Saturday, September 24, 2016

Apology and update on Elle

Hello, ya'll, this is Poppy in my sweet south voice. I owe ya'll an apology. We have not been posting like we otta. However, I do have a reason, darlin'. Life. Revolutionary, I know. Whoda thunk? But in all seriousness, life has been a little crazy around here lately. A week ago we ended a 2 week long acting intensive and out fourth and final performance of the play Street Robber, A story of George Muller and His Orphans.  It was a very fun play to perform and we had a great time doing it. On the down side, though, we have all been sick and more tired than an overworked farmer this last week. When you have a 110 kids all crammed into the same space for 2 weeks solid, germs are bound to spread. Anywho, after this happened we had school to get back into the swing of. We had been doing school all through out the rehearsals but it had been minimal. We were finally started again and Wednesday hit. My mom woke up sick and incredibly dizzy. She suffers from vertigo and this her third spell so far. I had been up since two that morning watching out for her and around 8, a friend took her to a therapist to get relief. The next day was even crazier. My mom was still sick and we had a bible study to attend. Thankfully, my best friend, her mom, and her brother offered to help. They arrived and helped Mom and then Arista's parakeet died on us. So while her mom drove my mom to the therapist again, me, my friend, and our brothers held a funeral for Gylfie. Arista did not attend due to grief and also stayed home from bible study while the rest of us went. We spent the day with them to let my mom rest, so no school got done that day. Friday was catch-up day and we had our cousin arrive to stay the night. She left about 7 hours ago and I have finally (on Saturday night) gotten to sit down to post. I am incredibly sorry about our lack of posting and we are trying to do better.


Now onto Elle. In May, I bought my first monster high doll, Elle Eedee. (Or in other words, the coolest doll on God's green earth!) Well, I've had to fix one of her arms already but Wendsday the other one snapped off and left the entire peg inside. Currently I do not know of anyway to fix her except to drill into her arm, which I refuse to do. This doll was wonderful and still one of my favorite although she only has one fixed but function able arm.
So thanks for sticking with me, I know this seems kind of like a depressing post. Remember God made you special and he loves you very much! Night y'all!            

Tuesday, August 30, 2016

Lion King - Be Prepared (Here's the video!)

How to effectively clean a room

Hello, everyone, this Poppy. I couldn't think up an accent I wanted to use so you'll just have to make one up today. On that note,  I will be explaining to you today how to clean your room in an incredibly short amount of time. Now I know you're thinking,  This is a blog about enjoying the benefits of childhood. Why bring cleaning into this?  Because all of us who have ever played with toys know that messes happen, A LOT.  SO we have to clean up our messes. Now this can take anywhere from 5 seconds to 5 hours! I am a notoriously messy person especially when I am in the middle of something. (blogging, crafting, playing, sleeping) And when I am working on something, I don't want to have to stop and give my room a through cleaning. My mom says that if you just clean up whatever you drag out, you wont ever have a mess. Now what if you need LOTS  of things out? MESS! Complete and total MESS! Then you have to clean it up. SO how do you do this quickly and still continue with your project? I will tell you my secret.
Music.
The absolute best way to do anything besides grammar and government is with music! To help me clean up I have what I call the Disney challenge. 
*First, you assess your mess! Look at how much you have to clean and set a goal on how much you want to get done. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! DON'T SKIP THIS STEP! Usually for me this is just the bare minimum I have to do to make my room look clean.
* Second, find your favorite Disney song. Villain Songs often have a fast, heavy, theatrical beat that is good fro working with.  For me, this is Be Prepared  from the Lion King. Video above. The time it takes to run through the song is one rotation. You have to clean up as much as you possibly can in one rotation. There are ways to cheat the system such as picking incredibly long songs. (The longest Disney song I know of currently {not counting Star Wars} is The Bells of Notre Dame. Heaven's Light/and its not so great counter part* is also pretty long.) You can use as many rotations as you need to complete your cleaning. One usually does it for me.
* Finally, clean!Work as fast as possible and good luck!        
Well, that's all for now! I have to go clean my room so I'll talk to you later. Remember, God made you special and He loves you very much! Bye!


On the subject of the Heaven's Light/Hellfire. This looks a lot worse than it is. The third word in the title is pretty awful, but rest assured there is no curse words in that song. The word ______ is used in a strictly biblical sense and while maybe not something you want someone repeating,  Frolo (the singer of the song) is using it in the proper context. The song itself is beautiful and like a sermon in song.  It tells a very moving story about a man's struggle with righteousness and temptation. For a Disney song, it has a surprisingly large amount of theology. In fact, it has more biblical truth in it than some other "christian" songs. That said, I'm finished. Have fun cleaning!                 

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Flynn Custom Doll

Hallo to all! Poppy here in meine (mine-a means my) German accent ready to introduce du (doo  means you.... I'll just speak English from on. :D ) to my favorite custom doll Ive done so far! Sie fabulous Flynn!
Photo:
Alright.... I know Ive used this picture a dozen
 times, but she looks so awesome here!

