Day of the Dead 2022

I got Luciana yanked out of her leather jacket (dang, that puppy was tight!) and into something a bit more comfortable, but before showing her new dress off, Luciana wants to show her new friend off.  Yep, she dragged home another stray last night!

Only Luciana could make friends with a Teddy Scare.  Yes, instead of teddy bears this time around I've got Teddy Scares.  These are apparently the teddy bears that we adults wagged around constantly as kids, and then tossed aside as we grew older.  Now homeless, these bears roam the world aimlessly in search of someone to love.  If that's the case then Eli Wretch found someone to love him!  Yes, Eli Wretch.  He's an ex-trucker, and he's missing a few items that identify him as such.  No matter, I can replace that stuff.  These Teddy Scares also have something else to set them apart:  Living Dead Dolls have chipboard poems and death certificates, and Teddy Scares have toe tags. 

LOL, my mom and sister like to play Road Kill Bingo.  Anything that they can't identify on sight automatically goes under the category "possum."  Oh, and dig Eli's tattoo!  It's not a possum, but since this chick is green she might be roadkill.

When's the last time y'all saw a teddy bear with a tattoo???

Now that she's introduced Eli Wretch, Luciana wants to have a little fun of her own.  Not that she didn't have fun last night, LOL.

Yeah, yeah, I know Luciana is of Chilean decent and not Mexican, but the colors in this outfit suit her better than they do Marina.  Mama supplied this, as is usually the case with the things my dolls wear.  I'm fairly certain that the scarf is not supposed to be worn as a scarf, but it was too short to be used as anything else.  Luciana likes it that way anyway

That's all for today, and for awhile.  I need some time to get the next set of reviews ready, so unless something new crops up, I may be silent for awhile.

Happy Day of the Dead,
RagingMoon1987

Day of the Dead comes again

Happy Monday to y'all!  When I was a kid November first was always kinda like the day after Christmas.  Mama would start putting away her cute Halloween bric-a-brac, and for us kids Thanksgiving and Christmas seemed an eternity away.  Now of course I'm older, and Day of the Dead is one of my favorite holidays.  It's a day for trotting out Flaxie, Z, and Denise in their sugar skull clothes, and a day for Morrada Calaveras to show off, but this year Morrada is not alone.  I've chosen the name "Marigold" for my newest doll, due to her yellow dress and the associations of marigolds with Day of the Dead...and because I love marigolds, LOL.

This poppet came from Whit's Art World on Etsy.  She used to be one of those slightly creepy hard plastic dolls from the 1920's, and she's had her existing creepiness enhanced by touches of paint.

When I first ordered her her eyes were half-closed, but I eased them all the way open.  One of her eyes drifts and that adds to her creepiness!  She got a ding on her nose during shipping that I need to fix.

Marigold is a little under eight inches tall, and if I measure her bow she comes to a full eight inches.  Her head and arms move, but her legs do not.  No biggie, since sitting wouldn't allow her to show off her lovely dress.  The plastic feels a little fragile anyway so I wouldn't be monkeying with her leg joints if she had them.  She's also pretty loose up top, so that her head always lolls to her right.  Definitely NOT a toy, though I had no intention of using her as such.  But Marigold isn't the only new Day of the Dead doll I've got.  In July Mama surprised me with this.

She came accompanied with a blown glass hummingbird, and a slip of paper explaining the Mayan creation myth surrounding hummingbirds.

This accessory earned the doll the name "Chuparosa."  Chuparosa has three tags safety-pinned to her left sleeve.  The top tag advertises the Etsy store she came from, Frida Tehuana.  The "Frida" in question is none other than Frida Kahlo.

The second tag is the "thou shalt not" tag, with care instructions.

The last tag explains Frida Tehuana's purpose, which is to help rural Mexican women find jobs.  I can dig that.  There's more to it than just providing jobs, but y'all can read it for yourselves.

Personal touches like this are the reason why I love handmade rag dolls.  They all have part of the person who made them built in, and they all have some type of history behind them.  Thanks to the tag I know Chuparosa's story.  Anyway, since she's handmade there's a lot to talk about.  Chuparosa's skirt has large sugar skulls and flowers on an orange background, and this muchacho is an intense-looking so-and so!

His female counterpart looks familiar!  These two faces are all over Chuparosa's skirt, by the way.

As for Chuparosa herself, she's not as intense as the male skull on her skirt, nor is she generically cute like Skelita Calaveras is.  Her face is handpainted in a number of bright colors, including green eyebrows.  

Her hair is made of...either very fine yarn or embroidery floss, and it's braided and heavily decorated with satin ribbons of yellow, orange, and purple.  Two of the yellow ribbons are woven into her braids.

