New Illustration: Snegurochka (Fairy Tale Fashion Series #3)

Snegurochka (Fairy Tale Fashion Series #3)

©2013 Debi Cady

Digital Paint

Snegurochka, the Snow Maiden, is happiest in the forest during a snowstorm, holding her friend the snow rabbit. Inspired by the many versions of this popular Russian fairy tale, "Snegurochka" is the third illustration in my Fairy Tale Fashion series.

This illustration is now available on a wide variety of items on my stores at Cafe Press, Zazzle, Red Bubble, Artist Rising, and my deviantArt print shop.

As you have most likely guessed, I love the stories about the Snow Maiden. I also love winter, and snow! The past few winters we have not gotten much snow here, I miss it. I'm hoping we will get more this year.

Before I go, I just wanted to share an animated version of this story with you. It's really cute, it was done in Russia in 1952. I hope you enjoy it! (Don't worry, it has subtitles ^_^)

WIP: Snegurochka Costume, Part 3

I finished the dress for Elena's Snegurochka costume the other day. It's made of organic cotton, with the two trims that I wove sewn onto it. If I have enough beads left after making the rest of the costume, I may come back and do some light beadwork on this dress, we'll see. Most of it will be covered by the coat. Anyways, here are some pics ^-^

Next up I will be making the coat. Which will probably take a long time, as it is going to have a lot of beadwork....

WIP: Snegurochka Costume, Part 1

As promised, here is Part 1 in my series of posts about Elena's Snegurochka costume. ^-^

This costume is going to consist of a satin dress, a velvet coat, and some accessories. I am weaving two different types of trim for the dress, and I am almost done with the first one. So today I took a few pictures of Elena posing with it while it is still on the loom.

The trim is white with a silver snowflake design. I used Xie yarn, which is 100% bamboo. My loom is the Mirrix Little Guy (12-inch) loom.

I should be done weaving this piece tomorrow, and then I will start on the second style of trim that I need - I can't really start making the costume until the trim is all done.

So, that is all for now. I will post again when I have more done :D

I hope everyone is well, and had a nice Christmas, and I wish you all a very Happy New Year!

~Debi (and Ringo too *woof*)

New Illustration: The Firebird (Fairy Tale Fashion Series #1)

"The Firebird"
Fairy Tale Fashion Series #1
5x7" ink on watercolor paper
©2012 Debi Cady

In Slavic folklore the Firebird is a magical glowing bird from a far-off land, who can bring either blessings or doom to its captor. But what if the Firebird were not a bird at all, but a beautiful woman? In this illustration she is just that. The Firebird stands triumphantly holding a golden apple from the king's tree. The vines encircling the illustration represent the king's garden. This is the first illustration in my Fairy Tale Fashion series.

This illustration is now available in my stores at Cafe Press, Zazzle, Red Bubble, my deviantArt print shop and my gallery on Artist Rising. Be on the lookout for the next illustration in this series, hopefully I will have it posted later this month ^_^

Ciara Angelique

My new doll, Ciara Angelique, arrived today! She is a 35cm porcelain bjd made by JRDolls, and she is so gorgeous!!! There was some anxiety during her shipping - when she arrived at customs in New York they held her there for almost two weeks! I was so worried that she would be lost or broken. It was really nerve-wracking. I pretended she was being held hostage lol But they finally let her out, and she arrived here safely, so I am very happy and relieved.

I haven't quite decided everything about her personality and background yet, although I think she is a singer. I took some pics of her to share, but I'm afraid they aren't so good, the lighting today is really bad. So I will take some more, hopefully later in the week, but I just couldn't wait to share a few ^_^

From Left to Right: Bu Yong, Ciara Angelique, Kisa, Ishtar
They are having a little 'welcome home' party for Ciara Angelique ^-^

New Photo: Russian Doll Tea Time

"Russian Doll Tea Time"
©2012 Debi Cady

My mom has this adorable tea set from Russia, made by Verbilki porcelain. I thought the dolls I made, Alyona and Tatiana, would look so cute with it! So I took this picture. I think it's cute for any time of the year, but it's especially good for Christmas. I imagine that my dollies are getting ready to have a little tea party, they are just checking to make sure everything is ready. Because the tea pot looks like a toy soldier and the sugar bowl looks like a matryoshka doll, I thought it was the perfect set for a dolly tea party. ^-^

This photo is now available on many (many, many!) items in my stores on Cafe Press, Zazzle, Red Bubble, and my deviantArt Print Shop. 

