Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Golden moons and star seating...all aboard !


Current Mood : Bouncy !



Dearest Son is really enjoying the wonderful, bright weather we've had this week. It elevates my mood just by looking at how delightfully blue the sky is. I even saw a golden moon early this morning, decorating the horizon shortly before dawn. Too bad I normally miss all this beauty by not paying attention or being asleep !


Shortly after breakfast, Dearest presented me three white clover flowers, from the patch at the corner of the house. They were so pretty, not quite fully opened yet, tinged with pink at the stem. I grabbed a bud vase and put them in water right after hugging my thanks to my thoughtful son. He brought in more flowers and plants all day, and we kept adding them to the vase, until I got the arrangement in today's image. I think he's got an eye for that !


After an attempt to pull a tissue out of the Puffs box knocked over the modem and a couple small figures, I decided to change a few things around. I didn't like Frankie's bed being all the way over on the plastic cabinet either, so I moved the tissue box to the top of the printer, where it won't knock anything else over, and I can reach it easier. A bit more shuffling relocated the bed to where the box used to be, and the desk lamp behind it gives it more of a laboratory atmosphere. I took Frankie out of it, and wondered where to put her...and that led to today's project.


Although I think it may have started when I was still embroidering those badges - which, BTW, are completely done and finished and on the way to the new owner. Glad I did 33 small ones before I did the 9 large ones, since all the practice really came in handy. While the bigger ones were straighter and, well, bigger, there were still tiny turns and sharp corners, and I would have been frustrated much faster if I hadn't done the small ones first. I can now say that I can make a Velcro(tm)-backed badge, no problem. Too bad I don't wanna see another one for at least a month !


Anyway, while I was monitoring Brody for probably Set #8, I tidied up the desk a bit. I'd had the Doll Hair box down, searching for tiny rubber bands I ended up not using. I also keep those little Barbie catalogs in there - from vintage to the Barbie Girl Wish List. It's always fun to look at those. I grabbed one of the not-quite vintage Living Barbie booklets - I have four or five of 'em - and smiled at the beginnings of Mod styling. I also noticed how dolls weren't photographed sitting on Barbie furniture, which, by then, there was plenty of for sale. No, there were several colors of 'tomato' style pincushions and a couple of those baroque velvet-lined little jewelry boxes filling in as seating. I wondered where one might find a baby-pink and turquoise velvet tomato these days...


So, when it was time to find Frankie somewhere to sit, I thought of the tomatoes. Have several, but they weren't quite what I wanted. I remembered a sewing box I'd seen at Hancock Fabrics - small, but with a very large stuffed tomato pincushion on top, as a lid. Hmmm...I have a glass candy dish catch-all on my desk already. It holds Ghoulia's spare glasses, a couple marbles, two USB drives, a golden dollar coin, a couple safety pins... the usual desk junk. If I could make a softly stuffed 'lid' for it, I'd still have the use of the dish, and I'd have a cute perch for a couple dolls.


I started scouting around. Traced the star on to some scrap paper as a pattern, then claimed a corrugated cardboard box from the trash and cut out the star from it. Good. Fits the dish. Now then...I have some blue moon-and-star fabric that'd be cute, it was a knit nightgown I scrounged from a 25c rack at the local thrift. With a ruler, I traced the cardboard star shape on the doubled fabric, and added a half-inch for stuffing. Sewed the pieces together on the pencilled line, clipped the curves, and cut a slit on the back for turning it right-side out. Eased the cardboard star inside, then stuffed the topside, filling the rounded 'points' first. Ran out of recycled stuffing, and had to use the PolyFil - that I also got at a yard sale, but I still hate to open anything new, ya know ?


Was gonna use a pencil to make sure the stuffing was even, but my fingers worked better. With all the fabric and PolyFil on top, the fabric-covered cardboard underside fit nice and flat on top of the dish. Whip-stitched the slit shut by hand, and, almost instant, darn near free seating ! And I still have a place for miniature eyewear and USB drives. Photo tomorrow, I promise ! Frankie looks so cute on it !


Hmm...d'yall think I should write this up as a tutorial ? The glass star is from Dollar Tree, and Mal-Wart also has them, along with a heart-shape, both by Anchor-Hocking. Not sure if there's much call for candy dish doll seating, but if you're intrigued, I can write it up probably by this weekend...


I also learned that using DTree 'third-grade kids Fiskars' is not a good idea on corrugated cardboard. The pair I started out with broke right in half, no repairs possible. Switched to some bigger scissors, no problem. Live and learn !


And look around for other possible bowls and dishes I can use ! That was fun and cheap, and ya'll know how much I love that combination ! 

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