Birthday Gifts.

I received some lovely birthday gifts from my dear friend S.

An outfit that will fit my American Girl dolls, an AG DVD and a lip gloss.

Cute outfit which came with shoes.

This is so cute too!  

Lindsey got to wear the outfit, she seems to fit this style more than my other girls.

She looks so cute in it.

She also sent Rose a lovely dress.

Rose shows it off in its packaging.

I think she is going to look fabulous in these colours.

Very cute!

Love this little dress, and Rose does too.

It is made by Sherryl of Bella Doll Clothes 

 

Sewing for my Smart Doll

Knowing that I'll probably never be able to justify buying original Smart Doll clothing, at least not new, and especially if I am going to have to add custom fees to the purchase, I decided to try and make my own clothes for her with Danny's very generous free patterns that he offers on the Smart Doll website.  Now these patterns don't come with any instructions, so you have to know how to sew and how to put them together!

On a whole I am really pleased with my first attempt at making her some jeans/trousers using needle cord fabric that I had in my stash.  I actually didn't have many fabrics suitable at all to make jeans/trousers with and wasn't sure how this material would work, but actually it worked fine.

Rose looks really pleased with them as well.

They have working front pockets, including an extra little pocket on the left side (right side looking at picture)

The back fits quite nicely for my first attempt at this pattern.

I might not have got the pockets straight...I thought I did, it may be the way she is standing, I'll have to take extra care next time.  

I also knitted her this little top.

 

My Birthday Doll - A box Opening

Don't you just love doll sized boxes that come in the post?!

Opening the top, and then removing the tissue paper to reveal....

Squeal! 

In the bubble wrap

Removing the bubble wrap... so excited to receive one of these fabulous dolls as I never thought I would ever have one as to buy one new direct from the shop is just way too prohibitive for my pocket especially with the extra customs fees on top so to find one being sold by a friend in the UK was just perfect.

Cheeky photo in her underwear.  Sorry about the 'leaning' table.

I knitted a top for her anticipating her arrival, but wasn't sure what size she would be for skirts/trousers so....

She borrowed a Sasha skirt initially which was way too big around the waist!  I also tried her with a short wig as she came with  a long dark brunette wig (unfortunately not her original red which would have been lovely).

Here she is with the wig she arrived with, wearing a skirt I quickly made her that fits better than the Sasha skirt (Alice is pleased about that as she was wearing it and had it whipped off her, so is happy to have it back).

The pixie look with a matching beret.

A close up of her sweet face.

The beret with the long haired wig.

Another close up.

This doll will take me a while to get used to, as she is unlike anything I have ever had before, but I am really pleased with her and feel quite excited about making quite different clothes to what I normally make.  

She is Smart Doll Resilient in Tea Colour.

 

How hard can it be?

  Easy peasy, surely, everyone else does it!

Having tried unsuccessfully to sell my Jecci Five doll, I decided as she was a memory of my last trip to NZ, (Op shop finds!) I would keep her and get her one of those jointed bodies I had seen.  (The thought of having a new body really appeals to me at the moment, as I continue my battle with ever increasing pain!) I found one on Aliexpress, and decided to take the chance and make an order which arrived surprisingly quick.

I was surprised by the weight of the body.  It definitely wasn't light and flimsy.

I just unscrew these three screws right?

and then exchange the bodies?

Wrong!  Definitely not as easy as it looks.  The head was very difficult to get apart and I only managed 'just' to get it open enough to take the old body off and insert the new body.  My goal to also repair her eyelashes, by giving her new ones that also arrived with the package from Aliexpress was thwarted!)  I didn't want to force the head apart as I was afraid I might break it, and had already unfortunately made a couple of dents in the back plate on one side as I tried to lever the head open.  As for taking photos of these stages that was completely forgotten about!  So we only have the final 'ta da' moment.

Here she is showing off her new body in her pretty little dress I had bought from Bella's Doll Clothes a while back.  The boots were also in my stash from a some I had bought Sindy a couple of years ago, and they fit well.

Sassy Jecci

Change of colour of her eyes.

Shame about the eyelashes....

 

Sunday Afternoon Tea for Two

The twins thought it would be lovely to have Sunday afternoon tea.

I think it was mainly the cakes that appealed to them!

Do you like your cake?

I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but it looks delicious!

 

Tuesday Afternoon Adventure with Leaf

Leaf enjoyed his walk this afternoon, taking time out to sit and savour his surroundings as and when he could.

The perfect 'shelf' to sit and watch.

Another ledge that worked out a good place to sit and enjoy the wooded area.

He certainly looks like he enjoyed himself.

 

Bring in the Coal.

 A girl's work is never done...

Peggy Sue helps bring in the coal for the fire

It has really cooled down again, so time to crank up the coal fire.  It was running non-stop for two whole months, but I let it go out last week, but as it is pretty much my only form of heating, time to get it going again!