Another Project: Pumpkin Cowboy

 You might have noticed by now that I make stuff occasionally. Usually I make stuff for my kids. I have made stuff to sell. This time around it was a gift for daughter Emma. 

  Emma likes a song/video about a pumpkin cowboy, conveniently called, "Pumpkin Cowboy". It's a quirky thing, with a strange star: a cowboy made from one of those ceramic shelf sitter pumpkins with a face, and pipe cleaner arms and legs. You can watch the video HERE. 

  Apparently the star of the song was auctioned off for charity, and Emma said she wished she had gotten him. Well, she didn't. And this isn't the real thing. But I can try to get close. He'll still be fun to have sitting around her house. 

  Let me say, I started this project last year. It just took a while. I started by trying to find the right shelf sitter pumpkin. They were originally sold unfinished and ready for painting and assembling. Then I suppose they were sold by the 'crafters' who made them. I think they're from the 90's. They're for sale online, and come with various expressions. Somehow I bought the wrong pumpkin...twice. When I did find the right one he was always being sold in lots of three or four pumpkins, and so was more expensive. I didn't want to pay that much, especially after buying the wrong one twice already. The right one was hardest to find, and only once in a while sold by himself. And when he did show up alone, he was always more expensive than any of the other guys. The search continued.  

  Before finding the right pumpkin I had also been searching for the other things I'd need. The first two wrong pumpkins had pipe cleaner arms and legs, with ceramic hands and feet attached. So I was able to steal the hands from one of them. The feet on both, however, were tennis shoes, and I needed cowboy boots. I couldn't find ceramic cowboy boots anywhere. I started looking at other possibilities. Ken and I were in a toy shop one day last year, when I found a Barbie accessory pack that contained a pair of cowboy boots. Other than having a different design on the sides, they were perfect: the right size, the right height, the right heels. They were metallic gold though! 

I thought it would be no problem, because there are paints that work on plastic. Well...we'll get to that.

  I had some pipe cleaners the right colour, from a kit to make pipe cleaner reindeer. (I was just going to steal the parts to make other stuff anyway. I only paid $1 for the kit at a bin store.) I had a red bandana to cut his bandana from. I got that at a bin store too. But I still needed a cowboy hat. As you might note, in the picture Pumpkin Cowboy has something of a ten gallon hat. I was having trouble finding any cowboy hats at all, let alone ten gallon ones. So when Ken popped up at a bin store with a box of tiny cowboy hats, I was flabbergasted that, after showing them to me, he said, "But we aren't going to buy them." "Oh yes we are! That's just what I need to complete Pumpkin Cowboy! And why would I not buy a bunch of tiny cowboy hats?!" They weren't ten gallon hats, but they were cowboy hats, and beggars can't be choosers. Of course, when I said it was what I needed to complete PC, I meant other than the pumpkin himself. That was the last thing I still had to get.

  I finally found someone who would sell me the one I wanted out of a lot, for a fair price. He was the right pumpkin, but there were slight differences. 

The one I bought.

The real Pumpkin Cowboy.

  One eye was perfect, but the other eye wasn't looking quite the right direction, and the shine dot was in the wrong place. So to make it right I had to repaint both eyes so they would match. His eyelashes weren't quite right either, so I had to remove them and paint new ones. To do that, I had to scrape them off, since the whole thing had been painted and fired in a kiln. And of course, scraping off the eyelashes meant scraping off the orange paint underneath in the process. So I had to repaint that. But I couldn't just repaint that. It showed, no matter how well I matched the colour. So I had to mix up the appropriate orange paint colour and repaint the whole thing. Then I had to paint the new eyelashes. I also had to add the darker colour back into the pumpkin creases, (What do you call those?), and his mouth. Then I had to seal the whole thing with something so it wouldn't scrape off.  I used Mod Podge, which was maybe a little too shiny.

  The next problem was, I had to paint the brown hat and gold boots. I also gave the white ceramic hands a coat of paint. The hands were the easy part. The hat wasn't too bad either. I had to spray it and hand paint the hat band with acrylic paint. But those boots were a pain in the butt. The paint was supposed to work on plastic, but I guess slightly soft vinyl was a different matter. The paint just wouldn't dry! I left the boots for two days, and they were still sticky. I figured maybe I had just sprayed too many coats of paint too close together. Finally I gave in. I decided the only thing to do would be to scrape off the paint and paint them again. I debated on just using acrylic paint. In the end I scraped them bare and sprayed them lightly again with the plastic safe paint. They seemed a little less sticky than the first time, but they were taking too long to lose their stickiness. I had Emma's birthday the next day. What was I going to do? 

