First Collaboration Project!
The ever so awesome Minklet has finished her latest custom Blythe Doll, am/pm aka Post. I was invited to design and create the carry bag for the doll. YAY! She is up for auction now. Check it out!
Big ta-do on the back porch
So…this is the box that arrived on the driveway Monday afternoon. Wowzers!
Much unpacking ensued in the Arizona Spring heat to reveal the patio furniture I bought from Target.com and got free shipping. Wahoo that is like getting a ride to the store but not having to bug someone!
And now…ta-da! Somewhere to site in the backyard, although there isn’t much to look at back there yet. I do need to get around to ordering some trees for back there.
Other than that excitement, I worked the overnight maintenance window at work on Friday night and that went well. Sunday morning I moseyed on over to The Farm at South Mountain to meet up with some lovely Blythe pals. A good time was had by all that is for certain. I went home afterwards and slept until Sunday morning. 
Sylvia brought her little ones and they are just so darling! Vickie brought her husband and he is just so awesome about the dolls! Shannon was in town from New Mexico and it was really cool to meet her as well. Candace worked the window also but luckily her work ended early so she got to go home and get some sleep so she came too. Hurray!
Vickie brought two of her Dal’s to the meet…and well…I love them. Pamela had one up for adoption so I bought it. It should be here tomorrow. And Sylvia is lending me a Momoko and a Dolly Dolly book to see if I can make clothes for them. Oh yes! And there will soon be more dolly bags in the This is Blythe shop!
Hurray for long weekends!
I have today off of work. Horray! So far this has been a pretty busy weekend.
Saturday Candace and I had a mini-meet with Sylvia over at her house. Her little girls are just so cute and full of energy. And Sylvia’s work is just wonderful as are her lovely dolls. It was a fun time. After that we hit up Zoe’s Trunk for what else…more fabric. I picked up some prints for Valentines and St. Patrick’s Day dresses.
I’ve also been hard at work on more dolly body bags. I received a large order that I am super excited about so I need to get planning on those and choosing which prints to submit for it. I am just about out of the little tags I made so I ordered some custom printed ribbon instead. I am thinking if I do a loop for the tag then people could use that loop and the one at the top that hook on a strap as suggest by Eddo.
Oh yes! And on Friday we hit up Ikea at lunch so I could look at some shelves in person to help me decide on a bookcase for the ‘doll house’. Well, as I mentioned in my comments, they had a Bonde bookcase on clearance that was the perfect width and depth. We went ahead and picked that up and Candace helped me out by toting me home. I put that together Friday night and used two shelves for the dolls and the rest for me. I plan on decorating it after the miniatures show in February. Mr. B and I were always going to do a train track layout and I looked forward to the miniatures so now I have a shot at it.
So today is going to be filled with cleaning, laundry, sewing, and cutting out bags. Whew! Then on Friday is my and Candace’s yearly trek to the Sewing & Quilt Festival. Yay! And I almost forgot…a big thank you to Candace and Tina for coming across some cool quilted fabric prints on their trip to the JoAnn’s in SanTan yesterday!
Decisions…decisions
Okay so…currently my Blythe girls have a very message ‘room’ inside the wardrobe in my sewing room. I have been planning on doing something a little better for them but now that i have four (more on that later).
Here is my problem, I can’t decide what I want to use for their ‘house’. I don’t HAVE to have them in sewing room but since it is my crafty place I want them in there. Here are what I think are my requirements:
- Doors so the cats/ferret can’t get at the dolls
- Room for all four of them with a bedroom or two, living room, kitchen and study/craft room
- Ability to light well for photos
This is where I could use some help! I have 3 ideas for what to do.What do you think?
Smallest Traby shelf in the wardrobe. This would be four rooms inside the warbrode. Pros: Doesn’t take up much room, should be enough room next to it to put plastic drawers for storage. Cons: Too small maybe, the dark warbrode is a lighting challenge.
