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.  

Bears looking for homes

I went and picked up the items I had at the Art Fair this morning and now I have bears to sell. These poor little guys need new homes and would make great Christmas gifts for the young and old alike. They all have soft faux fur, are 14 inches tall, 5 way jointed and have child safe locking plastic black eyes and noses. I have put them all at a great low price.

This will be the last of the bears that I design and make. I will not be making any others than for special order. I am having too much fun now, learning about old dolls, finding them, cleaning them up and redressing them.

Now it is time to get some Christmas decorations up. The tree is started and a few things out. Will not go overboard this year like I have done in the past. Just can't get into it this year.

Sale time on my website.

It is sale time on my website. I always at the end of the year have some one of a kind odds and ends so I decided I might as well put them up before Christmas to let everyone have the bargains before Christmas.

My craft shows are pretty much done for the year. I am doing the Art Fair at the local college but it is boutique style so I only work 2 of the 6 days. I got it set up with bears, soft dolls and mice. It starts tonight so I hope to sell most of the bears because that will just about be the end of that part of my crafting.

My stock shelves are now filling up with vintage and refurbished/recycled dolls and they don't seem to take up as much room as the bears did. Those will stay until my antique and collectible show in February. Of course, they are available on my website right now. I thought I had all of them on the website until yesterday when I looked and nope, not all there. Today I added some of them and will try to get the rest put on tomorrow. I have to take some pictures first.

So all of you out there looking for some great gifts for family or friends, don't forget to check out my site for some great bargains.
http://ejcrafts.com

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.

My winning entries

Finally I am able to post the winning entries I had in our Mohave County Fair. This has been a month long adventure. First was trying to decide if I was going to enter anything in the fair and this being the first time that I had ever done anything like this, I didn't know what I should enter. I changed several times before I got the final decision made. From there it was deciphering the entry form on the internet. So many divisions and so many categories and sub categories to choose from. The easy part was being able to enter on the internet and not having to print everything out and mailing it in. The forms had to be in almost a month before the actual fair.

So now were the 3 trips to Kingman. The fair grounds are over the mountains and a 100 mile round trip. The first trip was to get the things there a week before the fair so that they could be judged, the second trip was to see if I won anything once the fair was open and then finally yesterday was to go pick everything back up after the fair closed.

I am happy that everything I entered won a First Place ribbon and am really happy that the Fairy Princess won a Best of Class ribbon. I do get a little money from all this but that is not why I entered this competition. I just wanted to see if anything I design and make would be judged by others as good. There were 100's of entries in my division and so I am very pleased that mine all won top honors.

From here these items will all be available on my website and I hope that you will take a look and with Christmas coming up soon, you will decide if anything I have will fit into your budget.

I have several craft shows that I am doing this fall and everything that is on my website will also be shown at shows. Shop early if you see something you want and with 50% down, I will hold an item for you in layaway.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog and tell you friends about it as I really do need more followers.