Flynn was originally a used Hat-tastic Cerise Hood Ever After High doll that I found on Ebay.
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I received her for my birthday along with hair to reroot her with. My mom and Arista had gone onto Dollyhair.com (which is a great hair supplier for dolls by the way) and bought me a 38" and an RD hank of saran hair from there. The RD hank was a blend of golden auburn and torch auburn while the 38" was a blend of a blend of tangerine orange and flame auburn. When we ordered her, she was the I had never customized a doll before so I had no idea was I was going to be doing. That was quickly changed. 
Taking some old dolls we had lying around the house, I tried my hand at this thing called customizing. Armed with less than worthy supplies, minimal knowledge, and absolutely no experience, I ripped the hair out of my first custom doll, Phirozythe.
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 I rerooted her with yarn and inspired by my success, made Anne Burrell for my mom and created Phirozythe's (and Flynn's) mom Trina, the middle-aged fairy, along the way.
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R.I.P. Trina. She died two weeks ago. 
By this point I felt ready to tackle customizing Cerise into Flynn. I was still scared, no doubt! I had been thinking about this character named Flynn for a LONG time and she already had a more detailed more detailed background than all my other dolls at the time. I really did not want to mess up on her. But, praying hard, I did it anyway and she turned out better than I would have imagined. Displaying photo 3.JPG 
I even entered her in the fair! (She didnt place in case you were wondering. She lost to a cabbage patch doll) She has quickly become one of my favorite dolls right up there with Elle Eedee.
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With longer legs than most EAH dolls, custom-rooted hair, and dragon/fairy hybrid heritage, Flynn is packed with personality. (Her name is even spelled funny! Its actually spelled Phleinne but most people cant pronounce that so we just spell it Flynn.) 
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Overall, Flynn is a very unique doll and so is her family.
Gute nacht (goot na-k-t  means goodnight.... had to throw in one more German phrase...) and wielen dank (vie-len da-n-ck  means thank you... so maybe two more....).  
  
Remember, God made you special and loves you vey much. Goodbye!
Denken Sie daran, Gott hat dich besonders und liebt dich sehr. Auf Wiedersehen!
(Dont ask me for a pronunciation guide on that one! Just use Google translate. :)

Promo Time: MyFroggyStuff!

 Hi again! This is Arista with another promo! Here is a wonderful YouTube channel and blog to follow! These people make tutorials on how to do most anything for your dolls, American Girl, Ever After High, Bratz, or even Monster High! Me and Poppy have made several super cute things using her videos, like waffles, houses, clothes, and even mini music instruments! We love them! So using the link below, go and check out her blog and YouTube channel!
http://myfroggystuff.blogspot.com/
https://m.youtube.com/#/user/MyFroggyStuff
Arista signing off!

Thursday, August 4, 2016

How to repaint a dolls skin


Hullo, everyone, delightfully British Poppy is here to show you how to repaint a dolls skin. This is incredibly easy and makes your dolls look much more realistic.
All you will need is a doll, acrylic paint color of your choice, water, and modge podge.
I know in the photo I have school glue sitting there, but after a couple of tries I found that modge podge doesnt peel like school glue does. So, jolly good! Lets begin!

First, mix a good amount of paint in with the modge podge.
Coat all the body parts  liberally. This is a Create a monster doll so she came apart easily. Normally, you would just remove the forearms and hands though. 
 
Wait for her to dry and reassemble.
And shes ready to rock and roll! Meet Onyx! A top notch girly and sister of Flynn.
(Just in case you forgot :D)
Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! Remember, God  made you special and he loves you very much!
This is Poppy signing off!





GOD SAVE THE QUEEN! 




Saturday, July 23, 2016

How to Fix a Broken Doll Limb for Cheap!

HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EVERYBODY! This is Poppy and today I will show you how to fix a broken doll limb super cheap and utterly painless! YIPPEE! I will be writing in the style of Princess Unikitty from the Lego movie, because I am so happy my doll is fixed! YEAH! (Yes, I know right about now you think I'm totally nuts, but I am super thrilled about my doll being fixed. She was one of the prettiest one I have and fairly new, so I was pretty excited when my Mom suggested this method to fix her)
THANK YOU, MOM FOR THIS WONDERFUL SOLUTION! 
MOMS ROCK!!!!!!
Now, on with the totally awesome tutorial!
 
For this fix you will need is the poor doll, broken appendage, and a piece of chewing gum. I broke my dolls arm by trying to pull it out of its socket. Now those of you who have never played with Monster High dolls are like, "PULL HER ARM OUT! OF COURSE YOUR GONNA BREAK IT!" And those of you who HAVE played with these dolls before are thinking, "How did she break it I wonder? The forearms are supposed to come out" THAT IS LIKE TOTALLY WHAT I THOUGHT! The forearms were supposed to come out, but when I tried to remove her arm it snapped at the joint, leaving me with a bad arm and a socket with a part of a pin in it! AGHGHGHGH!! I thought about ordering a replacement piece, but the end of the peg still securely wedged in there, no other arm would fit. AGHGHGHGH!! again! Not to mention, by this point I had already had the doll for two months so I couldn't get a replacement doll!! Triple AGHGHGHGH!! I looked online for solutions, but nothing short of drilling wire into her arm was said to be able to fix it. Now I have tried this method before and ended up with a poor barbie that had bent wire sticking out from all over her. Not gonna do that with Elle. Completely and totally distraught and frustrated by this point, I went to lament to my Mom. She was working on homeschool stuff on the computer so I just went ahead and told her everything. Without even breaking grammer-curriculum-shopping-stride, she replied, "why not use some gum?" Thsi si wher my world turned from cave trolls, mean bears, and broken dolls, to unicorns, puppies, and happy emojis! (I was rather happy) Instantly, I grabbed a piece of gum and began to chew. This is one of the steps you will need to take to fix your doll. So take that peice of gum, by the wrapper and chew! Once it is pretty soft...

SMASH IT ON TOP OF THE BROKEN PEG!
 
Then push the arm into the hole, pulling out the extra.
 
And she's fixed!!!! WOO HOO!!! This method holds the limbs together pretty well and allows the same degree of articulation and removal abilities as before. (WHICH IS VERY IMPORTANT WHEN PHOTOGRAPHING DOLLS!) The gum will eventually have to be replaced and some will probably have to be added if the arm is removed freguently. Other than that though, your doll is fixed!!! YEEAAHHHH!!! Hope this tutorial was helpful. Remember, God made you special and he loves you very much. GOODBYE, ALL!