Dolls and Doll-related Items for Sale

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

#SNAPSTAR Green Stand, and Barbie Comparison Photos

Boy, November really got away from me. I've been trying to get my Vitamin D intake and light box use at the right balance, and there were just too many days where I wasn't up to doing as much as I did during the summer. The BTEG family has also been busy with other things, including making six homemade pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving, but I'll talk about that after the doll stuff.

In the comments of my previous post, Rachael asked if the green stand would work with other dolls. I promised her I'd check the stand with one of my Cu-Poche dolls and let her know. I didn't think it would take so long, Rachael!

Looking at the two stands, you wouldn't think a doll could use both, would you? However, note that both stands have a round peg at the end, and that they are close in size.
Yes, my Cinderella Cu-Poche can actually use the green stand! Now, the green peg is very close to being bigger than the hole in the Cu-Poche back, so it's not a perfect fit, and thus the doll can fall off the green peg very easily. Then again, I haven't done a lot of photography with the white stand yet, so maybe Cu-Poche dolls don't stay on those that well, either.
Since the green stand does work with Cinderella, you know what I had to do.
I green-screened her onto a beach on my beloved Lake Erie, from a picture I took a few years back.
Here's some other examples of green screens I have done. These two are from last Christmas.
 I put Poppy skating into this picture of me taken on the ice many years ago.
And here are Madeline and one of her friends driving down a snowy road.
Lastly, here's a picture from the first chapter of my storyline, which I really need to get back to. I had to dress Hunter in clothes other than his customary green top, which would have disappeared right along with their green background. I do have blue screen capabilities too, but not a nice blue backdrop, at the moment.
Also in the comments, Dana asked if the #SNAPSTAR body could be used with a Petite Fashionista. Unfortunately, the answer is no. Dawn is very much shorter than the Petite Fashionista and the Skipper body, which I threw in for further comparison.
If you'd like to hear about the BTEG family Thanksgiving, continue below the fold.

The entirety of our Thanksgiving cooking consisted of those six homemade pies. Not that they didn't take a lot of time. Making homemade pumpkin pie filling involves scooping out the seeds from pie pumpkins cut in half, wrapping the pumpkin pieces in foil and baking them, scraping out the innards after the pumpkins were done baking, then mixing up the innards with sugar, evaporated milk and seasonings, pouring that mixture into a pre-made pie crust (making pie crust is not easy, so we didn't do that part) and baking the pies.

This year for the actual Thanksgiving meal, we treated ourselves to the Thanksgiving buffet at the 100th Bomb Group Restaurant, right next to Cleveland Hopkins Airport. Although I believe there are other restaurants with a similar WWII theme at other airports around the country, this restaurant was founded by an actual member of the 100th Bomb Group, who flew during WWII.

The main look of the outside is suppose to invoke French chateau, with various WWII touches around the building.
There is all kinds of information about the 100th Bomb Group, and other important people and places from WWII, around the restaurant.
Reservations are required, and since service runs from morning to mid-afternoon, if you come in later, you're seated wherever a table has become free. We were lucky enough this year to get the coveted seating right next to the window, where you can see the airport the best. The tables are at different levels, though, to try to give everyone a good view.
I didn't think there would be much activity at the airport, since it was Thanksgiving Day, but apparently people were still traveling quite a bit. About every ten to fifteen minutes we would see a plane taking off
or landing.
The buffet itself was wonderful. There was breakfast food as well as Thanksgiving dinner food, with a salad buffet, seafood, and all different kinds of desserts.
There was even a child's height buffet table, with food like macaroni and cheese, and smiley face tater tots. And of course a kid's table wouldn't be complete without trampled food on the floor.
Although I had to wait to take this picture, while a man most likely in his 60s at the youngest, filled his plate from this table. I guess if you like macaroni and cheese and smiley face tater tots, that was the buffet for you. For myself, the main part of my meal was two pieces of prime rib. Much yummier to me than turkey.

