Happy Halloween!

Wishing everyone a safe and Happy Halloween!

Photos from the archives...

                                  And some new ones....

Annabelle's Halloween witch costume...Made on the 'fly' so to speak. no pun intended. lol

Enjoy the fields of pumpkins...(not my photo) 

and have a Happy Halloween!

Tag Games

Recently on Flicker, my friends have been 'tagging' me in what is referred to as 'tag' games. You post a photo, and 'tag' some friends, and they post a similar photo of a doll striking a pose doing similar poses, such as driving a car, or wearing a sweater, dolls outdoors, etc. 

Sometimes my friends get ahead of me and I have to play catch-up. But I love tag games and have an album dedicated to them. Here are some of the recent photos from those tag games. 

Wiggle Dress - Tag Games   Pillow Talk Poppy Parker wearing a wiggle dress. This game was post a doll wearing a 'wiggle' dress.

Redheads- Tag Games A group of my redheads . Three of my Victoire Roux dolls, two of my Poppy Parker dolls and my Coven 'Mabel' Doll. They all looked so good together, I secretly see a family of mothers, daughters , sisters and one old eccentric rich aunt family grouping here. 
This tag game was to post a photo of a Redheaded doll.

Tag Games- Blue Eyed Dolls  This one involved posting a doll with blue eyes. I used my Love, Life and Lace Agnes Von Weiss because she hadn't had much camera time and some of my dolls , frankly it was hard to see their eye color! I sometimes like these tag games because it really makes me notice details on the dolls that I never paid attention to, and her facial expression looks rather annoyed with me. lol . I guess that is why I like Agnes so much. She looks REAL.  

Note- if you click on the title underneath the picture, it will take you directly to my Flicker albums. 
Enjoy- and I hope if you have pics on Flicker or Snapchat you'll join in the fun. Even Facebook. 

Easter Decorating...and Palm Sunday dinner

I haven't shown any photos of my Easter preparations and the girls are in their spring dresses in light pastels with Easter chicks and bunnies . 

I also decorated my white tree for Easter as well. This was a big tradition with my mother, who always had an 'Easter' tree, not a regular green tree, but a white branch tree that she put eggs on. She would also decorate an outside tree in the yard with eggs on colored ribbons way before Palm Sunday , usually one of the dogwoods. 

This year I haven't gone so far as Mom used to, but I did get Ellie Mae Poppy her tree and her critters - her chicks and bunnies. 

I used to love the Beverly Hillbillies as a kid, and this Poppy Parker reminds me of Ellie Mae Clampett. 

The dolls were all on my antique table in the dining room, holding chicks along with Beau, the elf on the shelf and Pokey, his reindeer sidekick

When I was young, Easter was a huge holiday at our house. As big as Christmas.  My mother and I shopped for Easter outfits, and about  one or two days before Easter Sunday, Mom would go and pick up the Easter orchids she and I would wear.  You didn't wear a white orchid unless your mother had passed away, she always made a big deal out of that, I remember when I wanted to wear a white one that I admired because it was pretty when I was about fifteen. As I got older, I also used to wear hats because they had come back into style because of Princess Diana had brought them back into vogue in the early 80's. 

We used to go to the sunrise service, in the nearby park, that had a cross landscaped in azalea bushes, and it was beautiful if it was warm enough and bloomed on Easter. Afterwards our family always met friends for breakfast- this was a tradition that continued even after us kids were grown with our own spouses , and children, even if we had our own Easter tradition, services we went to. It has died out now that the families have grown apart and are very scattered. We would then go to Sunday School and regular church, then finally home to dinner. 

My mother and stepdad (my dad died in 1969) would cook a ham like the way my stepdad's mother cooked it, and it took a couple of days since it was a Smithfield. You had to soak it to get the pepper and salt off, then slow boil it, then bake it. My dad would diamond slice it with pineapple and cherries and that wonderful syrup he poured over it. It was usually ready by Easter eve and allowed to sit in the oven cooling, we would have ham biscuits for a quick snack before going to sunrise service. 

Mom always made deviled eggs, mashed potatoes and gravy, and a pickle tray, and other items, like salad, maccaroni and cheese- my favorite, she varied her side dishes year to year.  Sometimes she just did homemade potato salad instead of mashed potatoes.  

This year for Palm Sunday dinner I fixed ham steaks with pineapple rings, dressing with onion, and scalloped corn, and cole slaw, with water and lemon , we also had peach iced tea. 

I tried to decorate the table Easter-ey, with the vintage table cloth, a big floral centerpiece, not real, the flowers are silk so they will last all week. My vintage bunnies.   

The main courses were too hot to bring and put on the table...

