Gifts from the Family

My daughter and her fiancé gave me the vintage Gibson Girl Barbie doll for my birthday last week. It's kind of a surprise that I didn't already own her, since I love Gibson Girls. I use it as one of my online names and one of my emails. However, as I pointed out to my daughter, when that doll line came out, we were newlyweds, and then most of our disposable income started going towards our children. :) I think her shirtwaist and parasol might have yellowed, but at least it all looks the same shade still. 

Then Mr. BTEG presented me with this pack of mini totes after his last trip to Costco. At first they were only available at DIY stores like Home Depot and Lowe's. Apparently they have become one of the "popular" items right now. Not only does Costco have them, but Dollar Tree does too. Some of Dollar Tree's come in pink. Some people are even making mini wooden shelving units for them, like the life-size ones that you can find in garages across America. The "human" sizes of black totes with yellow lids are used for storing all kinds of things here in the US. I also have some mini utility buckets a couple of the DIY stores put out that I need to find. I'll throw in a picture of a Barbie with a few of these bins to show size when I get pictures of the buckets.

I haven't been doing much with the My Collection posts, but I might as well add Gibson Girl Barbie to my list.

Total Dolls: 93

Totality's Best Seat - April 8th, 2024

That was an advertising phrase that was used around here, as a way to promote this area as a good place to observe the latest solar eclipse. Here in the Cleveland, Ohio area, we did indeed get a 100 percent totality view of the eclipse, and there were people from various other states who converged here in Cleveland. Mr. BTEG got the best shots of the eclipse. I did get a few shots of the area around us, taken with my phone camera (but not looking directly at the sun.) :)

The pictures make it look hazy and cloudy, but it was really a beautifully clear day. It was quite an unusual day for NE Ohio in April, which was appreciated all the more because of the eclipse viewing. Full totality started at 3:15 PM EST, and lasted for three minutes.

As it got progressively darker, the street lights and lights on people's garages started to come on. We also heard bird song. I've read that elsewhere people heard crickets, but it is too cold for crickets here right now. As totality occurred, we could hear a chorus of "ohs" from around the neighborhood, along with applause and some fireworks.

My husband got these fantastic shots of the actual eclipse by using the lens of one of our eclipse glasses in front of his camera lens. This is what we saw when we looked directly at the eclipse using our glasses. The first one is when the moon had started to move into position in front of the sun. The second one is full totality. It got so cold during totality, too! One minute, I was comfortable in short sleeves, five minutes later, I was shivering in a hoodie with the hood pulled up.

I did not make eclipse glasses for any of my dolls, or even take any of my dolls out for the view, like Raging Moon did. We did meet up later with Mr. BTEG's sister, her husband, and their daughter, who drove out from about an hour and a half away, and spent a few days here in a hotel. They watched the eclipse from the Great Lakes Science Center in downtown Cleveland. We then spent most of the next day together shopping, and Mr. BTEG and I were both completely worn out yesterday, thus the lateness of this post.

Raging Moon will probably also get a kick out of the fact that people were jokingly attributing the beautiful weather to the spirit of Dick Goddard, longtime Cleveland, Ohio weatherman. Not only did he create and host the very popular Woollybear Festival, he was also a strong advocate for animal protection, and holds the Guinness World Record for longest career as a weather forecaster.

Hoping to bring more doll content soon!

Happy Lunar New Year!

Year of the Rabbit is the Dancer's year!

 

Lots of Doll Sightings

Since there are several antique stores in Amish Country, I knew that I would see some dolls there on my trip. None of them came home with me, although one piece of furniture almost did. Would you have bought any of these three dressers? I was seriously considering the piece on the far right, but in the end I decided it was a little too banged up.

Amish Country has people who sell new doll clothes and make new doll furniture, but I haven't found anything that isn't for 18" dolls, and most of the furniture is for the little ones who play with 18" dolls. Clothes and accessories are a mix between handmade and factory made, "plain" style and modern everyday. I found the juxtaposition of plain black hats and starched bonnets, with sparkly shoes above, humorous.

There was a glass case filled with true antique dolls, but I didn't get a picture of it. There were some older dolls like Terri Lee, and a xylophone player. I presume at one time the musician used to have something looking more like mallets, on top of the springs she holds in her hands.

There were also a vintage Barbie, Alan and Skipper.

The little blond Ginny Sasson doll in this case caught my eye, but there is quite a variety of dolls inside.

And in the "Wait, how can these dolls be that old?" category are Gene Marshall, and a friend in the Alexandra Fairchild Ford 16" doll line by Madame Alexander.

I found this Knitting for Barbie canister, but since I wasn't planning on buying it, I didn't want to open and root around to see what was inside.

If you grew up playing with Fisher-Price toys, like I did, this section of vintage Fisher-Price might have enchanted you as it did me. Some of these toys pictured are older than me.

