January Birthday Dress with Red Arabeque Patterned Tunic and Long-Sleeved Underdress with Snowdrops

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

And, for my last post of June, we have… the January birthday dress. Did I ever mention how lucky I am anyone still bothers reading this site? I’m sorry, January birthday people, although you do technically have one January dress for Sylvia. I never liked that one, though. You see the big white band on the red overskirt? There was supposed to be a snowdrop pattern there. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it for some reason. I don’t know if I like this one either, but that’s because the original is so much better than the scan… Oh well. Anyways, all I have to do is April now, and then I can catch up on the rest of the months as they come.

Prismacolors used: French Grey family (dress), Cool Grey family (snowdrops), Black, Kelly Green, Poppy Red, Crimson Red, Crimson Lake, Tuscan Red, Colorless Blender.

February Birthday Dress with Purple Flower Patterned Tunic and White and Yellow Primroses

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

So this would be… four months late? Forgive me, Sage, EmilyRose, Celestina and the rest of you with birthdays in February. Or think of it this way: the presents are opened, the check from your grandma long since cashed, and yet there remained one unexpected gift!
… Yeah, maybe not. I’ll try to be a little more prompt next year… And I believe I still have January and April to catch up on, but technically Sylvia and Iris already got January and April dresses, so I thought that of the three choices, those months could wait. In any case, February’s birthstone is the amethyst and the birth flower is the primrose, so that led to today’s color choices. Also, trazy, I need to thank you for forcing me outside my comfort zone — that technique of light patterns on a dark background is not too hard (if the light part is done with a dark enough pencil that you can see it) and looks striking. Expect to see it show up a few more times until I get it out of my system!

Well, that was a short contest! To win the contest, someone had to guess one of the ten movies I rated the highest with movielens, and Sofia won already, with her guess of Casablanca. (The other nine: Whisper of the Heart, Vertigo, The Thin Man, Some Like It Hot, Robin Hood (Disney version), Porco Rosso, North by Northwest, Dr. Strangelove and All About Eve.) Congratulations Sofia!

December Birthday Dress and February Birthday Dress from Liana’s Paper Doll Boutique

Click for the doll.

It wasn’t so much that I was uninspired today as it was that I spent a couple of hours on trazy’s requested coloring of the 1700s dress and then screwed it up, and even though I took some stabs at doing something easy after that, nothing quite seemed to work. So here are two dresses from Liana’s Paper Doll Boutique, which was the paper doll site that I ran around ten years ago, when I was in high school. This is the December birthday dress, with turquoise and white poinsettias, and the February one, with amythests and violets.

June Birthday Dress with Rose Lace and Red Underskirt with Pearls

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

My mom’s birthday is today, and if I didn’t do a June birthday dress, well…

June’s flower is the rose, and one of the birthstones is the pearl. It was hard deciding what color of rose to base it on, but in the end I did yellow, pink and white dresses pretty recently.

Sorry for the brief post, I’ve been looking at a computer a little too long today!

The total number of visits my site got between April 1 and 30th was 19,629. That makes Dani’s guess of 19,632 the closest! Congratulations Dani, pick your dress and your colors and let me know your decision!

Women Airforce Service Pilot in Leather Jacket and Flying Suit with Goggles for Memorial Day

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Today is Memorial Day here in the states, honoring the men and women who gave their lives for our country. I happened to read a post on Metafilter about the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), a little-known organization of more than a thousand civilian female pilots who flew missions in WWII, freeing up male pilots for active duty. I won’t restate the contents of the whole Metafilter post, but I do recommend you read it if you have some time. I used a couple of pictures from Blitzkrieg Baby as reference for this flight suit and leather jacket with a patch of the WASP mascot Fifinella.

Don’t forget, my contest is still going! No one’s got it yet, so please post your guess as a comment.

How many visits did my site get between (and including) April 1, 2010 and April 30, 2010?

Don’t forget the rules…
1) If you’ve already won this year, please don’t enter.
2) One guess per person per post.
3) If no one gets the exact number by 9:00 PM EST, June 2nd, I’ll pick the closest guess.
4) I’ll give one hint each day the contest goes on.
– Yesterday’s hint: It’s between 10,000 and 30,000
– Today’s hint: The middle digit is 6.