Ham steaks with pineapple rings. I made a syrup with brown sugar, the pineapple juice from the can, and a dash of ginger ale, and cooked or baked the steaks in the oven in that, covered with tin foil on 325 heat 

This is the pepperidge farm herb dressing, the whole bag. I used chicken broth, a whole Swanson 16 ounce box of broth to make mine in, then buttered the dish and sprinkled dice onion on it, and baked it for about 15-20 minutes. I usually put bacon on top, but forgot to pick it up this shopping trip. 

Scalloped corn. I made it from the recipe in the recipe book, but I might modify the recipe because it needed more kick . It contains 4 cups of corn, 1 tablespoon of diced onion, 1 tablespoon of sugar, 3 tablesppons of butter melted, 3 eggs, beat, 1 cup of milk, 30 crackers, divided (you put half in the mix and half on top for the crust, but they must be crushed) salt and pepper to taste mix it all together, then pour in a buttered baking dish, and bake for 1 hour at 325 until a knife testing it comes out clean. It should have a crispy crust and should have  a custard creamy texture. In my opinion it should have more onion and should have been made with canned milk or cream, to give it a richness. 

Am now planning my Easter menu which is going to be more pork as I have a shoulder and am going to do deviled eggs. I haven't done a lot of cooking but it is fun trying new recipes and my husband loved the scalloped corn. 

Hopefully I will have some new Easter photos for you of my old Easter basket all decorated too, soon! Happy decorating!

Interesting links and video- doll and train related

I have been working on some doll hats! I will have pics of those up after today, but I wanted to share some links here for today. 

First up is an incredible video my husband ran across. He belongs to several European and American train collector boards on Google and facebook. No, he doesn't collect trains (we don't have the space) but he loves them and so do I. We have always toyed with the idea of building a garden railroad for the dolls and action figures but because of cats and others who let their dogs wander, we scrapped the idea. 

He stumbled across this incredible ridable train for sale! with the property in Oregan that was advertised on facebook and google. I can only surmise it is 1:6 judging by the size of the train- the gentleman is riding on it but that would make it sized to fit GI Joe and our ladies too. I have seen pics of one like this at shows like Joelanta.

There is music with it, that makes it better, I have watched it so many times. It is on my facebook page too. I tell you, if this was in my back yard, and I had my own mini train station, I would never leave it, much less sell it. I would have my food delivered by Amazon, lol. Especially if I could afford to have this! lol. 

The second video goes in depth with more photos explaining about the interior of the estate and who owns it and built it and why. The owner is a master builder of trains and works for the publishing company of modeling railroad magazine of what I can gather, but he has had people from all over the world visit the estate. In the above second video you can see people riding the train.  His wife created all the foliage in the indoor train set which is O scale I believe. The estate comes with a machine shop (which would make my husband salivate right now) where he builds the trains. 

Me. I would just happily commission him to make passenger cars for my Fashion Royalty dolls before buying it and become the private reclusive doll hoarder I have always wanted to be, LOL..sort of like Hugeuette Clark. Only with this estate, you would have everything you would need. Privacy, transportation for the dolls, lots of trees, your own private railroad to get you to the doll room. It is nice to dream fantastical dreams. LOL...I thought all of my doll friends would enjoy these videos and the possibilities. 

I also have some new Pinterest boards, that might interest you.

My newest one is my most interesting one, I think. Entitled

Children and their Dolls

It is all about historic and modern pics of children and their dolls or toys. Woefully, I have found few, if any pics of modern children and their dolls to add to this board. I might make a seperate board of 1970 and up to see if I can find children and their toys. I know I would find kids my age and up but I have found few pics of children from now 'playing' with toys or dolls. It is a sad commentary I think of how technology has taken over and imagination has lost.

Evangeline Ghastly & Friends

Ellowyne & Friends

A Girl For All Time Dolls

Antique Toys

Famous Doll Collectors

Hot Toys Action Figures

Sybarite Dolls

Tonner Dolls- Deja-Vu

PoppyParker

I have many other Pinterest boards relating to dolls and miniatures, dollhouses, and 1:6 dioramas, as told in another blog entry-

Who Loves Pinterest? from May 8th of this year, and that lists ALL of my 1:6 scale diorama Pinterest boards if you have not already found them by subject, living room, dining room, bathroom, bedroom & closet, garage, great outdoors, stage and theatre, boutique & shopping, etc. I constantly find great pics on the dolly boards, flicker, my own pics, etc. and do not mind if you pin from my boards, that is what Pinterest is all about- Sharing. I do not block people if they share- only if they claim my work is theirs. I've only had to block ONE person on Pinterest who persisted in doing this and that was a big name miniature company, of all things. ?? lol. 

Anyway, Happy Sunday and have a Happy idle day of Pinning. I will be taking pics of my miniature hats and getting those pictures up and and a blog post to follow!~Lisa

LaBelle's windows at Valentine's day...

