Category Archives: Mom Muses

Rebodying Little Pullip

This post is just gonna be mommy talking about her own hobby 🙂

A Little Pullip came by on eBay — got it with a really good price. The face up is gorgeous! But for me personally, I really really don’t like the flimsy stick figure body. So, I decided to rebody her. Got a factory middie blythe jointed replacement body for her. The neck connector of the new body was really too huge. So I took it off. At first I was a bit sad to have to take the little pullip body apart — but on second thought, I won’t be able to put that tiny body on any doll my daughter has at all; no head is that small. So, I used a saw to take off the neck part.

Then I used a carving knife to make the inside of the jointed body more spacious and put the little pullip neck part in. It needs to be glued to be stable. So I put orginal tacky glue into the neck hole to glue them together.

Next, I put the original neck caps into the little pullip head, put the neck part in, and screwed the nails back. Then the head back and the wig.

Voila! Her proportion looks so much better to me now!

Hopefully I will have time to make her a dress soon (I doubt, LOL)

😀

Doll face up and body swaps!

Moon Kid and I just really don’t like the tiny stick figure like Pullip body with her big head. So we decided to do a bit of a body swap 😀

I found this really nice doll body on eBay that’s less than 7 dollars. It was fully articulate with double joints and extremely movable. The knee and feet joins can be tighter, but can’t ask for more when it’s a less than $7 buy 😛 ~ After sanding off the inside of the neck part (it’s just a little bit taller/thicker than needed), the neck fits perfectly into the tiny Pullip neck hole, the same as the original body! We were both very impressed. The body looks much stronger, even though it’s still thinner than we would want (REALLY wish these doll companies make more curvy bodies). When we made her the dress and put it on, she looks so much more porportional! We both LOVE her sooooo much!

For the even bigger (and heavier) face up practice head (Mommy did her face up), we used a Barbie Made to Move body. To be exact, we put the head in hot water for a while, and the body came off really easily. Then it took mommy many tries to get the body into the big head (which had a very small neck hole), eventually by carving off some plastic to make the neck hole bigger. It was actually so easy to carve — should have done that in the first place instead of trying with the blow dry and all those other ways LOL.

What did we do with the Barbie head? The Pullip body? At first it didn’t seem to be a good fit, as the head has a slightly more tanned tone than the Pullip body. But it doesn’t hurt to try. So we tried it anyways and it looks AMAZING! The neck part was so very easy to get in and stay in. And there really isn’t that much difference in the skin tones. We were both so happy with the result!

This is truly a fun thing to do on an otherwise boring weekend! 😀

Happy 4th of July Weekend!

Happy 4th of July weekend! This time last year, we had a lot of fun traveling across 3 states, visiting 2 family friends. We came back home on the day of July 4th and had a blast watching the fireworks. This year, we watched and video-taped from our car, with window closed and AC on, to ensure social distancing. We still had a great time, though, and are thankful that we still have firework to watch. Stay healthy and safe!

A walk in the park

It’s been a long while since we went out to the park! Today we decided to venture out — it’s already summer, after all… Sweetie pie, I know, we’ve made so many fun plans to go on trips, go out in nature, and go shopping in the malls… But none of these we can do this summer.

A walk in Nature is all we can do now to stay safe and healthy. You were content and perfectly happy. You listened to birds chirping, watched fish swimming up the stream, and spotted a squirrel chewing on nut. Using our retired digital camera, you took a lot of pictures of what you saw, including mommy and daddy and a lot of trees. You eagerly made plans to for us to travel with friends families when the virus is over. It’s really been a long while that you, the kid who dislikes hiking, even enjoyed hiking today.

Our most recent trip (to Cincy) was last December, almost 7 months ago. We did have a great time traveling together with A’s family and visiting M’s family. Seems like a lifetime ago, though. It feels so good to be surrounded by the tall, green trees…

On the other hand, just a while ago before I started writing this post, I read on the Washington Post that Dr. Egon Ozer from Northwestern University discovered that the virus is mutating to become even more infectious… Sigh. Maybe we’ve still got to stay at home more. Sigh, the kiddos can’t wait to play with each other, but social distancing is really hard for kids playing together. And, really don’t know what’s going to happen when school starts.

There’s so much uncertainty. Yet despite the uncertainty, we’ve got to carry on. Life will not be the same maybe for a long time. However, the fun loving heart remains unchanged. We’ll do this as much as possible, as long as we stay healthy and safe. We’ll also find all those other different ways of having fun. I promise, if you let me, my sweetest.

I love you.

