Happy Holidays!

 It's the first day of winter here in the frigid Northern Hemisphere. Seems like the perfect time to share this year's holiday card! 

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This year's card was inspired by the Glitter book I worked on with David Wolfe and the 1980s. If the doll looks familiar, it's because I reworked the Halloween Witchtober doll for this one. I really wanted something bold and bright. This has been a better year for a lot of us and I wanted to celebrate that.

I also helped David create his holiday paper doll based on the movie "White Christmas". It's always fun working on David's projects but this one especially. It's one of my favorite Christmas movies, My abilities have grown leaps & bounds in no small part because I the work I do with David. He's been in my thoughts so much recently. 

You can grab the two-page set on the Paperdoll Review Facebook page as a PDF download. 

For more holiday fun, you can grab last year's holiday paper doll here (even though it posted in 2022, I made it in 2021). AND the 2020 holiday paper doll is here (with the Nora and Nellie book I created from it here). 

That's a lot of holiday cheer! Whatever you celebrate, I hope it's excellent!

2023 Calendar

 I'm currently working on my holiday card, so that will post soon. In the meantime, I finally took the 2018 Doodle-a-Day project and turned it into a calendar! You can grab it here. It took about three weeks to receive my copy, so plan accordingly! You can also take a look at the whole project (and print them out at home) here.

Witchtober - Merchant, Travel, and Wrap-up

 First up, happy Halloween! I totally, absolutely LOVE Halloween. My kids do, too. What's more fun than dressing up, going out at night, and getting candy with your friends?! Nothing, that's what! 

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Grab the PDF of the whole set here

It was tough fitting both of these on one page! My merchant witch is a sort of Venetian style costume. I wasn't sure how to represent shopping or selling or whatever a merchant does. I settled on bag on a belt and hanging potions. The travel witch, too, was a bit tough. I thought a steampunk inspired/early automobile outfit might work. Anyway.... It's been a fun series to work on! Make sure to check out Rachel's, too, over at Paper Thin Personas. It's always a blast working on paper dolls with her! 

Witchtober - Winter and 18th Century Witch

Week 4 of our Witchtober project! Next week will be the last week and we'll post on Halloween. This has been loads of fun...and hard to keep up with! Sometimes I look through my old projects and I wonder how I ever had the time! That 2018 doodle-a-day? WOW! There were 63 sheets in that collection with 4 different dolls. 

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I got a little carried away with the winter set! I'm learning more and more about Procreate every day. One thing I'm working on is custom brushes. The holly is a brush I made. Still tinkering.... The 18th century dress is a little slim but I knew I was running out of space on the page. I made a pumpkin brush for that pattern, too, and I'm not sure how I feel about that one. If I color these, I'll probably approach both of those differently.

 Rachel is on track to post hers a little late this week. Watch her blog for it.  I know I'm looking forward to seeing it!

Witchtober - Sea and Kitchen Witch

 I know my post went up a little bit late today. I got a bit caught up drawing all of the Rococo inspired goodness on my Sea Witch!! 

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I didn't set out to make a Rococo gown. After looking for inspiration, I found a seashell crown that I liked so that inspired the hat. And as I was drawing the hat, I liked the idea of those tube curl things on powdered wigs.  That lead to a corset style front...and things just got out of hand from there. (TANGENT: My family and I are Marvel fans. In Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, one of the characters says "Things just got out of hand". It's Benedict Cumberbatch with a glorious evil voice and we say this exact phase around my house all the time!)

So anyway... After the Sea Witch, I tackled the Kitchen Witch. When I hear that phrase, I think of things like Practical Magic (wonderful book - go read the whole series - and an excellent movie) and "ordinary" witchy folks, not your goth leaning folks. I love a good goth aesthetic, but not all witchy folks are goth. So I went with a sort of retro cardigan, foliage patterned skirt, and an apron with a wooden spoon and herbs.

You can add to your growing Witchtober collection by grabbing Rachel's set here.

My Witchtober Day 1 and Doll

My Witchtober Day 2

Witchtober - Bone and Bird Witch

 I'll admit, things never seem to settle down in my house! I've been helping my mother with her knee surgery. My boys are both in middle school now (!!!!!!) - one is having a tough transition but we're working on it. I feel like I have a million things going on any given day. 

I wouldn't trade it for anything. Ok, maybe for just a tiny bit of quiet. 

Today's Witchtober set is a Bone Witch and a Bird Witch. I was partially inspired by a pearl ribcage jewelry thing for the Bone Witch. And some rad shoes with spines for heels. The Bird Witch is all me. I had this idea of a one-shoulder swoopy kind of thing. I'm not completely happy with how the skirt turned out but I can live with it. Take a look at Rachel's interpretation here!

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The boys have today off, like many of us in the States. We're going on a bike riding adventure. 

If you have the day off, too, have fun coloring the Witchtober witches! Make sure you grab the first one here :)

Spooky Month and a Halloween Paper Doll

 My youngest son is totally into Halloween this year! We all are big Halloween fans most years, but this year, he is REALLY into it! We drew monsters together over the weekend.

Today, however, is a paper doll kind of day! 

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Rachel and I decided to embark on another Halloween paper doll project. We're tackling a few of the themes from this Witchtober list we found here: https://juanjoltaire.tumblr.com/  I know nothing about the artist but this list is great.

Today's paper doll is the base doll and a random outfit. It's sort of based on a vintage Halloween dress that I saw, so it isn't part of the theme list. 

Rachel and I are going to tackle the same themes and post on Mondays through Halloween. It's going to be fun to see how we interpret the same ideas differently! Check in every Monday through Halloween to see what we're up to!