An 18th Century Pin-up

Marie!

She's all finished!

Here she is, posing

with her little feather fan.

All painted and pensive.

I'm seriously considering giving her a beauty spot.

Yes or no?

Her silly, frilly, little shoes

actually stay on her feet,

unlike some women I could mention.

See the flying shoe?

Everyone thinks this painting is sweet.

It's not. It's naughty!

The whole point of the painting

is that she's not wearing any knickers.

Look at the face of the man at the lower left.

See?

It's supposed to make you giggle!

 Anyway...

More pin-up posing.

Tight lacing and bows

A bit of lounging

Shoes and a fan.

A girl can never have too many accessories.

Detail of the wig and corset.

As you can see,

Marie will sit happily

in all kinds of positions.

Marie is inspired by the 

wonderful boudoir dolls

of the Flapper era.

I wish I had one.

The closest I have is the 

Munzerlite doll lamp

I'm restoring

Boudoir or Bed Dolls were dressed in 

exotic or designer clothes,

and were carried around as fashion accessories

as well as used to decorate a bedroom.

I love the idea of a doll for grown ups, 

that could be taken places

or left to pretty up a bed or a chair.

Find Marie in 

on Etsy.

Marie's story begins here.

Thank you, to all of you who came along

 with Marie on her journey.

Your support and encouragement 

really means a lot

and is much appreciated.

To see the final touches, go here

Shared with the wonderful

Pink Saturday

Graphic Heavy

First of all,

meet Mr Butterbean!

Isn't he lovely?

It's been a while since we had a bunny,

and Hubby bought him for me

all of a sudden!

Yes, he's adorable!

So is the bunny!

Well, I've done a lot since I was last here.

Technically, Marie is finished.

I need to take some

 pin-up style shots of her.

Meanwhile,

 here is some more
work-in-progress.

Marie on my glass table.

This is early morning

(8.00am, is early, right?)

and she's waiting for her gloves and shoes.

These are the soles of the shoes

sculpted from paper clay

.

I looked at a lot of 18th century shoes

and darling little things they are!

Ribbons and roses and frills.

And the women's shoes were even fancier!

The best little 18th century shoes I know

are made by Anita Riviera, of

Castles Crowns and Cottages.

Aren't these divine?

A lot of the historical shoes

had decorated heels,

and  I thought that was a lovely idea.

Here are the soles, painted

with flowers and leaves.

Then they are sealed,

and left to dry,

before covering with the fabric uppers.

Marie has her panniers,

and that complete the sum of her clothing.

She has bright coral pink garters 

to hold up her white stockings.

There's a very good reason

she's wrapped in a plastic bag.

A very good reason indeed.

I'd piled up her bouffant coiffure

and it looked ok, 

and it stayed in place.

But Marie had some real problems

with flyaway hair.

She was going to need some serious lacquer.

So, it was into the plastic bag,

and out with the Krylon matte seal.

Once I'd sprayed her

and the hair was set,

and her face paint was sealed

I could finish embellishing her wig.

This is the back.

Pearls!

Feathers!

Paper roses!

Satin leaves!

I added some roses to her brow,

to hold down a stray curl.

I made Marie some ringlets.

I'd twisted some of the white hair

around a chopstick.

Poured boiling water over it.

Dunked the chopstick into iced water 

to cool and set.

Left to dry.

Once it was dry,

 I sprayed it with more lacquer,

let that set and then slid it off the chopstick.

The ringlets were attached to the back of her hair

and brought over her shoulders.

More roses and plumes,

and a big pink satin bow.

And she's all finished.

I just need to take some pretty pictures.

Marie's adventures

started here.

Girl-shaped

 First of all, an exciting story!

Last week I went to the dentist

with Hubby ,

because I can't drive

and I'm a little nervous of dentists

(I used to be terrified, 

I'm getting better.

He's a nice dentist)

 When we left the dentist

it was snowing and 

half an hour later

the roads were impassable,

the only route out of the city was closed

and we were stuck.

We walked three miles in the snow 

(Look,

 I know three miles isn't far,

 and the snow wasn't thick. 

but I wasn't dressed for this. 

I was wearing battered, leaky tennis shoes)

to Hubby's church

where the very nice priest 

opened the flat in the church hall

and let us stay overnight.

He's Indian.

(not Native American.

Indian, from India)

and fed us amazing chicken curry.

The End.

 Yes, indeed.

If you're going to wear a corset, 

you need something to put in a corset

 I tried Marie without her

enhancements,

but she did look a little...unbalanced.

So I made her a couple of

pillows to stuff down the front.

So, now she has a corset

and something for the corset to squash.

Here is Marie sitting nicely

being fitted for her corset.

I won't be using bright green ribbon,

but this neon colour did give me a chance 

to look at several different ways of lacing Marie.

The lacing at the bottom 

looks nice, but 

Marie will be wearing 

panniers on her hips.

So she'll be laced from bottom 

to top.

Now she has a corset, 

with embellishments being added,

and her anachronous knickers

and her lacy stockings.

She still needs;

 panniers,

gloves,

garters,

stuff in her wig

and shoes.

Marie's story starts here.

Bad Hair Day

 You can't be 18th Century, darling,

without the powdered hair.

Even if the shiny wig with ringlets

is a Hollywood invention,

we've come to expect 

our Maries to be coiffured

in glossy, white hair.

I wasn't looking forward to this at all.

I don't think Marie was, either.

Still, before the wig

came the  satin bloomers 

and here they are!

They have elasticated legs

and they need some

 lace and

 ribbons and

 bows and

 roses and

 pearls and 

ruffles and 

embroidery and

flowers and

 furbelows and...

....because they are 18th century

and anything goes.

(What are  furbelows ?)

After the bloomers

came the corset.

Now, I have made a boned doll's corset before

(once)

but I'd never put those fiddly eyelets in.

The trick, apparently,

is to keep the hole in the fabric

as small as possible.

Then, I made stockings,

Sorry about the horrible flash photography.

 I'd really put it off as long as I could...

 I had to do the wig.

I have a big hank of costume hair.

It's very bright white

and perfect for

Santa or Gandalf.

It's also loose and

I was really worried about using it.

(I was hoping to link a 

hair wefting tutorial here,

by Antonette Cely

but I can't find it on-line any more.

Essentially, it involves sewing the hair 

onto tissue paper

with a sewing machine.)

I sewed strips of the hair

onto used tumble dryer sheets.

They're white and soft 

and pretty invisible behind the hair.

So, I sewed two strips

and I rolled some loose hair

into a ball.

Essentially there's a row of hair sewn at the front,

a row at the back,

and in between, a big pouf

sewn into a tulle bag

to provide the height.

It's all sewn, 

Ladies and Gentlemen.

No glue.

The tips of the hair I gathered into a topknot

and tucked it into the crown and stitched it in place.

She still looks a little suspicious...

Tomorrow

I'm going to have fun,

embellishing her wig

and adding girly stuff to her clothes.

Marie's story starts here.

Progress so far.

The story so far...

Marie is all assembled

and I've done all the soft sculpture

apart from her ears.

Her face is drawn

and she's mostly blushed. 

I've cut out Marie's bloomers, but

I'm procrastinating about sewing them because

I chose to make them out of duchess satin.

Sometimes I don't make good choices.

The Story of Marie

starts here.