Current Mood : Thrilled !
Spent on dolls and...stuff : $8.
Today must've been ‘Change What You Don't Like' day, because that's about what I did with this lovely Saturday. Started things off briskly by going through my downloaded embroidery designs and re-sorting and re-organizing them. Y'see, when I first got Brody and a buncha designs, I didn't really know enough yet to organize them efficiently. And when a simple design of a cat can go under ‘Cats', ‘AnimalsBirdsBugs', ‘Appliqué', ‘FreeStandingLace', ‘Holidays : Halloween', ‘Redwork', "Minis', or even ‘Misc.SinglesAndSets' depending, you can see how quickly finding a design can take longer than stitching it.
So, with my months of experience under an ever-larger belt, I streamlined the whole thing, and looked through the individual folders to make sure everything is where it belongs. It took a while, but it's much easier to go through, and should be easier to find specific pieces. I'm now content with my machine embroidery designs filing system.
After Beloved Hubby picked me up for lunch, I got a bit restless. Decided to return to the Flea Market, poke around some more. It's kinda hard to sift through a bin of Barbie clothes when Dearest Son is eagerly tugging you elsewhere ! Plus, there's more sellers on Saturday. Snagged a few Mattel outfits and two pair of flat shoes - including a set of ballerina slippers, with slots for ribbon ! Yaaay ! I'd been wanting some of those. I snagged a Mulan outfit, a Barbie mermaid costume, the purple-and-white teddy from 1990s ‘Fashion Play Barbie', and a vintage blue windbreaker from Ken's ‘Yachtsman' set, dating to 1962. That was about it for the Flea this week.
Hit two yard sales that had folded, but the sellers neglected to remove their signs. Decided to visit Dollar Tree, since the finger-skateboard stairway I bought last week came with a sticker proclaiming that the rails were underneath. Mine didn't have rails. So I wanted to check. But on the way, a church's parking lot was hosting what looked to be a good-size sale, and what the heck.
Found a jacket for Dearest, and the organizers handed me a Mal-Wart-type sack. Closing time - anything I could cram in there was a buck. Fill it up ! Well, then ! I quickly found the toys and circled a two-story tin dollhouse. It seemed so familiar. Not nearly big enough for Barbie, and very dirty and rusty, with the inside walls missing, it still seemed to call to me. Earlier, I'd admired photos of how some folk had used old dollhouses to hold fabric or papers - here was my chance to do the same ! Secretly, I'd been eyeing them when they turned up, but they were always shoebox-sized, usually rusty...and the seller still wanted $20. Vintage toys, don'cha know.
Another organizer asked if I wanted it, she'd put it aside for me. I agreed. She handed some new arrivals bags and started my way...and a swarm of little girls suddenly pounced on ‘my' dollhouse ! The organizer and I glanced at each other awkwardly as I stood there. Neither of us really spoke their language, so there wasn't much we could do. After a long minute, someone called them away, but they didn't go willingly. Kinda felt like crap when they so clearly wanted it, but they didn't take it with them, and I never actually saw the parental units, just heard them. So they may have been told no - it really wasn't in good shape, and I'd be a bit nervous about giving today's active kids a rusty metal dollhouse m'self, but I still felt a twinge of guilt.
But it wasn't enough to keep me from picking it up and asking her to hold it for me anyway. I quickly stuffed my bag with the jacket, a hardback copy of Stephen King's Skeleton Crew, four pillowcases and four yellow handkerchiefs for embroidery practice, a display easel, a small Christmas gift box, a hand towel, and a ziplock bag of doll patterns. All this cost me the princely sum of...$2. And they even carried my stuff to Molly-car. I tipped my ‘personal shopper' a buck, for kicks.
At Dollar Tree, I found my rails at the bottom of the bin, and told the cashier what I was doing, which they were fine with. I was so excited, the stairway was already out of my mind as I reversed Molly out of my parking space. My idea was to dump the milk crates of bundled fabric off the cabinet, and use the dollhouse to store it instead. I could clean it up well, line the semi-rusty floor with shelf gripper, and it'd be much more visually interesting than yet another milk crate. Plus, dollhouse ! I can swear I played with a similar one, before we moved and all but the Barbies were left behind. I was very pleased with me.
Beloved Hubby took one look at it and shook his head, even as I explained what I'd do with it. But he had an idea for me. He had a solution that would keep it from rusting more, all I'd have to do is sand the worst of the rust, then don gloves to apply it with an old rag. He had to admit, though, that a dollhouse holding fabric was much more ‘theme' with the Lab than a milk crate.
However... my idea actually had me moving two milk crates of fabric off the cabinet. Um, there's only one. And that won't nearly clear the space I'll need for the dollhouse. I forgot I moved the Barbie Country Living Home to the second crate's space a few months ago. Hrf. My eyes cast around the room for possibilities - and lit on the cutting table. Back of it is still cluttered with a Little Mermaid yard-sale lamp find, a paper crescent lamp (thrift store) and my radio/CD player. I didn't like how it looked, but never figured out how to change it.
Well, now I had an idea. Slid the milk crate of fabric from the cabinet to the floor. Moved the CD player to the cabinet, in the just-opened space. Relocated the never-used Ariel lamp to my bedside table. Placed the moon on top of a nearby fabric crate tower - it looks cute next to the doll case - and wove the on/off switch through the side of the top crate, so it wouldn't vanish. Once I got the dollhouse in place, I'd have instant access to material, in the perfect place ! I could hardly wait for the dollhouse to dry. While cleaning it, I discovered that it was a Wolverine dollhouse, made in Arkansas, and the zip code dated it to probably the early 60s. I looked it up, and found several online - and also that Marx tin dollhouses are nearly identical. I still have to research that one.
It took a lot of shuffling, and dragging stuff out just to put it back ten minutes later, but I moved everything, and tested my CD player. One of the speakers wasn't working. Not a lot for that, besides wire testing, and after a bit of wiggling ‘em around, it works. Tucked power cords behind moved boxes and such, and noted that not only was the calendar still on October, but the clock was still an hour off.
But once everything was more-or-less restored, I got to place the dollhouse in its new location. It actually takes a bit less space than the lamps and CD set did. That's today's photo, of course - I still have to line it and fill it with fabric. The one I saw years ago had the fabric folded flat, but I may leave it rolled up, for kicks. I turned on my moon lamp and basked for a bit. Much better. I'd been meaning to do something with that cutting table for over a year, and now, I really like what I did.
Guess I was just waiting for one crucial element. An old, rusty Wolverine dollhouse !
