Doll Food!

We love making doll food, so when we found out that My Doll House in San Antonio, TX (http://mydollhouse.us/) offers miniature food making classes, we were excited!  Fran the Food Lady was teaching kids in the morning and grown-ups in the afternoon how to make hamburgers this past Saturday, and Kairi had fun doing this.  The buns were made of Crayola Model Magic, and the meat was made of Fimo polymer clay.  Kairi had a little clay left, so she also made a hot dog.  Below is a picture of some of her work.

 Because the class was at a Miniature shop, we did do some shopping.  Janet bought a miniature Little Red Riding Hood doll (and a few other things).  Toni shows off her new doll below (she's wearing a new outfit-- it turns out the Little Miss Matched dolls by Robert Tonner  http://www.littlemissmatched.com/Catalog/girls-fashion-dolls can share some of their clothes with 12" dolls).

Toni with her Little Red Riding Hood doll

 Finally, you might have seen my previous post on our new Patsy dolls, and one of the pictures has her dress lifted up to show her bendy legs.  Unfortunately, this showed the lack of underwear the dolls have.  But, this weekend we resolved that problem!  We stopped at Berdoll's (http://www.berdollpecanfarm.com/) to check out their yummy pecans, and we found this hilarious display with squirrel underwear (they are also sold here http://www.mcphee.com/shop/products/Girl-Squirrel-Underpants.html although Berdoll's had a cheaper price).  Presumably, you would give them to someone as a gag gift, but we thought they might be perfect for Patsy, and luckily, they are!  So, one last gratuitous dress-lifting picture to show off her new panties:

Seriously, I have met collectors who take doll underwear VERY SERIOUSLY!  So, our new dolls are no longer indecent!

-- Janet and Kairi

Sock Monkey Fun!

This weekend we finished our sock monkeys made from a fun kit made by Denis Bastien of Affordable Designs.  He sells 11" dolls and great accessories for them (including "croc" shoes), and this winter Janet came across the sock monkey kit on his website, www.leeann.ca.  The kit comes with some of the sewing started for you and all the materials you need.  He also has great instructions on his website taking you through step-by-step with very helpful pictures.  The kit is not for beginners, as the small sewing is tricky, but Kairi stuffed her monkey and then sewed on a hat and jaunty vest by herself.  They are the perfect size for many of our dolls, but would also be a fun thing to carry around in your pocket or purse, and then photograph him in different places.  We have pictures below, so you can see how they turned out!

-- Janet & Kairi

Janet's sock monkey on left, Kairi's on right

The dolls love their new toys!

A Doll's Dollhouse

Jean Nordquist (eBay store: http://stores.ebay.com/Jean-Nordquist?_trksid=p4340.l2563) makes awesome kits to make neat accessories and trunks for dolls-- in the past we have made books, dominoes, stationery and Christmas ornaments from some of her kits.  We were really excited when we saw her newest kit-- a dollhouse for your doll!  The kit costs $35 (shipping is free) and includes the wood and cardstock graphics to decorate the outside.  We had to provide paint and wood glue.

The kit instructions are well written, although you do have to be careful in putting the house together.  We each decorated the houses to our tastes, and Kairi made some furniture and found a doll to live in hers.  Janet's is bare, but she will be keeping an eye out for furniture to put inside.  Below are pictures of our masterpieces!

-- Janet & Kairi

Kairi's dollhouse, inside

Kairi's dollhouse, outside

Janet's dollhouse, inside

Janet's dollhouse, outside

Toni brainstorming how to decorate the dollhouse

Patsy x2

We got new dolls-- Christmas Morning Patsy by Robert Tonner (www.tonnerdoll.com).  She is one of the convention dolls from the recent Tonner Convention, and although we didn't go to the convention, we bought one for each of us from the website.  Unfortunately, she is sold out on the website, although she might be on eBay.

A brief description: she is made of vinyl and hard plastic, is 10" tall, and is jointed at the head, shoulders, hips and knees.  In fact, her knees have an interesting joint (I heard someone call them "bendy knees") that are really neat.  She has glass eyes and a black wig, and comes in pink polka-dot pajamas.  A picture of her from the website is below:

We changed their wigs, so our dolls have their own personalities now.  We made the dolls a house using furniture for our other dolls (we have quite a few dolls in the 11-12" range, so there is lots of stuff that the Patsys can use).  We also raided our other dolls' clothes so the Patsys could wear something other than pajamas.  We'll post pictures of the house another time.

-- Kairi and Janet

Patsy's Bendy Legs (pardon the lack of underwear!)

Janet's Patsy on left, Kairi's on right

Miniature Bride Doll

While Kairi was sewing her nightgown, I was creating a dress for an undressed porcelain doll I bought from Nada Christensen (http://www.nadachristensen.com/) years ago.  Making clothes for a miniature doll (she is about 5" tall) is different than making clothes for larger dolls-- there is often glue involved. :)  It was tricky, but I used some vintage lace I had in my stash to build up a skirt and then finagle a bodice.  The flowers are made from ribbon, with Kairi giving me the idea for a cone under the flowers.

-- Janet

Beautiful Bride by Miniature Artist Nada Christensen

Kaitlyn's New Nightgown

My doll Kaitlyn doesn't have many clothes, so I made her a nightgown out of white felt.  It snaps in the back, and has a belt made of a white linen fabric Janet took out of an old neck tie.  What do you think?
-- Kairi

Kaitlyn likes it!