I have totally neglected my blog for a long while. I am in high hopes of keeping it up way more often. I have acquired quite a few more dolls since I started with Blythe. I have fallen in love with the Lati Yellow line and have been able to get my hands on a few limited editions. The Fairyland pukipuki's and realpuki SoSo have also found room on the bookshelf/dollhouse.Then I came across a tiny 4" doll named Amelia Thimble so most of my blog will be devoted to her adventures. She is so cute and tiny and loves to sew. Her sewing machine actually arrived before she did. I am sure both of us will be making her some nice clothes along the way, I also found out she plays flute like me. Yes, she has one of those also! Most of the stories will be from her perspective and her new sisters.

Once upon a late October day, I arrived a few hours late to my new destination in Oklahoma. I came from a dollmaker's shop in Mullica Hill New Jersey. There were lots of us in that dollmaker's shop, not as many here but I am sure from the looks of things there will be more arriving in the near future. The box I arrived in wasn't much, just brown cardboard, as if it were hiding my specialness from the world. After the main box got opened, there was a white box inside that wasn't much more for looks. Just plain white with some black writing on it. I am beginning to wonder if she will ever get me out of here!

She is getting closer, a pretty little yellow box was inside, so it won't be much longer now.

The problem with being born in a dollmaker's shop and adopted out is there is still a certificate of authenticity and of course a free gift (as if I wasn't gift enough) and then I finally see her and she sees me. I think I am going to like it here.

After taking off my seatbelts to keep my resin from being bashed around by the UPS man, she held me in her hand to warm me up after telling me how sorry she was that we had a cold front come rushing in the night before. She assured me I would never be that cold again.

She said she had lots of presents and surprises waiting for me in a little while, but for now I would need time to warm up and get used to my new surroundings. She had lots of friends for me to meet. I never dreamed I would have so many new sisters to live with. Let me see if I can remember them all. There are 4 she called Lati's whose names are Sabrina, Monday, Gretel, and Cupcake. There are 2 about my size she said are pukipuki's with pointed ears (which I find quite amusing) named Sugar and Swallow. The one I think I will like the best is a realpuki named Pip, and boy is she ever something! She has even bigger ears than Sugar and Swallow! That little one is into everything but seems like a happy little fairy, always smiling you know. I just hope she stays out of my sewing things, cause if she does she will be my favorite. I am acutally a little bigger than her which is more than I can say for the other 6. I feel so small here, but Gretel and Cupcake assured me they always take good care of the smaller girls and make sure their shoes don't get lost. I spent the better part of the rest of the day finding places to unpack my things and learning the rules of the house. Doesn't seem like many rules to me but they seemed very insistent on filling me in. A few things they told me were about all the photo shoots that go on in here. Sounds like I will be busy! I just can't get over that they have a real mink rug in the middle of the house! Oh, almost forgot, she told me my name is Bedilia Amelia Thimble. Bedilia for short. To Be continued........

Some wonderful times!!

We made it to San Diego and back, and had a wonderful time!! Here are a couple of pics for you to enjoy! This is one of the best Mexican restaurants in Olde Town where we stayed. I just love all the palm trees they have!

Here is me and the girl on the beach, very sunburned from family day. It was supposed to be 92 and ended up 102 and we were on asphalt all day.

Here is the first hug after a looooong 13 weeks!

And here is Marine boot camp graduation! Congratulations Travis!!

My baby is a whopping 67lbs. now! She is such a sweet baby! Checkin' out the fishes!!

Sitting so pretty! What a good girl!!


So I have a new online friend!! She is officially my most loyal customer! Here are some bears I made for her this past week as a trade. She now has 7!!!


I sent her more surprises, but I just got them shipped today so I will have to wait til she gets them before I put them on here. She is by the way the one that talked me into expanding my doll collection in a different direction. I promise I won't go as crazy as I did with the beanie babies! These girls are way more than beanie babies! But I always loved my barbie's growing up and you are never too old to play with dolls. (That is what I have been told!!) My story, sticking to it!! Here is a couple of pictures of her dolls, the first one with the first 4 bears she purchased. They are so cute!





I think this one is my favorite!!!!!


So the DH and I built a dollhouse! Gotta have props for the etsy store! This thing turned out huge!!

So my new friend sent me some things, for trade, to help me fill it up. She told me when I opened the box it would look like Christmas, and boy was she ever right!!!!!

Here is a pic of the dining table and chairs. She also sent me a stereo with speakers and a TV!

Talk about hooking me up!!! I think I owe her another bear!! I just love miniature stuff. I have made some things for the house like a couch, night stand, wardrobe, pearl hangers, and a bed. I will post pics of those when I get it all set up.

So a BIG THANK YOU to neodesign for getting me on a big head start!!!

I have been working on some knitted dresses for the Blythe doll that I will post when I get ready to list them in my etsy.


Hugzz,
Gina

Update and Award!!

It is so wonderful to have cyberspace friends, that are friends even though you have never met face to face. Thank you so much Jann for this award. Your friendship means the world to me!

The wording for this award is as follows: The Karma Award: These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kinds of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award................................. Since most of my friends already have this award I think I will spend a little time on the net looking for some new friends of blogs that I enjoy, but haven't taken the time to meet yet.


I never feel deserving of my awards because I feel I have neglected my blog more than I should. Hopefully I will have more time to update after school starts this week. Right now, it is all about finishing the garden stuff ( I feel like a squirrel stocking up for the winter, haha) and getting things ready for the last year that I will have a child in the public school system! YEAH!! and BOO!! I have had a child in school nonstop since 1986. Hopefully I got over all the empty nest syndrom when the first one left. Otherwise I will be burying myself in my crafts!