And although this large area of craft wood supplies didn't have doll crafting in mind, there were a *lot* of very nice pieces of wood that could be used to make doll items. I'm picturing only one part here

I did pick up a few things for my dolls. Two were for the 18" girls, sunglasses and a pair of faux Crocs.

Then there was this guitar, which I bought in a store that sells Christmas ornaments and decor year round. There were lots of other musical instruments, but I only felt seriously drawn to the guitar.

Last thing, big news! The Dancer is ready to move out and be on her own, so there will be lots going on here. Right now, the living room is crowded because the Dancer is working on repairing bunny chew marks in a couple of stools that she got from friends, along with a matching table. Mr. BTEG and I are of course talking about what we will do with the extra space. Stay tuned!

Happy Independence Day

I had this nice backyard picnic diorama set up, and then my ring light didn't work. After only one other use. So these pictures aren't great, but I put so much effort into this, and got help from Mr. BTEG, that I decided to pick the best of the group and put them up anyway.

Along the Shore

This spring, Mr. BTEG and I began to search for beach glass during some of our trips to the lake shore. Some of the pieces of glass are so tiny, that my 12" dolls can have their own collection.

I wanted to have the glass in the sunlight, so that the light made the glass sparkle, but this also made my photo not turn out as well as I would have liked. I guess I'll just keep trying to improve.

Here are some other interesting pieces of glass that Mr. BTEG, the Dancer, and I have picked up.

You can tell the part of the bottle from whence these pieces of glass came.

Some of the pieces of glass still have letters on them. This was probably part of the words "One Quart."

This glass has gotten extremely cloudy with time. I'm thinking the S. was part of U.S. Not sure what the W could be.

I like cloudy pieces of glass as something different from the plain clear pieces.

Not sure what this is, maybe from a Pyrex bowl. I couldn't get a good shot of it, but whatever this was, it was genuine.

There are lots of pieces of pottery or tile that wash up onto shore. There are also lots and lots of shells, although not very many large ones, due to being fresh water.

I have several pieces of very pretty blue glass. The dark blue is one the rarest, if not the rarest color for a beachcomber to find. I find it interesting that there are so many shades of blue.

Do you have any fun plans for the summer with your dolls?

6/26 I'm adding a picture of an ornament that I bought, made from beach glass, driftwood, shells, and I think some pottery.

2021 Asian Lantern Festival - Cleveland Metroparks Zoo

I still have a couple of short doll show related posts to write up, but until I get everything set for those, here are some pictures of the Asian Lantern Festival this year. If you want to see my pics from 2019, go here.

This beautiful butterfly display was near the front entrance. The colors on the bigger butterflies were constantly changing, and the small butterflies' wings were moving.

There was a lot of color changes and movement going on this year.

That was at the entrance. After you came in, you could go through this beautiful tunnel of wisteria.

There were some lights shaped like different animals. They were pretty, but I didn't find them as interesting as other displays.

Ju-Ting came along to be my doll model. Since we only went through the zoo in the dark this year, it was hard to get pictures without her being too backlit. Here she is underneath a morning glory lantern.

Here she is in a walkway lit up on each side by red and white lanterns. The breeze was blowing her hair in the first picture, and I like the effect.

This year there were moving light effects on the ground.

And this peacock display was magnificent.

It was another enjoyable trip!

On the Art and Science of Color

I've been working on increasing my drawing skill, as well as learning about fabric design. It's doll related, because I would like to design both my own doll clothes, and fabric to suit. It's a huge undertaking, and will probably take me ages to get there, if I ever get there, but I'm working on it! Partially, this post is for Xanadu as well, since she likes to talk about the color wheel and color tones and shades in relation to dressing your dolls, as well as setting up rooms and backdrops for them. I had these books on my Amazon wishlist, saw them recommended somewhere, and Mr. BTEG and the Dancer bought them for my birthday last week.

The first book is called Palette Perfect - Color Combinations Inspired by Fashion, Art & Style. It talks at the beginning about the color wheel and how to use colors to create attractive looks. It then has pages and pages and pages of color groupings, with both their CMYK and RGB color graph numbers given, to help you get the correct shade you're looking for. I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by this book!

I also received The Fabric Design Book - Understanding and creating patterns using texture, shape, and color.

I think this book will help me increase my "feel" for good fabric design. As I said above, this whole process is a bit overwhelming right now, because I'm such a beginner at design, as well as using design software. I feel that I owe it to myself, though, to at least try to get better at these things that I want to learn.

I know several of you who have skills that you use in service to your doll collection. Has anyone learned or tried to learn something purely for making things for your dolls? I know MC and RagingMoon1987 have talked about learning sewing to make doll clothes, which I totally support!