Blog Makeover

Long waited mother-daughter weekend finally came. Today, S and I talked about her creative plans and her aspirations. We decided to give this blog a makeover — it needs a new name, first and foremost. So, we decided to call it whimsical moon (as her name means “moon”). Voila! Now, please bookmark whimsical-moon.com 🙂

We are also going to use whimsical moon as our YouTube channel name as well. 😀 This name came to me this afternoon wben we drew a picture together. I realized how precious her ability is to make all her drawings look whimsical. She is not me who draws everything like computer work. She has her own style. Everything looks so vividly alive and vibrantly moving in her drawings. S loves this new name!

Then I started making the necessary changes on the blog and realized how sweet my old posts used to be and how desperate sounding my recent posts were. They sound like the desperate attempts of a busy working mom who wrote a few posts to “turn in homework”… So, I’ve decided to also rewrite those recent posts, so that they are sweet and loving, as our mother-daughter blog is intended to be. I am on it! 😉

Simplest Birthday Ever

This year’s birthday is the simplest ever… You got your birthday gift from mom and dad, had a BBQ picknick lunch, celebrated with a few friends on Zoom, and had mommy’s home made cake. You still had a great time, being the happy-go-lucky kid that you are!

But you know, sweetie, your birthday is still and always will be a most important event to me, ’cause it celebrates YOU! It is also one of the biggest opportunities for us to shower you with extra expressions of love. No earthly gift is better than a child is to a parent. I love you. We love you. Now and forever.

Love,

Mommy

A dress made from scratch

Hi, sweetie — Remember this dress? This one was made totally from scratch! And it is all hand-made, literally, down to every stitch. I didn’t use a sewing machine at all, just thread and needle. You loved this and still do! You’ve outgrown this outfit, but we put it in your time capsule. When you grow up and take a look, hope you will still admire this with adoration, like you did before and also do now 🙂

A Dress was Reborn

Hi, sweets — Remember you told me that you no longer liked the orginal flower dress and wanted Hello Kitty drawn by me instead? So, I did the old trick. I took off the tutu part and cut a blank T-shirt. On the other hand, the yellow flower looked really good, so good that I decided not to discard the top entirely. Instead, I cut it out, sealed the edge, sew it to the back of the blank T, and drew a stem and two leaves. On the front of the T, I drew Hello Kitty in ballet leo and slippers with wings, a bow and a heart-shaped wand. This blank T is really good for transferring images from paper to its fabric. I just searched pinterest, found the image, laid it under the front part of the T, and transferred it on the fabric. The result? A comfy pretty little girl’s dress, reborn and loved again 🙂

You loved this dress so so much until you outgrew it. So, by your request, it’s another dress put in the ever-growing time capsule 😀

Little Mermaid Dress

Hiya sweets — This dress has been your all time favorite until you outgrew it a couple of months ago. You reluctantly said that I could put this dress in your “Time Capsule” for you to look at when you grow up.

I found adapting white T-shirts into dress tops and then add a skirt part a really fun way to make dresses for little girls. Sometimes the stores just don’t have what you fancy. And not all moms have time to make or are good at making dresses from scratch, yours truly included LOL.

So one day I went to Target and bumped into these simple basic T-shirts. They come in different pastel colors and are so versitile. This dress is a good example of what can be done 🙂

Basically, I just cut the bottom 1/3 or 1/4 from the bottom (depending on the design of the dress) and use another piece of same color cotton cloth to make the skirt part. For this particular dress, I just drew the designs with fabric markers. There are different types of coloring that can be used on fabrics. This particular set is for drawing on light colored fabric. There are also glitter glues for fabric. Many stores have them, for example, Target, Meijer, Michaels, etc. For the dark pink tie-die frills, I just cut from another dress that you absolutely hated and wouldn’t put on. The rest of the fabric from the unwanted dress can be stored away for later use. So this way, I not only created something new, but also revived something unwanted.

You were so proud of this dress and wore it very often. It looks really woreout now LOL. But that’s what makes me feel proud and happy, too! :)))

Love always,

Mommy

New Dress for a Doll

Hi, sweets — This is one of your first dolls. You like the original rock star dress, but would like a fancier look for this doll. So, mommy made this spring looking flowery dress. All hand-made, down to every stitch. It’s relatively hard to find Asian looking dolls or dolls with Asian elements such as black/dark brown hair. So, whenever I see an Asian looking doll, I almost always snatch it for you. Now you have quite a few Asian looking dolls, along with blonde dolls, African American dolls, red hair dolls, brunette dolls… You enjoy the multicultural feel of your little “tribe” of different colors and sizes.

I hope you grow up to be both comfortable in your own skin, well rooted in your own culture, and embracing a multitude of cultures. You certainly do now. My sweetest, keep loving who you are and then, and only then, give the world the same love you’ve been giving yourself. Your love is and will always be genuine.

Love,

Mommy