Little Jo's Holiday Party Part one.

Little Jo wanted to have a doll party to celebrate the New Year,  but everyone's calendar was already booked full for the holidays.  So much family and so many places to go, so many cousins, so many aunts and uncle's to visit......  Ok thought Little Jo,  How about we celebrate on the Sunday after New Years Day?   Grandma thought that would be ok and started getting everything ready for the party.  The Christmas tree has always kept up until after Orthodox Christmas (the Saturday After New Years day this year) perfect!  There were plenty of Grandma's cookies left from the holidays, enough to share with every one attending the party and there would be plenty of sparkling grape juice to serve in the pretty red glasses that Grandma kept in the china cabinet to use for special occasions.  Indeed this would be a very special occasion for Grandma because she wanted to take pictures of her lovely grandchildren all dressed up for the holidays.  Everyone of the dolls would have a pretty holiday outfit too (maybe not new) but certainly a pretty outfit.  She nipped and tucked every festive piece of doll clothing she could find and managed to dress every one of the doll cousins for this festive holiday party (plus almost all of the doll friends too).

Top left is is our Kate doll, she is the Journey Girl Doll Meredith that we renamed Kate.  The pretty little out fit she has on came from a grab bag of American Girl clothes bought at a Thrift store.

The pink velvet pants, sparkly headband and jacket were among several AG items that were bagged and sold together at our local VOA store. This is called the Snowball outfit.

The pink and white shoes came from China via eBay.  If you have not bought 18" doll shoes from China you should give it a shot on one of their auctions. I do think the straps can be easily trimmed.

The Madame Alexander doll  second left on the top row is our new Nora doll.  She has a very sweet little girl face.  This doll has the same face mold as the original Nora doll.  The original doll is now residing with four year old Granddaughter Nora. 

Nora has long dark wavy hair, brown eyes and a very pretty face.

Nora's little out fit is a mix and match of clothes.  The skirt and headband came from a Journey Girl outfit,  the shirt and vest Came from China via eBay.

The black shoes are a pair of My Life shoes bought couple of years back.    There are a lot of threads hanging on the edges. Very sloppy workmanship on this pair of shoes.  They are from China too,  Via Walmart!!!

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Brittany is the doll in the middle of the top row of the cousins picture..

 Her jacket was on the Madame Alexander that was our original Nora doll.  Her little dress has no tag, it  was in a grab bag of thrift store doll clothes.  The tights are AG from the same grab bag. 

The red shoes are from China via eBay

Her neck scarf was a little scarf for a miniature dog. XS size. 

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Little Jo is the second to the right doll on the top row She is a new doll with the same face mold as the original Little Jo doll.  And yes,  you guessed right, Little Jo is now living in her forever home with the real eight year old girl that our doll was named after.  

 This doll came with the mixed pattern outfit she is wearing and pretty gold flower ear rings.

Her hair cascades with wild frizzy curls tumbling down the back of her head.  The curls are very soft and very fuzzy.

 

 Little Jo's boots were ordered from an eBay store - they are very cute and they were modestly priced.

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 The dolly on the far right top row is our Becky doll. She is named for my oldest granddaughter.  Becky is all grown up now but she will always be the precious little baby that I hold so dearly in my heart.

She has a blue sweater and sparkly skirt and white tights that came in the grab bag of outfits I found  a couple of years back at Goodwill.

Her necklace is a child's bracelet that stretches.

Silver shoes from eBay.
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Grandma set the table for the dolls to have cookies and juice.

 

The Nativity was displayed to remind one and all
why they are gathered to celebrate.

 Of course their were many more doll friends that were gathered for Little Jo's Doll Party Holiday celebration.  There is even more cousins.  They will be modeling their pretty Holiday outfits in part two of this post.

Pretty Kimberly.

We'll be back on another day to see the rest of the cousins.
 See you all real soon.

New friends and old friends
and
more cousins.

Little Jo 's Garden Party to Welcome Mattie

Mattie is the newest member of our growing doll family.  She is a beautiful African American doll with beautiful dark skin tones, deep dark brown hair that curls into ringlets, and lovely brown eyes.  I found her  buried under a heap of Barbie dolls in the doll bin at the Volunteers of America a week or so ago. Her hair was snagged into a twisted elastic hair band with a puffy pink faux flower,  it is the last remnant of her original pink ballet costume.  She came home with us and hopped right into the sink to get wiped down with a bit of Dawn Dish Detergent,  a piece of magic eraser,  and light hair wash with wig shampoo.  We sat down with Mattie and went through our patterns and the material we had for summer dresses and Mattie picked  her favorite colors (yellow and red) and watched while her new dress was cut and sewn.  Little Jo insisted on a garden party for Mattie to celebrate her new birthday with her new family.