  Well, in the meantime, I had another problem to solve. The wrong pumpkins I bought had at least had  holes for the pipe cleaner arms and legs. The right guy had just come as a sitting head, with no holes for arms and legs even if he had wanted some. I thought I was going to drill holes in him for the arms and legs. I was afraid he would break though. I consulted our family ceramics expert, Ivy, and she confirmed what I thought: I'd have to drill with water on him, and maybe submerge him. Uh...I don't think I want to try it. In the end I decided I could just glue his legs in the hole in the very bottom of him, and glue his arms underneath the neckerchief. So here he is, waiting for his hat, hands and feet.

His neckerchief still needed trimmed too.

 I even remembered that he needed his lasso, and I had the right twine in my art stuff. 

  The morning of Emma's birthday his boots were still sticky. I painted the bottoms with acrylic paint anyway, and hoped he'd dry quickly. Finally I made an executive decision and sprayed him with matte fixative anyway. I thought maybe it would seal the sticky in. A couple of coats later, and I was proven right. So his boots were glued on, and he was boxed up for gift giving.

  Luckily, Emma liked him. He now lives on the window sill in her entryway.

The type of hands he has are actually reversed from the real one. That one has the open hand on the other side, and he holds the tail of his lariat in the  more fisted hand, like mine has in the left here.

When he's held the right way, he can even spin his lariat.

Their cat Arthur is in the background, top right.

  So that's the tale of Pumpkin Cowboy. I have several projects to work on now. Christmas isn't that far away!

We're Having a Heat Wave!

   Yes, it is VERY hot in Ohio. We have been promised rain, and then had the promise revoked for a couple of weeks now, at least. Supposedly, rain tomorrow. Let's hope it happens this time. Ken and I were out of town Wednesday, and there was thunder, and a few half hearted sprinkles. But it did make a major difference, and the wind got stronger, and turned cool. I was hoping it would follow us home, but the closer we got to home, the farther the rain clouds receded, and the hotter it got.

   We headed out of town in the first place to get out of our hot house. Unfortunately, the air conditioning in our car isn't working. 

Tammy World could barely stand it. That's birch beer in the cup holder, by the way. It's like root beer, but awful.

   At least having the windows down threw some air at us. It did mean I had  hair hitting me in the face all day, which drove me crazy.

  My decision on where to go for the day was based on my Google results for 'best ice cream parlors in Ohio.' We ended up in Findley, at Dietsch Brothers. It was cool inside, and they had lots of ice cream flavours. They also make their own hot fudge and chocolates. Tammy World was in Heaven.

  The ice cream was good. I had peanut butter ice cream with their hot fudge. The hot fudge was good, but not the best I've ever had. but I'm pretty picky about hot fudge and chocolate sauce.

  Ken had a two scoop cone of Rum Raisin and Coffee, two flavours he doesn't usually get at home, because I hate them both.

As our friend Cheryl noted, his face was enjoying that ice cream. As I noted, and his nose.

  You might notice that Ken is CLEAN SHAVEN, except for the mustache, which I admit he doesn't look like himself without. I have been begging for him to shave off his old man beard for ages. I finally convinced him last week that he would be SO much cooler without the beard. That finally did it. That's how hot it's been. It got the beard off his face, when nothing else could!

  We stopped at the ice cream place first. We hadn't eaten anything all day, but the ice cream seemed very important at that point! 

  We drove around, getting some air, and noting the overcast, but rainless skies. We went to a couple of small towns, where we popped in a couple of little stores. We went in a very friendly and cool little shop in a tiny town called McComb, where Ken sat in a comfy chair, enjoying the coolness while I gave the place a once over. The lady there was very nice, and prices were good. I can't remember the name of the shop though! It was NOT this antique store, but it was catty corner across the street.

  I thought at first it was an old Coke sign, but then I noticed the antique store is in the sign. Unless it was added later, I don't think the sign is that old.