New Doll: Tatiana, "The Golden Hair" Doll

Well, it took a looooooong time, but I finally finished Tatiana!!! She is my second knitted  doll. She is inspired by my illustration of the Russian fairy tale "The Golden Hair", although I did change her a bit. Mainly, I simplified the pattern on her dress.


She is made of 100% bamboo yarn, and is knitted from a pattern I wrote myself. The embroidery on her dress was done with glass beads, and her headband is made of freshwater pearls and swarovski crystals. She is stuffed with corn fiberfill.


I feel bad that I took so long to finish this little doll. Actually, she was done quite a while ago, but it took me a long time to complete her dress - I kept having to set it aside for many reasons. One of those is that I hurt my thumb a few months ago, and have been unable to knit or do much else with it. It seemed a little better the past few days, so I thought I'd try to finish her. I'm glad I did. Now I want to start making another doll! lol


I am very happy with the way my Tatiana turned out, I hope you will love her too ^-^ Here are some pics:

Tatiana (right) with my first doll, Alyona

Alyona (left), Tatiana (right)

Bu Yong

Last week my new dolly arrived ^-^ So I would like to introduce her to you. Her name is Bu Yong, and like my other dolls, she is a porcelain bjd made by JRDolls in Russia. She is part of a new, smaller line - my Kisa and Ishtar are about 40cm tall, Bu Yong is only 35cm.  As far as her background goes, at first I had some trouble choosing a name and a story for her! I think she is very beautiful and has a unique look, so I wanted to choose something that would reflect that. Finally I decided, she is Kisa's cousin, and is half Russian half Korean. Her name means "lotus flower" in Korean. I actually chose this name not only for the meaning, but also because it is the name of one of Han Ji Min's characters in  the Korean drama "Rooftop Prince". To me, even though this doll has red hair, something about her expression and her eyes really reminds me of Han Ji Min in this role, and I also really liked that character - she was intelligent, talented, and very courageous: she was willing to die for love. Anyways, enough of my babbling :P Here are some pics of my lovely Bu Yong ^-^

One of the first pics I took of Bu Yong after she arrived. At this point I still had not decided on a name for her.

I think she looks so pretty from all different angles :) She is actually quite different from Kisa and Ishtar in many ways, but I think she is just as beautiful!

New Illustration: Morozko

"Morozko"
Ink on watercolor paper
9x12"
©2012 Debi Cady

Scenes from the classic Russian fairy tale are depicted in this whimsical illustration. On the right, the wicked stepmother orders her husband to take his daughter to the forest and leave her there to die. In the center, the girl receives gifts from Morozko. Magical snowflakes from Morozko's staff dance around the borders. This is one of my favorite fairy tales, I remember my mom reading it to me when I was young.

As always, this illustration is available on my stores at Cafe Press, Zazzle, Red Bubble, and my deviantArt Print Shop

Ishtar

I got Kisa a friend - she just arrived this morning! I have named her Ishtar, after Queen Esther (Ishtar is a variant of Esther). Originally I had planned to name her something else, but it just didn't suit her. My mom actually is the one who said she would make a good Queen Esther. I thought about it for a while, and no other name really seemed to fit. Esther is one of my favorite books in the Bible anyways, and she is a woman that I admire greatly, so I think it's the perfect name for my new doll ^-^ Plus, I now can have lots of fun designing a Queen Esther-inspired wardrobe for her! (although I will dress her in other things too)


In the pictures she is wearing a dress that I knitted for her. I scaled down a human-sized pattern for a kimono sweater, and added a skirt. This was my first time doing anything with cable knitting, so it really was an experiment! But I got lucky - it turned out just fine, and it fits her well enough. 

Ishtar & Kisa - I have some more pics of Kisa in this outfit, I will post them later...

I have some other outfits I want to try on Ishtar too, as well as some new ones for Kisa that I want to post. So hopefully I will get the chance to do that soon.

