June Book Review: 'Mixed Media Dollhouses' by Tally Oliveau and Julie Molina

When I started thinking about of branching out my doll art, doll dioramas seemed daunting and expensive. But after downloading this book, this art form seems a lot less intimidating.

Here Oliveau and Molina bring together a variety of artists to create dollhouses from altered art assemblage (art thats a combo of 2D and 3D works). The featured dollhouses have insane themes, like the Wonderland House, the Under the Sea and my favorite the Treehouse. Through assembling different shaped boxes, collage pasting and a little tool work, what’s amazing is that the houses have no real pattern, yet the different rooms mesh together beautifully! Of all the dollhouses in existence, you’ll never find one equal to these.

The book covers wide ground, from design concept to construction. For example, the chapter on box structure shows how to widen a box room, and how to manipulate the box frame just to add a little depth and twist. But the authors really emphasize the amazing collision of 2D to 3D features throughout the dollhouses, from using wire to make features spring and stick out to using different wallpapers for contrasting background to make even the most bland room wall seem alive! 

Just flipping through this book again and again gives me new ideas for dollhouse making. I wish the kindle edition had made the pictures bigger so the reader can see all the amazing detail that was put into each room! There are up to seven rooms in each house, so why do the work suggest and show them! There’s always some new technique or design that would be a delight to create a beautiful home for my growing doll collection. 

Final Score: 3/5 (for layout)

Lyric Bracelet

OK, first of all, one thing I’ve gotta say-I was LOVING ‘Let It Go’ from Frozen way before it was cool! When the promo of Idina performing it came out in October, I cried the first time I heard it. This song never fails to hit an emotional chord. Though I gotta admit, for the project, I mashed up both Idina and Demi’s versions of the song. Seriously, that line about being ‘up here in the cold thin air, I finally can breathe, I know I left a life behind, but I’m too relieved to grieve’ is brilliant!

So when I came across this ‘Love Letter’ bangle idea from Mark Montano’s Big Ass Book of Bling, but instead of using a hand written letter, modified the project to feature song lyrics. I was really drawn to how personal this bracelet could be. Tons of people would adore receiving a bracelet with their favorite tune embellished on it! 

So taking a stroll down memory lane to my kindergarten art class, it was fun to revisit paper mache techniques, covering the bangle first in a layer before covering it in the strips of printed paper.

However, the project at the moment remains incomplete as I haven’t been able to source the final touch, Polycrylic Winwax, a water based sealer to smooth over the surface of the paper exterior. I even wrote to Mr. Montano asking if he could recommend a substitute product, but any art supplies or hardware store owner just gives me weird looks when I’ve asked. So for now, the bracelet remains raw and unfinished. 

Makes a really sentimental and fun gift!

Exhibition Review: Wedding Dresses 1775-2014 at the V&A

With the massive atrium, and with all the wedding fever running high in my house in preparation for my older sister Marika’s wedding, I planned a visit to see this collection of wedding dresses, showing from May 3rd until 15th March next year at the V&A.

The fashion wing at the V&A is an amazing space for an exhibition, with the atrium and upper deck open. But it still gets me how, despite how the museum should take pride in providing so much inspiration for designers, they STILL won’t allow sketching or photographs!Artist peeves aside, I was struck by one thing in particular about the exhibition. The display showed the evolution of wedding attire traditions. For example, the shift from morning church wedding requiring brides to wear gloves and cover their shoulders, to performing the services in private family parlors calling for a less formal dress code. Personally I was curious to learn a little more about the origins of wedding dresses (why a veil, why white etc?) On screens they showed video footage of several royal weddings in recent history, including Princess Diana’s. 

The upper deck though had the real show stoppers! Larger than dress wedding dresses worn by celebrities like Kate Moss were displayed, stating the message of how celebrity driven weddings have become with all the publicity of the net boosts today. People are becoming more and more edgy and personal in their wedding gowns, wanting to make a red carpet worthy statement on their special day. I love this idea, how it breaks away from the historical icon of a bride being offered as some kind of gift to a man! And not all the dresses were camera-conscious but practical. For example, one gown showed the trend of dancing at reception and therefor needing to more flexible (no trains, simple silhouette etc). 

My favorite gown had to be Ian Stewart’s Flower Bomb, a gorgeous explosion of soft netting and taffeta!

A great visit and one I’d wish to repeat with the mother of the bride. However, I didn’t stay long, getting a little teary eyed at the idea of Marika dawning one of these bad boys herself shortly...