  I grabbed a couple of small things that day that I'll show you sometime, but mostly CDs.

  How are all of you doing? Is it hot where you are? What are you doing in this weather?  

Happy Father's Day!

   Happy Father's Day! I'm getting really bad at remembering to actually shoot some new pictures in time for things! I worked all day on the junk store post yesterday, and forgot to do anything for Father's Day. (I did get Ken a couple of presents!) But Tammy wanted to make sure her dad, Wally got the appreciation he deserves. So she wants me to post some pictures of her with her dad, from previous Father's Day posts. If you haven't seen those, you can always click 'Father's Day' in the side bar.

  And for the record, one of my favourite dads, Ken, here with Emma and Ivy in 2015.

And my other favourite dad, mine.

I'm the little one.

Return to the Junk Store! More Fun Stuff!

    You may have read my post recently on my trip to the junk store, where I made quite a haul. If you haven't...why not?! For those intelligent people who have read it, here's the sequel. 

   A few days ago I returned to the junk store to try to find some of the things that I missed last time, like pairs to the odd shoes and missing bits of outfits. This time I took a few pictures so you could see what I was dealing with. Here's the place. The building with the green roof is the building I dig through where everything is a dollar. (Sorry about the bird poop windshield. Thanks to our neighbours taking ALL the parking places in front of our house, we have to park in front of our driveway, with the front half of the car under the mulberry tree. The birds like to eat the berries...and you know what follows that.)

  This is the situation directly to the left of the door when I enter.

 This is the area to the front and right of the doorway when I enter, where I did my first searching, where I was digging when Ken kept telling me I'd want to go in the other room. This time I did a better search of the floor around it too.

  This is the back room Ken kept directing me to. Guess what. There was a whole other room, the door of which was right next to that table that was piled high with dolls, that I didn't even notice the last time! On the left you can see the doorway I didn't notice. In fairness, it was right next to the table which was keeping all my attention.

  This time I went through the stuff in a more methodical manner. I dumped a tub or box into another one, and then took everything one piece at a time, and put it back in the empty tub or box. That way I could find all the little stuff in the bottoms of the tubs and boxes. I also went through a couple of boxes on the first doll table that I had ignored the first time, because they were behind the bigger boxes and I couldn't reach them. I also looked around in the room I was too overwhelmed to notice the first time. 

  So what did I find this time? Well first of all, I decided to buy the Tom and Jerry mugs I saw the first time. They are apparently a rare 1940's set by Universal Pottery. You can kind of see them in the picture above, in that box under the doll table. The one with the tube in it.

  I also bought a couple of vintage cotton sheets. They will need a hot wash, but these are the only kind of sheets I sleep on, and they are getting harder to find. (and they're older now, so they degrade more quickly now too.)

 And I got a vintage Raggedy Ann and Andy sheet.

   I got some more fabric.

Some very small ricrac and some lace and ribbon.

I had another bunch of ribbon, including some vintage silk ribbon, and I can't find it!

Ken spotted this book, so I threw that in my pile.

 

  I came across TWO of the same older Barbie booklet.

  I had found a few parts to one of those craft kits to make your own monkey in the room I missed the first time, but it was missing the face and one foot and one ear. But in the side room, where I didn't buy anything the first time, I went through the craft kits on the shelf more thoroughly. I found a whole set to make my own Zippy type chimp. I also found a witch face and some hands.

  I couldn't leave this little guy behind either.

  Thanks to a new reader, I know that one of the heads I found last time, the one I popped on the headless body I found, is Fashion Photo P.J .

  This time I found P.J.'s overskirt and necklace...two of them. At least I think it's her necklace. The stone isn't the right colour.

  I saw everything but the head to this lady the last time. This time I found all three parts. She'll be my project. I'll rehabilitate her and show you the before and after. She's so grungy I couldn't even see the maker on her.

  It's Ideal. That makes her Little Miss Revlon.

  I'm pretty sure all the grunge will clean off. She'll be beautiful. She does need restrung though, and I'm not sure I can do that. I've watched a tutorial. Honestly, if she has all her parts, which she might not, it shouldn't be too hard.

  I got way more doll clothes this time.

  There's the hat for the Fisher Price Kids Mikey I got last time, and the jacket for Lapsitter Joey! My Lapsitter Joey is missing his jacket. There's a 1982 Barbie bedspread too. It goes to the Dream Canopy bed.

