Part 1: Russian nesting dolls

All the mother dolls above .
All the dolls out of their mothers below.

This is one of our collections at our house. This post is for my MIL; she wants to know which ones we have because she likes to add to this collection at holidays, and is forgetting what she has given us. My children also collect these dolls, so there will be three more posts; one post for each daughter's collection of dolls. This collection is mine. I own 7 sets

Newest Set
(7 people in this set) the only wood-burn set I have


This set is porcelain ,and I have two identical of this set
(6 people in this set) ( 12 between the two sets)


This set is Little Red Ridinghood, but no woodsman; just Red, wolf, grandma, and cottage
(4 people, sort of; one is a house)

A sort of Nativity
Joseph, Mary, Wise man, Shepherd, and baby Jesus (5 people)

The largest set I have (12 people)



My oldest set (this set is from before the wall fell) (5 people)

Turkish lace new site

I was left a comment on one of my oya/turkish lace posts from a lovely person who has a blog all about this type of lace. The patterns are passed down visually, so her patterns are posted in the form of pictures. This means you have to know how to do crochet and special stitches first. I think I can duplicate all of them and make patterns, if the owner of the other blog is willing to let me do this. I will work on this in what little spare time I have to save these patterns into a written language for those who don't know how to pull a pattern visually. I am hoping she will let me. If not, sorry, but please look at her site as there are a lot of lovelies there.
In case the link breaks, here is the site address below:
http://www.turkishcrochet.com/

Making Petal People

So what happens when you are in a car for about four hours every day with your kids in the middle of commute rush hours? They get board and want things to do other than just their homework. So I told them that when I was a little girl growing up in my Vavo's flower shop, I used to make dolls out of petals and wire/pipe cleaners.

They wanted me to explain how this was done. I told them, nope they had to figure it out for themselves and I would bring them petals from work every now and again so they could work on them in the car. My boss said this was fine, that I could take the girls petals to play with. This is just a few of the dolls they have come up with using nothing but dead headed flowers and guard petals of roses and pipe cleaners. I think they came out pretty cute for a first attempt.

Incase you don't know what guard petals are, they are the petals a florist takes off of every rose, usually two or three petals per rose. These are the ones that are usually greenish or damaged from growing. Most people who don't work in a floral shop have never heard of guard petals. Everyone who works in the business knows a rose is usually only pretty to a customer once these are removed.

Crocheted Chapeau for Baby

This pattern comes from the early 1940's: Woolies for Babies ( it has been brought up to date with changes by me in red)

SUPPLIES:

• Chadwick's red heart baby wool, 1 ball (3/4 oz) (ie.. baby yarn wool) fingering weight yarn
  
• steel crochet hook, no 2/0 (double zero) steel hook
  
• 1 1/2 yards ribbon, 3/4 inch wide organza or double sided satin
  
• 2 ribbon rosettes (these you make yourself) you can buy store made flowers or make your own easy to do on a flower loom
  

GAUGE: (pattern stitch) 3 shells make 2 inches

This pattern has been moved to Ravelry for free in pdf form.

My store

Flower bonnet

I actually worked yesterday; just didn't take any photos. Fridays are our crazy-busy day, we have shipments come in from the airport which take a lot of work to get out of the boxes and into buckets so the blooms can open up for use. We got some real pretty hydrangeas in; oh, so pretty. But like I said, it is our busy day so no photos.

I do have a picture of another bonnet I have started, the red striped one I have finished crocheting, it just doesn't have its embellishments yet. This new bonnet has a flower on it. Not just any old flower; well I guess it is any old flower. I found this flower inside a ball of thread while junking. The flower wasn't even in the same color thread as the ball it was tucked into. As a result, I don't have matching thread to make more of it. So, I set it aside 'till I could figure out what to do with just one flower. I just love little found treasures such as this.

With all the flower posts and bonnet posts lately, it seamed fitting I should combine the two. So I pulled out this random old flower and gave it a few green rows to look like leaves, then started to work on it with cream. I decided I like the back of the bonnet with a hex look, so that will be carried on into this bonnet, too. I also like the stripes of the other bonnets so, that will be carried on into this bonnet, as well. The stripes will be cream and green. The same green I used for the leaves in hopes it will pull the back of the bonnet and the sides of the bonnet together.

VINTAGE DRESS PATTERN

preciouspet, originally uploaded by sunshine's creations.

I am wondering how many would be interested in this pattern. I am thinking of making it available in my store for purchase after I have finished revamping the pattern a little bit to make it a little more modern in length. That is because in the late 1930's and early 1940's, little girls always wore bloomers and such, and so dresses were a little shorter to show off the bloomers.

Just an FYI my husband (and a tiny tiny bit by me) did all the twiking on this picture and added all the touches of color to it. Red ribbons, yellow pencil, and, hard to tell, but green eyes, too.

I know Easter is over

But I had to work that day. So here are a few little photos. I took the one of the tree and the one of the girls on the sofa. My husband took the rest so I could see what fun our kids had.
They got the bunny ears from their great grandmother. The hat (visor) kits from their grandma. I also got the wood bunnies and flowers for my Easter tree from the same grandma.

Looks like they had fun.

