Painting En Plein Air

The weather has warmed up, making this a perfect day for some plein air painting. Marina grabbed her art supplies and headed to the nearby lake, where she was pleased to find a swan swimming near the shore, practically begging to be painted. 

This Blythe doll is Playful Raindrops.

Isn't this swan painting charming? It was my Christmas present from my artist daughter. I asked her for a doll-sized painting of an animal inside a frame, and I was so excited when I saw this--the colors are perfect, and the swan is gorgeous. It makes me want to make a little doll room with a swan theme, with this as the focal point. (She also painted the background in this photo...it's a large canvas that was a Christmas gift two years ago.)

This will be my last post for a couple of weeks, because I'm going out of town to spend some time with my mother. See you later!

Happiness

Happiness is a warm kitty.

This is Maisy, my Spright Beauty Blythe doll. She is the only one of my stock dolls who came with sleep eyes, so she was the obvious choice for this picture, for the theme "pets."

Black and White

This is Bow Wow Trad, posing for today's theme "black and white" in the Blythe A Day group on Flickr. She's wearing UFO A Go Go's stock dress.

Good Advice

Alice says: "There's no reason to be bored while you're waiting for an appointment. Just bring a few things to keep yourself  occupied, and the time will fly by!"

Simply Sparkly Spark is so right about this. I used to always carry some sort of sewing to work on when I had to wait somewhere; these days, the sewing I do isn't easy to do away from home, so I rely on the games and books on my phone to keep myself from being bored.

Shades

As soon as they put on their shades, they feel totally cool.

They are Cool Pool Lemonade (in her stock dress and sunglasses) and Cherry Beach Sunset (wearing a dress by an unknown maker, and someone else's sunglasses--but I don't remember whose.) I bought Cherry Beach as soon as she came out because I didn't have a tanned girl in my collection. She is great in every way! I resisted Cool Pool as long as I could, simply because I don't use Middies in my photos as much as I do my Neos...but then, when I got tickets to Blythe Con Brooklyn, and the theme was "tanned," I quickly bought her so I could bring the two of them with me. When the time came, however, I decided to pack light, and Cherry Beach was my only Con doll!

Lost and Found

“Reading is sometimes thought of as a form of escapism, and it’s a common turn of phrase to speak of getting lost in a book. But a book can also be where one finds oneself; and when a reader is grasped and held by a book, reading does not feel like an escape from life so much as it feels like an urgent, crucial dimension of life itself.”                   
                                                   — Rebecca Mead, author of My Life in Middlemarch

This is Petit Dejeuner wearing Vera Florentine's stock outfit (except for the knitted bag, which I made a few years ago.)

Above it All

Maeve always enjoys having a bat's-eye view of the world on a moonlit night.

Chocolat Blythe

Flat

Fleur wouldn't dream of giving store-bought Valentine's Day cards to her friends; so she takes time in January to work on a picture. This year she's trying something new: a flat lay photo. 

Charlotte des Fleurs

Clouds

It's a beautiful day for a daydream. 

Chocolat Blythe

My Little Candy

Is this what Heaven will be like for a candy lover?

This is My Little Candy--the obvious choice for this picture, for the theme "Heaven."  I wanted her to wear her stock outfit, but I couldn't find her skirt...and then I didn't want to take off her stockings (they are so hard to put back on!) So she is wearing her stock from the waist up. Oh wait! Those are her stock shoes.

I happen to be a BIG candy lover, so there is always candy on hand, which made this an easy photo to put together. My Little Candy was one of my first Blythes, and I was attracted to her because of her pink hair and her candy theme. I made a point of buying the other girls with "candy" in their names: Candy Carnival (I have two of them!), and Precocious Candy's Mushroom. Sadie Sprinkle (whom I also have) is closely related to them; I would call her theme "sweets."

What's On Your Doorstep?

It's so fun to come home and find a box waiting for you on the doorstep!

This is Vera Florentine. The fabulous door was a Christmas gift from my husband. It is big and heavy! The box contains a little gift I gave him for Valentine's Day last year. We play Pokemon Go together, so I gave him a little glass bottle with a Poke ball inside. You can see it by clicking HERE .

What's Your Favorite Color?

Last week I watched the movie "Elf." I've only seen it once before, in the theater when it first came out. It's been so long that most of it seemed new to me! I laughed out loud when he answered the phone with: "Buddy the Elf, what's your favorite color?"

