While working on the books, it became clear that most of the little stories involved Nyssa, her friends, and cousin Holly. But what about Eric? Did he not have any friends? Did his cousin Coco not ever come for a visit?  And what about Steve?  What did he do all day?  So, I need to address those questions and the first step involves making a few Victorian boy outfits. Then I can take some new, additional photos for Iris' photo album.

It was a challenge to choose furniture to display the cakes, and the walls needed something, so I took photos of groups of cakes to print out as posters in her shop.

I have quite a large collection of mini cakes, many of which were made over the years to celebrate each of my Iplehouse children's and other small doll's arrival dates.

And some were made just to be fancy desserts....

I used as many cakes as would fit....

I put together a tutorial several years ago, describing how I made some of the actual cakes...
Miniature Cakes

But I didn't want to just make a larger version, so chose another of my favourite butterflies - the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.  I made the wings first, by forming the shapes out of wire, and gluing pale yellow cotton onto the frames, and painting them. Both sides of the wings are painted identically, even though in real life the butterfly wings would only have looked like this from the back. The real wings are a dull, muddy colour underneath, which would be the side facing the front of the doll. I didn't want that, so went against accuracy, and painted both sides the same.

Then I needed to come up with the embellishment design for the underskirt. Due to my astigmatism, and the resulting tendency to always make any straight line go off crooked to the side, I drew on the embellishment lines with a friction pen, so they could disappear later with the heat from my iron after I was finished. The lines sure helped!

I used five different fabric flower petals, and ten different beads....

After lightly pressing from the back, the lines disappear....

The main dress is black, and the overskirt is also beaded along the edge...

There is a lace collar, more flower petals, and beading at the neckline. I had cut the bodice too short at the waist, so had to add a black satin ribbon to extend it...

I still needed to come up with a way to attach her wings....

I hot-glued the two sets of wings together, covered the join with a strip of black fabric, and stitched on a huge black snap. The corresponding snap was stitched onto the back of her bodice.

Unfortunately, due to the endless rainy weather, I've yet to take photos of Lily in her finished costume in the spring flowers. Hopefully the opportunity will be coming soon.

"This one is gorgeous. But it might be a bit too big. We are just having a very small wedding."

"I can make it any size you want."

"How about this size?"

"Yes, that's a better size."

"But decorated like this one."

"Yes, it's all ready."

And she went to fetch it...

"Here you go..."

"I hope you enjoy them."

"Thanks. I'm sure we will."

"Everything you make is so delicious."

There was nothing like a happy customer.

"I think I want to get these." 

Holly had made her decision as well.....

Big sister Lonnie came along as she was curious to see what they would buy...

There were so many wonderful things...

It was so hard to choose....

"What about this book about dinosaurs?"