I had fully intended to write “this look behind the scenes” post yesterday, but when I sat down to write I actually fell asleep sitting up! LOL It’s been such a busy week that apparently my body decided I really needed a nap. The thought that it would undoubtedly be a much more coherent post if I waited to write it until today kept me from feeling too guilty. I hope this inspires you to play with your dolls! You’re never too old to enjoy the magic of dolls…

Even Cleaning Is Much More Fun When It’s Doll Sized

Just like in real life, the first thing on the list of party preparations is cleaning! I started cleaning the doll’s house about two weeks prior to the party. I basically dusted, swept, tidied, washed dishes, and cleaned windows. The antique library steps that you see in some of the photos are what I use to reach the bedroom and the attic. ❤

I love my painting studio! It’s filled with windows and generally has wonderful light all day long. When the week prior to the party started to have weather forecasts that were filled with dark clouds and rainy days I knew that I might run into difficulties trying to photograph the doll’s celebration and all of the little details in their house. My solution was to pull the umbrella photo light stands, that I bought over 20 years ago from local artist and dollmaker Rainie Crawford, out of the top floor of my tack barn. At the time that I bought the lights my youngest son was getting ready to apply to several art schools. I knew that I was going to have to photograph his portfolio and thought they would also be great when photographing my own work. The lights were far from new when I acquired them, as Rainie had used them for years to photograph her own dolls and bears for the ads she ran offering her patterns for sale in the back pages of popular women’s magazines.

Getting the light stands out of the barn and cleaned up was a chore! The whole time I was cleaning them I was keeping my fingers crossed that in the end they would actually work. Thankfully they still work perfectly and they made such a huge difference! You can’t even tell from the photo images that it was a dark stormy day outside.

P.S. The lights were excellent for photographing portfolios too! He was accepted at both Pratt and University of the Arts, and chose to attend Pratt. He graduated with a degree in illustration which he has used throughout his very diverse career. ❤

Minature Baking Is More Fun Too!

An important part of every good party is food! This year I baked Joe Frogger cookies, which are a great favorite of both the dolls and mine. The recipe that I use comes from my very worn and tattered 1982 copy of Better Homes & Gardens Classic American Recipes. One of the things I’ve always loved about this cookbook is the little bits of history that accompanies each recipe. “Uncle Joe was an old man who made molasses cookies in Marblehead, Massachusetts. They were called Joe Froggers because they were as big and dark as the frogs in Joe’s pond. Fishermen found that they kept well at sea and traded them for rum, one of Joe’s secret ingredients.

Joe Froggers

4 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/8 teaspoon ground allspice

3/4 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1 cup dark molasses

2 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons rum

Beat butter with an electric mixer for 30 seconds, add sugar and continue to beat until fluffy. Stir in molasses, water and rum. Stir dry ingredients together separately then add to the butter and sugar mixture. Beat until well blended. Cover and chill several hours or overnight. (I don’t always do this. Sometimes I bake them immediately, especially when I am just using plain circle cutters.)

On a well floured surface roll dough to 1/4 inch. Cut with a 4 inch round cutter. Place on greased cookie sheet. (baking parchment paper or silpat mats will also work) Bake at 375 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Let cool about 60 seconds before removing to a wire rack. Makes 18 – 22 cookies. I often sprinkle my cookies with plain sugar before baking for just a little bit of sparkle.

The dolls also requested ice cream for their party, which turned into a bit of a challenge. Even though it was a dark rainy day the outside temperature was a steamy 79 degrees. Inside the studio the photo lights, which create a LOT of heat, made things even warmer. In order to keep the ice cream from melting too quickly on it’s trip out to the studio I took it out of the freezer then immediately placed it in a well insulated cooler with multiple ice packs. Once the lights were in place and the entire vignette inside the dollhouse was ready to be photographed I scooped the ice cream into the little bowls using a very small scoop, like you would use to scoop batter into a mini muffin pan.

If you’d like to follow Zanna’s example and make homemade ice cream, this is the one she and I always use.

My Favorite Homemade Ice Cream
This is my favorite recipe of all the ones that my mother used for Vanilla Ice Cream.  It wasn’t her favorite though, she was known to cut down on the sugar as she thought it was too sweet.  I think that it is just about right the way it is listed in the recipe.  Use very good quality vanilla.  I like ground vanilla beans or vanilla bean paste because of their added depth of flavor.

