commissioned necklace

this is a necklace that one of my favorite clients, Amy (and Carol too) asked that i make for her. she had seen the one i had made for myself and requested a similar one. i used one of the German dolls and then found some various bits and bobbles in my studio for the rest. thanks Linda for sending me an M for her last name initial. i also have more of the German dolls for sale in my etsy shoppe if you are interested. (see previous post)

german dolls

I am sure that some of you have heard about the guy who digs up the bisque dolls from an old doll factory. is it an urban legend, a myth or what? well, i will tell, you that it is a fact. i recently got to purchase some of these percious dolls and they arrived from Germany yesterday. I had heard about this guy a few times and found it very fascinating. recently he had some dolls listed on ebay so i was looking at them. he sells in nice size lots and they bidding wars wage on with these dolls. i have never bid on them before and hadn't planned on doing so, until my husband sat down at the computer and said, "what are those"? he loved the story and got so into that he had me bid on them. now i hate bidding wars , just not my thing, but he kept egging me on to outbid, outbid! so needless to say, i won some dolls. i am thrilled with them. they are so cool and interesting. after winning the dolls, i contacted the seller and asked him to tell me more about how he gets the dolls, where he is from, could i blog about him, did he have photos, etc. (probably thought i was a nut!) So "Thomas the mole" emailed me some pictures and then told me a little about himself.

he is 45 years old and calls his family his 2 dogs (susi and strolch), 2 kitties (krumel and felix) and 6 bunnies (paul, paula, heinz, kurt, otto & oskar). apparently susi and strolch love to go on digs with him. Thomas lives in a small German town called Xanten. He use to work in a factory before he started earning a living digging up dolls. one a month, he drives 510km to a town called Thuringia where he and a good friend will dig for about 10 days or so before heading back home with their treasures. the Charlotta dolls that he digs up are from the time arround 1880-1920, and they are dug out on the area of the old Kister Doll Factoty. I've very much enjoyed my communications with Thomas and appreciate him supporting my enthusiam with photos and personal information about himself!

i will be selling a few of the dolls in my etsy shop, so feel free to inquire about them if you are interested in some before i get them listed.

new icon

I'm so bummed i didn't think to take a picture of this lady before i altered her. i picked up her portrait at a flea market last week. it's a good size picture, 11x14 and i got her for $3 which i thought was a bargain. as soon as i saw her, i thought, i'm going to alter her up good! her name is Judith (i gave her that name) and i wrote in one of the bubbles, " wearing a garden on her head often makes Judith feel better". isn't she great?

baby robins

these are the babies from the nest that Mrs. Robin made in our arbor in the front yard. she really did a good job because her nest is quite hidden under the wisteria. i've seen her fly onto the arbor and the duck under the leaves to get to the nest. the other day when i was out there, i saw some robins egg on the ground, so i figured they had hatched. i grabbed the ladder after momma flew off and climbed up for a peek. i think there are 4 of them. they get big fast, so i'll check on them in a few days for another photo.

My gigantic climbing rose bush

i have a climbing rose bush (called "Cecil Brunner) that i planted about 8-10 years ago. it was planted outside my front door and has grown into this awesome, collosal natural arbor over my front porch. but it is so big, it has grown up onto the 2nd story (roof) and i can smell the roses as sitting in my room. jeff and i even trimmed it a bit this year and you really had to duck to get under it!