The Twelve Days of Tammy World, Day Two: A New Sweater, and a Very Tiny Nativity

   Well you can't have big excursions every day. Today Tammy is hanging around here, and showing you a couple of new things she got recently. 

  I got an urge to warm her up one very cold evening, and made her this cozy sock sweater.

Seeing her in a short sleeved shirt was making me cold...er.

  The socks were like those Japanese Tabi socks, with a separated big toe. Nobody I know wants to wear them, but I thought they looked cozy, so I bought several pairs for a dollar, (Not each. For all of them.), at the bin store. I might also end up making her a grey sweater, but for now, even though I love grey, (It's so cozy!), I thought this colour looked good on her.

  Her head looked cold too, so I tried to make her a toboggan. These days that's a beanie. But, to me, a beanie is that hat Spanky wore in Little Rascals/Our Gang.

George 'Spanky' McFarland with a Spanky doll. Gotta make this relevant, you know.

  In any case, she couldn't wear...one of those... with her ponytail. So I made her sort of a hood. I was going to make her a pair of woolly pants too, but it was late and I was tired, and couldn't see properly in the dim light anyway. So I just stuck the rest of the sock on her like a skirt. Ken was of the opinion that she looked like a girl from Eastern Europe. 

   I mentioned in some previous posts that my sister and I went to a miniature show a few weeks ago. One of the things I bought that I didn't show you, was this tiny, no, microscopic nativity. 

  Tammy said it made her feel more Christmassy. It's just her size!

  To give you an idea of how big it is to full size people, Here it is in my hand. My hands are kind of small, but, still.

  It's so small it was hard to get a good clear picture of it. Here it is on the tip of my finger.

  The pieces are laser cut, and then the seller assembled them. She also sells the kits to make them, but I can imagine what it would look like if I tried to assemble it. I could see it being more 'lump of glue' than 'nativity'. 

  The back has some pine trees, but, do they have those in Bethlehem?

 

  The seller is right here in Ohio, but she also sells on Etsy. She had her stuff discounted at the show. I think I only paid $14 for this nativity! On Etsy it's $35. Great deal! 

  She had a bunch of amazing things, including a mini doll house that was FULL of tiny accessories. The house was probably the size of a big dollhouse for Tammy, and the toys in it were the scale of this nativity.

  Some of her things were made in pumpkin seeds, and other seeds. 

  She also crochets tiny mini animals...

Ignore my ugly finger. It's for scale only.

I want the sock monkey!

...and doilies!

We used to have doilies like the red and white one in our living room, and I have one similar to the pink, green, and yellow one too, that mom made. I want those two for my doll house!

  The Seller is Gibsongirlminis, and you can find her Etsy page HERE. Her booth was our favourite thing at the show, other than some amazing mini cats we saw.

The one on the left looks flat, but he was three dimensional, I promise. I think he was $265. Also, notice the cat house next to the table, by the zebra mirror. It was wonderful...and $150. But as I discussed with the nativity seller, when you make minis like that, you can never get paid for the hours you spent on them. They'd be so expensive nobody could ever buy them. I have made tiny things, and I know that's true.

  Well, that's it for day two of the Twelve Days of Tammy World. Tomorrow we'll see what else Tammy ahs been up to lately.

 

Handmade 1/6 Scale Dolls

  My last post was about more things the kids and I made for the dolls. I then promised that the next post would be about actual dolls I made for the kids' dolls. So here they are. Keep in mind that I at least like to think I could do better these days!

You've seen the macaque monkey before. I found him crammed in a doll suitcase with the Raggedy Ann doll. I made a few mini Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. You may have seen my post on the set I actually sold HERE.

These dolls were the result of practicing by making another couple of miniature Raggedys first. I have the first Andy I made,which is in Tammy World's toybox. But the first Raggedy Ann I made went to Ivy's doll Blue.

The dress was made out of some fabric ribbon,which was used because the print was good for Raggedy Ann's dress. The ribbon is way too stiff though. Her dress just looks like a squashed tube,which it basically is. I also hand painted her stockings,and they don't look very good. The later Raggedys were made using striped fabric for their stockings. This Ann's apron is terrible too. At least her hair was sewn in! Overall I improved as I went on making the Raggedy dolls. I painted their faces,and I do think I prefer the face on Ivy's to the face on the one I sold. She looks kind of grouchy.

She's a little bigger than Ivy's. If I made more now I'd change the hair on the sides.

