Mood:
not sureNow Playing: "Digital Love" - Daft Punk
Still no sewing, yet I am consumed by a doll sewing related project. I have no idea why I'm so suddenly obsessed with this, it's taking all my time and no money, that is, until we need a new black inkjet cartridge and a big box of document protectors.
For whatever reason, I am completely involved with printing images of all the Barbie-size patterns I own and pseudo-own (from the pattern exchange group I used to be a member of, some time ago). You'd think having 3GB of patterns on the computer and backed up onto CDs - five of 'em ! - would be enough. But, no, I want paper-and-ink images for my album. So I can leaf through it when I don't know what I want to do next. And when the computer's tied up.
Add this to the lunacy -> because I don't want the thin pages to tear in the old photo album DMIL gave me - it's soft and padded and lacy - they're going into those document protector thingies. I also use 'em to store patterns. Today I spent an unholy amount of time editing images of commercial patterns (Butterick, McCall's, Simplicity) , resizing them so I could get 'em two to a page, eliminate most of the backgrounds to use less ink, printing them off in grayscale so I won't use the more expensive colored ink.
Sad to say, all the commercial patterns are edited, printed, and stored. Now I'm starting in on the patterns from books, from overseas magazines, from eBay, from various undefined sources, most from the pattern exchange group. Dearest Son's school will probably start before I get it all done. There's thousands of them. I'm looking into printing 'em at the library, where it's cheaper. When you're dealing with about 100 pages of graphic-intensive printouts, ya start lookin' around. I don't want to drain our resources just yet.
On the plus side, I'm getting better with digital manipulation. I've mastered the 'layers' command, as well as the 'line', 'fill', 'airbrush' and 'shapes' keys on PaintShopPro 5, and can do a capture like a pro. Will this make my doll photos look any better ? Well, as long as toymakers use decals for doll eyes and the flash always catches the reflection off one, there'll always be room for improvement and new skills !
