Small Life Stories

Notes on the Making

Process, decisions, behind the scenes — how the stories get made.

  • A wardrobe for Lily: Modest clothing for a Barbie doll

    Dressing my oldest doll is no simple task – it’s hard to find modest Barbie clothing for an elderly lady. I don’t mean for Lily to be a stereotypical frumpy old lady (whatever that means), but I also don’t feel right putting her into Barbie’s short short skirts and midriff-baring tops. I didn’t have any…

  • Building Lily’s world

    Lily is the first of the dolls to have two permanent diorama spaces – one outdoor diorama space (in her secret garden) and one indoor diorama space (in her room). The indoor space was simple to put together – it only has a few elements. Three walls (two taken from Daisy’s room, and one new).…

  • Backstory: My Doll Adventure 12 – Lily and the case of the lost doll, part 2

    [For the full episode, go to MDA 12: Lily and the case of the lost doll, part 2] So, the opposite of Rosie (who has dreams and brings back objects).  Lily can hold an object and paint a dream. And Lily is dreaming (painting) of the sea. That’s my mom again in the old photos,…

  • The soul of a doll

    I spend a lot of time staring into the eyes of dolls, looking for someone to stare back. For a doll to star in these stories, you have to be able to imagine what she what’s going on her head. I talked about it the start to Rosie’s adventure – when Rosie looks in the…

  • Plotting the central mystery

    I’ve ripped out and completely redone the central mystery at least 20 times. Maybe more. Here’s the problem. Daisy is a young woman who knows that there is some mystery in her background. The premise of the story is that an event, a meeting, kicks her out of her life and around the world to…

  • Backstory: My Doll Adventure 11 – Daisy and the mysterious stranger

    Go here to read this episode: MDA 11: Daisy and the mysterious stranger . . . second shoe dropped. You can probably tell that this is the other half of the torn photo we saw in Daisy’s previous episode. We’ll have a chance to examine it in more detail in her next episode in December.…

  • The secret lives of dolls

    Rosie has a secret. And even she doesn’t know it. Her dreams are so substantial that they leave bits of themselves behind. This week’s dream dropped one of Van Gogh’s flowers in her room, which Buddy (the small, felted dog) hid away in the cupboard. Other dreams will leave other treasures. You’ll see some echos…

  • Rosie enters an alternate reality

    Rosie’s adventures are the stuff of dreams – they creep in while she’s sleeping and leave bits of pieces of that dream world behind. But, how to create a world of dreams that a doll can move around in? For my other dolls, I mostly choose between placing them in the real world, or fashioning…

  • Backstory: My Doll Adventure 10 – Rosie’s doll adventure, part 2

    Go here to read this episode: MDA 10: Rosie’s doll adventure, part 2 And so ends Rosie’s doll adventure. On Wednesday I’ll talk a little about what it was like to place Rosie in another type of world altogether, and on Friday, I’ll let you in on a little secret about Rosie. Until then, have…

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