I've been working on redesigning my glasses for the new "Neo" line that will seamlessly integrate the legs with the rest of the frame.  I think the redesign is a wonderful improvement for the glasses.  I recently bought another laminating machine and have been tinkering with the new design. I've come up across some unexpected challenges along the way with the new design, but I've just finished the first few in the line that I'm really excited about. :) 

I'm planning to gradually add more styles and colors to the Neo line, but I'm finding that they take a bit longer to make at this point. I'm still unsure how some of the styles will turn out, but I'm hopeful. So the overall plan is to convert many or most of my glasses to the "Neo" design in future designs or restocks. But I still may make the "classic" version occassionally.

I have also been working on new packaging for the glasses that will be introduced with the Neo line. I initially designed a different backing card that I really liked, but it required way too much hand cutting for each card for the design to make sense. Now I have a HUGE pile of uncut cards in the first design sitting on my table ... I wonder how long it will take me to finally throw them out or figure out a new use for them ... I just hate to waste all of the cards...

Here's a picture of one of the "Neo" glasses:

I just finished a new illustration inspired by the holidays ... and Blythe of course! I made a holiday card version of a print of the illustration (the print is removable from the card):



Here's a framed version of the print:



And a closer look at the artwork (the scanner washed it out a bit :P):



I just listed these at Etsy ... and now I am totally pooped out... now it's time to clean up my work area for a break. :)

Yay! Just finished the new Holiday Collection of glasses and listed them at my Etsy shop last night! :) Here's a peek at the new glasses...









The very last pic is an OOAK pair since it was made with the Christmas plaid pattern but the entire front of the frame had only green silver and gold ... no red! So I listed these separately. The two-toned green ones are called "Surprise Green" because each pair is unique -- some are two toned with varying amounts of light and dark green, and some have only the light green or dark green on front. Of course the legs vary from pair to pair. :)

Oh I also listed a new set of dolly scrapbooks that look like this (I love this new paper) ...



Wow ... I'm so glad to finally have this batch done!!! I feel like I've been working on these forever, and am sooo relieved ... now I am looking forward to the holiday season! :D

I finally added some new glasses that I kept having problems photographing. :)  They're now available at my Etsy shop, and  now I can focus on new holiday glasses that will hopefully be available soon!   I'm still finishing them up then once I have a chance to photograph them, I can list these too.  The only thing I'm wondering at this point is what they'll wear in the photos ... I don't have explicitly Christmas/Holiday clothes from them but I do have a Le Petit Boutique dress that I think might be perfect for some of them. Hmmm... maybe I should get new holiday clothes before I start on my photographing phase ... I guess I'll take a look at what I have then maybe I'll be off to shop at Le Petit soon! :)  On another note, I'm still working on concepts for new art and have dreams of offering prints and original artwork at Etsy ... I'm currently working on some pen and ink pieces, and hopefully they'll give me some good starting places for new pieces too. :)  I'm excited about focusing on my art more but the task of organizing all of it to show/sell is pretty daunting at this point... but definitely a good project for me. :)  I also need to work on my online portfolio as well ... I realized after talking to the director at a local gallery that I only have my hard copy version and not even one to submit to places.  Right now it feels like a lot of projects all at once, especially with the holidays coming up so quickly ... but I'm very glad to be feeling inspired again. :)

In the meantime, here's the new glasses that I just listed at Etsy ...







Hopefully I'll be able to finish the holiday glasses soon! :D

Happy Halloween! First of all, here's a Halloween pic of Aubrey, Mandy and Claire all wishing your a "spirited" Halloween:



I really had fun with the lighting in this pic!!!

Now onto rambling! :D Wow it's been such a busy time lately ... but hopefully things will start to calm down a bit now that Halloween is winding down too. Of course, it's not long before the real flutter of events starts up with the holidays. But at least this is a breather. :)

The good news is that I went to my first Blythe meet! Yay!!! It was an amazing turnout and even a bit overwhelming since I hadn't met any of the people before. But it was really nice to meet a bunch of people who love dollies as much as I do ... and it was so wonderful to meet such friendly and welcoming people. And of course I got to see such beautiful dolls IRL ... including Kenners! :D Feel free to check out some of my pics from the meet ... just click on my Flickr link on the right side of my journal page. :)

