~Sister Kyoya's Cubbyhole (Sept. 21 Update)

I've had an amazingly little amount of time since school started again and wanted a place to be able to post whatever random DD stuff I'm working on without having to wait for just the right place to show it off. I really love doing photo stories but the ones I did on Halloween were all I could barely manage and Tamayuki's is still waiting to be posted... So I decided to make my own little spot so I can slap up photos of what is burbling through my brain at the moment. To keep my sanity I try to work DD into whatever homework I can get away with, and last week our kids even found their way into my programming when we had to "make up" ten students so the program we were writing could calculate their grades. I'm sure my programming teacher was curious as to who Dolly Eabee was.

 

 

Another Photoshop assignment done. This time we were supposed to design two book covers, one fiction and one non-fiction. This is the fictitious non-fiction and DD themed one. I'm glad I got them done (because it was my midterm) but I want my weekend back.

 

Man, I want both these books. I guess it's a good thing then that I already know what's on the inside.

 

~Sister Kyoya

Edited September 21, 2018 by Guest

Hey, I'd totally be interested in such a book. Seriously. I've kinda been wondering if I should track down a sewing machine at some point and try to learn how to make DD clothes and things.

 

Very nice job on the Photoshop for your assignment!

Agreed! If a book like this existed I would be most happy especially since I really do want to start learning how to sew, even if it's just something simple The cover looks great, I'm sure you did great on your midterm

Really nice work ! I sure hope I could do stuff like that ... I really need to take course too

I really appreciate the kind comments. The basis of the book is actually a blog post I started working on last spring for a tutorial on how to make a basic gathered DD skirt. Raven was testing the patterns for me so the gathered skirts she wears are based on the patterns I drafted. The tutorial is actually written out (all 13 pages of it!) and I have over 250 pictures I took of the entire process to really show it step by step.

 

I started sewing when I was in middle school and have pretty much taught myself so I know how hard and aggravating it can be without any direction. Raven also wanted to learn to sew for our DD and his experience with sewing is taking one home ec class and he can sew buttons on a shirt when they fall off. Me on the other hand had a total of three days in home ec before transfering to a programming class. I already knew how to sew, cook, ect. better than an 8th grade class could teach me.

 

Repeatedly I kept hearing on the forums people say that they wanted to learn to sew for their girls, but had no idea where to start. The skirt in my tutorial is really simple but the explanation is so very long because I really do try to explain everything as if I was talking to someone who hasn't ever sewn anything. Although, I assume that the person can read their sewing machine's manual to figure out how to use their machine. I sew the same way for the DD that I do for normal size clothing (with only minor changes because of scale) and think it's a great way for someone to learn such a basic skill. If nothing else you don't have to deal with yards of fabric, and many DD are very forgiving if it's not totally perfect. My original intent was to introduce sewing basics one step at a time while doing a project, explaining what is going on as I go and giving vocab definitions to simplify things in the long run. For the later projects I can just say do this thing, that other thing and then do this, without having to stop and explain it every time.

 

The more I think about it I wonder if doing it in the blog format just isn't right, and part of why I haven't gotten it posted yet. I just don't know how to break it up into a ton of small blog posts. As a book though, I could easily do it because of Lulu (a print on demand book company) and it does make a lot more sense to me on how to make some fun page layouts. Also I love the option of full-color pages and spiral binding because if you're trying to sew, you don't want to fuss with a book that won't stay open. I'm not too sure about the "full sized patterns" mentioned on the cover because a long skirt wouldn't fit on a single page, but I do have a couple other ideas and tricks up my sleeves to work around that. There are many DD clothing things I have been working on and similarly related things I have planned, so I'm happy to hear that there is at least a little interest.

