A Leave of Absence

I need to stop and catch my breath and catch up on a whole heap of stuff that needs to get done!

Its been a busy time, what with getting The Princess organised and settled into big school. Thanks for all the lovely and comforting comments , she took to school like a duck to water. As so many of you mentioned it is often harder for the Mummy's. Oh yes!!! And yes, it is her school uniform, check out the Barbie back pack though!


Yesterday we had to say goodbye to my brother Phillip, his partner Nic and my sweet niece Georgia Mary, who we got to meet and fall in love with. I can see a visit to Cairns, Australia on the cards later this year.


As a little consolation prize I did a little thrifting. LOOK! Gorgeous Italian pottery, vintage perfume bottles and vintage laces and trims. Happy, happy me!


Now, I am going to take a little bloggy break, for about three weeks. I'll lurk around behind the scenes but won't post and probably won't comment on your blogs.

Reason is I have to get myself organised and get stuff done. This is a half completed swap and there are two others I have signed up for and also to make a card for Karla's Aunty, attend a Swashbucklers party and goodness knows what else!


I HAVE to get these yukky tax things and accounts for the shop done, like yesterday!


Clean out the closets, this one is The Princess's, all the others look similar!


Do the ironing I started three weeks ago and just keep adding to. This is what greets people when they enter our home at the moment. Nice, NOT!!!


And then there's the little matter of our garage, I think some people keep cars in theirs, Babes would like to keep a car in there! As you can see I keep other things in my garage, furniture, vintage carpet, vintage stuff, craft stuff, junk . . .


Aside from these little issues I also need to sell stuff, make money . . .

So, I will be back and when I do I'll post the after photo's to show you my new clutter free, completely up to date house and life!!!!

Until then

Bye . . .

Where has my baby gone?

Overnight we have gone from this . . .


to this!

My Dolls

Lori at Faerie Window is hosting a My Dolls show and tell today. Dolls have always been treasured by my Granny, Mum and I. Dolls in all shapes and forms.

Granny especially adored dolls. She left her secure home in London on the onset of WW11 and came to New Zealand as the new wife of my Granddad who was an Engineer for the Merchant Navy. He left her with his family and promptly went off to sea for some years!

During this time Great Granny, who still lived in London, sent Granny a beautiful French Fashion doll called Felicity. Felicity travelled to New Zealand by ship during the war and her voyage took many months.

Felicity was Granny's most prized and treasured possession. Felicity had many costume changes over the years, all designed and hand stitched by Granny.

Granny passed away last year and Felicity now lives with Mum. Here she is, she has real human hair of a beautiful auburn colour and she is wearing the last costume Granny had made her.


Granny also dressed miniature period costume dolls. Each costume was carefully researched and hand stitched. I now have these dolls. Here they are in a cabinet in my previous home.

The top shelf has Henry the VIII and his 6 wives, his two daughters Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth the 1st.

The middle shelf is period costumes through the ages and the bottom shelf is traditional costumes from countries around the world.

I had them arranged in the cabinet just as they were in Granny's home. It was one of my greatest pleasures as a little girl to be allowed to open the cabinet and carefully look at each of the dolls.


I have Granny's glory box and in it were two of the undressed dolls she used, still in there packets.


You can imagine as a little girl any new dolls I was given for Christmas or a birthday would come with the most glorious of wardrobes.

Here is my doll Tina, she needs to go to dolly's hospital for a new eye! Tina came with this incredible fashion wardrobe, all stitched and knitted by Granny. She even has handmade leather shoes and a bag.


This was my Sindy dolls wardrobe. Mum and Granny collaborated one Christmas with Granny sewing her clothes and Mum crocheting and knitting her clothes.

I bet you can't guess what era I had Sindy in!!!


I was delighted when I found these two little baby doll dresses in a thrift shop. They are smocked and hand embroidered and were .50c each!


This baby doll is about 50 year old. She belongs to Babe's Aunty Eileen. The baby doll lives with us now, I used her a lot for shop displays, she is currently wearing a vintage baby nightgown.


Granny, Mum and I love paper dolls. I found this untouched book of Lettie Lane Paper Dolls on Trade Me and just had to have it.


Some years ago I found this book of Betty Bonnet Paper Dolls in an Antique Shop. I bought it and gave it to Granny for Christmas. I now have it back!


Last winter Mum lived with us while looking for a house to buy nearby. Inspired by the Paper Doll Dress swaps we did a side ways swap of our own with Karen and Catieann.

This is the dress I made Catieann,


and this one for Karen.


This led to nights of us churning out garlands of paper doll dresses for the shop. They sold really well!


We got more and more elaborate with our ruffles and embellishments!



So carried away by paper doll dresses was I, that I made this dress for the Bloglandia Ball!



One of my most challenging swaps was the Art Doll swap. I joined it without knowing what an Art Doll was!!! Jerusalem was my partner and I had read on her blog that she loved the Princess and the Pea story.

Here is the Princess and Pea I created for Jerusalem. The layers of the dress are meant to represent the mattresses and at the bottom of the dress is a little green gem to represent the pea! I loved how it turned out and could hardly bare to part with it. But I did!


So there you have it,the doll history of our family.

Thankfully my Princess loves dolls as much as we do. She has a vast collection of Barbies and paper dolls.

Thanks so much Lori for hosting this great show and tell. I am off to visit the other dolls in Blogland.

Sweet Peas & a Good Catch Up!

Mum had been sorting through her glory box (hope chest) when she came across a whole lot of stuff she had forgotten about. Scrapbooks and water colour paintings done by her Mother, my beautiful Granny.

Among the treasures was this beautiful water colour of sweet peas in a vase done by Granny many years ago. She was an accomplished artist in many different mediums. I love this painting so Mum gave it to me.


Granny passed away in January of 2007 and in the March, this darling Sweet Pea arrived. She is the first child of my brother Phillip and his partner Nicole. They named her Georgia Mary, such special names as our Dad who passed away over 20 years ago was Peter George and Granny was Mary Stella.

Phill, Nic and The Sweet Pea are over from Cairns, Australia on a visit. The Sweet Pea is just gorgeous, naturally! Here she is surrounded by her big cousin The Princess's, many toys!


Both Babes grandparents are home from hospital so life is a little less busy. I managed to do the tiniest bit of thrifting and came home with a sewing basket to add to my collection, love the hand painted rose on the top of this one.


Remember these baskets to hold your hair curlers in??? My Mum had one!!! Found this one complete with the hair curlers! Nasty prickly things!!!


Over the last few months I have been given lovely awards and have been tagged a few times. I am really sorry about not doing the tags, I love them, I was going to do them all in one go and I have now forgotten what they were about!!!

This gorgeous glitter award was passed on to me by the creator of the award, the oh so talented Barb at 123 Lavender Lane and also the very amusing Brittany at Adeline's Shabby Cottage. GORGEOUS!

I am really sorry but I can't remember who gave me the next two sweet awards. Possibly Jen.
How bad am I!



I award these awards to all of you who read my blog. Please feel free to copy the images and pass them on.

I need to get creating again so have joined a couple of swaps that are inspiring me to get to work.

First of all the Celebrate Banner Swap being hosted by Tamy at GA GA for Garlands. My swap partner is Susan at Creative Destination. I'm a bit nervous because Susan is VERY talented and attends workshops!!!

I was lucky enough to get into the Enchanted Swap hosted by the Gypsy Mermaid. Very exciting and something different!

I am also, if I don't forget, going to join Lori at Faerie Window's Doll Challenge on April 8. It will be lots of fun, I love dolls.


So until then, take care, have fun . . .