My Favourite Flickr Doll People and Vintage Patterns for Making Minis

  There are a lot of people out there taking some great doll photos. I thought I'd go over some of my favourite Flickr people who post the most amazing doll photos. Of course, I can't post their actual photos here, but I'll include links to their photostreams and some of my favourites of their photos.
   I'll start out with a defunct account. I believe MiskatoniceNick passed away,but he left some amazing photos. He had some great dioramas and terrific dolls. Check out this action shot of Christopher Lee's Dracula attacking a beautiful victim.
  Next is Jodie Dee at 55randomclicks. I love the dolls,the dioramas,and the great accessories. This little kid is one of my favourites of Jodie's dolls.
 For those of you who love 18 inch dolls there's 5hens. She's a professional photographer,and sometimes she posts her human photos too. But my favourites of her photos are the series she did with 18 inch dolls as the cast of "Stranger Things". The dolls were made over as the cast and the little bikes and costumes were great! Wonderful photos! She also did series' on camping,and Harry Potter. She hasn't posted for a while,but the photos she has are definitely worth looking at.
  JunqueDollBoutique has very detailed dioramas with beautiful dolls and wonderful little accessories.
  carrination has great custom dolls and fun dioramas. I think my favourite may be this one.
  Quavani has interesting dolls and really great photos.
  criscrash13 has lots of fun photos. She specializes in Tressy  and similar dolls.
  I like Debbie Jones dolls and photos. She has a lot of Tammy dolls,vintage Barbie, and Blythe.
  Retro Mama69 was always fun. She hasn't posted for a while,but hopefully she'll come back.She has some cute dolls.
  Ronda Vallejo makes some beautiful furniture and accessories, and uses them in her dioramas.
  I LOVE TutuBella! Cute dolls and the most beautiful doll rooms and scenes.
  Big Red Angel has beautiful photos. The dolls and doll rooms are gorgeous and colourful!
  Raining Rita does the most fun photos of tiny dolls and toys,and also amazing photos of scenes made from her collection.
  dollie-mama always posts something fun and interesting.
  redmermaidwerewolf specializes in red haired dolls and custom dolls and handmaid items. She has made some wonderful things.
  Foxy Belle takes wonderful photos of her vintage and newer dolls,in real places and in handmade dioramas. She has a beautiful dollhouse full of vintage Caco dolls,and she makes terrific 1/6 scale furniture and accessories. The things she can make out of a cereal box !
 And of course there's my Flickr friend,OM,or Odd Mod. You may have seen the post I did about the things she sent me in a trade we did a while back. OM has the most wonderful,realistic dollhouse. She tells stories with her characters. She even did a fantasy story,which isn't what she normally does,but I loved it. The pictures were absolutely magical!
  There's also Dawn,known as Crazyquilter. (Not to be confused with The Crazyquilter on Flicker.) She posts pictures of things and dolls she's made, dolls in nature, and her own childhood doll,Sara,a Nancy Ann Storybook Alice,which are my favourites. I love that she still has Sara and features her so often.
    A while back Dawn posted some pictures of a 1940's mini scene she had made. You can see the diorama photos HERE. She had made so many little detailed things for the diorama of a 1940's general store. I don't remember how the subject of patterns came up, but I offered to send her photos of a bunch of vintage patterns I had so she could make mini versions for the store. So I gathered all the patterns have from that era and photographed them for her. I have a terrible time sending pictures in emails, so I told her I would post the photos on the blog here, where it would be easy for her (or any of you who are interested) to 'steal' the photos. Some of these aren't the right decade for what she needed, but if anybody needs those,they're here too. Enjoy,and check out the rest of her Flickr too. There's a lot of fun stuff there.

 Number 1

 number 2

number 3

number 4

number 5

number 6

number 7

number 8 is the iron-on designs.

 

number 9

number 10

 

number 11

number 12

number 13

.number 14

number 15

number 16

number 17

number 18

I hope you can use some of these Dawn!  