A lot of care went into making Chuparosa.  I suspect very strongly that she's supposed to be a decorative item, and yet her seams and clothes feel substantial.  She'd make a good companion for a child aged ten or over, one who is old enuff to take care of his or her things.

Of course I can't use Marigold or Chuparosa as decorations at the library lest my superiors' heads explode, but I can and am using these.

I love matryoshka dolls!  I've never owned a set before...well, before last June, actually, when Mama got these sugar skull cats.  Yes, another gift from my mom, LOL!  These actually do nest, by the way.  I was afraid they wouldn't due to those ears, but they nest just fine!  The fourth one is my favorite due to his mopey face, by the way.

So that's my Day of the Dead!  No shrines, but who needs a shrine when you've got some awesome dolls like these?  Heck, who needs a Day of the Dead shrine when you're alive???  LOL, thankful I am to be alive and not need a shrine!  Sigh...I can't say the same for a few of my friends.  When I was in high school a young man died in a tragic (and senseless) truck-vs-train accident, and the next November one of his friends built a Day of the Dead shrine for him during Spanish class.  Talk about a mental punch in the solar plexus; this boy had a special necklace that he wore every day, and when I saw that hanging on the shrine I darn near cried.  This young man wasn't even someone I was that close to, but knowing him and liking him was enuff.  Despite one sad memory I love Day of the Dead, and I'm happy to have some poppets to commemorate!  No update on my mother, as she doesn't see the oncologist until the seventeenth.  But she says just drinking more water has helped ease her arthritis, so that's something.

Happy Day of the Dead,
RagingMoon1987

Random Halloween and Day of the Dead stuff

Halloween 2019 was a quiet affair at the Moon House.  I had candy all ready to give out to the kids, but the temperature dropped and the wind was some kind of sharp so I said "phooey on it," turned out the lights, and binge-watched YouTube.  Since most of the candy I got was Tootsie Roll-themed I'll probably eat it myself during the winter (LOL).

I was hoping that this year's Halloween/Day of the Dead post would be centered around the new Dia de Muertos Barbie, but that doll sold out before you could say "stop that."  She was controversial as Barbie dolls often are, with some folks whining about cultural appropriation and others lauding the idea of a Day of the Dead Barbie, and I wonder if that controversy didn't have something to do with the doll being a quick seller.  I never will know for sure, but I still wonder.  Anywho, since I wasn't able to get this Barbie, I bought a Day of the Dead outfit for Flaxie instead.

Flaxie is one of those Wal-Mart Build-a-Bears that was available during National Teddy Bear Day, as the sole of her left foot confirms.

Probably by now y'all are familiar with sugar skulls, but have y'all ever seen CAT SUGAR SKULLS???  Flaxie's new dress has those.

Not bear or bunny sugar skulls like one might expect from a Build-a-Bear outfit, but cats.  What's not to like?  Overall the dress is okay, with soft fabrics that have nice drape (I was expecting cheap, stiff, easily snagged sateen), but Flaxie's new mask doesn't fit neatly over her face.

So I just leave it up on her forehead like a tiara.  Problem solved!

So cute!  I've always wanted a Build-a-Bear, and indeed Build-a-Bear is offering a bear in the Day of the Dead outfit that looks almost exactly like Flaxie.  Her name is Li'l Cub Pudding and she looks so much like Flaxie that it's a little frightening, but she doesn't cost what Flaxie did, AND she doesn't have the smirk.  Even though Flaxie looks like your ordinary teddy bear, I'm not going turn up my nose at the offer of a six-dollar Build-a-Bear.  I can make Flaxie look special with new outfits, just like I do for my American Girl dolls.

Oh yes, my dolls.  Here's what Z and Denise wore for Halloween yesterday.

Denise reprised her role as a pirate (she wore that getup four years ago), and Z, to my mother's delight, was a candy corn witch.  I do love how Halloween costumes get more original with each passing year, both for humans and for dolls!  I think candy corn is revolting (waaaaay too sweet for me), but lots of other folks like it!  And of course it's a great idea for a spin on a witch costume.  Poor Luciana had to sit this one out, as it's not easy to find costumes in her size.

Denise, Flaxie, and Z were joined this year by Abigail, Bru-Hilda, and Mirari, the last of whom I worried might frighten the children that came in.

The library had a pumpkin-decorating contest during the first two thirds of October.  The contest was for children, and they had to decorate their pumpkin up like a character from a book.  They could use paint, glue, Magic Markers, yarn, whatever they wanted, but carving the pumpkin was a no-no due to rotting concerns.  Since this is the first time the library has done this we only had two entries.  This one was done up to look like a horse in a Strawberry Shortcake book.  The child even included Strawberry herself!  I included the book that she used as a reference.