 

Really nice work ! I sure hope I could do stuff like that ... I really need to take course too

 

If you already have access to Photoshop, or even Photoshop Elements there are a ton of online places you can learn from, or books (I like the Dummies books because they are funny and easy to read). As for the class I'm taking I'm truthfully way to advanced for the class. I have spent the last 10+ years playing in Photoshop Elements just to see what I can do and that's most of how I learned how to use the program and decide what I like in reference to design. Some people think extensively about what makes good and bad design, but for me it just boils down to my intuition and either I like it or I don't. I am an exceedingly visual person so that probably has a lot to do with it too. There are a few minor thing I'd fix on my book cover if I didn't have to do it for an assignment, but mostly I'm pretty happy with it.

 

~Sister Kyoya

Now I know how Naiomi plans on funding her theater until it is completed.

 

~Sister Kyoya

Too bad they'ld melt before they got here, I'd have bought one of each (yes, even Dolly) .

I'd surely buy this book on Amazon if it was real x)

What a nice project, congrats!:3

I want a Tamayuki ice sculpture! Yuriko wants a dolly ont, too, but only so she could watch it melt.

Just a few quick photos after class today since we got about 2-3 inches of snow last night.

 

 

Not only is the pic honorably blurry, Tama-chan fell over sideways right after I took this. He had powdery snow plastered all up and down his left side.

 

 

Tamayuki: "I'm making a snow Tamayuki!"

 

Mommy: "Shouldn't you have gloves on? Your hands are going to freeze!"

 

Tamayuki: "I can be a heater too just like Daddy and MooseMoose. Boys like us keep really warm so we don't need gloves. Daddy makes snowballs without any gloves and he likes it."

 

 

"Mommy, my snowman doesn't want to grow any more. It likes being a baby."

 

The snow that Tama is on (under the snow from last night) is about 3-4 inches thick. I was hoping that it would be better packing snow than it was, but it stuck to my gloves more than anything. After his short stint in the snow I took him back inside, pulled off his dark clothes to avoid any staining, and pulled off his shoes. I put plastic over his socks before his shoes went on because I was sure the dark brown parts would surely stain and didn't want to risk it. Reminded me of being in grade school and my mom used to make us put bread bags over our socks before putting on our winter boots. Moon boots might have looked cool, but they never kept my feet warm and they were never good for walking in.

 

Tamayuki: "I think the best part was being wrapped up in my blankie and snuggling after we went back inside."

 

~Sister Kyoya

Since many other forum members have pretty much made their personal 'Photo Randoms' threads, I thought I'd bring this one up from the dead. So many exciting things have been going on around here recently that I've been at a bit of a loss as to where I wanted to post the pics!

 

 

 

Since Raven allowed me to swap out Sohi's default eyes, I finally got to try them out with Kiyoteru! Admittedly it was the reason why I was excited when Raven said he wanted to changer her eyes before the girls had shipped, and why I similarly encouraged it. Since everything except his sculpt and the faceup that Anouc did is going to be changed eventually, these pics are supposed to be Naiomi daydreaming about him.

 

I'm so excited to see that he also doesn't look bishie at all, and getting him more appropriate glasses will help add to his age too. Well, that and an actual male body...

 

 

As for Sohi, she wanted to dress up as a bunny! She's really been asking to have color themed outfits now that she can have different eyes. The next set I want to do is blue with Dakota's eyes and Kos-Mos' wig. I used Bree's eyes first because the other pair that Raven was thinking about was the same design but in purple instead of hot pink. Looking at her now she looks cute, but I think she would look better with eyes that had a lot more fine details.

 

~Sister Kyoya

Sohi and Bree look so much alike I almost thought she was Bree in that picture! Since she had her eyes in and all. Then I noticed the closed mouth. How cute is that, though?

Even when I was looking at Sohi's pic in Photoshop, once or twice I thought it was Bree too. Now that I look at them, their sculpts are very similar and they could easily be sisters! Sohi still has Bree's eyes in and Raven is thinking he kinda likes it for now. Might be able to convince him to try out more of the other eye colors of that style. The purple ones are what he originally wanted, but I think it would just be fun to get pictures of Bree and Sohi together.