One More Christmas Present and Some Updates

  I have been busy. I got the Facebook page all updated with all the posts. I was WAY  behind. Don't forget that I occasionally post extra things on Facebook,like doll news stories, cute miniatures pictures, and all sorts of doll and mini related things.So don't forget to follow and like us on Facebook. You can click 'follow us on Facebook' in the side bar at the top of the page.
  Also,please don't forget to check the sales page. I still need to get rid of stuff! I haven't added to it for a while,but I will soon. And don't forget that most of the stuff that I posted out of those tubs of sale dolls is available if you took a liking to it! I really need the space,especially now that Fuzz has moved back home..
  I got another Christmas present that Ken forgot to give me! I found it in the back of the car after Christmas. I knew he had gotten it, because I put it in the cart! It's this set.

It's a crochet kit. The subjects are obviously meant to be The Beatles, but it doesn't say 'Beatles' anywhere on the outside of the box,although it does use their individual names. It just says 'the boys from Liverpool' and 'moptops'.

Inside is a different story. There's 'Beatles' all over. They must have not licensed the name,and got away with it by only having it inside where you can't see it unless you already bought it.
  The kit includes supplies,and a booklet.

  There's only enough stuff included to make one doll.

They use John as the example for the instructions,and then just vary those directions to make the other three, as if John is the scale by which all Beadles are measured. That's a popular opinion,but 'tain't necessarily so, as the song goes.
 

He's also the only one they have the directions for crocheting his guitar.

 

The other Beatles are made using pretty much identical directions,when the actual guys weren't. For example, all three have eyebrows made using a 2 ply yarn,when everybody knows Paul's eyebrows should be made with 1 ply yarn, and George's eyebrows should take at least a 4 ply. 
 

As well as the early Beatles in the dark suits, you can also make the Sgt. Pepper versions.

And I do mean YOU can,because I can't crochet! My sister tried to show me how when we were kids. More than once. Ivy and I got a how to DVD from the library which lost me completely. I went to a yard sale once where the nice lady named Skip who was having the sale sat me down and taught me to crochet. (She said I couldn't leave until I had crocheted a row.) I went home and managed a row,and promptly forgot how to do the next step. My mind seems totally opposed to crochet or knitting,which my sister also tried to show me how to do. She managed to teach our cousin Bobby how to knit,and he proceeded to knit a lovey baby sweater for our new cousin Jimmy. He was very upset that our Aunt Sue wouldn't let Jimmy wear it,just because it was knitted out of rug yarn. (Itchy!) I don't know what it is! My mind just doesn't work that way.
  Until next time...

What I'm Doing,and What I Need to Do

  I'm having a hard time with this not posting every day. I said I wasn't going to this year,but I still feel like I should be posting something! I hope I don't run out of ideas because I feel compelled to come up with something every day.
  I still have work to do on Ivy's room. I ran out of time before she came home for Christmas,so when she goes back to school I have to put her couch/bed together and finish painting her furniture. I also need to upholster her cushions for the couch...bed.I have all my stuff. I just need to do it.
  Ivy goes back to school on the 26th,so I'm going to miss her. When she comes back her room should be finished. Of course, it should have been finished ages ago. It took me a lot longer than I thought it would though,because her room was such a mess,so that's on her.
  I did start a project a while back that I promised to show you the progress on. There hasn't been any progress yet,so you haven't missed anything. Here's the basis of the project.

I have a couple of these little houses. They're just decorations that are supposed to just sit around your house. Sometimes I see them in rustic gift shops,usually with some fairy lights or fake branches  around them. I was going to repaint the yellow one,(I hate yellow.),but I really like the other one. I  thought it would make a good size house for my Claudon Cats. 

I have dreams of remaking it into a beautiful house decorated to fit their era.
  The houses would make great dollhouses,except for one thing. They don't have an open side.

So that was the start of the project: tear the back off the house. I thought it would just pry off. Uh...no. There were nails and glue involved. There was also a groove in the base that the bottom of the side fit into. So with the use of an old butter knife and a hammer,and after a lot of tearing wood and mess all over my carpet,I eventually managed to rip the back off...and made a mess of it.
 

I broke all the ragged bits off the house. 

As for the wall,I figure I can fix the uneven surface by filling in with some spackle or something, and covering it with wall paper.