All of the girls are dressed in their Summer Tea Party dresses. Mattie, Jimmy, Maggie and Callie have new shoes too.  Lady Mary refused to wear her new shoes.  She said she wanted to feel the grass between her toes.  Let's hope she does not step on any bees!

 Everyone was enjoying the birthday cake and glasses of iced tea.  

Each of the girls wanted to model their pretty dresses.

 Rose is wearing the lovely dress made by Angela over at Dotsydoodle.  She has a wonderful post for the Fourth of July about Matilda A Girl For All Time.

Jimmie has a new outfit that he wanted everyone to see.

We do have a few more additions to our doll family that we wanted to celebrate today too.

We have a Bitty Twin baby doll that we found a couple of days ago at the VOA and a six inch American Girl Rebecca doll.

 

That's a nice looking birthday cake candle.  The cupcakes look pretty good too.

 Bitty Twin baby Boy and Rebecca.

Thank you for joining our Garden Party today!

One more picture....... Everyone wanted to help welcome Mattie.  Doesn't Mattie look like she is really enjoying having the "Beauty Shop" treatment.

Make sure to drop by JoAnn's blog and see what her dolls are up to at Wednesday Wee Ones at Scene Through My Eyes.  

Diane is having a slumber party for her dolls over at Lavender Dreams - Wednesday Wee Ones


Have a wonderful week!  Get out there and find a thrifty doll so you can play too. You can dress her up and have a garden party out in the Summer sun!

Hugs,
Candy

Little Jo and Nora Play In The Fairy Garden

Fall clean up in the Fairy Garden can be quite a chore so I was glad that Little Jo and Nora  (Nora is Little Jo's younger sister) were here to help out.  Before we had worked too long several of the others in our doll family started showing up to pitch in and get the fairies and the fairy houses spiffed up for the rest of the fall season.  There were pumpkins and spiders, and even  a skeleton to gather up after the Halloween festivities in the fairy garden. It is now time to just enjoy a few harvest accents until it is time to decorate the garden for Christmas.  Nora was eager to wear her new Fall outfit that Grandma made this week.  Grandma also made a pretty jacket just like Cindy's only it is a different color.  I promised Nora we would let her model her new outfit first. Pretty Nora and Little Jo look a lot a like.  It is a good thing that Nora likes to keep her hair in braids or I wouldn't hardly be able to tell them apart.

Nora's Fall outfit.........

 Nora wanted feathers with her braids today.

 Grandma made leggings and a tee shirt out of a people size tee shirt that she had bought at Marc's (her favorite close-out store) for just $1.39.   Grandma said she could get one or two more outfits out of that big  tee shirt.

 We found the stick-on felt owls at JoAnn Fabrics.

 Nora's tee shirt was made from a Liberty Jane pattern that was the free download

 last week on Freebie Friday.

  It looks very pretty on Nora and it fits so well.

Becky's outfit today is the leggings from her Halloween costume and the reverse side of 

her purple spider shirt also from her Halloween costume.

Shy little Cindy has been gathering the last of the Halloween decor from the Fairy Garden.

Skeleton's are so creepy - ooh, yuk!

 Tina is wearing Little Jo's hat and jacket.  I think they are a bit too small for her.

Maggie's purple sweater looks so pretty with Maggie's red hair.  Maggie's outfit was bought off of Ebay by Grandma.  Grandma says she will make her own doll clothes from now on and save her money.

 Maggie has braided hair today,  isn't it pretty?

Little Jo was a bit late today,  she had a hard time picking something to wear.  She ended up wearing a tank top and pink shirt that Grandma had bought at the Goodwill store.  It was in a grab bag of shoes and outfits made by American Girl. All of the girls love the bright pink color and the sweet little pink heart buttons and trim.

 Little Jo is always hamming it up when we take pictures.

 Maggie is holding her own by not letting Little Jo be the center of attention for our group pictures.

Everyone needs to get into place for our group picture.

 Little Jo insisted on one more picture of Cindy and herself.

 The dolls had a lot of fun today helping Grandma trim the plants and pick off dead blossoms from the flowers.  Cindy enjoyed putting the Halloween decor away,  and we all helped to weed and prune the plants.

JoAnn's dolls have beautiful new outfits too.  You can see them  **here** .

Diane has created a beautiful outfit for her doll Ginger, you can see her **here**.   

Have a wonderful week,

Have some fun,  get out and play a little!!

Candy