It has been a while......

Yep, it has been quite a while since I have posted on here.  Where does the time go?  I have been getting more dolls and fixing them up.  I had been buying a few on eBay as the dolls that I put on there sold, I would use the money to buy other dolls.  Now eBay is flat in sales so I have not bought any more on there.  By the time I pay to have them shipped, it raises the cost and then I have to charge more for the dolls when I finish them.  We are still going to the thrift stores every week and finding some good buys.  Have bought quite a bit of furniture too so come fall and the craft shows, I will have the furniture to sell too.  Plus I also have some doll quilts that I have made and there are always the extra doll clothes.

Digging through all the old stock I had on the shelves, I found a few bears that haven't sold so have them on my website at a good price.  Need to get rid of that stock because I need the room.  I have also make some of the "Emma" dolls and have a couple of them on my website too.  I really need to get some more of them made.

Here is the one doll that I worked on this past couple of weeks.  It is a Madame Alexander,  18 inch baby doll.  She was such a sweetheart to work on.

And next we have the Lee Middleton by Reva,  17 inch boy doll.  His face was so sweet, I couldn't pass him up.  I made this outfit in a navy suede cloth. 

















I hope you like these two babies.  They are not listed anywhere yet but if anyone is interested in these dolls, please contact me.

Well we are starting to get a wind storm here so I guess I had better get off the computer.  Thanks for reading my blog and don't forget to leave comments.  

I am in love with a doll.

Yes, it is true.  My hubby and I go looking for dolls and doll furniture every week at all the thrift stores.  These are all old dolls in need of work and clothes and all that you already know.  I love the work I am doing with the dolls.  Last week we found some great doll furniture.  A wicker cradle, a love bunch and a wicker chair and one little doll that I got cleaned up.

Well today was our usual Goodwill day as it is 25% off for seniors.  We were going up and down the toy aisle and looking for dolls and rejected what was there.  We always stop in the porcelain aisle but because I have not had good luck with selling this type of doll and they are always priced higher, we just look at them and pass them by.  I picked up this Indian baby and said isn't she cute, to bad she is porcelain.  I put her back and we walked to the back of the store to see if there was any furniture, trims or fabric we could get.  Nothing there and I saw an oil lamp that looked nice from a distance but when I got up close it was to new to be sold as an antique so past on it.  I was ready to leave and just as we got up to where the dolls were again, John says don't you want this Indian doll.  I loved the look but know she probably wouldn't sell and that is what we do this for, but I decided, oh heck, I can buy something for myself once in a while.  She was a little messy but I got her home, brushed her hair and the fur on her outfit.  Then I found she did have a cute little necklace with bells on it.  She sits in a swing that is just attached at the top of the head.  Right now she is hanging in my kitchen but I am going to be putting her in my sewing room and I will be able to smile at her every day when I am in there.

I guess it is good to find something for myself once in a while.  She is dressed in lavender which is one of my favorite colors.  She has a couple of things I still need to fix.  Some of the feathers need replacing and one eyelash is missing but she is so sweet even if I never get the little things fixed.

By the end of the week, I should have another doll in the mail that I can work on but at this point in time, I really don't have anything new coming out.  I miss working on dolls every day.

Tomorrow I have to get an album together to take to a store so that they can show my dolls there.  I am hoping that one of these days they will carry some of the dolls and not just pictures of the dolls.

The day after Christmas

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We were quiet here as our family lives all over the country and they all spent time with their kids. John and I went out to the casino early in the AM and both of us won. It was quiet out there too with just some of the seniors who are local with no family near or snowbirds here for the winter. Then came home and had a normal day. Laundry, made a nice ham dinner, played on the computer and worked a little on dolls.

We had so much rain last week and cloudy weather for 10 days and then the sun was finally out for a couple of days and now again this morning, here we are with clouds again and a possibility of rain today and again on Thursday. This is not normally the time of the year when we get rain in the desert. Weird weather this year all over the world.

Now it is really time for me to go work on some dolls. I have several naked babies waiting for new clothes. Sometimes it is hard to decide how I want them to look and seeing I haven't been posting on this blog for a while, no one has seen many of the newer dolls that I have done. I will try to get some on soon.

The last month has kind of been a blur as I have started to sell on Ebay and have done pretty good there but it really becomes almost a full time job to keep up with it. I post new/old dolls on there almost every day with them going to auction for just 3 days. It takes a lot of work to keep up with it but it has been profitable so will continue into January to see if the people are still buying. Of course, with being on there, I also find dolls that I want so I am buying too. Should probably do that but there is always another doll that I don't have or one that needs to be replaced.

