Happy Mother's Day!

Love and Hugs to you Mom--You are the Best!--Love you :-)

One of many Palmer Cox Brownies. In the past Brownies were printed out on fabric to cut and stuff. My mom introduced me to Brownies--thanks Mom! :-)

Relaxing, lovely day to you all. :-)

Saturday Routines

We went out to get groceries this morning but had to stop and smell the lilacs! Nothing like it!

All of these seed packets--that says spring-time! :-) I like the swirls in the radishes.

Lilacs in the sun.

Emmy loves dollhouses like I do. Here she has invited Shrek and Fiona over to visit the family.

Little Dutch Girl

Would you like a flower? :-)
I don't know what company made this little wooden Dutch girl. I think it might be of German manufacture. I got her at a flea market in Wiesbaden, Germany when we lived near there a few years ago. This is the paper tag on the bottom--does anyone know what makers mark this is?

Thank you for stopping by. :-)

Momentary Freak Out

Had to go renew my driver's license today and I have been putting this off for awhile, let me tell you. I have been using little reading glasses for a bit and I was all worried about the vision part of the renewal--super silly, I know, but there it is. The vision part went fine but then they started flashing lights off to the sides and I couldn't see a blinking one. My hands started to tremble as I tried to stay cool, oh man......well you can probably guess that it didn't turn out that my peripherial vision was failing...my hair was hanging down at the sides of my face and once I tucked my hair behind my ears I was able to see the flashes of light easily. I am just too silly worrying so. oi!

Calming down I hit JoAnn's on the way home...Ahhh...back in the comfort zone.

Babushka sneaks out

It seems that my little Unazukin, Rose, snuck outside this morning to peek at the raindrop-covered flowers. :-) The girls and I got a few plants the other day, but we are watching nightly temps closely because we aren't past our last freeze date here yet.
I went to Hilary Lang's Wee Wonderfuls blog this morning and she has started a vintage doll clothes flickr group here and it already has some little lovelies uploaded. I added the two dresses I had blogged about here. I have a couple more dresses to take pictures of, but I want to wait for a sunny day--my pictures turn out better. I have tried to set up an impromptu photo box with lights but I haven't mastered that whole thing at all.

And this is part of a pastel still life that Meg did this spring in art class. ;-)

Enjoy the day!

Making labels.........

I've decided to make a move over to glass storage and microwave containers versus plastic "tupperware". I'm not too fanatic yet--well, I did get a couple of strange looks from the kids at all the plastic containers in the trash--what's going on Mommy?

I think it was a TV program on Sunday morning that was talking about "safe" vs "unsafe" food plastics. Yikes, all those numbers on the bottoms of plastics. The "unsafe" ones are 3, 6, & 7. I frankly didn't find any of those numbers in my cupboards--no baby bottles left--but they were also saying that it is not safe to microwave in plastics--chemicals may leach out and into food--and old plastics--used many times--might not be safe because the surfaces get etched in the washing process and thus might be harboring bacteria. Uggh! So we are mostly switching back to glass and ceramic.

That said, I will hop off the soapbox now and continue making some labels for my pretty new glass jars--no picture yet. :-)

Check out this Dictionary of Dolls published by Woman's Day in January 1965. My two favorite pages show dolls of the world and wooden dolls. The rest of the pages are on a flickr set here.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

I must be the last person in the world to tumble to the literal translation of Cinco de Mayo--Fifth of May--Duh!!

Anyway, I got to go and spend some time at Em's school--Yeah!--where the kids went crazy for the pinata filled with little whistles, rings, and erasers and not so crazy for the guacamole on their sample plate. :-)

The kids liked the Lotteria/Bingo game. :-)

Thanks for stopping by......woohoo!

First Knitted Project

Emmy, all determined, started knitting just after Christmas this year. She didn't have any project in mind, she just wanted to knit--make the needles click and "make something". I got her started--I can hardly say that I knit tho--casting on and a scarf are it on the list of knitting accomplishments for me--so Em wasn't going to be getting much help from her mommy. She brought me her project yesterday and oh, how proud she was. Yikes, what were we going to do with her beautiful effort?

Well, here is what we came up with! Ta da! :-) Looking good Josefina! (American Girls)

We just threaded a ribbon thru the lower dropped stitches and a ribbon thru the stitches still on the needles and wah lah we have a sundress for Josefina. :-) (except that it shows her "bum-bum" as Emmy puts it--she fixed that this morning with tape) :-)

I'll be back later with a photo of the day--it looks sooo pretty outside--well worth the rain of yesterday!

**and here is our walk this morning.....Em showing Kaya the crabtree blossoms that smell so sweet....and a pretty shadow in the sun......***

Thanks for stopping in! :-)

Watch Out for Dolls!

