Day 1..W Club GLOSS Fashion Royalty convention in Orlando, Florida

Day 1... We arrived this morning by noon at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Orland, Florida! The drive down yesterday, stopped in Georgia and traffic was not bad at all...The hotel here is AMAZING...It is a convention hotel like most on International drive, and has over 300,000 square feet of the convention floor. I have taken some great photos of the decor, which screams for one of the Fashion Royalty ladies to pose themselves all about.

Link to my Flicker album on the GLOSS convention. I will be uploading photos and trying to do a post here and there. 

Well, today I helped Denise Travers set up for her room sales. She had asked for help on the dolly boards, so I offered to help her set up. By the way, she has awesome Misaki, Poppys, AZONE, and also the Phiceon dolls as well. Here is the Misaki I picked up...

She's so adorable!

Next up is the doll we received with our registration packages. Speculation so far is she is an Erin /NuFace. She is very cute.

She is adorable. The hotel is so lovely. I took some photos of the interior..

I will be posting here hopefully daily if I can, but the fun begins at shopping and the dinner tomorrow evening! I will try to post here on the blog, but be sure to check my Flicker album too. Having fun already!~Lisa

Let's Pack! TAG GAMES...

I won't be around for a while...just kidding. Pictured above is the dolls packing everything they own to go to the Fashion Royalty GLOSS Convention. In honor of that, matching my own craziness in packing, I started a new Tag Game on Flicker called Let's Pack! showing my dolls and their last minute packing for the doll convention. This is how I felt today- organizing my desk, getting lists together, as soon I will be on the road with my doll buddy Karon Montague to experience my very FIRST Fashion Royalty convention! It has been hectic, and sometimes in the midst of the craziness, it calms me to create a scene showing the stress - the dolls and their little lives reflect my own!

I will betaking tons of pictures and uploading them to my Flicker as well as live uploads on my Instagram too. I hope to meet alot of my fellow bloggers and flicker followers as well as some of my former customers. Can hardly wait to see the goodies and the dolls unveiled at this first convention.

I haven't yet decided what doll I will take for a 'travel' doll, but it might be dream teen Poppy shown above- for some reason she reflects my orgnaizational side and I think she really hates to travel, he, he. The cats are jumping on the clean clothes she just washed and her travel buddy is obviously not packed! 
Hope to see everyone there!~ Lisa

Making Minis and I found Darrin!

Forgive the haphazard title. I have been working on some books for the dolls, and that has been what I have been doing for a couple of days. 
PLUS,I found the ever elusive hard to find Darrin! He was in my local Walmart and the LAST one. If they ever had them. Maybe they only come in one at a time. lol.

But back to mini Bookmaking. I belong to a group on Facebook called 
Paper Minis for 12 inch Fashion Dolls and the person who started it, Angel, created oodles of miniature book cover files. You can also upload your own paper mini files to the group as well. Over the weekend or on Monday I printed off a bunch of these onto cardstock. It has always been my intention to make bookshelves filled with books for an elaborate library. I love to read and so do my dolls. 
Here are some of the finished books.

I printed the files out onto regular cardstock, then used scraps of foamcore cut to fit the book covers and glued them, and let dry. I then coated the front, spine and back with triple thick to give the colors more pop and make the covers look glossy.  

the doll at the desk is my original Mini Me - or Mini Lisa. Her desk looks alot like my own out in the office- covered with books (mostly bills and paperwork and folders and computers in real life!)  and my 'real' desk is much larger, lol. Mini Lisa's desk looks more cleaner and fun then mine...Right now she is reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and like me, loves Egyptian history. 

Mini Lisa, Trixie, Darrin and Tommy are enjoying the Harry Potter books- they have the whole series. 

I had also made a long time ago reproduction Victorian Godey's ladies cards with matching envelopes and stationary paper, tied with silk ribbon for the desk. The envelopes were made with a crafty punch that I purchased online a few years ago and I still use. 

Here are the photos of Darrin in his package and size comparisons with Tommy:

He is much cuter withthe plastic hat off. His head is ok, but seems a little larger than Tommy's, and I dislike those teal boots/sneakers intensely. He looks too feminine for a boy- his sneakers should be white and the soccer ball on his shirt should not be pink!! Tommy on the right looks far more boyish and real looking to me than Darrin. He looks like a Chelsea with a short hair bob. I will probably be changing his shoes most definitely. 
Enjoy!

Joyous Celebration Poppy Parker...

...has arrived, and she is exquisite! This doll is so retro vintage 60's, the era I grew up in, can't get enough of her. Finally got things set up for a photo shoot and instead of the same old same old props, added splash of teal and pink and gold to pick up that dress and fuschia pink crinoline.

Lovely isn't she? I can't get over that braided updo. And the jewelry is glam, and simple- too much jewelry would take away from the gown.

The first set I did with her is the chair is Jim Coates Miniatures/ Bespaq, the hutch is a vintage Pricepessa Italian piece from Ebay, rug is a glitzy little placemat from my stash, and the portraits are from the $1 bins at Michaels, the portraits themselves are pictures of Whistler's women cut out of Victoria magazine.

2nd set shows a walnut Bespaq table with a floral arrangement and the back and sides of her gown. Simply lovely.

** Now a little behind the scenes on 'how I do it!'

My temp diorama sets are on 4 ft tables, side by side. Here is the backdrop with foamcore covered in marble contact paper for the floor. There is another set beside this for another photo shoot with wood grained contact paper on foamcore for flooring for that. My lights are clamped to the side of the dollhouse walls. This room is quite small so I have very limited space on setting up my photo shoots. At the most I can sometimes fit three on these two table surfaces. The dollhouse sits in the middle of the wall to the right, and behind that, the 6 ft table that holds the bakery and LaBelle's and the faux boutique. In another corner is the two shelves filled with props and a close also filled. For this photo shoot I wanted to do a mix of new with old and the 60's were all about those pastel loud colors with antique furniture and modern furniture. Enjoy the pics!~Lisa

Rainy days....

It was a very muggy, rainy day yesterday.  Had alot to do to get ready for the FR Convention, but instead decided to do some sewing so pulled out some items from my stash. I am still working on the frock coat jacket for this, but the fit on the skirt was fabulous. I altered the pattern a bit to fit Royal Monaco Vanessa...

I have more work to do on this outfit, it was amazing how quickly it went along. I literally made the blouse from scratch and used the embroidered part as a frontal decor- with the open back which is not period correct but looks pretty cool...Ihad to redraft alot  of the patterns that I had in my stash. Have been wanting to do another Victorian ensemble, hopefully can do more. Enjoy!~Lisa