Have a good week with the New Year coming up.

Has it been a week since I posted? WOW!

This last week I think is a blur. I was getting ready for a 3 day craft show that ended yesterday. It was a profitable show for me and the crowds were there and they were buying. This is unusal for this area with the snowbirds not being back in town yet but I am happy.

After 30 years of mainly designing and making teddy bears, I am changing. The last two shows plus the traffic on my website says it is a time for change. I am sad about this as I really enjoy making the bears but the public doesn't seem to be going in that direction. So I will leave the teddy bears go for a while and concentrate on the dolls.

I like designing and making dolls and I always get lots of compliments and sales on the dolls. I will continue doing this with a new design every year or two and keep the dolls in my line that are my top sellers.

Now my big surprise is the traffic I am getting on the recycled and vintage dolls. This is right now, the way that I will be going. I enjoy finding a doll that has been played with and now has been discarded for something new and then cleaning it up and making new clothes and finding a new buyer for the doll. People are excited about seeing the doll they played with as a child and no longer have. They want the doll back. I am not sure why but it may be just the idea of a easier time in their life or they are at the age where they are now collecting the older dolls. Even the kids are wanting the dolls that may not be that old but are all redressed. This I was kind of surprised about because I thought maybe kids are not playing with dolls that much, but I guess they are.

So now from me you will see more and more dolls and I will enjoy the hunt in all the thrift stores, yard sales and anywhere else I can look and then bringing them home and making them all pretty again. Then I will probably be doing more doll and collectible shows and not as many craft shows but that is okay as then I will meet a whole new group of people.

Stay tuned as my newest adventure begins. I am excited and I hope others will be too.

It's Craft Show season!

Yes, this is the time of the year when I do most of my craft shows. Holidays are coming and people are more willing to buy that child safe bear or doll. I am now in full gear mode to get my shows going.

I have a show this weekend, then another in two weeks and then another two weeks after that. I use to be able to do a show every weekend but age has caught up with me and it takes a week to recover from a show. My mind thinks I can still do all the shows but my body just says stop you can't. Boy old age stinks sometimes!

So today is getting all my displays ready and all the table covers washed and ready and see what else has to be done with products I am taking to this show. Tomorrow will be packing everything into containers and packing the van.

Even with all this, I still am sewing today. I got a couple cute dolls at the Goodwill store yesterday and so I did one doll up yesterday and today will try to finish up the other one. Then the lady at one of the other thrift stores says she will have some other dolls ready for me to look at today so will probably make a quick trip down there is see what she has. I have to remember to take a couple of the dolls with me that I got from her when I go down there and show her what I have done with them. She wanted to see them.

So the next two days are busy and then the weekend will be lots of sitting and standing and talking to people. Hope for lots of good sales so I don't have to bring so much stuff home.

Happy Crafting everyone and for you who do shows, I hope you have great sales.

Poor Strawberry

Poor little Strawberry. She had so many problems when I got her in the mail. Her body was so dirty and she had red and pink strips in her unkepted hair plus one eye was not all there. She looked like she had been truly loved but then discarded in a box. I found her and tried my best to clean her up. She use to be a Mattel Sneezy doll, dated 1975, that when you pressed her tummy, she would sneeze and her head would go up and down. I suspect that the original mommy decided she needed a bath and put her in water and all the stuff that make her work leaked out and all over her hair and body. It had to have been red and this gave her the red streaks in the hair but the body is a soft vinyl and it made the body a purple tint. I tried and tried to get the body streaks to go away but to no avail. They are lighter but she will never be like new again. Even her little fingernails and toenails were a blue/purple color. And then there was the poor eye.

Oh what, oh my, what was I going to do with a this sweet little doll with a cute little face. Surely she could come to life again and be loved by another mommy.

After working on the body for two days, and being frustrated in not being able to get the streaks out of her, I decided to work with them. First was repair the eye. A little paint and pens took care of that and now she has dark blue eyes that twinkle at you. Next was the mouth which had no color so a little red took care of that and the blue fingernails and toenails are red too. She was beginning to look better. Then to tackle the hair. A good roller setting and a few hours in the sun and she had curls. There is still the red in the hair but now they looked like they were meant to be there.

Now it was time to work on clothing. The legs had to be covered so after a couple of tries I got her a pair of flesh colored tights made and that covered up all the ills on her legs. Had to pick out some fabric for her and I found this little piece of strawberry print fabric and used that to make her a dress with long sleeves to cover the rest of her body. Of course she had to have shoes too so a piece of green felt and shoes were created for her.