 

Hmmm... I do have multiple pairs of identical eyes though... (Rainie, Ringo, & Ralph have the same exact eyes.)

 

~Sister Kyoya

nice photos

Thank you! My photography is definitely a work in progress but I'm happy with it so far.

 

~Sister Kyoya

 

Ringo: "Oh, hi Mama. We found these in the mail and thought you might need help opening them."

 

Ralph: "Space balls!"

 

Dolly: "Where is my hair brush?" *snicker, snicker*

 

If you ever wondered what a half pound of poofballs looked like, now you know! In the center it doesn't look like it but it is about 2 inches deep. Hmmm... so what am I going to do with these?

 

~Sister Kyoya

Here are some pics I've taken recently and either put on Twitter or just didn't have anywhere else to put them. (Sorry if there are repeats. I'm so busy that I don't know if I am coming or going.)

 

 

 

 

 

I'm happy that I have a way of adding glitter to fabric, but the downside is Rainie wants me to put it on everything

 

 

 

I am so pleased with these pics of Ellie.

 

~Sister Kyoya

I agree! Ellie looks great! She looks like she is all dressed and ready to work at some Spring cleaning!

 

Grabbed a quick shot before Raven hauled off the girls for a modeling session. I just wanna say "Awwwww..." and hug them both! Ellie has been insisting that she's going to be Miss Lottie's friend. She's nice about it, but every time she has to sit down she decides that she has to sit closer.

 

~Sister Kyoya

 

How can you not smile seeing her cheerful face?

 

First time playing with Raven's macro lens with the DD. Reminded that my best type of photos seem to be the hyper zoomed in ones, rather than trying to get *everything* into a shot.

 

~Sister Kyoya

I have to say that the more I see of your Ellie, the more I think she's much like my Elisabeth..... quiet, shy and super cute! I love those shots of her with the apron on and that last one really is sweet. If we lived closer I'm betting Ellie and Elisabeth would be close friends.

 

 

Billy

 

Playing with the colors so Raven can see my pics more like I do. (He's colorblind) I just love how it makes her blush show up. It's Ellie with a tan!

 

 

Old jewelry box from my mom and would make a perfect DD dresser if I can figure out how to replace the missing drawer. Kinda lost on that and any suggestions would be hugely helpful.

 

 

Radio from the 50s!

 

 

Seriously little! Ralph has already laid claim to it, saying that it is an alien communication device. I didn't question him further.

 

 

Working on teaching myself how to draw anime style characters so I can eventually do all of our DD kids. This is MUCH harder for me than it looks. Can I draw well? Yes, but that also seems to be my problem. I can either draw very stylistic cartoons, or very realistically. Anime artwork falls somewhere in the middle. I think I'm just going to have to get used to the fact that my style is a bit more on the realistic side, I think mostly because I love shading too much. *stares at Tama's ears that I could have shaded realistically so they are popping off the page* LOL! This will look MUCH better once I redraw it in Illustrator, leave out the reference lines and add his hair.

 

I had to do an interpretation of his mouth since I can't figure it out yet based on his sculpted one. He has no lines on his mouth and it is all just shading. If I make the line of his mouth where the shadows are, then he looks like he's frowning. The durn mouth was the hardest part because it kept looking wrong!

 

The other bonus to this is learning how realistic/photo lines translate into anime artwork and something I've been needing to learn better if I do more eye shirts. I had forgotten how much I love drawing eyes by hand. Ver. 2 will be 3/4 view, and I might do another set after those that will be more anime and less realistic (eyes will be narrower than they are tall, and much more cartoon like.) Kinda dreading the hair. Even when I took a super hero drawing class in high school we were never actually taught how to figure out hair. Good thing I have Pinterest to show me what I need to know.

