Breakfast at Tiffany's

This past Sunday, I attended a Ladies' Luncheon with a friend who I have known since college. It was given by an Irish-American club on the east side of Cleveland, and my friend has attended several events there. The theme was Breakfast at Tiffany's. There were several gift "baskets" given away in a raffle, and I won one! The theme of my basket was Paint and Sip. Does your country have anything like this? Where I live in Ohio, there are one-night art classes hosted by local organizations, as well as small local businesses that offer you the chance to paint a ceramic item, or paint on canvas, or similar creative things. For adult only evenings, you can craft and also partake of alcohol, and these evenings are called Paint and Sips. I just found out there's a local business where you can get refreshments from a charcuterie board to jello shots at your Paint and Sip evening. This gift basket was a bunch of items for you to have your own Paint and Sip time.

Here's a picture of the table centerpiece, and me dressed in my best Breakfast at Tiffany's outfit.

And here are the items that I won. The paint brushes are awful quality, but I can still use them for something, I'm sure. Everything else is pretty nice, even if all the art items are from the $1.25 store.

The Paint, part one

The Paint, part two

The Sip

You might notice in the last picture that there is a gift card to a store called Meijer. It's like a Walmart, a giant store that offers groceries, housewares, clothes, and lot of items in between. Our local Meijer is actually bigger than our Walmart, but the Meijer closest to me is lacking in one distinct feature: the toy department. Still, I wanted to buy something doll related with my gift card, and I picked out a Calico Critters house.

I already have a couple of Critters animals, and my Cu-Poche dolls and mini Pullip will also like this house. The card didn't entirely cover the price of the house, but it paid for most of it.

To really make this doll-related, I'm going to share a couple of pictures of a Breakfast at Tiffany's outfit that I made for a 16" Gene doll, around 15 years ago. 

I sewed the dress, gloves and wrap, and Mr. BTEG helped with the bakery items. I made this for someone online who was looking for someone to sew the costume for her. She saw these photos first, before she officially bought the outfit. I saw many years later that she had it up for sale. I hope she got a lot of enjoyment out of it while she owned it.

I was going to post about my luncheon experience on Instagram, when I realized that Instagram won't let you post vertical photos, and they get cropped to the point where a lot of the stuff you wanted to show is cropped out. Ugh. I'd rather be able to share these pictures with you guys, anyway.

Has anyone else won a raffle? Was it something you wanted? This raffle was the kind where you could put as many tickets as you wanted towards winning a specific basket, so you would only win something that you were interested in. Have you ever attended at themed event?

Something Simple

There has not been much going on here lately. I haven't had the energy to do much beyond the basics in the past month. I spent an afternoon putting together 8.5"x11" sized pattern pieces for a sewing pattern to make scrubs pants for my daughter. I cut out the pieces for a doll sofa from one of those kits where the pieces come pre-cut; you just have to finish cutting them free, and then glue them together. Hopefully I will have that set up soon. It shouldn't be too hard, now that all the pieces are loose. But just so you know that I'm still here, I'm putting up a very basic picture that I took to mark having 100 followers on my Instagram account. I decided to group together just about every different type of doll that I own into the photo, and I'm glad that I did. I discovered at least one new Instagrammer who collects Madeline dolls for example. I'll probably find more people outside of the Barbie/Monster High/Ever After High groove that I've been in. Some of these dolls you have seen. Some haven't been on my blog at all before today, but you'll see them eventually!

Miniature Store

While thinking about buying some sort of floor tiling to go with my new kitchen set, I remembered that there is a miniature store about a 25 minute drive from my house. The store also carries Calico Critters; this is where I bought Britney's Ballet Recital for my younger daughter. And apparently there is a basement area full of clothes and furniture for 18" dolls. I haven't even checked that out yet!

Not only did I find something for my dolls' kitchen floor, I got more time to look around the shop and realize how much it's going to get me into shopping trouble! Yes, the shop mostly caters to 1/4" scale miniatures. But those of us who create spaces for Playscale size dolls can't always be picky. I've since bought another sheet of plastic that looks like tile, for a backsplash for my kitchen, and two pieces of dollhouse carpeting. She also carries wallpaper, so I can get that too. She did have a few rolls that were in 1/6 scale, but they were too obviously made to go into a Barbie dollhouse for a little girl.

Plus, she carries miniature scaled fabric! They are sold in very small cuts, but then you probably don't need a full yard for a doll project very often. I bought myself some China silk. I've heard it's great for lining doll clothes, but I've never tried it. Seeing a small piece at a good price right in front of my eyes made it irresistible. I also bought a few more colors of mini scale rick-rack. She carries these in small bundles, and I bought a few different colors when I bought Britney the bunny. I picked up a few lighter summer colors this last trip.

According to this article, there are only 64 brick-and-mortar miniature stores nationwide! I feel very blessed to have one so close to where I live, and the area around the store is charming. As it's literally right by an active railroad track, as well as the home of the antique Grand Pacific Hotel, the shopping area is called Grand Pacific Junction, and there are some railway themed pieces here and there among this small group of stores, a couple of eateries, and a wedding chapel. It's mostly all connected by small paths, and all the buildings are rather quaint. There's a quilt store which carries fabric and also my current sewing machine and serger brand, so I could spend a lot more money there! I think now I'm going to have to take a trip this summer and take a bunch of pictures to show how delightful Grand Pacific Junction is.

And very soon I will put up pictures of my kitchen!

Calico Critter's Britney's Ballet Recital

Although neither of my daughters collects dolls as I do, my youngest still does appreciate little sets that go with some of the toys she has received over the years. One of her most cherished toy sets is her Calico Critters collection. She has a house, a family, some furniture and a Christmas set. When I wandered into a small store that carries Calico Critters and saw this set, I knew I had to get it for my daughter. Her Calico Critters family is the Cottontail Rabbit family (because she loves bunnies) and as I mentioned previously she loves her ballet classes. Which is why her name on my blog is the Dancer. This was one of her Christmas presents.

Anyway, back to this set. It is called Britney's Ballet Recital.

Although the box tells you to create your very own story, the story that I found online with this set says that Britney has been practicing hard for a year for the big recital. (Presumably she used the mirror and the barre in her practice.) Now that the day is coming up, she can't decide what dress to wear!

The dresses are identical, except for color, but of course color is very important! The Dancer has kept her bunny in the original dress, and Britney is currently posing on the Dancer's desk, since her other Calico Critters items are packed away.

The main problem I have with this set is that the barre is just not the right proportion to our bunny ballerina. Surprisingly, it's far too tall, instead of being too short. There's also the fact that Britney's paws won't really hold the barre, but that's not a big issue for me. If the barre was the right height, she could just rest her paw on the top anyway.

Imagine how funny a rabbits big hind paws would look in pointe shoes!