So that's the start. When I get around to it I'll put in an upstairs floor, decorate the house and make furniture for it.Then the Claudon Cats can move in and I can put a clear,removable back on the house so I can enjoy looking at them without them getting dusty.
  So I got a post on today. I can't say how often this will happen, but I'm trying!

Teeny Tiny Turntable

  I was so busy showing you dolls last year that I never got around to showing you this. It's the Teeny Tiny Turntable.

 It's pretty much doll sized, although the scale is up for debate.
 

The set contains: the turntable,or record player. 

It looks like a 70's or 80's record player.

It's not really a miniature record player because it doesn't really play records. It plays the little 'records' that come with it,but they aren't real records. 

They're about 2 and a half inches across. They actually only 'play' 30 seconds of music. I think they contain a chip that interacts with the player. The arm doesn't actually touch the 'record',and the turntable doesn't really turn.
The set also contains a booklet.

There are three 'records',three sleeves, and stickers to customize the records.

   It's just a cute little thing that might look good in your doll diorama,so I thought I'd share. The Teeny Tiny Turntable was available at Barnes and Noble. I'm not sure if it still is. It's available online though. Just Google 'Teeny Tiny Turntable'.

Doll Book of the Month Club: The Doll's House by Rumer Godden

  ***First of all, I have to apologize to, I believe it was Doll Hoarder's Exchange. I published your comment, but somehow it disappeared. I must have clicked Delete instead somehow. Thank you for the lovely things you said, and Happy new year to you!***
  Happy New Year all! I hope everybody enjoyed the last Doll-A-Day for 2019. This year I'm not doing a doll  every day. That frees me up to talk, and show you, about a lot of other things. Today we're starting a series I am calling the 'Doll Book of the Month Club'. Once a month we'll see a book that may be about dolls,or have dolls as characters. This will include doll reference books,children's books about doll characters,and maybe some other types of books. Let me know if you have any suggestions. We're starting the year with "The Doll's House" by Rumer Godden.

  You may have seen my post on the book "The Story of Holly and Ivy",also by Rumer Godden. (A note here: I gave the wrong link to that post on my post about Ivy's 'Holly' doll. That has been corrected, or you can follow the link above.) Today's book is another by Rumer Godden. "The Dolls' House" was originally published in 1947.

 

The copy we own has illustrations by Tasha Tudor, which were first included in 1962. The book concerns the Plantagenets, a family of dolls who live in London with two little girls named Emily and Charlotte.

The oldest of the dolls is Tottie, a very old wooden doll who has been in the family for generations.
 

 
  The dolls are happy, but uncomfortable in their shoe box home. When Tottie tells the others about the doll house,(or, as they say in Britain, the doll's house.),she once lived in when she was owned by Emily and Charlotte's great grandmother and great great aunt, the others long for a house of their own.

  Tottie isn't sure the house still exists, but the girls find themselves suddenly the owners of Tottie's old house, when it's passed down to them after a death in the family. 

The dolls are thrilled to have a house and things of their own.  Life is good and the dolls feel secure.

But can that last long? There has to be a conflict in a book, after all.
  The conflict here begins when the girls also inherit Tottie's old housemate. She's a beautiful but conceited and selfish doll named Marchpane, who still considers the doll's house and everything in it, to be hers.

 That's where things start to get a bit scary and sad. In fact, the book has a very shocking and sad climax. When I read the book to Ivy when she was a kid, we both had to stop and sit sort of stunned when it happened. We found it very devastating! We still enjoyed the book, but it took us by surprise and we were in tears. According to Ivy, I'm in tears over every book, but even she cried at this one.
 

  So, if you're reading the book to a child, be aware that it might be upsetting to them. Preread the ending,(It happens in chapter 20.), and make sure you think the child you're reading to can handle it.
  You can watch parts of the BBC's stop motion animated series based on the book HERE,HERE,and HERE. (It doesn't hold a candle to the book though. There's irony in that statement. If you read the book you'll find out why.) Apparently Rumor Godden originally didn't want the book made into a TV show. She later warmed to the idea and actually had a hand in the making of the series.
  That's the first Doll Book of the Month Club entry. I hope you liked it. See you soon!