More Floral

Guess this might be a regular thing on days I work, to show a few of the arrangements I make. I have never really made a good example of my floral work because it is such a fleeting thing. I start to make an item and, five to thirty-five minutes later, I am done with it and pretty much and hour later I never see it again. Funny thing about florals is even the people that receive them don't have them very long, either. Usually within five to ten days all flowers end up in the garbage or as potpourri or something similar. Worse is true for funeral flowers; they are usually tossed away in two to five days from the care-taker people at the cemeteries.

The floral to the right is a silk that I made; it's on display in the front of the store. Above is what is called a big hug mug; an FTD thing. the flower is called a lizianthus (I think I spelled that wrong).

The above arrangement is for a new a baby girl and her mom; it came with 3 mylars. This was a gift from the new mom's boss and co-workers.
Below is for a funeral for a woman and another

funeral for a man. There was more funeral stuff today for that little 5 year-old boy. I think I posted about that before; I always hate doing baby and kid funerals. They are just so sad to me because they have not had much time here and all that goes with that.

Waiting for kids

When I am in the car waiting to pick up my kids and husband from work, I have been trying to do a little hand work. The red and cream one is my current project. I don't feel like I am making much progress on these at all. They will be cute whenever they finally make it to the complete state of being. Most of the thread in these is vintage and some have a little age in their color; I personally think it adds to their charm of looking like something made in days gone bye.

Todays floral

I only took two pictures today.
This is one of the funeral pieces I did; this is actually much brighter in real life. Hey look! A good photo! Nothing like taking a real camera with you to work instead of a phone camera. About $150 arrangement.


Also, a little girl's birthday flowers. I like this just because it is simple and sweet and for a little girl. It also had a little stuffed teddy bear that went with it; about a $45 arrangement.


I also made other things, of course, but these two are the ones I liked the most. I made some silks that I really liked, but I forgot to take a picture of them. Maybe I will take a picture another day and show.

Flowers

I forgot to take my normal camera to work, so these photos are from my razr camera phone. So, these are not the best images, but it is what I have been crafting for six hours everyday. I made some silks and fresh arrangements today.

All these are silks that I made.





This silk one above isn't done in this photo; I added more greens to it, so if it looks a little sparse, it is.

Fresh funeral pieces that I made.

I didn't take pictures of everything I made, just a few funeral and a few silks. The every-day items I made, I didn't take pictures of. Most of my photos didn't come out well, so the real cool funeral spray I made for $150 was blurry. That's sad because that was fire and ice roses and Casablanca lilies; real pretty the lilies where wide open, all five of them. But the other two came out ok; one for $200, all roses from the 21st, and one for $70 from today that was Gerberas, white roses, and daisies. Some of these photos are from the 18th, 21st and some today the 25th; all are from my camera phone. Sorry for the poor quality photos.

Below are some photos of our flower shipment on Friday.

Family Friends on line store

My father-in-law told me about this cool site that sells vintage items; he is friends with the owners. I decided I would check it out. I really like it and thought my readers would, too. So here is the link for all of you to check it out too.
The name of the sight is "Dolls and Lace". They sell way more than dolls and lace: ephemera, old photos, millinery supplies..... etc. The list just goes on and on; most things are older than 1940 with a few reproductions. The image above is from the site and is not mine, but it was used to show just how cool the imagery is on the site and some of what they sell.

After you have checked out the site come back and leave me a comment on what you thought about it. I would love to hear everyones reactions.

Happy Easter

Where's Wendy "sunshine"

I have had a busy week! I have worked over 36 hours for the week with commutes at 4 hours or more every day, so roughly 24 hours in commutes, for a total 60 hours. This is not counting hours of normal chores and homework and all my normal "Mom" things to do. Plus, because their janitor is on vacation, I worked at my second daughter's school to earn some credit on her school tuition for next month so that bill won't be as big; so add those 4 hours into the above total. Good thing about that one is all three kids helped; my husband would have, too, but he was at his own job. The kids were great to help mom out so it would not take me so long. I love my family; they are great at pulling together. They placed the chairs on top of desks and helped vacuum and emptied trash while I cleaned windows, mirrors, desks and yucky bathrooms. No shame; it is honest, hard work. But that said, it is all I can do to stay awake 'till 8:00 p.m. Then I wake at all weird hours of the night; proof by the post time on this post.

Not much crafting lately other than lots of floral arrangements, which are a type of crafting. Made a lovely funeral spray yesterday that was all red roses and just four white ones; that was fun to do. Very elegant looking when done. I tried taking a picture with my camera phone, but it didn't come out well. I need to take my real camera with me to work so I can show a few of the nice things I get to make for people.

Today my family gets to go to the church Easter egg hunt and family breakfast at church, then to the family Easter egg hunt and lunch. The reason I say my family gets to is I will be at work; by the time I get off at 3:30 or later, all the festivities will be done. The family even postponed my birthday party 'till next month because I will be at work. So, Easter is family and I love mine and hope they have fun and know I am with them in spirit, even if it's not possible in body.

Colors

Look; colors came back to my blog! It was all the fault of a missing (;). Don't ask me how it went missing, but looking at the code this morning I noticed it. So, my blog has color again, just in time for Easter pastels. Take care and enjoy the color; I am!