Preparing for Thanksgiving...

In just a few short days Thanksgiving will be here soon. I have wanted to create some clothing for the dolls as pilgrims, especially Annabelle and Marie Terese. 

Annabelle's black dress was altered with fichu, cap and cuffs. 

I am working on a suitable pilgrim dress for Marie Terese. The Vintage Barbies will follow after my pattern arrives. Here's hoping I finish in time for the holiday! Then onto to Christmas~!

I will post more photos of the scenes as I progress~

New dolls and other goodies...

New dolls and other goodies arrived this weekend....

Royal Treatment Veronique2015  online event doll and Techrat from Jem and the Holograms, a 2014 last W club exclusive doll, both arrived on Friday. I just got around to deboxing Techrat halfway this weekend. I took Veronique to my Barbie club for show and tell, still in her box- I still haven't deboxed her.  I think I may save deboxing her for a special occasion for when I'm feeling down in the dumps. I sometimes do that. Save a special doll like this for deboxing. I have so many that aren't deboxed it helps. 

This weekend I purchased two Cinderalla dolls at Walmart that were on sale for $13 each- the Fairy Godmother and Cinderella bride. The one in the blue dress, the one I really want was scanning at $30 so I put her back. I will try another walmart and see if she scans out at the sale price. 

Annabelle also got in her new wig and it is adorable. It is a little more carrot blonde than I imagined from the photo on eBay but it makes me think of Buffy from Family affair, which is kind of endearing in a way. I had wanted a lighter blonde in keeping with Annabelle in the book who is 'fairer' in Tasha Tudor's drawings but this suits my Annabelle to a tee. She looks more rosey and cheerful with this color wig, kind of like a young Aunt Pittypat from Gone with the wind. lol.

I also got in the mail the Byer's choice croquet mallets I stumbled across on auction that are the perfect fit for Annabelle's scale! I have been wanting more than anything to make her a croquet outfit, but put it off because could not find the croquet set in her proper scale. Now that I have just to find the fabric which I saw a perfect blue and white striped seersucker at Hobby Lobby. One mallet is red and one is blue with the matching ball. I am going to make the matching hoops with wire and decorative tape.

The Gildebrief pattern books I ordered also came in the same time as her wig. I find it irritating on some sellers who print out a label and wait THREE freaking days to go to the post office. I ordered her wig and paid immediately yet it took this person until almost the middle of the week , Wednesday or Thursday to get it to the post office. I ordered my Gildebrief magazines on a Thursday and they were here within two days the same day as the wig, on a Saturday, from California to Virginia. Unbelievable. As soon as I paid they were shipped. 

In these two issues they used the same pattern in a 2 part article of "1 governess and six cousins at a picnic, " with different variations of sleeves, belts, and pleats in the skirt, and one has a coat. The dress done in plaid is adorable and I was thinking of making one in a fall plaid for her like that one as I have a fall plaid in my stash, it is like a challis. Her croquet outfit would be a little more elaborate that will be another pattern, this is more simple, like a working dress. 

Here are some pics of her with the croquet items-

Enjoy. I will have more photos as I wade through all of this. Techrat is incredibly hard to get his sneakers on! I am also going to try and blog on this blog every day in September, which will be hard, so here's hoping I can find something to blog about every day!! Lisa

Annabelle Celebrates Tasha Tudor's 100th birthday!

I haven't posted for a while, as I have been working on a many new projects. Annabelle got a new skirt, which she is wearing today in this post. There are two posts on the blog today, so be sure to read them both. 

Annabelle is celebrating Tasha Tudor's birthday ~ if she were alive, she would have turned 100 years old! She was a famous author and illustrator of such books as A is for Annabelle, Pumpkin Moonshine, Corgiville Fair, and illustrate many books such as Rumor Godden's The Dolls' House and The Little Princess and The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgeson Burnett.  She was also a great animal and bird lover, so today Annabelle is gathering up her sketchbook and binoculars and basket and preparing to go outside birdwatching. 

