Nefera de Nile

“So these are the peasants who took all your clothes,” said Nefera to her little sister, Cleo.

The Garoul sisters closed ranks and stared defiantly at the tall stranger but they proved no match for her.  

Nefera nonchalantly walloped Claudia with a backhanded slap. 

Then she knocked Claudine to the ground and straddled her, twining her hands in the glamour girl's, store bought mane.  

Claudine felt a section of expensive Indian hair break loose from its stitching and started begging for mercy in no time.

Tomboy Claudette still insists she could have taken Nefera if her sisters had not insisted on dressing her in a skirt that morning but Nefera unceremoniously dispatched her with a kick to the derriere.

Nefera extracted apologies from the bullies who had terrorized her little sister, 

then staged a public display of affection with their brother, Clawd, just so there would be no illusions about who reigned as the queen of his heart.

***

I initially didn’t care much for Nefera de Nile’s costume.  Although she has molded on, flesh-toned, textured panties like all the Monster High dolls, the Monster High girls’ skirts routinely make me shake my head and marvel “your mother let you out of the house in that?”

I also find the “bandage” prints that Mattel has created for the de Nile sisters’ clothes to be too busy, but the green scarf that drapes across Nefera’s body and over the skirt is an interesting accent although it is stitched to both the top and bottom of her two-piece outfit. 

You will have to pull off her left hand to free her arm from the one sleeve.  Monster High dolls are ostensibly designed so that you can do this without damage, but the prong that attaches the hand to the forearm looks rather fragile to me.  I would prefer not to remove body parts to undress the doll.  Once you remove the top, however, you will find a serpent tattoo on her shoulder 

The accessories were much more satisfying.  Nefera comes with an attractive scarab beetle named Azure who is her pet. 

She wears mismatched gold earrings and her necklace represents the biblical fall of mankind with a serpent and an apple.

Her hair is caught up in a kind of golden cap. 

Nefera also sports a gold cuff bracelet on her left hand and an impressive chip of “ice” on her finger. 

A thick, gold-toned plastic belt encircles her waist.  I think it is overkill on this outfit but it would probably be stunning paired with a flowing tunic in a solid color. 

If you have any cross dressing Kens, Nefara’s feet are big enough that they could borrow her shoes to channel Elizabeth Taylor in her role as queen of the Nile. 

The purse continues the serpent motif and is also cute enough for other dolls to borrow when Nefera isn’t looking. 

Borrowing clothes and accessories from Nefera could be a dangerous proposition, however given that she subdued all three of the Garoul sisters single handedly within minutes of being freed from her box!

Indeed Nefera truly is Cleo’s big sister.  She is taller

with longer, thicker legs

and a fuller bosom. 

She has the same sway backed stance as all the Monster High dolls but she looks lean and well-toned like an action figure instead of frail and spindly.  She has such a beautiful bronze complexion I couldn’t resist shooting her nude. 

I didn’t like her purple eyes or blue hair at first, but she photographed so well in this guise that I think I will have to buy a second Nefera to customize.  And maybe even a third – to be a donor for a normal sized head that needs an articulated body.  This doll truly is a royal treat.

***

Speaking of treats, this week's tutorial illustrates how to make chocolate bundt cake for your dolls from salt dough:

À Bientôt

Salt Dough Fruit Bowl

My first pottery project was an ash tray.  Back before cigarette advertisements were banned and before the Surgeon General placed warnings on all cigarette packages, people thought the imprint of a pre-schooler's hand would be the perfect place to deposit cigarette ashes.  I want to start my salt dough tutorial series off on a healthier note, consequently the first project is a fruit bowl so your dolls can always keep healthy snacks on hand. 

Salt dough is not as elastic as polymer clay.  It will crumble if you roll it out too thin.  It can also bubble and crack when heated if the water molecules convert to steam and get trapped inside your project.  Still it is possible to make some doll sized "ceramic" pieces if you allow them to air dry. I had a lot of fun experimenting with different types of paint and glazes and I hope you will too.

 À Bientôt

Steve Jobs Action Figure

BBC News reports that a Chinese firm, In Icon, has decided to cancel sales of the 12" Steve Jobs figure it had designed as a tribute.  While producing the Steve Jobs figure was well within Chinese law, In Icon opted to respect the feelings of Jobs' family.  The figure, which was due to ship in February, had carefully sculpted, lifelike features and would have been dressed in Jobs' signature black turtleneck and New Balance sneakers.  Accessories included a scale model iPhone.  Collectors who had pre-ordered the $99 figure will receive a refund.
 

À Bientôt

 

Salt Dough 101

     One Christmas when I was in grade school, my brother and I each got a fresh stick of modeling clay.  Mine was green and my brother’s was red.  He immediately modeled a piece of excrement with his.  It looked so real that he grossed himself out and flushed it down the toilet.  Bye bye Christmas clay! 

    I kept my green clay for several years and spent many happy hours making pies and pancakes for my dolls.  They thought green pancakes were fun for Saint Patrick’s Day, but they got tired of seeing them every day of the year.  So eventually I bought a pack of Play Doh with my allowance.  With four colors to choose from, I was able to make a wider variety of appetizing foods.  I am, however, the kind of anal retentive Virgo who still has the original shoes that came with Barbie fashions I received for Christmas when I was six (that’s over forty years ago).  Was I going to mix the basic red, blue, yellow, and white dough to make other colors?  No way!  Kids I knew who mixed up their Play Doh ended up with yucky gray-brown lumps.  I don’t even like for different kinds of real food to touch on my plate.  

