As the holidays approached, there was nothing Muffy enjoyed more than spending the cold winter evenings cozy and warm reading in bed...
...and she made sure she had plenty of delicious treats on hand....
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The dragons were finally ready to do their final decorating....  Saphira knew exactly where she wanted her banner hung  "What do you think?"  "Just a touch more to the left."  "Where do you want this?"  "Up above the fireplace, please."   When they were done, Winston stepped out for a few minutes, and returned with a bouquet of flowers....  "These are for you. It's a small house warming gift."  'Thank you!"  She put the flowers in some water, and hugged him...  ..as they stood admiring the new home they had made together....  It took several trips for Winston and Saphira to get all their belongings to their new lair....  Being in the Elfin army, Saphira had quite a collection of military trophies...  Winston thought he'd better let Saphira decide where exactly she wanted to display it...  ...but she was busy making their bed...  ...so he thought he'd better just unpack and put away the dishes....   She was finally finished....  ...and as soon as Winston was done putting his pots and dishes away, they could tackle all of Saphira's army memorabilia....  My sister and I are currently working on Winston's second Photo Album. The first one left off with him meeting Saphira and them becoming a couple. Since that book was released, the two of them have set up a home together and have become parents. The new photo album needs to start with the two of them moving in together, and I never took any photos of that. So I've had to go back and address that oversight. At the end of the first album, the two dragons both already had homes of their own, but when they became a couple, they decided they needed someplace new that would be their's together. They found a large, abandoned, storage cellar under an old ruined castle. It seemed like the perfect place, so they started the cumbersome task of hauling all their possessions. They piled Winston's cart high with as much as would fit...  And off they went...  Saphira went behind, carrying her prized candelabra and war banners....  "Stop!" she yelled. "Something's fallen off!"  Winston sighed. Moving was turning out to be a lot harder than he had expected.   And he picked up the fallen crate...  While he was at it, he thought he better check the rest of the load....   "Maybe we shouldn't have tried to take so much at once." commented Saphira.  "Nonsense!" replied Winston, "It will be fine. I'd like to get all our stuff moved in as few trips as possible."  And he picked up the cart...  ...and off they went again...  I wanted to take some 'village' shots for my story, and the only place I could think of in Canada where there might be some building that looked the right period would be in Quebec. So on our fall trip we went to the picnic area that juts out into the St. Lawrence River on the south shore east of Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies in Quebec. We actually took photos there twice. The first morning it was very sunny, which doesn't make for the best photos, but I took a set anyways. Then the following day we went again and set up the scene again and I took a second set of photos. This time we used our projector stand to give some extra surface area to the picnic table so that we could set up both tents, and I set up the scene....   I took the photos at the doll's eye level making sure the church steeple was clearly in the background.  It was quite overcast and the doll's faces were quite dark, and I'd forgotten to bring a white card, so Jan used the white photography umbrella to bounce some light onto the doll's faces...  it was very windy, and we needed a way to secure the tents. They do have loops along the bottom for tent pegs to be stuck into the ground, but one can't poke a tent peg into a solid surface - like a picnic table. So we emptied out the RV pantry of every available can, and placed the heaviest ones on the main tent pole stand, and the rest inside the tent on top of the tent pegs. The cans work very nicely, and are invisible until it's time to take everything down.... 
Inside the RVSo, where do we store all the dolls and props in the RV you ask? Well our RV, at 22' (7m), is the smallest size RV that has an actual bed permanently in the back. During the day the box with the larger props, and the horses stand on the bed. The two large tents fit inside each other and are suspended from an overhead compartment handle...  The RV has a lot of interior storage, and the cupboards over the back bed are where the dolls go. Years ago I made special doll boxes with stuffed cushions inside to safely and securely hold a doll for travel. The boxes fit three high in the overhead compartments there. The boxes get new labels each trip for whatever dolls are coming along. During the day if there's a photo shoot, the boxes come down and get stored on the bed, and they get put away again in the evening. The horses and prop box end up out of the way on the front seats at night.  the TavernI had been looking for an old stone building in the villages along the St. Lawrence in Quebec to pass as the outside of a Medieval Tavern, and we ended up at the old mill in Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies.
Up at the back where there was a stone wall along the driveway on which the dolls could stand..  The inside of the tavern was a set up at home on my dining room table...  Then with the candles lit, the photos were taken down at the doll's eye level....  Catching up with some behind-the-scene photos from recent posts..... Cathedral GroveOn our way across Vancouver Island we stopped in at Cathedral Grove, which is an untouched stand of giant ancient trees. I took Byuri and two little dragons along in a bag, as we walked the trail through the forest. We came across a huge tree that had fallen across the trail.  The fallen tree seemed like the perfect spot to pose Byuri and her friends and take a photo....  French BeachAnother spot I took advantage of a huge log was at French Beach.  The driftwood on the beach there was gigantic, and the log was just the right height for some forced perspective photos...  Serpent RiverI took all the dolls along again on another trip several months later in order to shoot additional scenes for the story. I wanted a scene of Adrian and Narin with their horses travelling in the fall, so we stopped at the Serpent River roadside picnic spot along the Trans-Canada between Sault Ste Marie and Sudbury, where I posed the dolls and horses on the rocks by the river, and sat down on the rocks. Then I directed Jan to make any final adjustments....  ...and took the photos taking advantage of the few coloured trees in the background...  With the blustery winds of early winter swirling the first snowflakes outside, Maisie Mouse enjoyed nothing more than a cup of hot tea, while sitting cozy and warm by the fire....    Not everyone can make it home for the holidays, especially those in the military...  Matias was far from home, and missing his family....  Saphira was alone for the holiday and missing her family too, so she invited him to join her for dinner....  "Here's to our families!"  "We may not be with them in person, but they are always in our hearts."  "Yes. Here's to our families."  "...and to good friends."   It was American Thanksgiving, and the kids went out to try and catch the turkey.... 
 But Tom the Turkey was a Wiley old bird....  ...and was a veteran at avoiding becoming the main entrée at every holiday feast so far.  So, try as they might....  ...they couldn't catch him....
..and it would just be veggies and hotdogs for Thanksgiving dinner again this year.  Several weeks later Aeran's letter was delivered to her grandfather....  He missed her so much.  He thought about her constantly, wondering where she was, and worrying that she was okay, so it was always a relief to get a letter from her....  The whole legitimacy of Aeran's reign when she would become Queen, and the future of the kingdom, depended on her success in retrieving the 'Heart of the Mountain' that he had given up so long ago.  |
AuthorMartha Boers is an award-winning Canadian doll maker and costumer specializing in fantasy and historical-style costumes. Archives
December 2024
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