  At the top you can see the plaid vest for the McDonald's Christmas Kermit, and a green outfit below, with cute little telephones all over it. Who does the white fake fur go to? The yellow bonnet is familiar.

That pink and white thing is a bib, with a hard plastic bit to clip it around somebody's neck. The yellow PJs go to Love and Touch BabyLove and Touch Baby.

Here's that bib. Familiar, but can't remember who it goes to.

  The red dress has a flocked white collar. Who does it belong to?

What about the blue and the yellow outfits?

  The orange and yellow dress belongs to Hi Dotty. The green shorts and bib thing look like Sweet April's outfit. I got a Sweet April the last time. I thought I got another doll that looked like Sweet April  this time too, but I don't know where it went! The red thing with the rivets is a hat.

 

The duck shirt is about Cabbage Patch size. The peach coloured bonnet looks a bit like a Holly Hobbie bonnet, but there's no band around it. I did get a Holly last time, although she was missing her dress.

  These are Cabbage Patch size too. The jacket at the bottom right actually says Cabbage Patch on it. Does anybody know anything about the rest? There are two of the green jackets, but only one has the belt.

  This polka dot shirt looks homemade, but is also Cabbage sized.

Anybody recognize the robe on the left?

  That pink and white jacket with the rose buds screams Fisher Price to me, but who does it go on?! The dark pink shirt is Skipper's.

I also know that pink hat from somewhere. It's too small for My Friend Mandy and friends, and has no earholes, like for Tea Bunnies.

There is a very pretty flannel, one piece PJ.

  This dress looks the perfect size for Corrine by Italo Cremona, or her clone, my Clover doll.

  This hat has a paper tag that says, "I'm in wuv."

  I thought it might have gone on this Joan Walsh Anglund doll, but she doesn't appear to have come with a hat. She's a Pocket doll, from 1963. She needs her hair tidied, but at least she does still have her black hair ribbon. You just can't see it here.

  I saved this vintage Minnie puppet, hoping the head would show up. Now I'm thinking I might have not noticed it, if it did! It's from the 60's I think, and looks to be pretty pricey, sometimes.

  Since I figured she's be such a good price, and mine isn't very nice, I caved and got the Annie. I also found I had missed a Heart Family baby besides the chewed one,(which I did still leave behind. Sorry kid!), and another of the ABC triplets. And somewhere in the crap on a table near the main doll table in the first room, I found this winking Teeny Tiny Baby Tumble Surprise. She needs a wash, but I would wash all of these, really. Anyway, she's my second one. You might have seen my other one HERE. There is also a poor, armless hard plastic doll. She's cute. I'll have to help her somehow.

  I found two more  Cherry Merry Muffin dolls. You might remember I got a few last time too. 

  This doll looks like she'd be related to the Holly Hobbie line. She's even made by Knickerbocker, who made the Holly Hobbie dolls she resembles. But she's a Baby Dolly Bean doll, from the 1980's.

  She's trying to throw me off by wearing a bib that says 'Sweet Heart'.

  This girl is La De Lime, a Popsicle Kids doll. 

The dolls were actually affiliated with the Popsicle brand, and came with coupons for 25 cents off a Popsicle product. They all came with hats, but I didn't find hers.

  These scented dolls were made by Matchbox in 1988. They came in various 'flavours'.

  I found this Madame Alexander doll the last time. I passed on her, for some reason. She is so clean, and complete, except she was missing one shoe. When I found her other shoe in one of the bags of shoes, the first time I was there, I put it back on her. This time I figured she could come with me.

 

The found shoe is on the right.

She's apparently a doll representing Argentina.

  This girl is about 12 inches tall.

  She's had a hair cut, but she's really cute. She does have a unique feature.

  Let's just call her Bowie. How does this even happen?

  She's marked AE for Allied Eastern.

  This is the back of her. Did somebody cut that shape in her back? And what's the hole for? I know where it's placed would suggest something most dolls don't do, but she doesn't even have a hole in her mouth if she could be fed food.

  This is a Dolly Surprise doll, made by Payskool on the late 1980's. The blonde version of this girl was there too, but she was missing her shoes and maybe a piece of her outfit, so I left her. Please don't tell me I should have grabbed her.