 

 

I am SO happy to see this pic! Finally Sohi and Bree together! And what's more is Sohi finally looks like herself because she has her new/proper eyes! I love how Sohi's head is bigger than Bree's so then Bree's head doesn't look out of proportion on the MDD body. Hopefully by the end of next week Bree will also be a permanent resident in the house! Just waiting for Tama's new body to get from NJ to WA. I'm all kinds of excited!

 

I have to say that the more I see of your Ellie, the more I think she's much like my Elisabeth..... quiet, shy and super cute! I love those shots of her with the apron on and that last one really is sweet. If we lived closer I'm betting Ellie and Elisabeth would be close friends.

 

 

Billy

 

Ellie is quiet (when her and Tama or Naiomi aren't talking up a storm) but she doesn't seem to be particularly shy. Once or twice she's said that if she didn't have a crush on Ralph and if Naiomi was into girls, she would totally pounce on her. I've really been stunned at how photogenic Ellie is! Even with as many kids as we have, If I have a photo I need to take real quick I just grab her because I know I won't have to fuss with the pic later. She doesn't seem to be camera shy at all either.

 

I can so totally imagine Ellie and Elizabeth sitting next to each other with their heads together and giggling.

 

~Sister Kyoya

 

Old jewelry box from my mom and would make a perfect DD dresser if I can figure out how to replace the missing drawer. Kinda lost on that and any suggestions would be hugely helpful.

 

If shipping me one of those drawers as a template wasn't prohibitively expensive, I'd volunteer to try and make a duplicate for you....

 

Tama: "Mommy what's this for?"

 

Mommy: "I'm trying to compare egg to flour to liquid ratios of regular and gluten free angel food and chiffon cakes."

 

Tama: "Oh. Sounds hard. Why would you want to do that?"

 

Mommy: "It's a wild attempt to see if I can still have something that resembles bread. All I want is a bean patty burger on bread. Just something like sandwich bread."

 

Tama: "That's a lot of sugar Mommy."

 

Mommy: "See, that's the thing that keeps stumping me: What would happen to the structure if I reduced the sugars as much as possible or just left the sugar out and replaced some of it with liquid stevia? I just don't want it to be a complete fail if I do that."

 

Tama: *excitedly* "So we get to play with cake?"

 

Mommy: "Maybe once I'm feeling better*."

 

*Ate some almond flour 3 days ago and found out it was not safe. I get stomach aches every time I eat until my body sorts itself.

 

 

Lucas: "Tama, come back... I have a blanket you can snuggle with."

 

Corey: "Bit o' advice fer ya, Lucas-"

 

Tama: *in the distance* "But I'm trying to help Mommy."

 

Corey: "Ya be a daft mate if yer noggin be 'arborin' notion ta be winnin' against 'is mum."

 

Lucas: "Bugger off Corey."

 

Corey: *snickers* "Yer gonna 'ave a long wait ahead o' ya."

 

[

 

Mommy: "What are you up to Gizella?"

 

Gizella: "Collecting my subjects."

 

Mommy: "What, test subjects? I'm not going to let you experiment, or torture, the Chibi Bunch."

 

Gizella: "Who wants to do that?"

 

Mommy: "Says the girl always trying to pinch the cats."

 

Gizella: "Cats are for pinching."

 

Mommy: "No, they are not."

 

Gizella: "They should be."

 

Mommy: "Tell me precisely what you need subjects for?"

 

Gizella: "To rule. Every princess needs subjects to kick around."

 

Mommy: "Kick? You better not be kicking anyone!"

 

Gizella: "But how do I get them to do what I want? I've seen how your country does things like that. You put hats on their heads, smack them around, carry them around screaming, and you kick them to do their work."

 

Mommy: "The Chibi Bunch are not Keflings! If you need help with something just ask nicely."

 

Gizella: "That doesn't sound as much fun."

 

 

Rainie: "We need lots of duct tape so we can tape the dinosaurs to the drones..."

 

Dolly: "Yeah! And then we can train them to drop down on people and scare them!"

