That is Milo (MIHI) and Samantha in their new bodies. Milo (only brother to Nolan - our Dolly Lama) still looks a bit blindsided by the day and the activities which is a lot the way I feel. I wish I was as merry and accepting of the day as Samantha is. All day it was as cloudy as if it was a fixin' to rain, but by 4:30 (too late for the light on the photo table) the sun has come out and I do not know what to do with it! I should be picking a new crew but I noticed today that Amazon will not even try to send the new stemmed eyeball until October 7th! And what shall I do in the meantime?

Well, I am glad to report that both small babies kept their eyes in the right place all night but when I stuffed the head of one of them the left eye went wonky. I decided to wait for smaller eyes to try again. Thus I was stuck with Joey as my baby of the day. The one small body I had made the last time, and didn't  use, did fit Joey perfectly. As I worked with him, his protruding bottom lip did not bother me so much as it had the day before and I notice that during the stuffing I had forced it outward a bit because it was split. He still does not exhibit my favorite expression but it is not as bad as it was. Who could design a baby with such an expression? - someone not happy with her life.

Here you can still see it but the bottom lip and top lip match in protrusion. I did not feel good all day (actually took a nap in the morning) so I did not get the two larger bodies finished on the machine. Today I am much better and I feel I can accomplish both the larger babies today.

No photos from yesterday. On Thursday afternoon when I wiped down the week's crew I noticed the new auction kit had the head with booby eye sockets but thought since I had done a head recently with the stemmed eyes from Amazon, this would be no problem. Boy was I wrong. I worked the rest of the afternoon on those eyes. One section of the socket was so thin it would not hold the eyeball in place. I would get it in right and then watch inside the head to see the thin vinyl bend and slowly give way so the eyeball would slide out.
I thought that with new energy on Friday morning the job would be "a piece of cake." It turned out to be devil's food. After an hour I gave up to search out a new head. I found Milo, the brother to the Dolly Lama and his eyes went in without trouble. It does pay to be related to the spiritual. But when I got to the next doll it was as if there was an eye disease because these eyes too would not go in and stay. I knew they were a size too big but in the past I have used eyes of a bit more generous nature and could get them to stay put. I did not want to hold up the whole crew to wait for the proper size eyes so I got out a similar sized head - Joey's. I do not like the sculpt's inward bottom lip so cut his lips open so I could put in a pacifier to cover up that fault. I worked and worked with the eyes but what had failed to inform me was that a similar size head would need the smaller eyeballs of the other one. Joey's eyes did not fit properly and his neck, like the one on the other smaller doll, was so tiny I could not use my tools and see what I was doing. I would put glue in around the sockets and sit to watch the eyeballs slide out of arrangement. It was almost spooky. I stuffed limbs while waiting for the glue to firm up. I finally wore out the glue from moving it so much that I had to add more. I stuffed in the cottony poly-fill time and time again they would move. When I would retract the stuffer stick out would come the whole mass of sticky cotton-like stuff. Finally at 6:00, with so little done I set the eyes properly, leaned the heads so when the eyes slipped it would be in the right direction, and came inside for dinner.
So my first job this morning will be to see where everyone's eyes are or what they have been looking at all night!

 Werner painted his side of the garage and I was so proud of the way the floor looked that I wanted to show you even though these photos will not mean much to you. This is the view as one steps into the garage from the house. You can see that my studio is full of stuff. That's me.

This is the view from the opened garage door. You can see how fairly we have divided the garage! Except I  have a row of my boxes at the end. The paint he used was brand new so it had no smell.  I was able to continue working all day on my side thanks to this feature. I got the three new babies into their new bodies. It was only on the third try that I got Jeffrey's body to be the one that suited his personality.

Here you see he was already making a move on sweet little Autumn Blaze. She seems quite undisturbed by his action so he continued to plead his cause until we got the sleepers down to see who got to wear which one. Only this morning was I able to get the official portraits.

Jeffrey wanted balloons floating around him as his portrait (to match his jammies) but I had none and definitely nothing that I could find floated. I found these feathers and gave them to him as substitute and you can see him here saying, "What do you mean these float LIKE a balloon?" Later he added, "Are you nuts?" and he seemed to have the answer to his question. To shut him up I put Autumn before the camera.

She looks so dreamy I wondered what she was thinking about, but too kind to ask her. She is such a tiny baby but I really enjoyed holding her while I waited on Jeffrey to settle down.

Next is a baby you have not met. His name is Marley but I keep expecting someone to shorten it down to Bob. When you look into his eyes you can see this boy is very street-smart. If I were walking down a dark street I would want him by my side. Still when you glance at him when he is thinking of something else you can see his naked loneliness and I love him with a rush of feelings. He picked the perfect sleeper. It has bold enough colors to stand up to his vivid personality.

See that tiny smile at the corners of his mouth? This boy is ready for love!