Ingredients:
1 can Eagle Brand Milk
3 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 pint half & half
1/2 pint light cream
1 tsp. vanilla
1 quart milk

Directions:
Heat Eagle Brand, eggs, and sugar in top of a double boiler stirring constantly.   While continuing to stir add half & half, cream and vanilla. remove from heat, transfer to a large bowl and add one quart of milk.   Cool in refrigerator.   Freeze in ice cream freezer.

Ice Cream Magic!

The combination of the very cold ice cream, the extremely hot photo lights, and high humidity, caused the ice cream in the bowls to start smoking like dry ice! It would have been so nice to share such a fun magical moment with you, but try as I might the effect didn’t show up in the photos.

Did you guess that the tiny ice cream spoons in the photos are antique silver salt spoons? The doll’s routinely take turns polishing them to keep them bright and shiny.

And then it was time for presents!

As I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, all of the odd occurrences and secret meetings leading up to Thursday’s party were because the dolls were busy creating presents for each other this year. ❤

The Paper Silhouette from Ismay ~ In reality this is a silhouette that I cut from parchment paper, using an x-acto knife, aged with tea in the oven, then mounted on black cardstock.

The tiny printed and stuffed kitten & hen that the sisters made for Izzybelle ~ These miniature marvels were actually made by the extremely talented Lolly Yokum of Laurel Leaf dolls. She also makes a variety of miniature cloth dolls that include amazing tiny Izannah Walker dolls https://laurelleaf.com/toys.htm

Izzybelle’s Seed Envelopes ~ The little seed envelopes were inspired by an amazing gift I received from one of my very dear friends, Sandy Conners, another very talented artist who’s original art graces her beautifully hand carved wood blocks and letterpress prints. I love these perfect little seeds packets and glassine envelopes so much that I haven’t yet been able to decide what seeds are special enough to put in them ❤ So for the time being I keep them with my favorite antique gardening implements and admire them frequently. When Izzybelle caught me daydreaming over these tiny works of art she begged me to let her have them for the seeds she’s been saving. Instead we compromised and I agreed to help her craft her own using the sweet little printed sheet of all the packet illustrations that came in Sandy’s gift. To create a template for Izzybelle’s seed envelope I carefully took apart a commercial seed envelope and reduced the outline using my office copier (I couldn’t bear to do that to one of Sandy’s). Izzybelle’s seed envelopes have red wax seals on their back flaps to hold them closed.

Charlcie and Eliza Jane’s Packets of Tea ~ The smaller one cup packets are actually tiny parchment paper envelopes that I cut with a scrapbooking die cutter. The larger packets are simply a folded rectangle of parchment paper (the actual real paper kind and not what you bake with). Both packets are sealed with red wax that I stamped with the sister’s very small antique ivory handled stamp. Inside the packets contain either dried peppermint, apple mint, or lemon balm. All three herbs were cut from the herb garden outside of my kitchen door. Normally Charlcie, Eliza Jane, and I lay the freshly washed herbs on clean dry towels in a shaded room to dry. If we are in a hurry, we lay a single layer of clean herbs on a clean paper towel and microwave them in 15 second intervals just until they begin to feel slightly dry. then place them on a counter or table to cool down. They should finish drying as they cool, if they aren’t completely dry they can go back in the microwave for 15 additional seconds. Do not microwave too long, as the herbs can burn.

Tilly Lamb & Sarah Alice’s Gift of Dried Pressed Flowers in a Gold Frame ~ This gift was really quite straight forward. It is made from flowers cut straight out of my flower beds, pressed between two sheets of white of paper, weighted down with bricks! Of course you could also use a flower press, which would undoubtedly be easier. After the flowers had completely dried I carefully used a dab of glue to attach them to yet another piece of parchment paper cut to fit the inside of a small gold painted wooden frame.

Isabeau and Zanna’s gift of a Sewing Sampler Book for all of the sisters to share and contribute to. ~ I will be writing an in-depth look at girl’s 19th century sewing sampler books in the near future as the little cloth girls begin working on theirs in earnest. We would love you to follow along, and perhaps be tempted to make one for yourself or your dolls.

The Repurposed School Book Turned Scrap Book that Cloe and I gave my Izannah Sisters ~ This was a fortunate antique find. I love the idea of someone reusing this little book to hold their treasured clippings and colorful paper scraps!

If you fondly remember seeing or making any of Rainy Crawford’s great doll patterns, you may want to look back at some of these posts: https://izannahwalker.com/2013/06/13/a-very-busy-week/ , https://izannahwalker.com/2013/06/14/flag-day-june-14th/ , https://izannahwalker.com/2014/04/16/at-long-last-an-18th-century-doll-for-my-18th-century-home/

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