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I know, she may not be the most beautiful doll but I love her.  She was my Sally doll when I was a little girl.  Since I grew up she was played with, put to bed, dressed in whatever may have been laying around and loved by my niece Rachel (now 17) and my other niece Ruth (now 10) and of course she has been Emma’s for the last three years. 

She was a new dolly a long time ago (I’m 36) and after so much love and playing, she was looking…  well, a little floppy.  I had been wondering whether to try fixing her (she is old and precious and I was worried about my qualifications as a vintage doll surgeon) but luckily for me, my mum volunteered for the job instead.  I use the term “volunteered” rather loosely, of course - thanks mum! 

Here she is in the “before” shot - I’m not sure how well you can see it, but her neck and the tops of her arms and legs had no stuffing left.  It was all so compacted and old, leaving her very floppy.  She also was in need of a good bath.

 

I had to give my mum a good talking to for not taking progress shots (not even a before shot!) when she recently fixed up my 43 year old brother’s old, old, ratty teddy - who now looks a million bucks, and probably would fetch a decent part of that on eBay, not that we would, no he’s an antique teddy and I have already put dibs on him in the will.  Teddy now looks so amazing and I will definitely get a picture here soon.

Back to Sally… here she is with all her insides out.  My mum knew I wanted to blog this so she dutifully took a “during” pic for me and emailed it to me with this cute message:

 

She was soon clean, quite a bit plumper and softer and all stitched up again and home to her loving little mummy, Emma. Mum even brushed her hair.

 

I do love my old Sally doll - she may be a tiny bit ugly looking (but in a cute way, right?) and I do wish she would shut her mouth every now and then (her thumb goes in there) but she is almost as old as me and has been played with by a succession of little girls in our family and that counts for a lot.

 

I am very happy to say that my broken arm is healing well and that my cast is off at last!  YAY!  I tell you, there’s nothing like losing the use of your dominant hand (and arm) for a month to make you appreciate what you have. 

 

I did become quite good with my left hand and even managed to do some scrapbooking - there was a competition about to close that I really wanted to enter so I thought I would give it a go and I managed pretty well.  Unfortunately I can’t show you the layouts as I don’t want to jinx anything (some magazines can get funny about you showing your entries online) so nothing to show just yet.  It would be amazing to win - especially having done the entry with a broken arm!  It is the For Keeps Awards for Excellence 2007 - the main prize is to get onto the magazine’s design team for next year.

Having the cast removed the other day was actually horrendous. After cutting it off with a scary sounding mini electric saw, they then yanked my arm around to see how well it could move.  I ended up in tears and nearly vomiting and fainting from the pain.  At one point I looked up from the exam bed I was sitting on to see five doctors/nurses all standing around looking very concerned, and muttering things like “it shouldn’t be hurting that much”. 

I have to say that not one of them handed me a tissue or gave me much sympathy as I lay there gasping and crying from the pain.  Anyway by the next day it was a lot better and today better again so I am very happy to nearly be back to normal again.

Of course I am on a high now - being able to drive and brush my teeth and do so many other ordinary things much more easily again.  So I am full of resolve to not waste any time - for example I am thinking of making it a “rule” to get one of my craft books out and pick a project and complete one every week.  I love buying idea books and looking through them but I have sewn precious little from most of them. 

I am also going to do my art journal entries more reguarly again and keep my workspace tidy so that I don’t always have to tidy up a big mess to get started on something.

 

How gorgeous is this?  My auntie sent this little set for Emma (and one for my baby niece Grace) because she just fell in love with them and I can see why!  I just LOVE the name Bunny’s Bistro.  Emma loves them too.  Thanks Mickey. 

 

More regular blogging from now on I promise! 

I recently broke my arm and had a choice of colour for the fibreglass cast so I chose red. I added a transfer of my business logo and some scrapbooking rubons to dress it up a bit.

oh okay… actually I did the decorations in Photoshop - with my left hand mind you! The swirls and things are free brushes downloaded from the internet.

I tell you, I am getting really bored and frustrated with not being able to do much! I can’t believe it’s only been 2 1/2 weeks - I still have about a month of this!

ps thanks to all who have sent their good wishes for a speedy recovery!