Will it NEVER be Spring?! And the Latest Doll Sized Goodies

  My daffodils are still blooming, my Jonquils, (I think that's what they are.), are bloomed and more numerous than ever before. My lilacs are budding. However, the trees still have no leaves and not much sign of having any, and yesterday afternoon as we headed to Fuzzy's, our street looked like this:

We live on a corner, so this was our other street, where the side of our house is.

Ken's lion has snow on his head.

My poor snow covered flowers!

Are those Jonquils?

This is the spot where I took some of the Tammy World Easter photos just the day before!

It snowed all day! None of it stuck after the initial covering, and by the time we got back last night the snow on the ground was all gone. It was still really cold though. It's freezing today and it's supposed to get down to 27 degrees tonight!  

  But now, the point of this post. Here are some of the latest doll sized goodies we've found at the bin stores lately. First of all, I got really excited when I found a bunch of these balloon lights in the bottom of one of the bins. 

Why? Because they can be used to make doll sized lamps that turn on and off. I've made some dollhouse sized lamps and one 1/6 scale lamp that are non-working, but I've been wanting to make some lamps that actually light. So I snagged as many as I could find. This is most of them.

  You may have seen my review of the Maileg Ginger Brother recently.  They're also known for their little mice family. I spotted this little suitcase in the bottom of a bin.

I opened it up and found this!

The inside of the suitcase is supposed to look like a nursery.

I was so excited that I ignored what the lid said and thought I had found one of those Maileg mice, but it turned out to be a Mudpie fox with her baby sibling.

Her little baby sibling Velcros to her arm.

She's a Big Sister Fox, and her shirt looks like it would come off if you could scoot it down over her shoulders. She'd make a sweet gift for a little girl who is about to be, or has just become a big sister.

  I also found this set of tiny Lego type blocks.

It was a good find. You might remember how happy I was to find a set of mini blocks like this at Disney when we were there on vacation a few years ago. It also puts some variety of colour to the mini Lego type blocks I found in the form of a build-your-own football helmet mini block set at a bin store once. I found the box in the bin, but most of the blocks were spilled out. I dug out all of the blocks I could find and refilled the box. I didn't care if they were all there and made the helmet. I just wanted the tiny blocks.

  I have made some non lighted dollhouse sized lamps, as I said, and to make them one of the things I use is interesting beads. That's why I snagged these out of the bin.

  I saw this, and I thought, 'Barbie sized clothes rack'. 

Without the hangers of course. They don't come with it.

I think it makes more sense for that than what it's intended for.

  Ken found these American Girl sized Zelda cards.

I'm not going to  keep them. They might go on the sales page, or on Ebay.

  I saw these, and immediately thought of Tammy World. 

They are for kids, for cleaning their glasses! They're connected and you use one on your thumb and one on your finger, to clean the lenses. Because they're little shirts it's supposed to encourage kids to keep their glasses clean. Okay.

  I've already made them into shirts for Tammy.

They're done all but for the closures on the backs.

  I found a couple of these figures that I think are the bootleg Nendoroids like Emily reviewed with her real ones recently on The Toybox Philosopher blog.

It's a pretty neat little figure, with a bunch of extra hands, extra faces, an extra coat, and a hat.

  I also got some leather repair stuff. It's sheets of adhesive backed faux leather, which I thought would be good for making miniature books. I got a pack of the one kind, and two rolls of the one that you can't see well here. It's brown.

  Just about the best find was Ken's spot. He wasn't sure what it was, but he thought it was something I'd be interested in, so he nabbed it. As it turns out, he was right!

It's one of those kits to build your own tiny house, complete with furnishings.

It comes with everything you need to make the house and all this stuff pictured in it. It even has the fridge and toilet, and supplies for making the table and chairs, bed, couch, etc.

 I was pretty excited at first, but then I thought, I would prefer to design my own house and decide on my own furnishings. So I will probably make sure nothing is missing and then sell it. Maybe I'll put it on the sales page here, but if it doesn't get any interest in a short period of time, I'll put it on Ebay.

  That's it. I have some neat things to show you soon and an interesting book for the Doll Book of the Month Club this month. See you soon.

Busy, Busy, Busy--YARD SALE!!