Lime Chiffon and Li'l Gumdrop had to get acquainted, of course.

Strawberry didn't mind!  Indeed, I think she liked the company!

Our other entry was the Lorax, one of my all-time favorite Dr. Seuss characters.

Ah yes, when I was a little girl I loved the Lorax.  I had the animated version on VHS and watched it every day, and we checked the book out multiple times as well.  Sadly the Lorax's message has been lost on me a bit, as whenever a debate about jobs versus the environment comes up, I always side with the jobs.  It really is a shame that a balance can't be set between the two...not without a lot of arm-twisting and compromise, that is.  I love this pumpkin, though!  I love the contrast between the two too, with one being very simple and the other being elaborate.

So that was my Halloween.  Now with it being Day of the Dead, Z and Denise got a wardrobe change.

Z is wearing an outfit that Samantha wore last year (plus Samantha's boots; Samantha doesn't mind sharing), while Denise opted for a more modern (but still slightly vintage) look with a short dress and a cardigan.  I also brought in Morrada Calaveras, my beloved customized Ever After High doll.

Pretty soon it'll be time to dust off my Indians for Thanksgiving.  I've got several of those, but they'll all need a cleaning before I can present them here.  I got Flaxie a Thanksgiving outfit too, but y'all will have to wait to see that!

Happy Day of the Dead,
RagingMoon1987

Custom Ever After High doll

Yes, one of my favorite holidays has come to an end and the Great Pumpkin was a no-show, but happily I had quite a few Trick-or-Treaters come by (last year I didn't).  It started off slow, slow enough that I dragged Chloe out to take some pictures.

Chloe is a leprechaun, by the way.  I've made that clear on Den of Angels that she's supposed to be a leprechaun and not a witch, but I haven't made it clear here.  Chloe is a leprechaun, and while she's not any keener on winter than her friend Johnny is, she does love Halloween...provided the Trick-or-Treaters come, which they didn't at first.

 "Le sigh...Mother, it's growing cold out here."

Chloe always calls me "Mother," for reasons I'll never know.  Anyway, the Trick-or-Treaters did eventually show, after I'd put Chloe back on her shelf and dragged out my computer, and within an hour my candy was gone and my Halloween was over.  Of course we still have Day of the Dead in full swing (plus All Saints' Day if any of y'all are Catholic), and Day of the Dead is what we're going to discuss today.  I've had this post in Draft Limbo since my birthday on October 6th, but the doll in this post has a Day of the Dead theme so I decided to hold off until now.  I've been in the doll hobby since I was eleven, but unless one counts the ball-jointed dolls that I own I've never purchased a custom-made doll.  The ones that I like are usually the higher-end ones that were way out of my price range, and in some cases I tend to prefer the original product.  I don't care much for those super-customized Blythe dolls, for example; they're cute, but I prefer the subtle edge of the original Blythe face.  We'll revisit Blythe in the future, as I finally have one...sort of.  Today is for Monster High and Ever After High though; I bought a customized Ever After High doll from a Facebook friend.  My buddy Alyssia Brown makes these drop-dead gorgeous repaints of Monster High and Ever After High dolls, with themes ranging from pop culture to fan art to fantasy.  Here's what some of my favorites look like (pictures used with permission).

There hasn't been a creation that I haven't liked, but those will give y'all an idea of what Alyssia's work looks like.  Recently she did a line of sugar skull dolls, and being a Day of the Dead fan I knew I had to own one.  Meet Morrada Calaveras.

Yes, her name is Morrada, the feminine singular Spanish word for "purple."  Being based on a Mexican entity and clothed in purple, that seems fitting.  The last name "Calaveras" is not original, being Skelita's last name.  I own two Skelita dolls, the first-wave doll and the Art Class doll, and since they share a surname I've chosen to pretend that Morrada is Skelita's cousin.

Comparing Morrada to Skelita in-depth wouldn't really be fair since one is made for mass-production and the other is an OOAK entity...but I'm going to compare them anyway.  I like Skelita a lot; indeed, of all the characters Monster High has had I like Skelita the most of all, with her half-moth, half-skeleton cousin Bonita Femur coming in at a close second.  Now that I think about it...is Bonita Femur Skelita's cousin, or could she possibly be her half-sister???  Both are listed as daughters of skeletons, after all, though sources don't say if they're both children of the same skeleton.  Anywho, Skelita's style and aesthetic is merely based on Day of the Dead and the resulting sugar skulls, while Morrada IS a sugar skull, more or less.