With one holiday down, now it's time to look to the next. lol :D So I've started working on some Holiday glasses for my shop ... they're going to be a bit varied because of the patterns ... I'm still deciding on how to describe them since the amount of color on each pair can vary a lot for some patterns ... for instance, in one pattern, some of the glasses have mostly green (no red), while some have lots of red ... so I'll either have to make these "blind-box" style (where people get randomly selected pairs), separate them out within a single pattern, or just describe the variation and let people state a preference if they have one (of course subject to availability). Since the glasses are still in progress, I guess I'll see how they turn out before I decide. :)

I forgot to mention in my last post that I just received the new Valley of the Dolls stickers in the mail today! My entry was one of the three chosen for the contest, and here's the actual stickers! My pic is in the middle ... what a delight to see it!!! (Yay ... I love Miso soooo much and am so happy to see her flaming pink hair on the sticker! :) Of course, she's changed her haircolor since then, so now she's sporting a vibrant blue now ...lol) :)




These stickers make me so happy ... and I'm so happy that Valley of the Dolls is opening their physical shop in LA this month! Can't wait 'til I can make a trip to visit! :D

Yay! I finally finished a new design for Blythe glasses ... it's called Bling-B and the debut pair is in Brushed Silver with accents. Here's a pic:



I've gotten requests for oversized glasses, and I've been working on these for a while, so I hope that these will satisfy some of the love of big glasses. :D I'd love to hear what other types of glasses people are looking for ... I have these and the Groovin'-B's as well, but I'm wondering if people want a different big round style as well.

I've also started a new group for SpunkyJunk at Flickr for people to post photos featuring SpunkyJunk creations. It's at: http://www.flickr.com/groups/spunkyjunk/. I always love seeing the photos that people send me and this is another great way to share. Of course, I will still take submissions directly to the website and I always love seeing the cute customer appreciation photos through Etsy feedback too. Thanks so much for all of your cute photos!!! I really appreciate it! :D

Finally I've had a chance to make more Thinker-B's and they're finally back in stock. :) I also have a few new colors/patterns that I need to photograph (they're Catty-B's) ...

Wow ... we're getting really close to Halloween ... yay! I'm looking forward to the Blythe meet in a little over a week. It will be my first Blythe meet! :D

I finally cleaned out the living room in my dollhouse (bookshelf), so I was able to clear my head a little. (Though there's still lots more cleaning I need to do ... it feels like it never ends... and at this point, I'm actually a little sad when I go shopping because I don't want to add to the stuff I already have to clean ... sigh.)

Anyways, I took a few pics of Aubrey in the newly cleaned living room and finally had a chance to take some pics of my new LePetitBoutique dresses, hats, and jeans, as well as an H loves R dress that I haven't had a chance to enjoy 'til today. :) They are absolutely adorable. I also love the new way that LePetit has packaged their new items ... so cute!!!

I've loaded up the pics on my flickr at www.flickr.com/photos/spunkyjunk/. Or if you're viewing my journal, just click on the link to the right. :)


As for the new series of paintings, I just started experimenting with a new series of paintings/mixed media pieces focusing on Blythe. I'm a bit out of practice with painting, and I've been inspired to paint this series, but I'm also a little down for some reason ... I think I'm a little disappointed with my paintings so far -- I guess I should be patient and keep working at it and hopefully it will evolve. :) I just found some artist groups on flickr and I'm hoping that I can get some good constructive feedback and keep working on the series.

I started out with an acrylic painting ... then another. They're pretty different in style but I'm experimenting for the moment ... the next ones are mixed media pieces. They have some collage, pastel, and acrylic ... and these are much more stylized. I think for the moment that I'm liking these better ... but I still want to get back to classical styles as well. I guess there's two roads at this point ... classical (like the still lifes that I did before for classes) or stylized in a more cartoon/modern style that I often tend towards. I like both, but am not sure how to proceed at this point. I'm taking one class right now, but it's been a couple of years since I put art school on hold to start a family and I still miss the critiques ... even if they're sometimes painful.

I figure that at some point -- when the time's right -- I'll go back. For now, I like being able to experiment on my own ... something I really didn't have a chance to do when I had tons of assignments that focused much more on technique and skill building. Hopefully I can find a way to experiment on my own and get some meaningful feedback that will allow me to grow ... then when I go back I can have a better idea of my natural leanings when they finally let us loose to develop our own styles. :)

Anyways, if you're interested, I've posted pics of the new pieces on my flickr too ... we'll see where this series goes! :)

So I've been a little lazy about posting for a little while, but I'm back from our *brief* trip to Las Vegas and I took Aubrey along too. Feel free to check out a bunch of the pictures I took of her during the trip at my Flickr account (just click the link at the right of my journal page). It was a good trip ... the first we've taken in three years. So we went away only for 2 nights but I think it was enough for us ... especially since we don't really gamble. :)

But what prompted me to post today was that I just received my new doll (Pullip Blanche) from the Valley of the Dolls for being one of their Sticker Contest winners! I always love receiving packages from VOTD because they're always wrapped so nicely ... and Scot is super fast at shipping too.