   I have been so busy lately that I haven't had much time to do anything on here except reply to comments. Ken's sister and her husband visited from England for a few days. We took them around to some things we hoped they would find interesting.That included a visit to the home of President Harding, which is right here in town. We have the president's tomb too, but they've seen that. Not that there is a lot to see, just a couple of tombs and a tree.  The house is a lot more interesting. It's got some replaced wall paper, but otherwise it looks pretty much like it did when Harding died in 1923. (That suits me fine. I could move right in, but I think the historical society would have a problem with that...) It's furnished and decorated almost 100% with items that actually belonged to the President and his wife. The things were all put in storage when the Hardings went to Washington, and since the president died in office and his wife couldn't bear to go back to the house, they stayed there. There are lots of rumours about the house being haunted by Mrs. Harding, but our guide assured us that none of  the people working there had ever seen anything. I was disappointed by that! While I don't wish Mrs. Harding the misery of walking the Earth for eternity, it would be interesting. As it was, the most interesting part was the clock on the stair landing.It was a wedding gift to the Hardings, and was hung on the stair landing before the wedding. Since then it has stopped only a handful of times:at the exact moment of Harding's death, and on that minute on the 50th anniversary of his death, and one other random time. The staff of the home these days make an evening of the anniversary of Harding's death every year, sitting around the clock, waiting for something to happen. Or, in this case, stop happening. Well, the clock has stopped one other time: while we were there! The minute was right for the time Harding died, but not the hour. Hmm.
  The in-laws also have a big interest in cars.So we took them to a small nearby town that is home to the world's largest collection of running Edsel cars. Whoever would have thought that such a tiny town would have such an unexpected collection? I love any old stuff, so I enjoyed the cars too. 
 What else have I been up to? Fall house cleaning for one. We don't have air conditioning, so Spring cleaning is pretty uncomfortable. Part of that 'cleaning' involved taking stock of all our stuff. I think I've mentioned that we used to do doll and toy shows. We quit for years when the kids were growing up.We did a few doll shows in the last few years, but I have retired from shows again. It's just too hard to make a profit with the amazingly high cost of tables, and poor sales. The huge show we used to do is now a tiny show, which is going to kill it. I have been organizing all the stuff we have and trying to get rid of a lot of it. I have made several hauls to Goodwill, but there is still alot of stuff here! I have also actually pulled a bunch of stuff out of my personal collection and I'm letting it go. I just have too much stuff and no room for it. Having said that, I have bought some stuff lately!
But this stuff was so amazing!

I had been keeping an eye on a place here in town that always has some great stuff at their yard sales. The people there used to go to a lot of auctions and had a stall at an antique mall in a nearby town. Their place is where I made the amazing finds I told you about HERE and HERE. They always have some interesting stuff. It's also the same place I got the Ginny wanna be and Barbie patio set last year, which you saw HERE.Anyway, they had their tent up and had looked like they were getting ready for a sale for weeks.Finally they had it, and I stopped. I went through the loads of old sheet music and bought several for Ivy, and a 1947 "Night Before Christmas" book.We had paid, and on my way to the van I remembered I was going to look at a bag of miniature houses. It was even better than just houses! It had these great cats in it!

The lady is my favourite of the two. Love her dress.She needs a parasol. Maybe someday I'll make one for her.

The guy is pretty amazing too. Look at those whiskers.

Look at their hair! In spite of their tripod look, they don't stand up on their own. Their previous owner has put sticky tac on their feet.

                                                              They're only 2 1/2" tall.

UPDATE: The artists seem to be Charles Claudon and his wife Ferbie. Charles, who later decided to go by his middle name, David,did the sculpting, and his wife did the clothing. Their business was called The Butterfly Cat Studio. Charles began by sculpting realistic cats, and then later began to make the anthropomorphic cats with his wife Ferbie. They continued to make the cats until they divorced in 1995.

  And there was some really cool really tiny stuff in the bag too.

You can tell how tiny this stuff is by comparing it to the cats in the big picture below.

And besides the cats and the tiny stuff  there was something else I spotted in the bag that I thought might pay for my cats.

This barn and these tiny houses are 1/144 scale They're wonderfully made.

Look at that tiny little saddle!

Unfortunately it has a broken roof.

I'd live in a real house like this one.

Uhh, except I'd want furniture.

And of course the big one.

Look at the little walkway.

All those tiny details.

There's a tree missing from this end.

Nice place, but it's unfurnished.

 And this one has something extra special about it...

It's numbered and signed.

 I hadn't heard of Pat Russo, so I looked her up. I found a "Row Shops" that had recently sold for $350! 

This was in the bag too. I guess it's the original price sticker.

I still like the cats best though!