Alrighty, nitty-gritty time.  Morrada is a repossessed Ever After High doll, and judging from her tan plastic and the tiny tufts of caramel hair still faintly visible she was probably once this Ashlynn Ella doll.  My hypothesis is further supported by Morrada's fixed arms, and by the fact that I can feel a molded bodice under her dress.  Hats off to Alyssia for finding a good way to repurpose and hide the craptastic bodies that Mattel bestowed upon these dolls.  I got this doll for a discount because of those arms, by the way; neither Alyssia nor I are big fans of the new bodies Mattel has started using, but Alyssia made it work and I applaud her for that.  Morrada's sleeves are a feat, but I'm going to pull my fascination away from the sleeves now and focus on the head for a minute.  Specifically the face.

Oooo boy, there's a lot to talk about.  This painting puts even the best factory paint job to shame.  It has the hollow cheeks, missing nose and sunken eyes that all skulls have, whether they're sugar skulls or regular skulls.  These features are all painted in, just like Skelita's blackened nose is, but Morrada's paint is clearly more ornate than Skelita's.  For one thing, Skelita's forehead is devoid of paint, while Morrada's forehead has both a two-toned cobweb and an ornate cross.

I love the details on the cobweb; the cross pieces each have a dab of white paint, and the threads of the web are highlighted in silver.  Both of these touches do a good job of emulating a dew-covered spider's web lit by the sun, an effect that can't have been easy.

Morrada's forehead and temples are further accentuated by these black and silver scrolls.

Skelita also has these scrolls, but not as many as Morrada does.

Morrada's eyes are...well, they're a sight for sore eyes!

The irises are this gorgeous shade of magenta, and they're heavily decorated with silver, black, and purple "makeup," plus some deliciously devious eyebrows.  Alyssia even put in a fleshtoned strip of paint under Morrada's eyes to simulate lower lids.  By comparison, the average Skelita has simple little flower shapes and small dots around each eye.  Both dolls also have some shadow on and around their eyes; the first wave doll has blue shadow and blue flowers, as do most of the other Skelita dolls.

Art Class is the oddball of the bunch, with lavender eyeshadow and pink flowers.

To set the stage for Morrada's mouth area, I present a deliberate digression.  Here's what the other sugar skull dolls looked like; again, all pictures are used with Alyssia's kind permission.

Each one is different and very special.  I reserve a particular fondness for the one in the middle, as Alyssia found a way to make Madeline Hatter's painted gloves work with the rest of the look, but these are all great and all found homes quickly.  Why do I bring this up, you ask?  Because Morrada is the only doll with honest-to-God teeth showing, rather than lines that simulate teeth.  And what fabulous teeth!

Those can't have been easy to paint.  Teeth are not unheard of on made-up humans, but dolls...well, they're not unheard of on dolls either, but they're not as common as lips with lines.  While the other three sugar skull girls have an ethereal, slightly innocent look about them, Morrada is all sass.  She's downright fierce-looking in fact (I'm talking the good kind of fierce, of course), especially when compared to the saccharine smile of Skelita Calaveras. Not that I don't love Skelita's face, of course!  She just pales a bit in comparison to Morrada.  The paint jobs vary from wave to wave again, by the way.  My first-wave doll has bubblegum-pink lips...

...while the others range from darker pink to brick red.  All Skelita dolls have lines on their faces and lips to simulate teeth, however; this is accurate for sugar skull makeup.

Let's go up now, to the hair.  The hair threw me for a loop.  It looks simple enough, being black and lavender yarn with a side part...

...but I actually thought for a minute that Alyssia had rooted the head with this!  If any of y'all have ever unraveled a strand of yarn, then y'all have likely noticed that when unraveled yarn becomes very delicate and easy to pull apart.  Thus why there's no possible way that this could be rooted.  It's glued, but look how perfectly it's glued to Morrada's head!  It blends in perfectly with her scalp, thus why I thought that Alyssia had tried to root it.

Compare that to my Ashton Drake doll's sloppy glue job.  It's very difficult to see where Morrada's original hair was cut off, but if I look very, VERY closely I can see it and it confirms my hypothesis that this doll was once an Ashlynn Ella, as the roots are caramel-colored like Ashlyn's.  These roots are not noticeable at all from any sort of normal distance, and they're only barely visible in the photograph above.

Topping off the style, right at the part, is a single purple silk rose with two little green leaves.  Sometimes sugar skulls sport a big crown of these flowers, but I prefer the single one myself.  It looks like the simple styles that everyday Mexican women tend to wear.

