My Birthday Gifts at Last!

  Well, Ivy is now home safe and sound. She was supposed to come home before the 20th,and she had planned to come home on the 18th. Then the governor closed all schools and colleges,and she was told she had to be out on Monday,the 16th. We had to rent a van to get all her stuff home in one shot. She brought home an entire houseful of stuff she had in her dorm room,and she left her bike and fridge at the school! Emma went to college in San Fransisco,so she lived on two suitcases. How in the world does Ivy  have or need so much just because she can put her stuff in a car and have it driven home? But at least we are all home now and ready to wait it out. Well,not literally in Ken's case. Ken is a waiter, and all restaurants have been closed except for carry outs. So we'll see how everything goes as far as money. Luckily someone just bought most of my extra Mini Brands, so that's a little help since we'll have no money coming in,or,at least, very little,since Ken might be able to get about half his average income in unemployment. So don't forget to check out the sales page,which you can find a link to in the upper right corner of this page,and buy something already!
  I promised to show you my birthday presents. I'll start today with this stuff.
  First of all, I have to say that Ken started spoiling me at the beginning of the month with a dozen roses. Now we know he shouldn't have spent so much money on me,as we're going to be needing it now.
  I went to an antique store in February and picked out a couple of small things Ken bought for me.

Dolly World is there for scale,but I couldn't get her and the things in focus at the same time.

I'm guessing they're salt dips, but the one on the left makes a good planter or something,and the one on the right looks like a soup tureen to me. I can imagine it with a ladle in it. I may have to make one.

  You can see Dolly is wearing one of my other gifts in the first picture.

  Ken and I spotted these Tito's Vodka sweaters ages ago, in Indiana, the last time we took Ivy back to college. They came on bottles of  vodka. I don't drink,so I didn't much care for the Vodka logo,but the sweater itself is great. It's soft, so it seems more to scale than a lot of the Christmas ornament sweaters and other mini sweaters. It lays properly. The sleeves are also more close fitting and a more appropriate length. That is, some of them are. Ken managed to scrounge up three for me,(without buying a single vodka!), and they're all a different size! Dolly got the smallest one.

These are the two larger ones. They aren't the same size either.

This Flavas guy was handy to model one of the larger ones.

There is a hood, with draw strings, that really draw the hood up. There's also a real front pocket. I forgot to pose somebody with their hands in it!

There are a lot of snaggy threads inside, so I put tape on Dolly's hands to get them through the sleeves without them grabbing threads. Plastic wrap works better.

Ken also gave me this sweater.

It's a Christmas ornament from World Market. He'd been saving it I guess.

The day before my birthday Ken and I went to a small town where there are three antique stores and a thrift store. I got these three butter pats that match my Friendly Village dishes. I already had one,and it's different!

  I'll show you what else I got that day in another post. The next day was my birthday. Emma joined us and we returned to go to the third antique store, which closed before we got to it the day before. I made a massive mini haul.

The vase and the fire extinguisher were still in their packages.

The fire extinguisher is probably going in the World's garage, if I ever get it made.

The tiny blue container is a souvenir from Germany,I think.

The vase is 1/12 scale. I also got this little ceramic container with a lid. I think it works for 1/6 scale.

No?

 Somebody had made this little candle wall sconce out of  a small latch. I took it apart, because what I saw was a door knob and scratch plate.

I'll need to put a bigger door knob on it though.

Plus I still got a candle out of it. And all for $1.

I got a little bag full of tiny road signs and traffic cones. They're probably model railroad things. But I thought they'd be great toys for somebody Gareth World's size.

There were a few broken signs in the bag,but not enough bases to go with them. 

I'm not sure they can be fixed either. That's a very tiny area to glue.
  Emma spotted these tiny Beatrix Potter books.

There are seven in all.

They were $20,which I thought was too much. But then Emma pointed out that they were all printed inside! They're real tiny books!

Being printed makes all the difference to me! I still didn't want to spend that much, since I didn't know what else Ken had already bought for me. But Emma said I HAD to,and Ken said get them. They made me buy them.

I couldn't resist these two little guys, who were still in their packaging.

  That's it for the miniature haul. As for my other presents, Emma got me this set of Little People Beatles! I actually had these in my Ebay 'watching' as ideas for Ken at Christmas, but she had already bought them ages ago,when they first came out.

Emma also got me cool socks and a really nice cozy sweater,and Ken got me an antique glass like my grama gave me when I was a kid, (My original got broken years ago.), the latest Kate Bush rarities CD,and a couple of things you'll see in an upcoming post.
  This wasn't for my birthday,but I wanted to show you this little shelf unit I got at the thrift store a few weeks ago.

It's like a tiny Ikea shelf. I know Ikea does sell doll sized ones,but I thought they were in colours.

  So I'll see you soon with my other gifts.