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

Multiple projects....

I have a few projects in the works. Did some work on the crate coffee table and its centerpiece, but it needs feet. Still needs a little something. 

The bowl with big ornate decorate beads give it some color and pop. Debating on whether to use flat wood pieces or matching pieces like for the sofa. Don't want to make this too big and bulky. Might put a piece of glass on top too. Still playing around with it. I've changed it a bit so that is why it isn't finished.

On another note, another 1:6 scale doll is having some camera time....my reproduction Francois Gaultier French fashion doll, Annabelle. 

She was purchased from Sylvia Butler of Tarheel Creations.Sylvia comes to the Richmond , Va doll shows every year so I buy shoes and accessories from her and other doll sewers. The lady who made Annabelle's jacket and skirt I cannot remember her name but I have also purchased other dresses fromher too.  Annabelle got her name from the book by Tasha Tudor, 'A is for Annabelle' where it is an alphabet book based on an antique doll called Melissa Shakespeare that belonged to Tasha that was a French Fashion doll, and Tasha used it as a teaching tool for the letters of the alphabet for a children's book.Many doll collectors use it to recreate beloved fashion dolls as I have, and some even use American Girl dolls. I plan to buckle down and get a new wig for Annabelle so she more closely resembles the Annabelle of the book, whose hair was plaited. 

Here she is looking at a fashion book I made with fabric swatches surrounded by a Bombay grandfather clock and some Bespaq furniture. I want to eventually fix her her own dollhouse, get her a trunk like the 1880's fashion dolls had, where she and her clothing could fit into it, and sew her more clothes. That's on my to do list this year, as well as taking her for pictures at the Park and the botanical gardens too. I really want to interact with my dolls, not just have them sit pretty on the shelf. What's the point in having them if you don't use, and enjoy them and photograph them? So I hope to take some more pics of her having tea, shopping, etc. 

Oh, and I updated Pumpkin Hill Studios blog today as well! That will be more active as well with the 'bigger' dolls too. 

For the 'Haunted' Doll collector...

For the record, I spend way too much time on Pinterest. That's my story and I'm sticking to it on the topic of this post. But when I stumbled across this, I just couldn't pass up blogging about it. It will give you a chuckle. Or a Chuckie...

Everybody remembers that creepy doll movie, right?

I stumbled across this recent site called Ghosts and Ghouls from a picture on Pinterest from someone's paranormal board. And from one picture and link it came to creepy haunted dolls. 

Like this-

That pic right there is a haunted dolly 'house cam' where you can see the paranormal activity of the dollies The Haunted Doll Cam
Click Here It streams video 24/7 and gives viewers a chance to see the haunted dollies in action, though it might take some imagination to see the action. In March 2009, the cam captured what appears to be a child’s ghost lurking at the bottom of the stairs. So it could be 'real' all in the belief of 'ghosts'. 

For the devoted to Haunted dolly collector, never fear, there are dealers out there for you. The Haunted Doll Store caters to all price ranges from $20-$1000 and is run by owner AJ. This is an interesting site and as she is Native American, it is worth cruising and browsing through it. 

David's Haunted Dolls is another interesting site. He does not actually sell anything but gives alot of information if you think you have a haunted or possessed doll or other object. Site is informative as there is a difference between a 'haunted' doll and a 'host' doll. Weird, isn't it?

And here is a Direct Link to all the creepy sites and haunted doll books, places, and on the right side bar there are creepy haunted doll stories. 

I thought everyone might get a jolt out of this, I am always fascinated by the stories of the possessed Annabelle doll and haunted dollhouses. One project I've wanted to do in 1:6 scale is a haunted dollhouse but I have no room. 

And yes, I've been watching too many classic horror flicks on MeTv...lol
Enjoy the links!~Lisa

Poppy Parker Mood Changers Gift set arrival & De-boxing

My Mood Changers Poppy Parker gift set along with my Poppy Parker extra bodies pre-order arrived today! This was an exclusive through the W club and I was so relieved to see it arrive!

Besides coming with a Poppy doll, it also came with two outfits, two pairs of shoes, jewelry, a purse, and two extra heads plus the Poppy had a Quick Switch head feature! As a special 'bonus' we were also able to pre-order Poppy Bodies in the skin tone of the heads- Fashion Royalty white or Japan skin tone - as many as we wanted! (I purchased six bodies, though I really wanted more!) Hopefully Integrity will keep Poppy bodies on hand so we can order them at will. I wish they would do this as those horrid FR2 exploding bodies are the pits.
Back to de-boxing heaven. The set comes with the most wonderful outfits and two heads- one which has lavender hair!All of the dolls have eyelashes as well.

There is a very useful link that Integrity has to give you help on putting heads or body swapping. Click HERE for body swap instructions

Now onto the beauties after they were dressed!

Enjoy!~Lisa

Recycle that Divergent Barbie Box!- Diorama Wall art Tutorial

I decided to while de-boxing that table and chair set that I would de-box one of those Divergent Target Tris dolls I bought the other day. I didn't throw the box away immediately. Instead, I recycled the graphics on the side of the box. 

Remember those kids who used to get a toy and play with it but go back to the box? Yeah that was me too. I loved the boxes as well. My poor mom could never ever throw away the boxes away quick enough.  

The wall art behind Tris are made from the graphics on her box. This couch needed some cool wall art that was kind of funky and out of this world and I wasn't finding much except vintage garage stuff which is ok for the guys but I wanted something kind of cool for the girls. This was exactly what I was looking for since I am working on a crate bed. 

Graphics from the Divergent box- there are more on the sides that I cut out too.

The large photo of graphics over the table with Tony and Tris, I think this looks kind of cool and I may use it over the crate bed. Right now it looks good right where it is.  
My cutting is not that straight, so will see. 

 Enjoy!~Lisa

Review of Barbie Dinner Date table & chair set

I purchased this set yesterday in Walmart as it has the best price on these new prop pieces AT 8.94. It doesn't look like they will go on clearance and they are really hot right now, so I wanted to do a review on the different size doll bodies with these pieces.

Here it is assembled with my Fashion Royalty Convention Erin who has a Poppy Style body. She fits it quite well. Let's get onto the box and what it contains.

It comes with the tabletop, table stand, two chairs- 1 assembled 1 unassembled, a flower centerpiece, 2 bowls of spaghetti, 2 forks, 2 glasses. The tabletop has places where the pieces can snap into the table and the food will not slide off the table if the table is knocked over, cute for a child I suppose. For a playline piece this has so many modern possibilities. I really like the chairs and the table and how it is made. 

Here are the pieces that go with the set.

Cheerleader Ken appears to fit ok underneath with his legs under the table and in the chair, and holding that screwed up fork. So does Erin. I am willing to bet Poppy Parker who is the same size, will work here too. 

Ollie Lawson, a Color Infusion homme, not doing so well in that too small chair and he definitely cannot fit his legs underneath the table. However, maybe with a different chair the table could work as a bistro table on the sidewalk cafe type of deal. 

Again, our Fashion Royalty dolls fail the height test with Mattel props. But this could still be used if her legs were just stretched out and crossed like so with purses draped about. 

And we have a winner with Hot Toys Tony Stark (12 inches high) action figure. GI Joe would probably work as well here with this prop since they are a the same height wise. 

I am tempted to snap up several more of these sets for a diner /restuarant scene I have in mind to do later on, just to have on hand, it would look cool with booths. The little tables go so well with the brick wall and the black and cream tiled floor, they look very diner like. Now All I would need is to get my hands on the Mattel coca-cola diner!