 

Ringo: *sigh* "You do realize that whole plan would be much easier if you just had a small collection of hippogryphs? Even a few unicorns could do a better job than puny miniature dinosaurs. They can't even pretend to be dragons. Right my prince?"

 

Rodjer: "Riiiibit."

 

Dolly: "Yeah... well... uh... I bet you've never heard this joke! What can a dinosaur eat?"

 

Ringo: "Can you even tell a jo-"

 

Dolly: "Anything it wants! HA!"

 

Rainie: "BAHAHAHAHA!"

 

Ringo: *mumbles* "Smooth one Casanova."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Long time no see again. I'm doing better in some ways since my vitamin D levels have been getting fixed. I have more energy everyday but whenever I get up and get active or just too warm I physically degrade really quickly. Doctor did mention chronic fatigue at my last appointment but I think he was hoping the vitamin D supplements would fix everything. He said my vitamin D levels were the lowest he's ever seen. Not really something anyone would want to hear.

 

Kiddos are still being their silly selves but I'm still not up to doing big pics again. I keep thinking about sewing and even just mentally it's just exhausting still. I spend most of my time trying to figure out recipes to post on my food blog. I started it simply to help me remember what I can eat.

 

It's been nearly a year since I've had any major changes in foods I'm able to eat. Surprisingly I discovered one oil from Italy I can tolerate. Thought I had found a processed coconut oil I could have until my body let me know there was trace amounts of baking soda in it. I was again really lucky that it was such tiny portion that it didn't affect my breathing but it did start to trigger a reaction. (I think it would have been used as part of the filtering process.) I have my EpiPen I can use, but still it's frightening to panic and madly try to figure out how to get myself to the ER if the reaction had gotten any worse. Raven had left for work a short time before. I had no idea that baking soda could end up in oil. And with such an extreme and unbelievably rare allergy I'm not surprised that the company didn't mention it because for everyone else it's a safe ingredient. My guess is that I ingested between 1/32 and 1/64 teaspoon based on the level of reaction. Despite that drama, followed by badly reacting to almond flour afterwards, I still ended up with a version of peanut butter cookies I can have.

 

 

Tama has been utterly delighted to help with the test baking. Pretty much last Christmas was ruined because we couldn't make cookies together. It's not like we normally do a lot or anything but it's just a really important thing for he and I. In hopes of getting other recipes figured out I got him some things that have been on my wishlist for a while.

 

 

I was delighted that the snowman and the gingerbread man were close enough in size... since we all know how the DD consume sweets. Tama's not much into eating sweets, unless it's Christmas cookies.

 

 

These are for an attempt to remake a cookie I remember as a kid but they are seemingly *accurate* cookie size for the DD. LOL!

 

 

And what boy wouldn't want dinowrawer cookies?

 

 

So he has been super excitedly getting ready for Christmas already. I Love these Singles pans. They are the perfect size for DD shaped cakes. Still not sure if I can use it for a cake due to removal issues. Last I recall about cakes is that the pans don't release well if oiled instead of using shortening/solid coconut oil. I could be wrong since I haven't tested or researched it in a very long time. Still, I'm amazed that I can even consider it. This time last year I thought I'd never be able to bake again, and certainly not cake and cookies. But I have done both in the last year. Life is still a distinct struggle but things are looking up more often than not.

 

Waiting for Saber, Ruler, Luka, more Nendoroids, and likely 9S is slowly allowing me to do a little hobby related stuff now that I'm able to do more everyday and food is slowly getting sorted out. I've missed being on the forums but I've been so overwhelmed by just life that it was just too much to manage. I really would like to apologize for the times I was here and was nothing but a pessimistic grouch. I was not dealing with the stress well at all, or the extreme helplessness. I still have to do things slowly but at least not as much as 6 months ago. It isn't the easiest dealing with having my whole life dumped on my head. Still, the Kiddos are a constant joy to me. I'm trying when I can to be on the forums. It's just hard when there is so much to catch up on.

 

~Sister Kyoya