Bigger Narrow Billy Bookcase. To the right of my closet Ihave my jewelry armoire there now. This idea is to put that back into my room and put a tall narrow Billy bookcase there with a glass door. Pros: Lots of room, should be good light, safe from kitties, can use the wardrobe for craft storage (ols sewing machine for example). Cons: Pixel may be sad that he can’t site on the armoire in the sewing room, will the room look crazy busy/cluttered?
Biggest Large Billy Bookcase. This idea is to replace the short and wide Billy bookcase with a tall one with doors. Half the space for the dolls and the rest for the books and such I have in the bookcase in there now. The old bookcase I could put in my room or somewhere. Pros: Tons of room, okay light. Cons: may be a pain with the doors to get at books and such with the bookcase in the corner.
I am leaning toward the middle option. Hmm….
The furniture layout is wrong (except for the armoire and the small book shelf in the top/left corner) but this is the space I am in Sewing Room Take Two
2008 365
This year I will be participating in two 365 groups on Flicker. What you do is take a photo each day for the pool. The two I am doing are Blythe (Gracie will be the subject) and Crafting. I actually started Crafting a while back but got out of practice so I am starting over.
Though I plan to do a lot of crafting today since I don’t have to go to work, my photo for the day is of the ‘kitty quilt’ I am working on. This quilt will be a combination of rail fence and other blocks. I’m not very happy with the first block but this one is looking better. I’ve switched over to pressing the seams open to see how that goes. There seems to be conflicting opinions on if you should press to the side or open. As a lot of things in quilting I bet it can be a heated argument but I am more from the school of ‘everyone do what they want’.
For the Blythe 365 pool you use one Blythe for the subject. I chose my first Blythe Gracie of course. Her first photo is with the little calendar I bought at the Sanrio store when Candace and I went there last weekend. I hope that I can keep up with both pools all year long. What a fun challenge.
So here is to looking forward to the new year with hope in our hearts.
Vegas baby!
Gosh I never did blog about my latest trip! Well as crappy as 2007 has been there have been some highlights. I usually don’t go anywhere! But this year between work and vacation I have been to Colorado twice, Vegas twice, and to Florida!
This time I took Gracie and Nora with me to Las Vegas. I had a fantastic time and met up with Laura who is every so sweet! She brought Marzipan (Princess a la Mode) and Olivia (Goldie) with her. Even though we had never met in person I gabbed on like I’ve known her for years! It was a seriously awesome time.
I didn’t win big on the slot machines (I loves me some penny slots) but I did win a little at bingo over at Sam’s Town. Yes, I am a huge mix of quirky things that traditionally either very old or very young people like.
This time we stayed as the Flamingo which is a really good spot at it is pretty much in the middle of a lot of things. We had a GO room which was neat because of the automatic blinds and the tv in the bathroom mirror. I have still yet to go to the Freemont area but there is always next time huh. Oh yes and the spa….massage, scrub, wrap, mani/pedi, and a scalp treatment. Should I even become filthy rich I am having a spa day every week (after I pay all my bills, redo my house and yard, set up trusts for my nieces and nephew, but a long-arm quilting machine, get those invisible braces, and a DSLR camera).
As usual there was lots of shopping, site seeing, and doll photos taken. Whew saves me from having photos taken of myself! We also checked out the decorations at the Bellagio….breathtaking! And walking walking walking! It was a good thing though to balance out the food since it was the first week of the Biggest Loser challenge at work.
All in all I had a great time and look forward to some more vacations in 2008. I hopefully will get to go to Florida again for TechEd and I need to take a trip back home to Indiana. And I just want to pick somewhere random to go…like Portland since it seems to be chock-full of crafty and awesome people.
And then there were three…
Yep, my insanity has deepened. I now have 3 Blythe dolls. It sounds corny to those who don’t get it but they really make such nice muses and creative outlets. They are becoming an important part of the journey I have been on this year.
