Thanksgiving is over and now on to Christmas

Our Thanksgiving was a quiet one with just the two of us and we had a nice rib roast for dinner.  We are not turkey eaters and we do love a nice beef roast.  Of course we are still eating on it. 

 I know I haven't been around in a while and this time I have a good reason.  I was very sick for almost a month.  It started with a head cold and went to the lungs.  Didn't want to go to the doctor but it came down to that when the paramedics had to be called because I couldn't breathe.  Had some very strong antibiotics and steroids for a couple of weeks plus lots of other medicine and I am finally getting over it.

Then with all the weather changes the arthritis also went into high gear and there are days that I can verily get around.  Whoever said that these are the golden ages, should have been shot.  Old age is not for the weak!

 So after saying all that, none of which you wanted to hear, I have not been in the sewing room to work on any new dolls for over a month.  This is bad for me but then I have plenty of dolls so I don't have to worry that I am going to run out of stock.

 I did one show this year in October and it was bad.  It is usually a good money maker and the traffic was not there this year.  Don't really know why.    The economy around here is not good.  I was going to do the swap meet to get rid of some of the cheaper dolls and then I got sick and was unable to do that.

 My next show is an antique show in February and along with the dolls I have picked up some antique furniture this year to add to the mix.  Some is doll furniture, some children's furniture, a old 1924 cabinet and a 1954 sewing machine in a cabinet.  I hope this will bring more people into my booth.  Here is the cabinet that I have.
          

Now I also wanted to say tonight that I have a BIG SALE going on my website until December 10.  Everything will go back to regular price after that time.  I hope you will all take a look and see if there is something that you would like.  The website is http://www.ejcrafts.com    I would sure appreciate anything that you can do as being sick has kept me from doing the usual craft shows this year and my stock is pretty big.  My husband says he is getting to feel like he lives in a doll house or store and said I can't buy any more dolls until I get rid of some.  Little does he know that if I find something that I want, I am going to buy it.  Tee!  Hee!

Hope your Thanksgiving was great and you didn't over eat too much.  All the cookies, candy and Christmas parties are coming up and we will probably all gain a little over the next four weeks.
 

Procrastination

Yep, that is me.  I should be getting dolls priced and deciding  on a set up for a craft show I have next weekend and here I sit.....playing on the computer. 

I saw this sign this morning and I really think it is me.  "A clean house is a sign of a broken computer".  It really does describe me.  My house needs some cleaning and my sewing room is a mess from working in there and just dropping things anyway after I use them.  I am an organized person and everything has a place but it seems lately that I just don't get done what should be.  Is it age?  I don't know but maybe I can blame it on that.

Now if anyone has some answers for me or maybe you all would like to come and help, I sure would appreciate it.  :)

As for the show next weekend.  It is in the Community Park at Bullhead City, Arizona and if any of you are near the area, please stop by and see all the beautiful stuff that people have made.  October 21 to 23 is the date.  It is just across the Colorado river from Laughlin, Nevada so you can always stay and play at the casinos.  The weather should be great and in the 80's.

Why I love thrift stores

I have been going to thrift stores now for about a year and this is something I didn't think I would ever do as I was a teddy bear maker and they didn't have things in the thrift stores that interested me.  


Boy was I wrong about me and thrift stores.  I probably hit the thrift stores now 2 to 3 times a week.  Of course, part of that is because I no longer do the teddy bears, although I have been having people say that they think I will start doing them again one of these days.  I don't think so because I am having too much fun with the dolls.


Now back to the thrift stores.  I think I have pretty much depleted all the dolls at these stores.  I am not finding them like I use too but then I know there are others out there doing basically like I am doing with the refurbishing the dolls.  Anyway, I started looking for doll furniture mainly for displays for my craft shows but that kind of got out of hand and now I have a ton of doll furniture and some recycled pieces that didn't start out as doll furniture.  I have enough stuff to start a store of my own.  


So I started this blog posting mainly to talk about my newest addition to my doll furniture.  This is a real baby cradle that I found at the thrift store.  It was in with all the other furniture and not where the toys or dolls are at.  I thought it odd that this cradle was with the regular furniture but then it is for a baby.  I have several doll beds to but I really fell in love with this cradle.  It looks old and it looks homemade and it does show wear and use.  Wouldn't it be great if it could tell us where it has been and if it ever was used for a baby.  I made a new cushion for the bottom and a pillow to match in a blue and white cotton and then I had to put one of the dolls in it.  This doll is an interactive doll and does several things but it also plays the song "Lullaby and Good Night".  I think it was made for this cradle.  What do you think?

A funny little story

This is the doll that caused all the problems this morning.  I bought her months ago.  Didn't know who she was and at the time couldn't find her.  I got her without batteries so when I brought her home, I did what I also do with dolls when I bring them in the house.  I cleaned her up and added the batteries.  Nothing happened.  I could see that the arms were suppose to move because of the metal in the arms and the head seemed to want to move but nothing I could do would make her move.  I googled her and I looked at several other places and no doll.  All I knew was the tag that said Mattel 2006.