She's still in the box, but I just had to share some pics of her right away ...

VOTD always wraps their packages so beautifully:



Here's Blanche with a cute VOTD postcard ...



And here's a closer look at Blanche:




If you didn't notice from the pictures, she has cute dangly earrings that are little rhinestone balls. She is very pretty and very different looking from my other Pullips. Her makeup seems a bit darker than the others, and she has hazel eyes. For some reason, she looks a little more somber to me than my other girls even though I think of her as the flower child of the group. I think it's the way they added blush to the sides of her nose, between her eyes.

For the moment, she'll stay in her box ... at least until I clean up my office. :D What a good incentive. :)

Yay ... I'm so happy because I just received some super cute dresses for my girls!!! Here's some pics ... with a preview of some new glasses I made ...


Here's a dress by lepetitboutique (Etsy) & new glasses I made:



Here's Aubrey and Claire modeling their lepetitboutique dresses and new glasses:



Here's a headband from glamourfae (Etsy) and dress from Frenchpants(Etsy)... and the new charm I made for Claire's pullstring!:



And here's a carry case I just finished in case Aubrey decides that she wants to come with us on vacation ...



I was so happy to find the little pouch that would fit next to her ... now she needs to start packing! :D

I know it's a little early for Halloween, but I was excited because I may be going to a Halloween Blythe meet ... and I was inspired to make some Halloween glasses... I also made a few other colors including Silver Metallic Hologram ones and Red ones ... here they are ...





... and here's a funny hat that I found at Sanrio today ... Claire was jealous that Aubrey got to pose for the glasses and got to wear the cool bunny hat, so she decided to show her up ...



I just listed the new glasses at my Etsy shop ... and am working on more. The ones I'm working on now probably won't be available for a few weeks though since I'm going out of town in a week ... and will be gone for a week ... maybe I'll be able to bring one of my girls with me ... we'll see. :)

I forgot to mention one of my recent finds ... I got a Hello Kitty toy that is part of a series of miniature amusement park rides. There was only one type of ride left ... it is adorable, but I soooo wanted to get the carousel or one of the others. Since the box was completely in Japanese and this was intended for the Japan market, I doubt I'll ever find the others in the series ... but I can always dream ...

Here's a few pics of the box ...

Here's the one I got:


Here's the others in the series ...




and here she is with some of my past finds ...


Anyways, I love all things amusement-park related, so this was such a neat find. :) Hopefully I'll find something like the cute little carousel at some point ... :)

So I've been trying to decide which SBL to set my sights on, since my goal is to get girls with different face molds (RBL, SBL, EBL ... and not sure yet what others I'd like.) Since I got Aubrey (RBL) and 2 ADG's, I really wanted to get an SBL next ... but in the meantime, I found a beautiful EBL that I couldn't resist. :) So I bought a new Disco Boogie (DB)(an EBL) ... and she arrived very quickly (less than a week)!

She's a very pretty girl ... and I love all of the accessories that she comes with. Up to now, I've gotten girls with very little extras ... Aubrey came with cute glasses, but her only clothing was her swimsuit. And my two ADGs came with the outfits they were wearing ... and honestly, I couldn't wait to change their clothes as soon as I got them (well, at least right after I took pics of them first). :)

So I had so much fun looking at all of her accessories ... I love her cute whistle necklace, and love the cute fanny pack that matches her jacket. I just noticed today that her jacket has embroidery on the back too ... it says "disco boogie" in silver and there's a few green embroidered stars too. :)

She also has a visor, which I wasn't too crazy about ... concept-wise I love it, but the rim is a bit too floppy for me ... AND the velcro snagged her pull string the first time I took it off! I was peeved since I hadn't had her out of the box for very long yet. So I decided to bead her pull string to prevent future mishaps of this kind. THEN after finishing beading the pull string and feeling very satisfied, I pulled ... and nothing ... no click. o_O

Her eyes would blink, but no click and no color change ... so I thought I broke her. :( Then I posted a note on TIB and got a couple of very nice suggestions. I rolled her eyes into the next position and tried again ... and it worked! I was sooo afraid to roll them because I thought they might jam or something ... and since I've never opened up a Blythe, I really wasn't crazy about the thought of it to fix this. :) So I'm feeling much happier now ... and even learned that by manually rolling her eyes, she can have even more glances and personality ... though each time her eye is rolled, it does get stuck again and must be rolled to the next position before the pull string will work again. :)

For the time being, I'm just so happy she's not broken ... and now I can enjoy her more! :)

Here's a few pics of Claire ...