I found her skirt on ebay and have had the basket for a while now. Her little binoculars were a charm that came with the little globe from hobby Lobby, I will probably put them on a chain so they can hang on her neck. This skirt will look cute at Christmas with a red shawl and some red shoes, and a snood at Christmas time. Perhaps a pinafore for Christmas baking too. Hopefully her wig will arrive soon, and I will have some more pics up. 
Lisa

Annabelle answers her letters......

I pulled out some of my other props of Bespaq including my Queen Anne desk so Annabelle could answer some of her letters. A long time ago I made her a set of cards, sealed letters with wax, cards and envelope sets with tied silk ribbons, and envelopes with letters inside. I had read that some fashion dolls came with stationary sets that even included inkwells and writing pens, so I decided to make my own stationary set for Annabelle, which was easy. 

Here she is settling down to an afternoon of writing, with a cup of tea.

The desk is a little out of scale- it is actually 1:4 scale and sized to fit Tonner dolls, Sybarites, and 16-17  inch dolls. But that is the great thing about playing with scale- and French fashion dolls- you can fool the eye. The chair is a Bespaq chair given to me by my mentor, Pitt Ginsburg many years ago and a gift I treasure very much. It works pretty seamlessly in this scene. Because she is so chunky she works with this desk pretty well and it just looks like an over elaborate piece of furniture. 

Here are some better photos of the chair and Annabelle at the desk.
The lamp on the desk is a pencil sharpner off of Ebay; you can get these in lots, I believe they were put out under the name of Holly Hobbie? I purchased a bunch of them in a lot for dirt cheap and got such things as this lamp, a coffee grinder, a scale, and other Victorian items I was looking for. They are quite useful in period scenes and Western scenes. The keys are a dollhouse miniature item, I think. 
Enjoy the pics!~Lisa

Annabelle at tea...

After doing a little post on Annabelle yesterday, I decided to show you a little hat I had made her quite by accident. I had made it with one of the Poppy's in mind and was looking at her outfit and decided she needed a hat. Flipping through my antique reference doll costume books, I noticed some of the hats were big and sat on the head and had alot of flowers, feathers, ribbons on them like this one I had made and so I tried it on her. Voila! To my surprise, it fit her head! And here I was thinking I needed a complicated pattern, straw, etc. LOL...

Here she is in the previous dio that I did for Haunted beauty, Mistress of the Manor. I used the walls and a different floor, like an entrance hallway. Annabelle's hat matches her visiting attire. Now all she needs is a reticule. She is pouring tea for her hostess who has stepped out of the room. 

Tea and cakes are served!

Uh-oh, is that a carriage outside I hear?

Annabelle goes over to the window to take a look...

She doesn't know who on earth it could be, or who is keeping the lady of the house...

It could be more guests to tea!

....and the back of Annabelle's gown, with the smart little flounce.

Back in the Victorian and Edwardian era, and around the early turn of the centuryin the early 1900's,  women kept 'calling' hours, or receiving hours usually from 3 pm to 5 pm. in the afternoons. Ladies had 'visiting' attire, with hats, usually a suit or in the late 1800's full corseted dress, bustle, parasol, gloves, reticule, and calling cards.  Your maid took your calling card and put it on a silver tray in the hallway if you were not at home or could not receive for some reason, and you returned the visit promptly on the ladies' day she received visitors, usually the lady would write on her card what day she received. A lady usually carried her calling cards in her reticule. They were also called Name cards, and printed up with lovely script, flowers and birds. I was thinking it might be neat to get a miniature silver platter and make up some calling cards for Annabelle to have. 

I have a picture of the book that my doll is based on, written by Tasha Tudor. I got my book off of PaperbackSwap

I attempted first go to make the dress on the doll on the cover, and even found the perfect fabric, but never made the bonnet. 

Here is one of the photos of the interior of the book, it is for the letter D, for the Dresses we like her to wear-

Tasha really had a way with her drawings and illustrations, the book is lovely and inspirational. 

I hope you enjoyed this post. Lisa