Beautiful redbud on a gloomy, rainy day.

Whose shoes are these, below? How about that ribbon and rickrack on the edge of the skirt? Yummy!!

I was trying to think last night about different posts that I could do this month--to carry me thru the days when I can't think of a thing and don't feel like anyone could possibly want to see what is on my radar that day. Well, I decided to do what I will call a "Doll-a-Day-in-May" as an added incentive for me to post every day in May. I do promise that they won't all be Russian matryoshkas. :-)

Here she is--the first doll of the month.

This beauty "Woman with Pies" is first in the line-up. She hails from Russia--can you see a theme here?? :-) She is from the studio design of artist Galina Maslennikova. I had the hardest time finding info. on the web about her but extracted this---Galina founded a studio in 1990, assembling some 50 craftsman and professional artists to produce dolls dressed in Russian peasant clothes from the 18th/19th centuries. (see here) There are a couple of places to purchase dolls from her studio online it seems, here and here. This sweet doll in from a tiny shop, Gifts from Russia, in downtown Tacoma, WA, now closed. (it re-opened in the German-like town of Leavenworth, WA) Their website mentions Galina's Dolls but their ebay store didn't have them.

She has a couple of dots on her chin from an unfortunate tumble she took--those pies in her tray are heavy don't ya know! :-)

Thanks for stopping by! :-)

Gardening starts soon

We are almost past the freeze date here and we can put some pretty flowers out. We have some seeds to plant, like morning glories, four o'clocks, cleome and monarda--a little ambitious for us to get them in at the right time--we could use a little gnome help. :-)This gnomey happiness comes from the MLP company (Mamelok Press Ltd.) Check here and here for US companies carrying scrap sheets. :-)

Love the tablecloth blankie for the babe--even better tho is the painted baby carriage.

I am going to try and "do" daily posts in May--a Post a Day in May! Hee-hee, we'll see how far this takes me. :-) Super idea, by the way from Allsorts--one of my all-time very favorite blogs.

Chicago charm

The beautiful tulips were out all over Chicago and ummm such gorgeous colors.

This is the shiny kidney bean in Millennium Park that reflects the Chicago skyline--so cool! I couldn't get a picture of the funky water fountain that had a visual light show of human faces that would all of a sudden spout real water from where their mouth was but you can see it here.

Tall buildings everywhere but the stonework is so neat--on the Hershey store on Michigan Avenue there are carved vultures--kind of appropriate for chocolate cravings. :-)Ooooo and here is the lunch that I split with my daughter Meg, Chicken Petit Pain and Petit Salad. Bistro 110 brought out our sandwich already split with a share of salad on both plates. So very tasty! This picture doesn't look pretty--I'm lucky I got any picture at all before it was snarfed down-- the puffs with ice cream filling, drizzled with chocolat was simply the best. Kudos to Bistro 110 and Merci! to Chef Dominique Tougne who came over to say hi to our group.
One last beautiful tulip. :-)

A last delight--I was able to find the spring issue of Marie Claire Idees. I loved every page of it! Ooo la la! :-)

***Oh man, missed a chance to see the Cruise family--as in Tom, Katie and Suri--in Chicago yesterday. :-) I guess they were in Chicago for an Oprah visit. I would have loved to see Suri--she is so cute in pictures.***

Like a Hole in the Head.....

Not that I needed to find such a delicious pecan roll only three miles from home but ummm it was good!! :-) I love the color the sun is showing today, everything looks so clean and fresh and in sharp focus.

A Break in the Weather

We've had a sunny break in our rainy day so I headed out to enjoy a spot of garden color.

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for stopping by. :-)

Pop of color!!!

Beautiful illustrations from 1929 book "Little Folks of Other Lands" by Watty Piper. The pictures are done by the husband and wife team of Lucille Webster Holling and Holling Clancy Holling. I love the gypsy outfits--the swirls and curliques embroidered on the man's vest and oh man, the gypsy wagons, I could live in one of those! The vivid colors used in both illustrations are candy-like. In the Dutch illustration the pretty vest on the little girl in the bottom left corner is just barely visible. The flowers on a black vest are yummy as is the jumble of colorful homes! :-)

Not sick of them yet!!

I'm sorry I haven't been posting lately. Yesterday, after seeing all the creative loveliness at "It's a Whimsical Life" in the newest edition of Artful Blogging and on Susan Mitchell's blog, here, I was inspired to make a little tag of my own. Of course it had to be a matryoshka!

WIP

A quilt that I've designed that is currently in the works. It was a challenge to pick colors that worked together that wouldn't demand too much of the attention but would balance. This quilt is part of my ongoing love affair with Matryoshka dolls. :-) I can't decide whether or not to add an embroidery to the aprons of the first two. I might also put a little stuffing into the bodies of each to puff it up a little.