Kisa's "Falling Leaves" Dress

I made a new dress for Kisa last week, finally took pics today. I call it her "Falling Leaves" dress, because the colors remind me of the leaves when they change color in the autumn. I think she looks really pretty in it ^-^ I actually would like her to have different shoes with it, but this is the only pair I have for her right now. I am planning to knit some shoes for her out of the same yarn, so I will post another picture if those work out. For now, this is it:

Kisa

In August I found a wonderful doll artist in Russia, she makes porcelain BJDs. I commissioned one, and she just arrived yesterday! I have named her Kisa, and I think she is so gorgeous ^-^ So I just wanted to post a few pics of her here.

With Alyona ^-^

Waving hi - I took this pic to send to her creator to let her know that she arrived safely ^-^

I am just totally in love with this doll, she's so delicate and sweet. I have a lot of plans for her! If you'd like to see more of this artist's dolls, you can check out her blog, JR Dolls (the site is in Russian, but even if you can't read it, it's just fun to look at the pics). I wanted to post more pics of Kisa in different outfits, but some of the clothes I got for her didn't fit :( Most of the stuff I made did, though, so I will post more pics soon ^_^

New Doll: Alyona from "The Scarlet Flower"

I am so excited right now, because I actually made a doll!!! This is something I have wanted to do for many, many years. She is a knitted doll, and I wrote the entire pattern myself - normally I just alter existing patterns, but I couldn't find one in this case. Oh, there are a lot of cute knitted doll patterns out there, to be sure, but none of them were suitable for this project, because I want my dolls to look similar to my illustrations. So in the end, I decided to write this pattern myself, it was my first time doing something like that. I feel like God was guiding me the entire time (I always pray before I start a new project), because all the pieces turned out right on the first or second try! I was so surprised, and I feel really blessed that that happened, I was expecting to have to remake everything several times before I was happy with it. I'm glad that I didn't have to, though!

Anyways, my first doll is inspired by my illustration of "The Scarlet Flower" (Аленький цветочек), which is like the Russian version of "Beauty and the Beast". I named her "Alyona". Actually in the story the main character does not have a name, she is just "the merchant's youngest daughter". But there is a film version of "The Scarlet Flower" from the 1970s that I like very much, and in it they call her Alyona, so that is where I got the name for my doll. 

She is made of 100% bamboo yarn, and stuffed with fiber fill made from corn. Her headband is made from swarovski pearls and crystals, she has a swarovski crystal "ring" on her right hand (to represent the ring the beast gives her in the story), and she holds the scarlet flower, made from swarovski crystals and a glass bead, in her left hand. She also has "nail polish", a little feature that I like to give all the girls in my illustrations. She is about 8 inches tall. Well, enough with the descriptions, let's get to the pictures!

Alyona with my original illustration of "The Scarlet Flower". In person the illustration is much darker, especially her dress, but in this picture it looks kind of turquoise because I used the flash when I took it.

Closeup - before I did her hair 

Nail Polish! 

I love this kind of shoe, I think they are so pretty! So of course, I had to make them for Alyona ^-^

The lace trim on the upper part of the sleeves is a variation I made of the "Torchon Edge" which was originally printed in 1891. The cuffs have gold-trimmed picot edging.

Closeup of Alyona finished - her headband is made of Swarovski pearls and crystals.

The ring from the Beast - a red Swarovski crystal.

Closeup of the back of her hair - for some reason the color looks kind of purply in this picture, but it's actually a dark reddish-brown. 

A full-length shot of Alyona finished - she did not want to stand up at first! 

I took this picture of her in the sunlight, and thought it was pretty, so here it is!

I cut a lot of her hair before, but she still has a ton!

The Scarlet Flower - made of green and gold Swarovski crystals and a pretty little red glass heart.

The ring in the sunlight.

Took this picture right after I finished rooting her hair, I hadn't made her clothes or "painted" her nails yet...

... And as you can see, she had way way too much hair at first! lol

Well, that's all for now. I had so much fun making Alyona, I am trying to decide which of my illustrations I want to make into a doll next!


Update: You can now commission Alyona at my store on Shop Handmade ^-^ If you have any questions, feel free to email me.