I'll have to be extra careful with this hair; the absolute last thing I want is to accidentally pull a chunk of it off like I did with my Little Apple Doll's hair.  In my own defense I suspect that Mirari's hair was poorly rooted, a problem that I won't run into with Morrada, but better to be safe than sorry.

Regarding clothes, I'm not sure where this dress came from.  Sometimes Alyssia makes her dolls' clothes and sometimes she re-purposes existing clothes that came off of other dolls she customized, which I think is clever.  This dress is definitely re-purposed, but I don't know where from.  All I know is that it's got a lattice pattern printed on, with skulls and drips added in.

The skirt is cut in a tattered manner.

Apparently this is a halter-top dress, as I can see Morrada's bare back shining through that vinyl.

The vinyl belongs to a vest, one that looks eerily like the vests worn by Amazing Nails Barbie and her crew.

At first I thought this WAS a modified Amazing Nails Lea vest, but having looked over Monster High dolls and their various outfits, I discovered that this belonged to Ghouls Night Out Spectra Vondergeist.  Knowing Alyssia like I do, GNO Spectra probably became Siouxsie Sioux; her Siouxsie dolls are pretty popular, and I happen to be one of their many fans.  This one has been my favorite so far, since I like the Star of David (photo is again used with Alyssia's consent).

Back on topic now.  Morrada's sleeves are separate pieces of black and white striped fabric, and as I said above I have no idea how Alyssia managed to pull this off.  The sleeves are extremely fitted, and there are no loose threads anywhere in sight.

I wouldn't be making this big a deal over these sleeves if Morrada's hands could come off...but they don't, and look how splayed her fingers are!

Dig that nail polish, by the way!  Another nice little detail that Alyssia threw in.  But still, I'm at a complete loss for how she did these sleeves, because that fabric has zero stretch.

The footwear made me chuckle a little, because I recognize these boots.

I'm 99% positive that those are the original Clawdeen Wolf's shoes!  If so, then they certainly work well with the rest of the outfit.  They're not ill-fitting on Morrada's feet, though Monster High feet and Ever After High feet are a little different.  As for the tights...are these Apple White's?  C.A. Cupid's?  Some Monster High doll's?  Anyway, they're stretchy black fishnet tights, the kind that my sister and I used to wear.  Alyssia was a little miffed that these tights have a few holes in them, but no biggie.  She noted that it added an extra bit of "tatterpunk" flair to Morrada's outfit, and given the tattered hem of the dress, I have to agree.  Besides, it's not like the holes are super-obvious!  For the sake of completion I'm showing the holes, but they do not detract from this doll at all, nor do they bother me.

Par for the course with fishnet tights!  LOL, my sister and I both wore these on a fairly regular basis during our adolescence, and they always managed to get holes somehow. 

I'm not going to undress Morrada because I don't want to damage her hair...or her clothes...or...well, I just don't want to mess her up.  But just for fun, here's how she compares to my other Ever After High dolls.  If I had an Ashlynn Ella I'd compare Morrada to her, but I don't have one and I'm regretting that a bit now, because Ashlynn had lovely coloring.  But anyway, here's how Morrada looks with C.A. Cupid, who is the closest to Morrada in terms of skintone.

At first glance it would be very hard to tell that Morrada has any sort of relation to the other EVH dolls, but if one looks at the shape of her head that'll give a hint.  The shape of the hands do as well.

I have no complaints about Morrada, and I highly recommend Alyssia's work.  She's not doing sugar skulls right now that I'm aware of, but she's got some other fabulous ideas in the making.  She has unfortunately had to stop doing commissions due to the time it takes to make them, and that's a bit of a shame since I was thinking of commissioning the protagonist from A Bad Case of Stripes.  But since I just bought Morrada I'll be content with her for now.  Getting those stripes properly lined up would be a fairly tall order anyway.  Alyssia's store can be found here if anyone is interested in her lovely repaints; she's very personable and does her best to make her creations beautiful and her customers happy.

Now, a change of subject to discuss a newcomer in my life.  Nope, I'm not pregnant, but I will be getting a new child today.  Some of y'all may remember my gripes in the past about winter weather, and how I feared for the well-being of my crested gecko Horatio.  Well...Horatio died about a year and a half ago, and I haven't had any other reptiles in that time frame.  That's coming to an end this evening, as I'll be getting a bearded dragon.  I'm super-excited, because I've been wanting a bearded dragon for a long time.  Yes, my cats and my chinchilla are wonderful and I love them, but I've still been wanting a beardie.  When I get her settled in tonight I'll share an update.

Happy Day of the Dead,
RagingMoon1987