I think I'm settling into a productive winter routine, so my blogging should be more regular. I already have the edited photos ready for my next post, but really wanted to put this one up first, since I had promised two people I would check on things for them. I do want to get a Christmas doll diorama set up. On top of the usual holiday things, Mr. BTEG and the Dancer and I are currently re-arranging furniture in our house, and even swapping room designations around, so that's keeping me busy too. I've really missed blogging, though, so I need to keep that a priority!

12 comments:

  1. Hello Barb! We missed you!
    After your last post, I did a bit of research on phone apps for green screen photos, as an alternative to the Snapstars app. Turns out there are plenty of free alternatives out there, that would even allow you to make videos. I guess they could be a great alternative to those that can't use Photoshop.

    I'm glad you had a great time during Thanksgiving. The place looks lovely, and sounds like you had some yummy food. My mom made turkey one year for Christmas Eve, and I wasn't very impressed by it, it was too dry.

    Hope you have an amazing rest of the week. I'm looking forward to hear from you again soon.

    M.C.

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    1. Aww, thank you, M.C.! I haven't searched for green screen apps in a while. The one I currently use is on my PC; it is an add-on to the app I use for editing my photos, called Paint dot Net. The big advantage to that one is that it is free! :)

      Yeah, I don't like turkey a lot because it generally does come out too dry. My brother-in-law used to deep fry a turkey, which made it much more tasty.

      I will definitely try to be around more.

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  2. Hi Barb,
    So pleased you're back. :) Your photos look like the were fun to do. I can see I'm going to have to give this green screen thing a go . . . but next year! LOL!

    I've read about pumpkin pie, but never knew how it was made, so that was interesting to learn, though I have made pumpkin scones. Looks like that restraunt was an interesting place to visit, I'm glad you enjoyed the food. :)
    Big hugs,
    X

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    1. I'm so glad to be back! I'll be interested in seeing what you do with a green screen, Xanadu. If I remember correctly, you have Photoshop, which might make your experience easier. I use Paint dot Net, which really can do a lot, but it is free, so I keep wondering if paid-for photo editors are better.

      Mr. BTEG and I have gotten into the habit of giving away homemade pumpkin pies to friends, as fresh pumpkin does make a difference. I didn't know much about how pumpkin pies were made, until Mr. BTEG found a recipe and decided to try it, about ten years ago. We've done it on and off since then.

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  3. Wow, I remember you telling me that you had prime rib, but I didn't know you got a buffet!!! Some of the finest Thanksgiving meals I've had have been from a buffet. I love the venue too; my dad would've been all over that like white on rice. Glad y'all had a nice Thanksgiving!

    Those green screen photos aren't too shabby! Does the #SNAPSTAR app give you any lip? Mine crashes a lot.

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    1. I agree that you can get some great meals from a buffet. That way you can get exactly what you like, and go back up for seconds if you want more! The venue is definitely something different from the regular.

      I don't use the #SNAPSTAR app. I use the same app that I use for cropping and resizing my pictures, which is Paint dot Net. The green screen feature is an add-on that another user designed, as well as a blue screen one, but they work okay.

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  4. Ooo! I know I saw Snapstar dolls on clearance somewhere recently! If I can only remember where maybe I'll get one one day.
    Your Thanksgiving looks delicious, but why SIX pies? That's a lot

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    1. If you get a doll, I hope you get lots of use out of the green stand. And I hope we get to see which doll you get. Dolls can look so different when they are out of the box. Were you into Hairdorables? There are different ones out, kind of like what the OMG LOL dolls are to the LOL dolls.

      Four of the pies that we made went to friends and co-workers. One of our friends raves about our pumpkin pie.

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    2. We only ever had on Hairdorable, I felt they were too expensive for what they were. I didn't know there were new ones, I'm going to have to check that out.

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  5. I am so happy that you had a nice Thanksgiving. I am an "eat-out" person too as I rarely cook and I don't eat meat. This time my daughter and I ate in. We had smoked salmon, yum!

    Thanks for sharing information about the doll stands.

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    1. I'm glad that you had a nice Thanksgiving as well. The green doll stand could definitely be a good accessory to have.

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  6. You can definitely do fun things with a green screen. I hope you can find a good app to do it.

    It definitely feels good to be making changes around our home.

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