Wow ... so things have been very busy these days ... in a good way though. :) I just finished redesigning my website ... I am still working out some of the bugs, but I am pretty happy with it. There's a "Fan Stuff & News" area where I've included a Fan Photo Gallery of a bunch of pictures that people have sent me or posted. I had been receiving some and loved them so much that I decided to create a gallery. :) Before I get rambling, I'll break this entry into sections:

* NEW Website!
* NEW Doll Carry Case Sets!
* NEW at Flickr!

I recently added these two ADG Blythes to my collection --- Golden Goddess (left) and Medieval Mood (right).  Here they are both redressed and restyled...



I have been VERY pleased with the ADG's ...

I've been sooo meaning to blog more and have amassed a bunch of pictures to post, but things have been sooo crazy busy lately. In a good way though. :D

So I just got my new Mini Munny Mobile last week and scrambled around this week to customize it for the Kidrobot contest that closed yesterday. I love contests and often find that they are the much needed incentive to get the ball rolling on some of these projects. :) This is my first custom (I've been intimidated about customizing my dolls at this point because of lack of experience) ... and I have lots of pics. Here's the before and after pics ...



And here's the mini-"photo documentary" of my new Mini Munny Mobile ... (LOTS OF PICS!!!)

So lots has been going on lately so I haven't had a chance to post as much as I'd like. One new shop that I love is called Super 7 across from the mall in SF's Japantown. Very cool artwork, very cool toys (lots of blind boxes), very cool t-shirts ... very cool ambience. So in summary, very cool. It feels very boutique-ish and hip. Can't wait to go back again.

On to the new girl ... I just added my first Blythe to my doll collection (check out the pics below). She's a Prima Dolly Aubrey and she is amazing. I love her hair and her eye thingy is really cool. I was a little scared at first when I pulled the string, but now I really like it ... especially the click. She seems pretty sturdy, so maybe I'll try taking her out for pics sometime. I am getting used to her characteristics and quirks ... I still love how poseable Pullips are, but am starting to appreciate how expressive Blythe can be even though she doesn't have all of those joints!

I just finished making some new glasses for her and took a bunch of pictures. Here's some pictures of her in her stock form, then with her new glasses (and redressed):

Stock:


New groovin' glasses:


New catty glasses:


New 3D glasses:


I made some extras and listed them in my Etsy shop too! :) Yay!

Anyways, I'm enjoying getting acquainted with Blythe ... though I am still very much a Pullip-lover. :)

So today we had a busy day ... we went to a FREE outdoor concert in the park with Matt Kearney, Everclear, and Smashmouth ... it was really nice to be out there. I love these hippie type venues and haven't been to one in a few years. I ended up buying a big floppy hat ... and we were joking about being floppy hat Purezza. :) SmashMouth was awesome ... I wish we were a little closer to the stage, but I did like how it was mellower back where we were. Afterwards, we went to Japantown ... and probably the best finds I made today were Toy2R's Baby Qee and the Hello Kitty x Rody blind box toys. Wow ... there were so many cool things I saw today.

So in Japantown I finally went to a store that I've had a hankering to go to. It's mainly a model shop, with lots of model cars, planes, etc.. The last time I went, it was closed. :( I went there because they have a few Pullip dolls and I don't know of any other physical shop that carries them around here. So I was so happy ... I got to see Nomado, Squall, and Arietta up close ... but I already have Arietta so that wasn't a surprise. I was surprised though at how I liked Squall much more IRL than Nomado. In pictures I've seen, I've always liked Nomado much more. But I thought Squall was striking in person. Darn!!! I forgot to take a look at Nomado's guitar. :( Oh well, next time.

While I was there, I discovered the Baby Qee by Toy2R. I had been saving up for another Munny and Munny Mobile, but I loved the Baby Qee so much that I put a little dent in the Munny fund. :) So Munny (by KidRobot) tends to be around $24.99 and the new Munny Mobile is $39.99 from the website, but the Baby Qee is a bit cheaper (and smaller in scale than the full size Munny). The ones I saw ranged from about 10.99 to 12.99 each.