It is so hot in the studio I came inside to start my blog instead of working as I would prefer to do. Again someone at Google has changed all my bookmarks to completely lose this one. It takes me 5 minutes to find the blog over a search. Anyhow, here it this week's crew. Blaze, on the left is the only one with a name on the neck. The middle head had the boob-shaped eyeballs but I was able to get the blue stemmed ones from Amazon in. In all the heads I packed cotton around the sockets so the glue had something to run into instead of dripping out on the tray. They are all lying in the sun soaking up the glue-drying warmth.
I debated whether to start a batch of babies today because I know tomorrow is a non-dolly day because Mary is coming. We hope to do a big clean so that before the weekend when Heidi and Ashley and males come we can do just a touch up so I have plenty of time to be nervous about the visit. Nothing else is on the agenda for this week so I hope the babes can give me happiness all week long.

Yesterday I made the trip upstairs to get the dolls and teddy bears in the Christmas decoration closet. By evening I was almost unable to move from the pain but I was happy to have gotten those dolls on the shelves also. Here is the side I failed to include the top shelf yesterday. That woven straw doll on the far left was probably the first doll I bought for myself as an adult. My feeling this morning as I peeked into the living room was that I preferred to see doll faces rather than book backs. 

Here is the right side of the shelves. I see I cut the face off the tall doll on the top shelf. There below is the nativity scene I made with the porcelain dolls over 10 years ago. I used the trick of putting all the small dolls (the storybook dolls) in a low basket to help them all stand up. Last evening I found a doll repair online place and was able to get an assortment of elastic cords to fix the various dolls you see here in parts. I am very eager to restring the big baby doll. I have thought of ways to give her a soft body so she is cuddly but I think her limbs are too hard as composition not vinyl. Then there is the question of what to do with her body. We will see how trying her together goes. The new elastic is cotton covered so when the elastic rots away the cotton should still hold the doll together.

Remember last week when I showed you this photo of everyone being so  unhappy with their bodies that Ivy jumped off the bench and tried to run away? Now you can replace that view with this one taken yesterday.

I made new bodies with my pattern for these two and you can see that Candy sits and holds her arms perfectly and little Ivy (so I have named her) also can sit and show off her arms. The tiny doll in yellow on the floor in the first photo has been returned to parts department. This is the second time I have tried to make a 10 inch Claire and I simply cannot force myself to make her into a baby. She is too small and is 'just' a dolly toy to me - not worth making a proper body for her because she is too doll-like and not cuddly. I have found that is my decision point. If a baby fails the cuddle quiz it goes back into the box of parts. I delight in picking up a new baby and giving them a cuddle to see if they can pass my test. This is one test I love to give. I check how the body fits in my arm. where the limbs go during a squeeze, how the weight of the baby feels, how it is distributed against my body, how it feels to put the baby's head against my cheek, how the eyes focus when I talk to it. I even check how the doll responds to my singing a lullaby! The worst response was when a doll threw her head on the floor!
I was so happy to have these two new babies, I took their portraits and even that job went good. I was going to show you the best of those pictures but I cannot see them good enough on the computer. I have been printing out contact sheets and that works the best. I ran out of ink so both you and I are waiting on the Amazon order.
I did unpack the three boxes of dolls from Bambi. What a trip that was! She had wrapped each little doll and even parts of dolls in bubble wrap. I was very touched by the care she had taken and given to each doll. I was able to set them on the shelves (thank goodness I had gotten rid of so many books!).

Oops, I see I did not include the very top shelf in the photo! My bad. So there are dolls there for you to see in the official photo I will take with the other camera.

This is the other half of the shelves. On the bottom shelf  (in parts) is the life-sized composition baby I bought in an antique store in Hamburg. My first reborn?!? I remember that snowy December night so clearly as I sat in Dr. Antonavitches (an OBGyn) office with a real-looking (for those times - the 70s) baby in my arms and then seeing the stares from passengers on the U-bahn later on the way home with Bambi's Christmas present so proudly held in my arms. I do want to photograph the inside of her head before I put a new wig on her to record how the original doll-maker fixed her eyes in place with red wax - very interesting. Today I learn B. still has two more boxes to send so I have lots to look forward to! Happiness!

Such ugly unpainted parts of the floor in the studio are being painted by Mary as I type. She bends better than I do and she paints a lot more carefully. Last night Werner drove the car outdoors so I could move all the stuff (except the shelves and the chair which is too heavy and you can see in the upper right-hand corner) to the other side. Today the place looks like this.

It is almost as bad as things looked last March but I am much better organized. It was almost unfunny that as soon as I got the stuff moved the floor did not look 1/2 so bad. Makes me check my mood-ometer to see what I am thinking and what reality is all about.
I was able to get USPS to make a label for the two dolls I am sending to A. so Werner was able to take the package to town to mail today. I tried yesterday. Perhaps because WR was not going to town the program refused to cooperate. I am just thankful it is going today.

I should be thankful that the computer hid this photo I had taken of Popeye the Sailor MAN showing a sample of his new equipment in his hand. I finally was able to give A. a dolly price of $100. each. All week I have worried my little brain on this! Now I need to go to Reborns.com to post a new baby. Dave has been so kind to me all week making sure my 'just born' showed up on the rotation and that my mug was on the featured slot several times.