Anastasia (Stella Serendipitous) would be quick to reply, "SILVER!"

Her Face

"Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter?"
                                                                     --Pablo Picasso

Veronica Lace, for the theme "lacey" in the Blythe a Day group on Flickr. She is wearing her stock dress. I don't know who made the headband; I found it in the Blythe sundries group on Facebook. 

Winter Plans

Bring on the cold, the ice, the snow, 
the winds that blow without quitting.
My home is snug, my larder is full,
I'll spend the whole winter knitting. 

This is UFO A Go Go. The beautiful blanket was knitted by my friend Angie Coppi (Goodnight, Sweet Blythe on Facebook.)

Cup of Tea

Dear Home Sweet Home, you certainly are my cup of tea. 

It took a lot of washing, but I finally got all the grease out of her hair! Someone recommend using Dawn Ultra, and when I was shopping for it I noticed another version of Dawn, called Dawn Ultra Platinum...which suggested to me that it was even better than Ultra, so I grabbed it, ran home, and gave her another shampoo. As you can see, the results were fabulous! 

She is still in her stock outfit because I love it on her. 

Pizza Problem

"I ordered a large."
"I think that's a small."
"I'll go make a salad."

I love the little dollhouse props I sometimes find in craft stores, but they are often too small--1:12 scale, instead of 1:6 which works best for Blythe. But there are ways the smaller things can be used, as in this picture. I've also discovered that changing the camera angle can make something look bigger or smaller in relation to a doll, so it's possible to make a small prop look bigger (or a big prop smaller.)

UFO A Go Go, Playful Raindrops, Prima Dolly Peony.

Bathtime Fun

I used to watch the TV show Sesame Street with my children, and Ernie's cute Rubber Ducky song has always stayed with me. This picture is for the theme "toy."

Simply Sparkly Spark.

It's Simple

Making sushi is simple! You just have to be confident, and follow the recipe exactly.

This is my newest girl, Chocolat Blythe. She's gorgeous! Her hair is surprisingly wonderful--it's thick and smooth--and although it did need a shampoo right out of the box, one wash took care of the small amount of grease. All four sets of her eye chips are special colors, and both front-facing sets are EXTRA special (one is green with highlights and a dark boarder; the other is pink with hearts in the pupils.) She comes with a lot of stock, which is great, since that was the main thing that drew me to her when I first saw her picture. She has a bit of a "heart" theme: the hearts in her eyes, a heart necklace, and a big clear pink heart charm instead of the usual pull ring. I love hearts! And I love Chocolat Blythe!

 

Get Ready

It's the perfect day for a snowball fight. Ready?

This is Raspberry Sorbet wearing an outfit I made just for her...brown and pink are her colors. The scarf was an experiment that turned out well. The snowball is actually a little ball of felted wool. The background is a piece of scrapbook paper. It looks quite realistic, doesn't it? We rarely get snow here in southeast Virginia, but we just got half a foot of snow overnight--I could have taken a picture like this outside today!

Morning

NOT a morning person.

Snowflake Sonata is reluctant to leave the beautiful bed and bedding from Florence and Taylor that I won at Blythe Con Brooklyn.

Gold

Beautiful golden hair runs in their family. 

These girls are Allegra Champagne (Neo) and Bubbly Bliss (Middie). Bubbly Bliss has been in her box for the past year. I recently saw that a Facebook friend had just unboxed hers, and it made me think that I should do the same. Then I noticed that today's theme for the Blythe a Day group is "gold", so I quickly opened her box, washed her hair (it was rather greasy), and posed her with her big sister. Her stock outfit has gold accents, and of course Allegra's gorgeous gown is all gold, so together they are perfect for this theme.

Happy 2018!

We wish you a year of health and happiness in 2018!

A common theme for a new year is the contrast between the new and the old, so I've made this picture with my oldest Blythe, Jane, my Kenner. The "new" is represented by the baby-like Sonny Angel.

This picture is for the theme "old/new" in the Blythe a Day group on Flickr. I'm going to try to do a photo for each theme, using a different sheet of scrapbook paper for the background of each one. I have a big pad of assorted papers (I think there are 64 different designs), so I hope to be able to find something that will work for each day's theme. The limitation to scrapbook paper is the size--each sheet is just 12"x12", so there will be a lot of close-ups and head shots this month!