Well seeing I couldn't make her work and I really didn't know who she was and what she was suppose to do, I put her in the corner of my sewing room and thought someday I will find out who she was.  She sat there for months and.............

Forward to this morning.  I was in the sewing room going to work on a new pattern for a 12 in Alexander "Lissi" doll that I have orders for Christmas outfits.  All of a sudden I heard a noise and wasn't sure what it was and then I heard a giggle.  Now I knew I didn't have any dolls in there that make noises or talked so I just ignored it and then there it was again.  The little noise and a giggle.  This I had to check out!  I walked around and I could hear it again from a pile of doll stuff.  I moved a couple of things and there was this doll with it's arms moving and they went to her eyes and she said peek a boo.  I picked her up and she started talking and moving her arms more and her head moved.  I took her out to where my hubby was sitting and we both sat and listened for about 15 minutes to all the different stuff that she was saying and watching her arms move in different positions.  It was fun and to think I had thrown her in a corner and just forgot her.  Why she started to talk this morning I don't know but I decided I needed to find out who she was.

So I Goggle her and still couldn't find her and so I took the next step.  I have lots of friends on Facebook and I just knew someone there would know because this doll is not that old.  Sure enough within minutes I had my answer.  She is called, Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Doll.  She was made by Mattel but for Fisher Price. I found her on Amazon at a high price and she also was on eBay.  My next step was to get her dressed.  She had the original ribbons in her hair so those I left and she had come in a one piece pink suit but I don't like those outfits so I made her a pink cotton dress and matching bloomers.  A couple of the things she says is "I want my blankie" and "I want my teddy bear".  I had both of these items that I bought at the thrift store so just added those to her.  She also asks for milk and there was a bottle in the original package when the doll was new so I will find a bottle the fits her and add that too.

So even though it isn't Halloween yet and spooky things are not suppose to happen, I consider this my Halloween joke on me for the year.  I still want to know why all of a sudden she decided to work.  Now I have to turn her off or she wants to run all the time.  SPOOKY!!!!!

Memories

Did you ever wake up too early in the morning and then couldn't get back to sleep?  I did that is morning and so I just laid in bed and for some reason, I started thinking about buying gas for the car in today's world and what it was like buying gas when I was young.

Today we go in to all self serve gas pumps, swipe our card, select our grade of gas then pump our gas and drive away, never seeing or talking to anyone.   I did this last week and it cost me almost $60 to fill the tank.  I really don't like get gas for the car but then we don't go very far and I only have to do this every 3 to 4 weeks.  I know a lot of you out there do this every week or more.

Now for the story about getting gas that I was thinking about this morning.  When I was young, I never even thought about pumping the gas myself.  In fact no one pumped there own gas.   It was unheard of.  You had gas stations where you pulled into the pump, a nice man came out and asked you how much gas you wanted, pumped the gas then checked your oil and water levels and washed the windows in the car, took you money and thanked you for stopping by.  You usually only bought $2 worth of gas.  This would probably get you around most of the week.  The gas stations were also set up with a garage attached too it so when you needed to have the oil changed, a tuneup or even new tires, that is where you went.  You were on first name basis with the owner and whoever worked for him. 

I wonder if there are any of these type of stations still around somewhere in the back roads of our country.  I miss the friendly people from back then and someone else pumping my gas.

Family....Dolls......Pain....Everything that has kept me off here.

First we start with the family.  Two of our three kids plus two grand kids were here for almost a week.  I sure enjoyed having them here but it was too hot to really do any thing so we pretty much stayed in the home and talked, played on the computers, watched some television and put together a puzzle.  We did do a little shopping and ate a lot.  I didn't cook at all because the kids bought at our meals.  It was great as I really, really don't like to cook.

Then I guess I should talk about the pain.  I am pretty much living on pain killers.  I have been diagnosed with severe arthritis of the spine.  Some days it is hard to get out of bed and other days not so bad.  It is something I just have to learn to live with.  I had a couple of days of pity party but then, I decided it is NOT going to stop me and I decided  try to live a normal life for as long as I can.   I work a little and I sit a little and I walk a little and that is how I get through each day.   No one wants to hear about my aches and pains so that is enough......

 Now for my dolls.  My real joy in life right now.  The hunt for dolls is so much fun and my husband, I think, is having as much fun as I am going to the thrift stores.  There are times when I figure we were at one of the store just a couple of days before and here he is saying lets go check out this store or that.

 It has been a couple of weeks were we didn't find anything that we wanted and then this past week we have found 6 dolls that I can work on.  Some are named dolls and some are not.  Are the vintage dolls, no, but they are nice dolls to work on. 

 Here is one that I have not found anything about.  She is a sweetie with a cute smiley face and freckles.  She is 15 inches tall.  If anyone knows anything about this doll I would sure appreciate knowing.

These are the before and after pictures of her.  She has a little speaker in her tummy but it doesn't work anymore and there is no way to replace it without taking the doll apart.  I didn't want to do that as she was in great shape.  I decided she looked like an Irish lassie with her strawberry blond hair and reddish brown freckles.

I hope to be able to get on here tomorrow or before the week is out to be able to show you the doll I finished up today.  She is my BJD Southern Belle doll.

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.