if I wasn't careful. Thankfully, I got it how I wanted it, the first cut. Then, I cut a several inch line down the back so it could slip on over her clothes. I didn't cut it long enough at first, which resulted in unsightly pulls in the fabric at the neck line. Like I said, poor quality! But no big deal. It's a costume and she runs around in it. I lengthened the cut in the back, and it goes on and off easily.

Next, I made her long white gloves as I don't want this to stain her. I just pinned white knit around one arm and hand, pinned in where I wanted it, slipped it off, sewed it, then cut out the second one, using the first one as my pattern. I also secured a strip of white neck over her neck, just in case any of the costume fabric got against her.

With all that done, it just left me finishing the mask. I went back and forth and back and forth over how I wanted to finish the mask. I had planned to stitch elastic to the white felt on the inside of the mask to secure it to her head, and then just drape the black fabric over her head to create the hood effect of the Scream mask.

What I ended up doing was cutting a small close fitting hood out of white knit to secure it to her head by sewing the white knit onto the felt on the inside and trimming it down to the right size once it was sewn in. That probably doesn't make much sense, but it worked well. No elastic needed. That also gave me something to sew the  black hood onto, as i was regretting my decision to not glue it onto the mask, which I would have needed to have before I glued in the white felt, to keep the fabric away from Sydney's face. 

Now, her costume is complete, and I am so proud of it and of myself that I actually did it! It isn't perfect - there's flaws here and there, but I absolutely love what I did. I doubt I'll do much more of a photo shoot than these quick few pictures that I took when there was a pause in the rain this afternoon. But its done, and Sydney can live in it for the next few months, and she will be happy to do just that. 

Here's some of my progress photos of the project, from beginning to end.

I wish I had gotten pics of the mask before I started sanding it, but in the first photo, you can see the sanding process being under way. The third picture here is after the first round of paint, before the second and the sealer.

                                    

The Making of Trick R Treat Sam for Calico Critter

 I'm happy to finally be getting back to sewing work just this week. The sewing/doll room is still a WIP as is the rest of the house, but things are slowly and surely getting more and more organized. I am very much looking forward to when things are under control enough where we can start painting.

Any return to normalcy is nice, and where sewing is concerned, I've really missed it! Not to mention having a back stock of orders is always a stress in the back of your mind, even if all your customers are very nice and patient with the delays.  (Commissions are also a bit behind, but progress will be happening soon.) I have mailed my final late orders out today. Whew! What a relief! I finished the rest of the sewing on those yesterday. And since those were all finally done, I figured it was completely justifiable to start working on some new Critter items. Me being me, that just so happened to be something Halloween!

Since cutting down my Calico Critter families to a much more sensible number of 12, I really want to work on developing each Critter. Most of them have no clothes, so my original plan was to start making them outfits, simply doing one a day. But as I was sewing an order of Halloween clothes, I got to thinking - just how much fun would it be to actually have each Critter have their own Halloween costume this year? And to set up a Halloween party scene? I love seeing other collectors Halloween posts, and I have never been to where I could do it myself, or even enjoy trying to. This year will be different. :D 

I immediately started thinking about my Garden Bed family. They were my first (those ubiquitous Hopscotches) and also some of my very top favorites. I cut down their multitude to simply 4 adults (my child sized figures are just adults who are smaller in stature) and then a reasonable 6 babies. That was initially hard for me as I just adore the baby Hopscotch so much. I just needed to do it for my own sake. I want each baby to have a personality and a name and the only way to accomplish that was to simply cut down my 18 plus to something much, much smaller. I'm so glad that I did it. Here are the Garden Beds:

Twin boys named Lettuce and Spinach (larger adult size)

Middle sister Asparagus (big sister)

Youngest brother Brussel Sprout (child size body)

The babies are as follows, in 3 sets of twins, each a girl and boy:

Turnip and Potato

Parsnip and Carrot

Radish and Green Bean

As I was sewing that Halloween dress for an Etsy order, visions of making a Freddy Krueger costume for Brussel Sprout flashed through my mind. I had briefly thought about that earlier this year, but pretty much forgot about it in the ongoing mayhem. I could make the twins Jason and Michael Myers. But after thinking about Michael Myers, I got a little hung up in how to accomplish making that mask for a Critter. That's when I thought about Sam from Trick R Treat! (Terrible movie, BTW. Great concept, really poor execution. Sam though, Sam is forever.) How perfect would Sam be on a smaller Critter? I got so excited, and therefore, I had to start with that one.

After eating supper and reading my Latin chapter (that summer goal is going well! I have about 7 chapters left and will have reached that goal. Yay!) I got any remaining Etsy sewing done, and then, it was time to sew a Sam outfit!

With freshly washed orange cotton fabric in hand, I reworked my blouse and pant pattern into Sam's cute little jumpsuit. It took a couple of tries until I was satisfied with it. I found some light orange on yellow tonal print (it's hard to describe) that was perfect for the patches. I fray checked around the edges of the tiny squares instead of trying to hem them before sewing them on. The first square I pretty much drowned in fray check, so I had to recut it. (My fray check is especially temperamental this time around. The slightest pressure sends a geyser!) Those little patches I sewed on by hand with black thread. I wasn't sure if the black was too much of a contrast, and while I like it, I might try a darker brown. Or maybe I am nitpicking. I always have to nitpick. Once I got the suit done, I was really happy. Sam was coming together!

The hood was the part that I was the most uncertain of how to make it. I had to make it to go around Brussel Sprout's ears and that's always a little nerve wracking. I drafted the hood pattern into 4 pieces after measuring Brussel's head both across and from ear to down where I wanted the hood to end, keeping in mind that it needed to bush out a little. From there, I drew what I felt was the right proportioning for each ear hole. I didn't bother with fray checking the first hood as I was expecting to need to redo it. I hemmed first around each part of the ear hole - each piece had a notch to hem. Then, I sewed both the front and the back of the hood together. On Sam's hood you see some stitch detailing down the middle of each half, as well as a stitched mouth in the front and 2 button eyes. I decided in the end to simply zig zag this detailing. I started out with a wider stitch then I wanted, so I took that out, and readjusted my stitch width and then re-stitched my seams. It turned out even better than expected. I did the mouth in the same manner. Once the mouth was done, I sewed the hood sides and top together. After that was done, I slipped it onto Brussel's head, and viola! It fit perfectly!!! I figured out the placement for the eyes and marked that spot with a pin. I luckily had tiny little 2 mm buttons in brown, which I stitched onto the hood with black thread. The sewing was now done! All that was left was to figure out how I wanted to tie it on.

My original plan was to tie it on using embroidery floss. Unfortunately, I have no idea where on earth that ended up, so I had to go to plan B. At this point it was nearing 10 o clock, so I wanted to get the outfit wrapped up so I could quit for the night. The quickest thing that I thought of and also actually found was some golden brown thin yarn. Yay for it being in some unexpected place right in front of me! I got the hood tied on, and Brussel Sprout is now ready to go trick or Treating. 

I think after I am done with this post, I'll get to work on the big 10 tee shirt order that came in  the other day on Etsy and just maybe I will start on a second Halloween costume! :)