I tried to resist Cloud 9 Bowl. It was hard…red hair…I love red hair I think because my kindergarten teacher Miss Binkley had this curly bright red hair and was so sweet. I endured teasing of other little girls for opting to bring my redheaded paper dolls to school rather than the blonds. Then C9B has a 50’s bowling theme…my parents graduated high school in the 50’s and I’ve held nostalgia for that era as a way to touch base with where they came from. In the closet I have a bunch of audio tapes of 50’s music. And then the bowling…well I was born and raised in Indiana. I bought myself a bowling ball and shoes for myself when I graduated high school, and I still have them. I’m not that good but I have a lot of fun bowling. I keep telling myself I’m going to scoot up to the alley and play but I keep forgetting.
So anywho…I tried to avoid C9B. I inquired about a Tweedly Do for adoption on TIB (yes doll people say ‘adopt’ rather than ’sell’ get over it) but she was already spoken for. I bid on a Merry Skier on Ebay, but then was outbid and let it go after realizing the seller was someone that sometimes had smoke-smelling dolls. So two-strikes and a Buy It Now C9B staring at me. I clicked…the end.
Her name is Nora but even that was a challenge. My next girl was to be a brunette to name Nobby (Zenobia) after a Wodehouse character. I had no name for a redhead. There was Maureen after my favorite Heinlein character, but that seemed a little old for little girl. Nora Charles, played by Myrna Loy was a good name so I went with that. I also used Nora combined with the last name Vane from Dorothy L. Sayers‘ books for a a character in an RPG years ago. So Nora was all set, then I thought of Penny due to her copper hair. Uh-oh indecision. One of my weaknesses that I needed to conquer. I polled my friends and someone suggested a 3rd name, Chloe after the character on 24. Oye! Debate debate debate. Do you know that several guys at my office think Chloe is a choice name for a stripper? I had no idea, the things you learn…
Anyway, Nora it is after watching my new Thin Man boxed set. I think she likes it. Though I think it may make her my curious one, maybe I need a spyglass for her.
I finally met another Blythe person!
The girls and I went to the mall after work today to meet up with Sylvia (sylviecoladolls.com) and two of her dolls. I’m really happy that Sylvia made the suggestion and we were finally able to meet up. She is a relly nice person and normally shy nervous me was a little surprised at how easily I chatted along like I’ve known her for ages. ^_^
She brought along her Hello Harvest and the custom she is working on. From the stock photos I wasn’t that in to HH but wow is she pretty in person! Her hair is a lovely golden color and she has very nice pale skin. It was my first time to see sleep eyes in person as well as sand matting and changed eyelashes. I’m going to have to keep an eye out for customs from Sylvia, she does such a cute job.
Let’s see…other than that work was crazy again today. Still some issues left over from the weekend and a goof by me was to blame for one of them. Gah I so hate when I mess stuff up and with gong back to a technical role I have to relearn a lot of stuff so I wind up very frustrated that I am so helpless at some stuff until I get the hang of things again.
Crafting 365 - 14
For Crafting 365 today I submitted one of the wrap dresses I made. I made another Friday night but then finished this one up this afternoon. I’ve had to adjust there the ties are in relation to the opening so the front flaps don’t turn out so wonky.
Also today I went and got my hair cut and highlighted as well a a brow wax. The guy parted my hair on the opposite side of what I usually do but I think I like it so I might try to switch to that.
Amie was busy with mid-terms so we didn’t run today but it is just as well since I need to work on cleaning the house.
New Fall Outfit!!
Gracie’s fall outfit from Le Petit arrived the other day. There is a skirt as well that we need to photograph. Pretty eh?
Check out the shop to clothe your girls. 
Speaking of clothing…I made a new wrap dress for the girls. I’m tossing the idea in my head of making more and selling them at TIB or Etsy. I’ve haven’t sold any of my crafts since I had a little friendship bracelet business in junior high (lol I have order forms and everything). Would anyone buy the dresses I wonder…hmm.