  Next is my attempt at making a miniature Sock Monkey doll.
 

I painted his little face.

The big flaw here is that I used full sized socks. The weave is way too thick, and it unraveled too much. The thickness made it hard to roll up tiny little arms and legs out of it. I did manage to give him little ears,but they're hard to see.

This last one is pretty bad. But then, the doll it was made to look like is pretty crazy looking anyway. You may have seen my post on Ivy's favourite larger doll,her Goldberger Baby doll, 'Baby'. 

This mini doll is my attempt at making a mini version of Baby for Blue.

She's made of polymer clay. I think I should have jointed her arms and legs with thread instead of wire. Wire lasts much better though.

She even has Baby's 'hitch hiking' toes!

She has the same crazy grin as the real Baby.

  The last miniature doll here is my favourite. I thought he came out really well.

This little guy is a miniature version of Fuzzy's favourite stuffed toy,'Elephant'. 

The real Elephant is about 16 inches tall. The little guy,made for Fuzzy the Doll, who is a Tommy doll, is about 2 inches tall.

The only thing is, he doesn't have Elephant's chubby cheeks.

  I was really at a loss as to what to make little Elephant out of,to copy the nubbly bluish gray fur big Elephant is made of. I finally discovered the perfect thing: the inside of one of those non skid socks they give you at the hospital!

It's more like terry cloth really,but used in something this tiny,it works.

  Once the fabric was decided on, I had to figure out what shape to cut out so that it would sew into the elephant shape. I'm pretty sure he was cut out all in one piece. He's another one of those things I made where I look at it now and think,"How did I do that?" Sewing really isn't my thing,so accomplishing some of these things was just luck I guess.

  For little Elephant's mouth I think I used a tiny piece of pink scrap fabric. I can't remember if I did that or painted it,and my eyes can't tell these days.

His ear middles and foot pads are just ovals of blue fabric,glued in. I think I may have done the edges with Fray Check to keep it from unraveling.

His little black eyes are beads.

Big Elephant's real eyes are brown with black pupils,but I wasn't going to go that far with the realism!

  Then I had to think of something for his vest. I tried to find a fabric with tiny blue stripes,but finding a perfect match, especially in that tiny scale, was impossible. In the end I used fine white fabric to make a vest and tie,and mixed up the appropriate colour of blue paint from acrylic paints,and painted them myself.

This was a LONG time ago,and the real Elephant's vest and tie were brighter then. It was a good match at the time!

After that I couldn't find the appropriate colour beads for his vest buttons either. I ended up using the paint I mixed up for the stripes and tie to also paint some beads. I then sewed them on the front of the vest. Well,they've been lost over the years. My bead sewing is about as dependable as my button sewing I guess. (The buttons I sew on always end up dropping off again,although,the glass beads I sewed on for eyes on Ivy's home made Toto,for her Dorothy costume,have stayed on pretty well. Maybe I resewed them at some point.)
   Elephant was, like Ivy's Baby and Emma's favourite stuffed toy,her rabbit Charlie,one of those toys  I spotted and knew they just had to have. Charlie was a last minute spot on a run for something for Easter the day before. We already had a bunny for Emma,but I never liked it. When I saw Charlie I knew he was special. At 28 Emma still keeps him on her bed. I can't remember the occasion for which Ivy was gifted with Baby. I do remember that I 'visited' Baby several times at Kaybee toys,insisting that we needed to get her for Ivy because she looked like her. (In fact, when I bought Baby she and Ivy had the exact same colour eyes,and when I put my long hair down over Baby's forehead and put a bonnet on her she was Ivy's double. Ivy even only had two bottom teeth at the time.) Ken kept resisting,but I finally overrode him and bought Baby. Ivy was immediately in love and still keeps Baby on her bed. Elephant was something I saw on a quick run into Walmart one night while we were moving. We had been so busy moving that Emma hadn't gotten a Halloween costume yet. I had made all her others, but this time she wanted to be The Pink Ranger from Power Rangers,and she had seen a real costume she wanted. We had come to town to drop things off at our new house,which is a half hour away from where we were living then. It was late and we had to head back to the old place,but it was so close to Halloween that we made a stop at Walmart to get Emma's costume. I ran in,and while I was there I saw Elephant on a shelf. I only wavered for a second,and then grabbed him for Fuzzy. He got him that Christmas, which was his first.
  I know there are way more things I made for the dolls. When I do a redo of Emma's room I'll show you some of her things.