So first, I must digress to talk about the fabulous Munny Mobile ... I had heard about it before it became available, but was undecided on it. But when I found out that the Munny that comes with the car/vehicle thing is a smaller version of Munny ... that made me fall in love with it. It apparently comes with blind box accessories for the vehicle, so that you can turn the vehicle into a flying contraption, a toontown-looking car, and a couple others that I can't remember. But the thought of a smaller version of Munny was just so enticing ... I still think it would be adorable and I'm guessing that eventually I'll give in and add it to my collection.

As for today, I thought I'd go away from the shop (which by the way has mostly models of cars, planes, figurines, and lots of other stuff), empty handed until I saw a big Qee in the window. I'm not completely new to Qee's because I have the Tokidoki one that is on my bag ... but never really got all that into the Qee beyond that. But the big Qee I saw in the display case was blank!!! It was like Munny, only it was in the shape of the bear qee. Then I noticed the smaller versions next to it... and then went back inside and had to check these out. So the Baby Qee is a 3.5 inch blank figure that is a limited production line. There's a bunch of different characters and the first phase includes BuneeQ, Devil ToyerQ, ToyerQ, and BearBearQ. The second will include KitCatQ, DoGgyQ, GrizeeQ, and MonQ. The last phase will include PigeeQ, BoxeeQ, SprayeeQ, and EggQ.

What's neat about these is that you can choose either the Angel or Devil version of each type. The Angels have wings and the Devils have spikey tails. I really loved the Angels, so I bought the last white BuneeQ, and they only had a BearBearQ in the glow-in-the-dark version, but I couldn't resist ... anyways it'll be cool to have at least one glowing one ... maybe he can hang out with my glowing Munny zipper pull! lol

I still haven't taken them out of their boxes b/c I was so excited that I had to post something first! As soon as I get done, I think there will be a lot of box opening tonight. :D

Next, I visited the bookstore. Wow was I surprised to see Re-ment and the Hello Kitty x Rody blind boxes. I expected to go in and see what kinds of doll-related books/magazines that they might have or ask about Ryuhei Matsuda movies and other merchandise. I never did get around to looking for or asking about Ryuhei ... that shows how into these other finds I was!!! lol. At this point, I don't even know who Rody is, but this Hello Kitty + blind box thing was just too tempting. There was one on display, and after I saw that her head bobs around, I had to have her. We'll see which one I get. :) As for Re-ment, they had quite a good selection. They sold the blind boxes individually and as entire sets. If they had Animal Village or the one with the Rabbit Sweets, I think my wallet might have been in trouble. But I did pick up one box of the one with the gumball machine ... I don't remember what this series is called and the box is in Japanese so I can't read it. (I'm starting to think it would be worth my while to start studying some Japanese ... :) That way, I could watch more anime too without having to read so many subtitles ... and missing all of the artwork.) I'm hoping for the set with the Star Krispies cereal ... but it's a long shot, so we'll see what I get. :)

Anyways, I'm off to check out my new finds ... I do anticipate being a big fan of the Baby Qee though ... they're an ideal size for my collection and with their price, I won't feel so bad about customizing them ... and maybe many of them. lol

Sorry for the long posts ... as you can see, I tend to talk a lot once I get going!!! ^_^

TTFN!

=^. .^=

I forgot to mention that I designed new banners for my website (www.spunkyjunk.com) and other sites and places that I frequent ... here they are ...









...now I really must go to sleep!!! ^_^

Well, my new website is up ... and I'm still working out the kinks. It's funny, I've been so excited about making doll stuff and designing stuff for Zazzle, but now I'm feeling a bit tired and maybe too tired to even try to sell anything. :( I guess I just have to be patient and pace myself!!! In the meantime, feel free to visit www.spunkyjunk.com ... at this point, I'd love feedback. :)

Oooh, another thing I recently made is a photo tent. I don't have pics of it yet, but it is pretty neat ... I found a few how-to's on the internet (actually a friend emailed them to me) and I spent Friday making one of these ... I was exhausted ... but very happy with the results. I used a cardboard box, vellum, watercolor paper, decorative paper, velcro, and lots of artist tape. I'm planning on making a little one too ... hopefully that one will actually fit somewhere close to my desk.

I can't wait until I get more energy to actually use the photo tent ... I've had a lot of issues with lighting my pictures in the past and having to wait for good daylight conditions. With this little box, I'm hoping that I can take pics of my dolls and toys any time I feel the impulse ^_^.

Anyways, it's really late and I'm really tired, so off to sleep now ...