So now you know that she had to have a new name to go with the red in her hair and the strawberry print dress. Strawberry, what else could she be named! Now she is all ready to be loved by a new mommy.

You can see her and the rest of her pictures on my website where she is now for sale.
http://www.ejcraft.com

Onto another project.

Well here we are again and onto another new project. I started to think about doing plant pokes and then had some people say that they would get wet and buggy. Living in Arizona, we don't have that problem but I guess you would in other parts of the country.

So it was suggested that I try the bear heads on pencils or pens. I have done a couple on pens but I think the pens are kind of short so I have done several on pencils. I think if people want they can still poke them in a plant but that will be up to them.

This is the only one I have photographed at the moment but I have a dozen made in different colors. I have them in grey, brown, tan and this rust color. I have some with flowers glued on the ear and some without. Each will have a ribbon around the neck. I still haven't decided what I need to charge for these. It will have to be somewhere from a dollar to two dollars. I will never get my time costs but this has been a fun project and keeps me busy. Let me know your comments.

If you would, become a follower and you will know when I have a new project in the works. I have a few more ideas that I am working on so hopefully over the next few weeks when it is too hot here to be anywhere but in the sewing room, I will post some more new things.

Everyone take care and don't forget to check out all the things on my website that I have put on clearance. I really need the room for some new things LOL.

Remember When?

Well here I go again with some new bears. These I call "Remember When". I was thinking about the bear I had as a child and thought these were simple bears in a more simple time. I was raised in the 1940's and money was tight for our family. It was war time and there was not much joy in the world. Boy that sounds like today. Funny about how things cycle over and over again.

The bears are made of a short faux fur and 13 inches tall. I think the bear I had was only 9 inch, but seeing it is long gone, I decided I would just use my memory and recreate the style. The bears are jointed too in the arms and legs which I know my bear was not but for today's world this works better. They do have the set-in seam ears in the two colors and a plastic nose which really haven't changed much over the years. Then I put on the button eyes. I usually make child safe bears but back then we never thought about child safe and all the eyes were sewed on so that is what I did for these bears.

In my stash of fabric I found this cute blue and pink plaid in a soft cotton and so I created little pants for the boy and a dress and panties for the girl, all matching. I found enough of this material to make 5 bear sets and because they are easy to make, I have a lower price on the sets too. Please let me know if you are interested as these are not on my website yet.

Until June 9 I do have a big sale with about half my products at 50% off so if you have any interest in some bears or dolls, please check it out.

Finally got doll number 5 finished today

Well I am a little slow but I did get doll number 5 done today. This one I call Spring Maiden. After making the doll, I used a new yarn I found that is two toned tan and it makes for great looking hair. The first thing I made was a hat. On my first attempt to design this hat it worked. Then it was on to the outfit and that worked the first time too. Yea, for me as it usually takes a couple of attempts. The felt shoes did take me a couple of tries. Then it was just finding the right colors of ribbon to finish her and some flowers in her hand and there I had my Spring Maiden.

I hope that you like her and she is for sale on my website along with all the others that I have made. I have a couple of more that I want to make but haven't decided just what they will be. It will probably come to me in the night as to what they should look like.

Enjoy

Eva

http://www.ejcrafts.com/

Today is the first day of my blog.

This is my first time at doing a blog and so that everyone can get to know me and my creations I am just introduction myself today.

I have been sewing since I was a child and so I sew. Over the years I have made just about everything that you can think of making. About 30 years ago, I decided that I wanted to make some teddy bears. First I only made them and gave them to friends and co-workers and then people said they would buy them so I started to do art and craft shows. This turned into quite a business for me. Every weekend we would travel the western states and sell at craft shows. I would work my regular job and come home and sew, travel on the weekends and it went on and on like that for years. When my hubby lost his job, downsizing they called it, we decided to sell our house and buy a travel trailer and do shows full time. We did this for only 2 years when we got so burnt out that we went back to regular jobs. We didn't do shows for several years or did I make bears. Then, of course, the bug got me and I started to want to do shows again so we did a few a year. We had to stop doing the shows for a while as our jobs were too demanding to be able to be gone.

We retired almost 5 years ago and decided to do a few local shows and I was up and running again with a business. Last year after my hubby got quite ill, I started a website as our house was being overrun by stuffed animals. I still do a couple of shows a year but am hoping that the website will give me a good income.

I do hope that you will check out my website and bookmark it for future reference. I not only design and make teddy bears but soft dolls, rabbits, mice, dogs, hand puppets and a few more odds of ends of things. Whatever I dream up and make, I put on the website.

Eva
www.ejcrafts.com