    My mother cooked up some home made salt dough once but it came out very soft and sticky and she only made one color – a murky red.  I had no idea salt dough could be such a versatile medium until about three years ago when I happened to check a book on salt dough crafting out of the library.  It only costs about $1 to make a three-cup batch of salt dough.  You can make enough salt dough meals to feed a whole platoon of hungry Joes from that one batch of dough so compared to the price of commercially produced plastic rements, play scale salt dough food is an incredible bargain.  It’s also tremendous fun!

    So I hope you will enjoy the first in a new series of tutorials on play scale crafting with salt dough and please excuse my silence last week (classes started this week and I was preparing my syllabi):

À Bientôt

New Year's Resolutions

 

No, that's not Pepe cheating on Eloisa, that's his brother Emilio toasting the New Year with his lady friend.  They have been working very hard as hand models for my new Etsy store -- check out the store widget on the right side of this page.  I was shooting stills for my salt dough tutorials yesterday and decided that since I had so much salt dough food left over, I would fulfill the last of my 2011 resolutions by selling the surplus on Etsy.  I'm kicking off the grand opening of the store with an after Christmas sale price on the Christmas cookies featured in "Beulah's Boogie:  Part 2" but hurry, I only have one of these for sale.  Salt dough items are small so if your dolls are hungry, I will combine shipping on multiple orders.  See you in 2012 with more tutorials, more photo stories, and more fun.

Wishing you all peace and prosperity throughout the New Year!

À Bientôt

Beulah's Boogie: Part 2

    “Ho!  Ho!  Ho!  Here’s one of Santa’s elves bringing you some hot chocolate and Christmas cheer,” said Beulah Knapp, barging into her daughter’s bedroom. 

  
“Just put it down on the vanity,” said Cynthia.  “I don’t want any right now.” 

 
  “You don’t want any hot chocolate?  Or you don’t want any Christmas cheer?”

  
“It just doesn’t feel like Christmas without Daddy.” 

    “I know sweetheart.  It’s been six months and I still expect to see him puffing on that nasty pipe every time I walk through the den"

"but he wouldn’t want us to spend our whole lives moping just because the Maker called him home."
 

"During the war his best friend from flight school in Tuskeegee was shot down over Limosa, but it only made him more determined to keep fighting to make liberty and justice a reality for all."
 

"He was counting on you to carry on that fight for freedom."
 

"How will you make it to law school and become the first black woman on the Supreme Court if you flunk out of college in your first semester?  -- which, by the way, the dean called to tell me you are in danger of doing.” 

  
“I’m sorry Mama.  I miss Daddy so much I just can’t concentrate.” 

    “It’s been hard for me too, baby.  That man was the light of my life…” 

 
  “Tell me the story about how you met Daddy again.  All my friends think it’s the most romantic thing they’ve ever heard.” 

  

 
  “Well, in November of 1946 when I was a freshman at Hampton, my steady was pledging Alpha Phi Alpha so he escorted me to the Alphas' Harvest Hop."
 

"Stanley wasn’t much of a dancer"

"but he indulged me because he knew how much I loved to cut a rug.  I liked the up tempo numbers"
 

"but Stanley liked the slow ballads."

   
     "After a few songs Stanley went to find some refreshments."
 

"I appreciated the gentlemanly courtesy, but the music was so good I couldn’t help but tap my feet while waiting for him to come back."
 

   
     "Next thing I knew, a bold stranger had taken hold of my hand."

“May I have this dance?” he asked.

“I opened my mouth to tell him I was waiting for my date,"

"but he looked like a sepia Clark Gable and I couldn’t resist when he pulled me onto the floor.”

   
     "His lead was masterful, but tender."
 

"He was so debonair and sophisticated I could tell he was one of the older veterans finishing his degree on the G.I. Bill.  He swept my feet off the floor and swung me over his right side"

"then around to his left."
 

"All I could do was hang on,"

"but he was so strong and gentle, I knew he wouldn’t drop me even though he just about mopped the floor with me that night." 

    "He slid me down in between his legs,"

"stepped around,"

"and then lifted me back up onto my feet."
 

"I thought I was home free, but then he wrung the dishrag with me,"

"clasped my wrists,"

"
hoisted me up onto his broad back,"

"and flipped me over his head!"

        
     "Twenty years later when we saw Stanley at a Hampton alumni event, he had a successful company, a wife, and five kids but he was still complaining about how “Those G.I.s took all the girls.”

   
     "By the time my feet touched the ground again I was head over heels for Mr. Nassau Knapp and when he said ‘I want to see you again,’ I forgot all about Stanley Morton!"

 
  “We eloped and got married at the courthouse in Baltimore a few days before Knapp graduated from Hampton that May."  

"I transferred to Howard so I could be with him while he completed his law degree there.  We graduated with the class of 1950 and a few months later, we were blessed with a beautiful little girl named Cynthia Taliaferro Knapp who used to get mad as blazes when her daddy would sneak and eat the cookies she left for Santa Claus."

 

    “Yeah.  I didn’t know he was Santa Claus.” 

 
  “Well he still is.  He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows when you’ve been cutting class so buckle down and study for goodness sake!” 

 
  “Oh Mama!  I’ll do better, I promise.  I'll make Daddy proud."

Happy Holidays to all!

***
I could have sworn I uploaded the "Updo Twists" tutorial several weeks ago but it's not on my You Tube channel so here is a short documentary on the "Hairstyle for Safety" that inspired it:

À Bientôt