Sunday, March 4, 2018

Hinamatsuri Day- Doll Festival day

Happy Hinamatsuri day- or Doll Festival day in Japan. 

I am a day late and a dollar short, as always. I meant to do this post yesterday but I got very distracted and forgot all about it. Hinamatsuri takes place on the third day of the third month, (March 3rd) and is the Girls day Festival or otherwise known as the Dolls Festival. Ceremonial dolls are brought out and displayed on steps covered in red cloth representing members of the Imperial Japanese court, ladies and lords, musicians, ceremonial furniture, with the Emporer and Empress at the very top. Even special food is served at this time. The dolls are not played with, but brought out for this special day.

Here are some photos from the archives. Hope you enjoy. 


Here is Miss Flower at the table, with the Hinamatsuri set all ready. 

Her sister, Miss Happiness is not yet arrived. 


The wooden goldfish set with cups is something I bought as a kid in Chinatown on a trip to New York with my parents. That was the same time I purchased the book The Dolls' House by Frances Hodgeson Burnett in a nearby Bookstore. 


I made the chopsticks from toothpicks
I also handscuplted the sushi 







The Hinamatsuri set made by Re-ment a few years ago. I understand it is now very expensive and hard to find, though there is a Hello Kitty one  not as detailed as this is. I adore this and though I paid for it, it was pricey, not as expensive as I have seen the prices of today.



Enjoy! I am sorry I did not set up an entirely new room scene for the Doll festival. I wanted to do a Japanese Western style room scene. My Miss Flower is now Amy for my cast of Big Bang characters I am collecting so I am going to need a new Miss Flower for my Miss Happiness/Miss Flower cast of characters from that children's beloved book Miss Happiness and Miss Flower by Rumor Godden I have about two or three copies of this book I have collected through the years, plus the sequel, Little Plum  was really amazing as well and tells about the Japanese doll festival and how Nona and Belinda created it doll size.The original book gave plans how to make a real Japanese Dolls' house that was quite ingenius and I have always wanted to build. 

For those of you curious how I created the Japanese type looking shoji walls in my scenes, Click HERE FOR MY FLICKER ALBUM giving you a photo tuturial on how to create a faux shoji door/ wall with foamboard and the opposite wall with screens and wall hangings. All you need is foamboard, stripwood, stain, shelf paper, scrapbook vellum paper, and scissors, and exacto knife, ruler, and glue. And maybe some tape. Quite simple. I use these walls alot and they can be used for other backdrops with plants, props for fashion photos too. 


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a magnificent diorama! All the small details make it look so real :-).

Lisa Neault said...

Thank you Millicent!

Barb the Evil Genius said...

I have such happy memories of reading the Rumer Godden books. I also loved the book The Story of Holly and Ivy, about an orphaned girl and a little doll in a toy store, who both need a home on Christmas. There is a Chinatown section in downtown Cleveland, near where I live, and although Mr. BTEG tells me there isn't a toy store as such there, I would like to poke through the stores some day and see if a store has any minis available.