• Left over straw from the hat
• Hot glue (because it was an experiment, you could easily stitch it to make it look more polished)
• A couple of pretty flowers

So first thing I did was stretch and break some of the fibres in the straw so it was easier to bend it to the shapes that I wanted.

Starting with a small spiral and fold the end over itself:

Glue in place.

Keep following the spiral around getting bigger and gluing along the way.

One it’s big enough to be the top of the hat cut and glue the edge in place.

Ending up with something like this…

Next it’s time for the middle part. Start by measuring around the circumference of the circle you just made.  and form a loop of the straw, glue together!

Spiral it down until it’s tall enough, cut and glue :D

Something like this:

Now the last part before it’s all put together: the brim.

Again spiral it out and glue in place.

Now it just needs the top to be put on!

And that’s it! Much quicker when you’re making them doll sized XD

The view from the top…

And after adding a couple of flowers it looks much cuter! Mine looks a little dodgy with excess glue because I was experimenting as I went but I’m sure if you were more careful you could get it perfect ^_^

And that’s it! Quick and easy so your doll can be as stylish as you :D Do you guys want me to try and make more dolls things or do you all prefer people sized things?

First thing was to remove 3-4 layers around the edge to make it less of a big sun hat and more of a cute barbers shop quartets hat ;)

Basically to do that (just like my other cancan hat tutorial) I snipped the tread and unwound it.

The stitched the end in place…

Now to prevent it from falling off I got some combs:

Pulled off the decorations….

And stitched them on the inside. Now it attaches to my hair nice and snugly and won’t go anywhere!

Nice quick modification and very happy with the results :D

I haven’t worn it out since the modifications but this is what it looked like before I did the brim, I’ll post more photos when I wear it out.

Tomorrow I’ll show you what I did with all the left over bits from the brim! Hint: I made someone else a really small hat XD

So first thing I did was give her face a make over. The make up she came with was all orangy and yuck so I used black acrylic paint and gave her some eyeliner with wing ends.

I used this pink glitter paint to give her eyeshadow and subtle blush. I did her lipstick with my favorite nail polish! I undid her hair fluffed it out a bit to see how much volume I could get.

Looking better!

I did a little test run to see if I could dye her hair and as it turned out it was really easy!

After sectioning up the top area which would later be used for the hime pouf I combed through her hair.

Using the same dye I use for my own hair I added the pink gradient. But instead of washing it out, I left it to dry over night.

After brushing through the next day it was all soft, bouncy and exactly the way I wanted! :D

I experimented with a couple of ways to put her hair up, at first I was going to use a rat inside made of tissue paper but it was too hard to keep in place.

Not working…

So after tying the rest of her hair back and considering the fact that she’s a doll and it doesn’t really matter if her hair sustains long term damage I just teased/backcombed the hell out of it!

After hair spraying the crap out of it this is what I got…

Side:

And back:

And with her hair out…

Last thing I needed to work out with her hair was put some bouncy curls in! I covered her up in some thick paper towels so nothing was damaged.

Then using disposable chopsticks I curled up her hair and held it all together with an elastic. After everything was secure I spent about 10 minutes with a hair dryer heating up, cooling down, heating up, cooling down, heating up, cooling down etc  ^_^ This was enough to reset her hair without melting it. Very similar to styling synthetic hair pieces.

So the result of all that work was this:

And from the back:

At that point it was time to work on the finishing touches. Little details like painting her white stockings etc make a big difference to the end result. I thought about doing something with her little shoes but couldn’t decide in the end so I left them.

I stitched up a little dress out of scraps and added some hair flowers. BAM! Mini Violet :D

Then it was just a matter of painting her dog to match. I coated him in white first…

Then added pink sparkly details and repainted his whole face to look less sad/creepy and more happy/adorable.

And there you have it! I couldn’t be happier with her make over! I think she’s going to be a great edition to this blog too because she’s looks better in photos than the real Violet XD

I asked James to take a bunch of photos of her with his new lens so pic spam ahead!

I made this little hat for her too, tutorial coming soon!

Who wouldn’t want a picnic like this?

Looking longingly out my window at the gel stars that I stare at all day from behind my computer.

Very photogenic!

So all in all I thoroughly enjoyed my first doll make over experience. I don’t know if I’m completely addicted but having a little army of them would be pretty sweet!

What do you guys think? Did I do a good job on my mini Blythe?

First I inked a rough sketch…

Then added some colours…

Some shading…

Thicker lines…

And in about 10min my picture was finished :D So next step is to cut out the drawing in the shape you want the finished product to be and get your other materials ready.

You will need to use the really thin kind of double sided tape for this part because if you use the squishy thick kind your mousepad will be bumpy *_*

So place a bunch of strips on the back of your paper:

And stick it carefully down to the foam. This is the thin kind of foam that you can buy at the craft store in the scrap booking supplies section.

Cut the felt out in the same shape. I decided to use it as a border for my drawing so I left a couple of millimeters gap but you don’t have to.

Next remove your contact from the backing sheet.

Carefully stick your drawing to it and press out any air bubbles.

Cut off any excess leaving around 2cm hanging off the edges.

Snip the overhang every few centimeters.

Fold it around the back!

And that’s it :D Super simple to do but very pretty and effective!

What do you think?

I imagine you guys probably wouldn’t want a Violet-themed one but you could use something personal XD I think I spend so much time around my computer that I want it to look pretty!

Thread your needle with matching embroidery thread.

Place the hearts in the corner of the towel.

Stitch them in place ^_^

Now using the embroidery thread start stitching the lace around the edges.

I decided to do a simple running stitch but you could do something much more elaborate :D

All the way around the edge and you’re finished! This is how mine turned out:

It’s nice and easy to make and still very pretty. This is a something that looks really effective but is still easy enough to do that I wouldn’t be put off from doing it to all of the ones in my house XD

I figure that if I start doing little things like this now, by the time I actually can afford to buy a house I’ll finally have nice stuff to put in it XD

What you need:

• A cap to use as a base
• Copic markers (or permanent pens like a sharpie)
• Diamantes etc for decorating
• Epoxy glue.

I wanted to go for a pink leopard print again so I started by marking in light purple all of the spots:

Next I used a darker purple to roughly mark the areas around the spots.

I covered the entire back 2/3rds of the cap leaving the front plain.

Next I filled in the background with light pink.

At this point it should look something like this:

Next I gave everything a second coat with the markers to darken it up and make it look much more like the pinks already on the brim ^_^

Last it was time for a little deco to jazz up the front!

I stuck the pearls, jewels and plastic heart on using epoxy and added a couple more on the crown above the “princess” embroidery.

And that was it!

Not exactly my every day look but I still think it’s adorable and I would totally wear it on casual days!

The best part is that it’s completely custom so you can really do whatever design you like and have something completely unique ^_^ What do you guys think?