  This doll reminds me a lot of the Honeyhill Bunch dolls, (You can read my full post on them here:Honeyhill.) because of her stuffed cloth arms and legs. She's made by Mego though, and strangely floppy.

  Thanks to a site called Mikey's Dolls, which you can find here: null, I found out that she's from a Mego line called Puppet Love. She's a puppet! Their subtitle on the dolls was 'Fairy Tale Finger Puppets'. And guess who this one is supposed to be: Alice in Wonderland! I thought she looked like Florence Nightingale.

  I found this pair of Native American dolls. The big one is rubber, like a Moody Cuties Moody Cuties doll, and the small one has a hard, compo-ish face, and reminds my of a Skookum.

  Is this the name of the former owner? Or was the owner trying to document that they bought this doll at Schoenbrunn Village? Schoenbrunn Village is a famous Ohio historical site, where the Delaware 'Indians' lived, and the site of the  'first Christian settlement in Ohio', the first church, the first schoolhouse, (Curse you Schoenbrunn! I hated school!), and the first civil code, (laws).

  I couldn't resist this cat ornament, and this mouse Pilgrim.

And ahh! I love this guy! This Raggedy Andy ornament was Fuzz's favourite thing from this haul. (The last time it was a McDonald's 'Archer', from Small Soldiers, which I actually picked up for Fuzz, since I wasn't sure Fuzz's survived the fire.)

  I swear I had three bears, (Just like the story.), but as with the ribbon and the Sweet April, the third bear has gone AWOL.

  This lady was in a baggie all her own. She's slightly smaller than the early 2000's Polly Pocket dolls, and she had plastic snap on clothes, and two sets of shoes attached to a base.

  I have a  Cool Cuts Kara doll, so I grabbed her plastic barber smock.

  I even found some vintage Barbie stuff: Some Pak hangers, a wig, some shorts, Mod Hair Ken's shirt dickie, and the pink felt slipper to 1972's Sweet Dreams. I think I have another one already!

I grabbed the interesting brushes and combs, (and accidentally one common 90's one). Super star Barbie, Strawberry Shortcake, Quick Curl Barbie...let me know if you recognize any others.

  Here is a bunch of odds and ends: A calendar keyring that looks like a Rubik's toy, a Thomas the Tank Engine, a Barbie or such size compact, a spun cotton duck head, a cool tiny mechanical pencil lead container, with leads, the Toto from the Multitoys Dorothy doll, (or, as we call her, 'Big Head Dorothy'.), a tiny doll wrist watch, a couple of mother of pearl buttons, and YAY! a great wind up saw!...which unfortunately doesn't work.  Fuzz snatched it up too, excited. No. It doesn't work. Bummer. I think the funnel goes to a baby doll, for filling the bottles. Once again, if you recognize any of this stuff, please leave a comment.

 

   Somehow a pull string got into my stuff. It seems too delicate a string for a talk string. Must be for something else.

 Some more random doll clothes. The blue and silver bow is marked Tonka. The white pants belong to Western Barbie. There are also two Barbie skirts.

  There are a bunch of tights. I think the lace ones might go to Hot Looks dolls. The white ones on the right are My Friend Mandy tights.

  They have a Fisher Price label.

  And once again, there were LOTS of shoes and socks!

  It's the sandal to the vintage Ken outfit Casual scene. I accidentally threw one of these away years ago. Now I have a pair again!

  I think the red shoe goes to Kenner's Gabbigale. Is the slipper a Cabbage Patch one?

  I found the match to two of the three Crissy family shoes I found last time, plus another one.

  This shoe looks exactly like the ones worn by the aforementioned Corrine or Clover.

  Bunch of socks.

  Now here's the thing: I was so impressed that I found one tiny knitted bootie at the back table, and one all the way in the other room in a tub full of crap. Now where is it?! Is that gone too?! Where did this stuff go?!

  A Thumbelina or Tiny Tears bootie and a Cabbage Patch sock.

  I also swear I found THREE American Girl sized shoes. Oh well, none of them made a pair anyway. The blue one actually says American Girl on the bottom.

  So that's it for the second trip to the junk store. I'm not sure this guy gets any new stuff, or if he's just been selling this stuff off for years. So unless it becomes apparent that I've left something I really needed to buy behind, I probably won't go back.