To My Poor Neglected Friends...

Phew! It's HOT here! But I'm taking a little breather with you and my diet coke while Baby naps and Daddy has the girlies over at his grandfather's for a couple hours. So nice to sit in the quiet...

ACK! My last post was Monday and this is FRIDAY! How did this happen? You have probably just about given up hope of seeing anything new here, haven't you? Poor dears! Well here I am, better late than never... Thank you for waiting so patiently for me, Sweets!

Today's post has a sort of theme. It's actually not one I planned, but one that basically just happened, all on its own! It does happen to be a favorite of mine, and hopefully of yours, too.
That's right: Dolls!

I have long been a lover of dolls. I had more than my share as a little girl and then having 4 younger sisters....well let's just say there were A LOT of dolls around! My mother had her dolls from when she was a little girl which she kept on a high shelf on the tippy-top of my bookshelf. I would beg her to get them down and let me just "look" at them and we even referred to them as "look-at dolls." She had one of the very first Barbie dolls, a Betsy McCall, a Ginny, a bisque baby and several baby dolls, at least one of which was composition. She also had a collection of doll clothes, many of which she had made herself as a child with the help of HER grandmother, Catherine, who worked for Singer and had quite the stash of tiny fabric scraps. Mama also had a collection of miniatures that would have been just the size for a dollhouse and were quite the tempation for little girls!
I started making my own doll clothes very early. In fact I started at about Emily's age, doing just exactly what I saw HER doing last week: cutting slits in little squares of fabric for armholes and making "dresses" for her dolls! What a delight that was to see! I got a Cabbage Patch sewing machine for my 8th birthday and I began lying awake at night, dreaming up fancy dresses I wanted to make. I remember having to FORCE myself to think about something else in order to fall asleep!
My fascination with dolls never really ended, even when I became "too old" to play with dolls. I made tiny shoebox dollhouses, as I'm sure many of you did, and fashioned furniture out of matchboxes, spools and the like. Contact paper made great wallpaper and furry fabric was the perfect carpet. I spent hours creating these little vignettes.


When I had my first daughter, Emily, I bought her a Madame Alexander baby doll for her first Christmas. As all you mamas know, this doll wasn't really for Emily; it was for ME! But she dutifully chewed on the doll's face and we named her "Anna." Anna was soon naked along with all the $10 baby dolls from Wal Mart but she was and is well-loved. Bitty Baby is now the favored baby here in our house and has almost as many pretty frocks as her mommies do! She inevitably ends up naked in the doll cradle with the rest of them but gets dressed for special occasions! All this to say, I love dolls. My current obsession is with tiny bisque dolls. The older and smaller, the better. You may remember this doll that is going to Miss Jennifer and her sweet little Vivian's house on Monday, along with this fabric heirloom book. Isn't she sweet? I spend WAY too much time these days surfing eBay with search terms like "vintage bisque baby" and "antique bisque doll." I promise I won't become one of those crazy doll ladies that sets life-size dolls up in life-like poses...yikes! But I may spend a little too much time and money on teeny tiny old dolls that could fit in the palm of your hand! This is another one I altered...her name is Rosalind and she is never without her faithful friend and guardian, Sugar...


So a few weeks ago, while searching on eBay with said search terms, I came across an auction with this photo. Now I couldn't tell exactly what these dolls looked like but I could tell they had molded hair, they were the "right size," and the price was right! So I bought them. I assumed they had dark hair, wouldn't you?


When they arrived I was so disappointed to find that they did NOT have dark hair! They had light hair that had been drawn on with a marker! Here's the "before" of the girl doll from the front... And this is the same doll from the back:

I immediately set about cleaning this marker off, which was not an easy task. But after awhile it began to come off! I was thrilled because the hair underneath was lovely! I expected a stain or something bad that had given the seller a reason to think they weren't cute or valuable but there was nothing like that. Here they are after their EXTREME MAKEOVER!

Aren't they just DEAR???? I don't care for their clothes but they are sewn on so I will have to really sure of what I want them to wear before I cut the clothes they came in off. Any ideas, Sweets??

I also wanted to draw your attention to my etsy shoppe where I have marked down the "Little Mama" Dress for Dolls down to 50% off. Yup...you guessed it...that's Bitty modeling the dress! A bit overshadowed by her beautiful "Little Mama" there, don't you think?? But then I'm biased since I'm Little Mama's Mama! ;) I also added a new item a customer of mine asked me to make for her daughter since the little girl's mama was about to have a new baby brother or sister for her. It's a little sweetly-wrapped bundle of a doll-sized receiving blanket and burp cloth in the prettiest pink flannel print! See my etsy store for both these items.

















Lastly, but definitely NOT least, I want to mention my friend, Linda, of Lola and Dahl, since she is almost done making my etsy store banner ( yippee!!!) and I want all of you to know who she is and stop by her funny-as-heck, sweet-as-can-be blog and say hello! She is also the incredibly talented graphic designer behind my hang tags and garment tags, which I just ADORE. She designed my ME page on eBay as well, which whe are currently working to get updated since it is quite dated and doesn't show any of my newer designs. And she has made loads of GORGEOUS custom eBay auction templates for me.

Look at these FAB and totally delicious tags!!! She is sooooooooo talented!













Besides being incredibly talented, Linda is a dear friend I have so enjoyed getting to know. We can hardly believe we have only been friends for a little over a year and a half! She and I are so much alike, it's uncanny, and we feel like we could have ALMOST been twins separated at birth. She is a lovely wife (our husbands even have the same name!), mom of 3 (2 girls and a boy, just like me!) and has a plane ticket in her possession to come and visit me! YIPPEE!!!!!
Well Friends...that's it for now. Missy Ballance is updating Glitter & Grunge tonight and I am SOOOOO excited about my new offerings for September! Can't wait to show you tomorrow but I don't want to spoil the surprise...so meet me back here tomorrow and I'll do Show & Tell for you!

Hubby is making peach crisp later this evenning from peaches he picked at his grandpa's......mmmmm....with ice cream on top of it....who needs dinner????

Hugs to you all....