March Birthday Dress with Daffodils and Aquamarine in Yellow and White

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Somehow today’s dress is one of those dresses I finish and never want to see again. It’s certainly all those ruffles. Even I have my limits, you know.

Anyways, this is the birthday dress for March — happy belated birthday, March babies, and I’m sorry about how late it is. The birth flower is the daffodil, and the birth stone is aquamarine, both of which I botched but hey, it is colorful at least. It is more of a dress to wear in the lamb portion of March; from the comfortable vantage point of May, I forget that this dress might be a little cold for Ivy’s shoulders and ankles.

No one has guessed the right number yet, so go ahead and start round two here! A couple people have come extremely close, though. Honorable mention to Sarah for her astronomical guess. If I had 3,424 Prismacolors, I would probably want to insure them…

Question: How many Prismacolor pencils do I own as of May 18th?
This includes the ones that I use, all the stubby little pencils that are too short for my current sharpener but I just can’t toss, all the ones I have in reserve and my set of Verithin pencils I hardly ever use.

Just to restate the rules:
1) It’s a new year, so even if you’ve already won one, feel free to guess again.
2) One guess per person per post.
3) If no one gets the exact number by noon EST, May 25th, I’ll pick the closest guess. (Why, oh why, did I make it a whole week long? Oh well.)

Colored Valentine’s Day Gown

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

I realize you may be sick of looking at this dress, but I’m still getting back into the paperdolling habit and I needed something easy for today… Have patience with me. (I say that rather needlessly, because if you’re still reading after half a year’s absence that’s one virtue you’re certainly not lacking.)

May Birthday Dress in Green and White with Emerald Brooch and Lilies of the Valley

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Now all of you born in different months are going to have some words for me, aren’t you? Or maybe some words with me. I don’t know which preposition makes it sound more severe. Well, green is a calming color, right? Look at the pretty green leaves, and the way the chartreuse fades into white on the edges of the fabric (a little more apparent in the original, sadly), and the wispy scroll pattern on the middle green layer. Don’t look, for my sake, at the long gap between this dress and the last one, or the missing blogroll that I never quite got around to putting back up after a server change, or the embarrassing state of my e-mail inbox, or all the increasingly heartwrenching comments on the last post. Green, right? Ooh, green.

Anyways, this is, of course, the May birthday dress… The May birthstone is emerald and the birth flower is lily of the valley, so I couldn’t resist. Plus, I guess I wanted to make something fairly ridiculous, since it’s been a while. I like to remind myself I haven’t forgotten how to use my colored pencils…

I took down the poll, because just thinking about it made me feel like a failure and a disappointment, both of which increase the odds that I’ll let the site go for another three months. I think I’ll probably be happier if I don’t revisit any of the things I never finished for a while. I’m sorry.

Belated Black and White Valentine's Day Gown

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Unsurprisingly, I’m late for Valentine’s Day, but I had to do a Valentine’s Day gown for two reasons. One, Valentine’s Day is the perfect occasion for the type of ridiculousness I do best. Although I appreciate the simplicity of the re-branded Valentine’s Day, I’m having none of it. (Pass the lace.) Two, I love all of you for not forgetting me like I so richly deserve. I’m sorry.

The truth is, for the last few months I’ve been devoting myself to my other great interest, which is studying Japanese, and for some reason, when I’m really devoting myself to one thing, my interest in everything else is non-existent, and I am lucky if I can start work on time and make dinner in a consistent fashion. I really miss drawing, though. I’m going to take a stab at doing both. As a matter of fact, I was thinking, if I could combine my Japanese studies and my paperdolls somehow, I would never get tired of either of them! I’m seriously open to suggestions on this point. If you were me, what would you do with these two incongruous, underdeveloped skills?

In the meantime… well, we’ll see. I really miss paperdolling. But even if you don’t see me again for another month (and I really will try not to be that flaky this time!) at least now you have a new dress to color. This one could keep you busy for a while, too…

The Twelve Days of Christmas, Day 2: Two Turtle Doves, in blue brocade

Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

~On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…~
~Two turtle doves~
~And a partridge in a pear tree~