The windows for LaBelle's boutique in the doll town are done in pink and red and the shoppers are dressed in pink, rose red, black and it's all about the color of love.... Some of my lovelies are shopping and I wanted them all to match. Ever watch TV and wonder on some of these shows how they get the actress, the star, to just stand out from everybody else and it dawns on you, she's wearing a white dress while everyone else is wearing blue, black or some other drab color and her hair is angel blonde ??? Like, even the architecture is stone washed so it doesn't clash with the color of her eyes? That has always amazed me. I think it is wonders what photo shop can do, snicker. Especially in film, it draws our eyes and emotions even more to the storyline. So with these photos I tried to get the colors to tone and see if that played together just right. In the first photos, I made all of the French pastries, the St. Honore, the Religious pastries on the plate, the three tiered pink cake, I wanted to do a chocolate theme but it did not turn out like I wanted to, so I went with a pink theme which matched the clothing I had on hand. The chair and table are Bespaq. In the other window, I made the dress on the Barbie basics model, the end table is also Bespaq. The little felt hearts were so hard to find, they were at ACMoore. Nothing in the way of decoration fit and this is why it was so hard to decorate in a timely manner the way I wished. 

I hope to do some more 'romantic' type of scenes with the guys and have them up by tomorrow here. The cottage interior walls got more coats of white paint which I had to go out and pick up in my travels as I ran out. Won't bore you with more photos on the Extreme Kitbash until further along with more to see.

Hope you enjoyed the photos, and Happy Valentine's day!

Fredericksburg doll show and more sightseeing...

Yesterday I attended the Fredericksburg doll show which is put on by the Fredericksburg doll club...small but has alot of great stuff. Mostly lots of antique dolls and my Barbie club members had a show table there too. I purchased some inexpensive items outfits mostly, for the dolls as autumn is coming and they needed some new outfits. I also found the perfect Tommy doll to complete the French royal family for the French Chateau project. He will make a great Louis Charles, the Dauphin. 

I also purchased four stands from the local stand guy. They are nothing fancy, but I prefer these as the stand pole does not come out of a pole and I can lift the doll from the back without having to use two hands to balance her, since she is firmly held onto the stand, unlike the fashion royalty stands. 

Here are some photos of Young Sophisticate and Pillow Talk, my two favorites, wearing some new autumn fashions. 

The coat, two skirts and sweater were purchased from one of the bargain bins for less than $3 altogether! Young Sophisticate is wearing the new leopard Poppy Parker boots from this year's shoe pack. 

here are some more of the outfits and stands I purchased, as well as the Tommy doll. He was the most expensive item I purchased for $10 with his little sailboat and shirt...but I would have spent that much on ebay for him with shipping. He matches Marie Therese and his parents quite well. 

After the doll show, went to lunch in the historic part of Fredericksburg, and walked around to the shops and antique shops. I didn't have my camera, and really regret it. Here are a few pics of the amazing stuff we saw. I promise next time to take my camera like I did to Williamsburg. Chris and I love taking a Saturday to just go for a day trip now and then and walk and see the sights. 

In one of the shops, which was quite large with individual booths, this antique doll display.

turn of the century settee, reupholstered it looked like, and some reproduction Napoleonic /Empire swan chairs. They looked reproduction to me because of the way they appeared to be made. Price was too cheap as well...would have loved to bought them and had them reupholstered. Look at the swan detail!

Bonnet Highboy, lovely and very similar to the ones Pitt Ginsburg did in 1:6 scale Bespaq I used to sell. 

Gorgeous goose-necked canopy antique bed....

Shop windows in a shabby chic shop, just loved the mix of white with cream, taupe, and goldtones in this display. I would love to reproduce this in 1:6 scale. 

Sorry to bore everyone with full size decor pics on a doll blog, but this is where I get inspired- from real life. Then it's to the diorama drawing board, so to speak.lol...

cute shop and sign...downtown Historic Fredericksburg is quite artsy and eclectic, you NEVER know what type of shop you will find. It abounds with every type of gourmet cuisine!

The historic Hugh Mercer's apothecary shop with its garden in back, they weren't open yesterday...

and a shop with Halloween decor...hopefully we'll be able to get back up and peruse it more. It is so much fun! We ate at an Italian bistro that had been there for years, then visited Ahlman's jewelry store where Chris' mother used to order her china and crystal. Goolrick's pharmacy, which has the best ice cream, was already beginning to close. They have the best ice cream sodas!

We also stopped by an old bakery Chris used to go to as a kid and got cookies and some sweets like he remembered. Chris grew up in Stafford and went to alot of the shops that are still open when he was growing up. 

Enjoy the pics! Happy Sunday!~Lisa