I will leave you with a pic of J's rosebush that her boyfriend bought her. It has really outdone itself blooming since he has been gone to bootcamp. He is so much like my husband it is scary. He asked her what she wanted and she said roses. So he shows up at the house with a WHOLE BUSH! Yep, just like her dad!

It's Been a While!

Funny how summer takes on a life of it's own. One minute, not much to do, and the next is just swampville. Once we got the fence finished, the garden started producing. We have put up green beans, pickles (4 kinds), corn, and tomatoes. I got 6 custom bear orders all needing to be shipped while my girlfriend from Texas and my sister visited the last week of June. Whew!!

Then we got Chanel fixed, didn't slow her down too much. She is now over 40 lbs. and big. HaHa. This is her favorite afternoon napping spot, and whenever daddy wants to sit there! He complains, but for some reason does't make her move.



The temps have been really high here the past few weeks, so we haven't seen Blue in a while, and have been busy every evening watering. That rain seems to just go around us. We have only had .4" the past month.

It is almost time to start school shopping. I can't believe the summer vacation is almost over. I have tried to enjoy the summer with my daughter as this is her last summer before high school graduation. I thought it would never get here and yet I can't believe it is already here.

I will leave you with some eyecandy from all the flowers I have been watering every day. Enjoy!!







Hugzz,
Gina

AWARD!

I was given this award from Becky of Whymsicalmusings.blogspot.com. THANK YOU BECKY! You are such a sweet friend. Here are the rules.

1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
2. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you've newly discovered.
3. Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.
I will have to get busy and find some new blogs to award now.



It is friday and the fence is almost done, good thing because I received a custom order for 4 teddy bears this morning. Yeah! The only problem is my hands are so sore from bending wire it is hard to hold the crochet hook. The hands aren't the only thing that is sore. It is amazing how you find new muscles you never new you had til you use them. Then they let you know they are there! HAHA Between the fence and the garden I haven't had much time for my crafting lately and I am having withdrawal symptoms! So the bears will be a nice break for me. I processed 15 lbs. of green beans yesterday morning by myself. You have to know that when it comes to outside yard stuff, I am not your girl unless it has to do with the flowers or my koi pond. I just don't find much joy in all the dirt related things, besides the heat index has been in the high 90"s all week. The garden hobbyist is the hubby. Don't get me wrong I love to eat the stuff and I don't mind too much helping him but if it was left up to me I certainly wouldn't have a 35' X 120' patch of weeds with some veggies in it! HA

Update: Since the boyfriend is gone away to bootcamp, we worked out a deal to steal his dog Blue at least once a week. He is such a sweet, huge baby and Channel dearly loves him. By the way last week when he was here I don't know if he did it on purpose or accident, but he took a swim in my koi pond and had a hard time getting back out. I was standing there looking at him like how in the world am I gonna get a 95 lb. lab out of that slippery pond. Luckily J coaxed him to the little island and he was able to climb out with a little help. Needless to say after a little scolding he doesn't go near the pond now. Here is a pic of them wednesday night.



Have a Great weekend everyone!
Hugzz
Gina

Work, Work, Work!

We have been busy lately trying to put up some new chain link fence. We decided to replace most of the stockade because it blows down every time we have a storm! I have had a little time to do some crafting, although it has been more of a challenge to find time since school is out. My daughter's boyfriend left for Marine bootcamp last monday so she has more free time now. Wish I did! She has been a lot of help to me though, we played with the camera yesterday and redid all of my pics for my etsy store. She does a wonderful job, better than me, and my store looks way better now thanks to her. Here are some things I have been working on:

More beads! These are my favorite, love the blue and fuschia:

These yellow ones turned out better than I thought they would but I am not a yellow person:

And here are the fun ones. We all need a little fun in our lives, and I love all the different colors in them. They are made out of comic strips from the newspaper:

I love summer and also William Shakespeare, so here is a poem for you to enjoy!

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? (Sonnet 18)
by William Shakespeare


Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand'rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow'st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Have a Wonderful Day!!
Hugzz
Gina

Another Wonderful Day!

Yesterday my BFF Becky and I were blessed with a day out together. Eating lunch and craft shopping is our favorite 2 things to do together. I am so blessed to have a wonderful person like her to "hang" with.

Lots going on since my last post. Prom is over, YEAH, went well, so very tired from decorating and cleaning up. School is out for the summer! Graduation is past! Now time to prepare for summer camp. I did manage to get more beads done, did some research on the net for recycled crafts, found some reallllly kewl stuff. Here is a pic of one of the progects that inspired me to try something new with all of the magazines my 2 girls still have stored around the house. I will post another pic when it is finished.


Took the baby (Channel) back to the vet yesterday for the last set of puppy shots and rabies. She weighed a whopping 27.4 lbs. I had no clue Labs grew so fast. I did know how big she will be full grown, I just didn't know she would grow so fast the first few months. Here she is today

She has been tired the past few days from shots and her buddy Blue spent the weekend with us.
I was going to post more pics from the yesterday shopping extravaganza but the camera is doing really strange things this morning. It took an hour to get these 2 pics I posted here so I may be shopping for another camera today. I got some really pretty paper yesterday for some new bead designs I saw and am going to try to recreate.
A new friend of mine has a wonderful giveaway on her blog, you should go check it out if you are interested at all in making your own beads. http://justjenndesignz.blogspot.com/

Have a Great Week!
Hugzz
Gina