Annalee Santa Claus Visits The Paola Reina Doll House!

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!

I hope your Christmas Season is going well... I am trying trying trying to remember to actually enjoy it instead of just madly rushing through December with a 'to-do' list in hand and running running running to try and tick all the boxes. I'll let you know how that goes. I'm doing my best. 

I am not sure if any of you have ever heard of Annalee Dolls? They are wholly different than the dolls I usually talk about here in that they are all fabric 'display only' kinds of dolls with painted faces. They really are one of those dolls you likely really love or really don't. Hahaha. I am one of the first types, I think they are adorable myself. I don't 'actively' collect them but one of my very best friends, who also collects dolls, loves them and so whenever I see them I think of her and, if the price is right, buy them so I can have them sitting around at Christmas to remind me of my friend. So anyway, recently I saw someone in the Doll Photography World post a photo of their dolls visiting with a Santa dolls. Such a cute set of photos! So I started thinking "I wonder if any of my 'Santa' dolls would be the right scale for same sort of photos. So when I pulled out my Christmas decor, I pulled out one of my Annalee Santa's and suddenly just had the whole little 'scene' play out in my mind. So... of course, I had to make it a reality. 

The Santa wasn't tall enough to really make sense with the 18inch dolls... So instead I pulled out my youngest 'sister' dolls (outside of the babies). They are 12inches tall and mostly are the gorgeous Paola Reina dolls I've gotten as gifts from my sister friend Frann. There is also a Gotz Hip Girl and a Corolle Les Cheries (actually not the same one from that post, I got rid of her *gasp* *face-palm* in a doll purge and regretted it. Then found this one soon after and forgot to tell you about her apparently... I buy too many dolls I guess... Teehee... But you knew this. *giggles* I digressed again didn't I? Ooops. Sorry...)  

I set up a scene with one of my My Life As Doll Backdrops and the Doll House I got from Sam's Club last year along with other doll props I have that are Christmas related...

It made for quite a cute little doll diorama if I do say so myself... 

I just love these little dolls! They are so adorable!!

And.... Santa arrived at the party!! The dolls were all so excited!!

Here they all are gathered around him to say hello!

They brought him cookies... 

Side Note: These little gingerbread sugar cookies are real ones I bought at the Tannenbaum Fest here in my sweet little town... Aren't they adorable?! They are delish as well!

She's putting the tray back on the treat table. Speaking of, the gingerbread men tray is a Christmas ornament I got at Hobby Lobby and the 'cupcakes' are erasers I got at Barnes & Noble. The Gingerbread houses (behind her) are ornaments I got at Hobby Lobby a couple of years ago on clearance. 

The Dolls wanted Santa to read them a story...!

He said "Why not, I need to finish my cookie anyway" 

(Guess who was really nibbling on that cookie... Did I mention they were delish?) 

All too soon it was time for Santa to go to the next house... 

Poof, he was gone just like he arrived!

I made a YouTube of the story with many more photos if you'd like to check it out... I have so much fun making them. I know it's lame that there is no 'words' and only the silly tinned music but I like to watch them on silent while I do my 'office job' work (I work from home) cos it's fun to look up and see my dollies on a 52inch screen like movie stars... I know... I am a dork but technology is cool!

I better run!
XXOO
Heather

Fun Deco Doll House Backdrops; Shorter Than Before...?

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!

Late last year and early this year, I got a couple of my favorite doll backdrops from Amazon that are made by FunDeco Company. I got both the outdoor and indoor versions and I love them both and have used them many many times over the last year... One thing I always thought would be fun and a good idea was to buy an additional set of both of them because I'd be able to make bigger rooms with them. One thing that always kept me from it was 1) I always came up with something more fun and exciting to spend my doll mad money on and 2) I thought it might look silly to have two of the framed artwork they have in the scenes or two fireplaces or what-have-you... But recently when I got a bit of money for my birthday, I decided it was the time to take the plunge and order a second set. I decided to go with the indoor set first because I do more indoor scenes than outdoor ones... I think? (I had to choose one or the other! I'm sure I'll get an addtional outdoor one at some point... Lets get real... Once I get an idea in my head it's hard to rout out. LOL) 

So I ordered them and as is the magic of Amazon Prime, they were on my doorstep within days... How did we ever live before the internet? Eh? 

So I excitedly opened them up and decided I'd use them to make a Christmas Decorating scene. I grabbed out my other set and.........

Was surprised to find that 1) the newer ones were shorter than the older ones by a couple inches at least and 2) my older set had darker 'wallpaper' and, I didn't notice before, a shadowy side of the wallpaper on the older set. 

What?! Why!? 

See the difference? I was pretty annoyed, I won't lie... But... I decided to just roll with it and pretend that the discolored wallpaper was the result of many years of fireplace soot. Or something... 

Here is a whole 'large room' made with the two sets... I used the pink couch to cover up the mismatched chair rail at first but then moved the fireplace over to cover it instead. So I think I'll still be able to use the backdrops together but they won't match quite as well as I'd hoped. How strange. I imagine they cut the size to cut production costs...? I am sure glad, actually, that I ordered this second set because my other two blogs about the first two sets would now be misleading as I think I mentioned on thing I liked about them was how tall they were. *sigh*

So there is that... I better run!
XXOO
Heather 

Decorating The Doll House For Christmas 2018! Vintage Hallmark Mini Ornament Thrift Scores!

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!

How can it be time to decorate for Christmas already! Yet, here we are. I've been pretty excited to decorate the Doll House Christmas tree! Over the summer I found two different instances of someone who collected Hallmark Ornaments having gotten rid of their entire collections to Goodwill! I honestly didn't even realize they made mini-ornaments either. I found so many of them for like 39cents and 59cents each! Considering they cost about $4-6 new, that's quite a good deal. For those of you unfamiliar with Hallmark ornaments, they are really top notch ornaments with really perfect attention to detail. My mother collected them and while she and I don't really get along, it is one of my good memories, going to get an ornament or two every year at Hallmark. 

So here we have Josh and Vito Doll bringing in the Christmas tree and setting it up. I decided to put up both this normal green tree and am also going to set up the modern blue one in an alternate living space. Why not use both and I certainly have enough dolls to help set them up. Teehee... 

The boys also brought down the heavy boxes of ornaments! 

First the girls set up the nativity since it's really the most important Christmas Decoration. 

Jesus is the reason for the season afterall! 

This is actually a pewter nativity I bought the year after I got married in Hawaii of all places. We had a tiny apartment and so I thought it was a perfect nativity for our small space at the time! Isn't it fabulous!?

Here are the girls putting up some of the Hallmark Ornaments. They each come in a box with a photo of the ornament on it and the boxes are literally like 10x too big for the ornaments! I mean they had to have a big enough box to display on the shelf but makes for a lot of space taken up by each ornament. I still plan to keep the original boxes though because half the fun is pulling them out one by one every year and seeing the boxes. What's really fun is that the ornaments I found all seemed brand new (never removed from boxes some of them!) but they were actually from the early 90s going forward... So it's almost like the dolls have been collecting them over many years like I might've if I had been collecting mini-ornaments since I was first married. Neat!!

And here it is, all finished! The bear in the red sweater and the two wreaths are from Hallmark too!

I'll try and take some close-ups of the ornaments during the month of December but I have to run for now!

Here they all are stored over the warm months in one of my fabulous Maplelea boxes! See how many I got?! Awesomeness! 

I spread it out a bit so you can see more what I got....

Better run!

XXOO
Heather