Eye of the Beholder

The last few months have a been a blur - literally.  After experiencing iritis in February, things still aren't back to normal.  I experienced another flare up and my eyesight got worse.  The eye drops were finally stopped two weeks ago.  My eye has scarring around the pupil which has caused my pupil to remain enlarged even after the dilating drops were stopped a month prior to the other drops.  While it is not as pronounced as it was, I still feel a bit like a freak.  One pupil still makes me look like I am half on drugs.  I still can't focus well and I am rather light-sensitive although not to the point of being a vampire (any more, thank goodness!).  I have taken this time to reorganize and purge all kinds of crap lingering around the house.  I am proud to say that I would no longer qualify to be featured on the show "Hoarders".


All this lack of vision, has affected my reading ability and it also attacked my sense of doing anything.  Perhaps that is also called depression or boredom, unsure which it was.  This weekend I was so happy to have a three day weekend that I spent Saturday being completely selfish of my time.  I spent the day doing something mindless and rather odd (according to my children).  I was feeling crafty yet I just purged many of my "found" objects and sources of inspiration in my earlier cleaning frenzies.  Luckily, I had a porcelain doll that happened to catch my good eye.  Really.  That just wasn't meant to be a stupid pun.  


My neighbor just had a yard sale and she piled up the leftovers on the sidewalk with a "free" sign.  While supervising my 10 year old son mow her lawn, I took the opportunity to dig through the discards.  I rescued two strands of net lights for bushes (score!), two metal boxes which I have already began to alter into memento holders and a Victorian-style bride doll.  She had seen better days.  Her hair was in good shape but her stockings were yellowed; her face was dirty; and she seemed as if she had been played with instead of put on the shelf and left alone to collect dust as most dolls of this nature.  Perfect for transforming into something more modern!  I dyed her hair, added body jewelry and art, and completely overhauled her dress.  I cut off the lace top and high collar -  removed the long and puffy parts of the sleeves - added some color and fanciful decorations utilizing other found items from previous scavenging adventures.


Much like Cinderella morphing from an ember-tinged housecleaning slave this poor little bride has become the envy of all dolls stuck in the much fascinated about but ultimately boring and female-oppressed era.  She now resembles more of a rockabilly chick.  I was going for The Cigarette Girls Burlesque-inspired look.  I think it was almost achieved.  I am stoked.  Now, I just have to figure out what to do with her.  I don't think my husband appreciates having a tattooed and pierced doll on the mantle above the fireplace.

This is obviously the before picture.
My camera battery died before I could take a picture of her horrible up-do.
I think you can get the idea of what she looked like - rather conservative.

In this one you can see her nose piercing and multiple earrings.

If you look hard you can see the butterfly tattoo on her leg and tattoos on her forearm.

I made the corset-style ties out of eye-hooks and latches that were in a sewing kit I purchased at an  estate sale.  I know they were old.  The price tag was still on the card they were sewn onto - 19¢

This tattoo is my favorite since it goes against everything Victorian and prude.
Too bad it doesn't show up well in this picture.