I was surprised yesterday to spot a couple of crocuses in bloom in my front garden! They are the very early variety, but it's always a very inspiring sight to see those very first flowers each year....it means winter might actually be over for another year!!

On our travels south in early spring, we always enjoy the speeded up progression of spring as we head south; first the snow disapears, then dead grass slowly starts to green up. Further south the tree buds start to swell, and we spot the first daffodils and dandelions. Then there appears the pinky-purple haze at the edge of the woods - it's the redbud tree starting to bloom.....

I love the tiny little, purplish redbud flowers. The girls liked them too, 
and posed with these in South Carolina....

On a side note - the photo of Nami reminded me - I've always had so much trouble keeping her wig on straight - every photo required adjusting her bangs.  I've always used small rolls of tape to hold wigs on, but for Nami it just wasn't working. When I bought her, her original owner included a wig and a silicon wig cap. I'd always rejected the wig cap, thinking it was dumb, and would look bulky underneath, so never even tried it. But then, before our trip, in a final act of desperation, I tried the wig cap on Nami, and it was like a miracle - her wig stayed perfectly in place! No shifting every time I touched her, or put her in her box. No struggling to adjust her wig for every single photo. And instead of making her wig look bulky, it actually had the opposite affect, because it made the wig stay neat and snug in place. Then on our trip, when I decided to take Lisa out at Magnolia Plantation, I thought I'd borrow Nami's wig cap to see if it would help with the handmade mohair wig I'd brought along, and it worked wonderfully for that too. Of course, the second I took the cap off Nami, her wig slipped down over her eyes. 

So now I need to order a whole bunch of wig caps, so everyone has a nice-fitting wig.

We are nicely back home again, the sun is shining, and there's still huge piles of snow. The girls couldn't believe how cold it was, especially after their nice warm holiday down south. it's definitely not weather for bare feet and sandals! Better hurry inside and put something warmer on!

We had a good time down south, even though in many places everything was weeks behind. Last time we went down to Florida we were just too late for the azaleas and rhododendrons, so this time we planned for two weeks earlier so we'd be there when the flowers were in full bloom. But, as luck would have it, everything was way behind down there this year - just like up here - and the azaleas had barely started to bloom. Oh well, we made the best of it.

I brought along five of my smaller dolls; BIDs Elin, Nami and Byuri, and KIDs Lisa and Lonnie. Florida isn't exactly the easiest place to take doll photos, as it's hot, sunny and very windy. Last time we went, I had brought my Rosie, and she only came out of the RV once, and it was way too windy for decent photos. However, all the practice the past year and a half with my smaller dolls, made this trip somewhat more successful. It was not practical to take photos with all five dolls at once, so they took turns coming along to the various sites.

I've downloaded all my trip photos and have processed a few of my favourites...

Evening out on the beach, Gulf Islands National Seashore, Gulf of Mexico. 
The only time they were all able to come out and play together....

On the Navarre Pier, on the Florida Panhandle....

On the Beach at Destin, on the Florida Panhandle.....

Touring the Historic District of St. Augustine....

Looking for shells on the beach at St. Augustine......

More beach-combing on the beach on Tybee Island.....

...and Lisa in the old Magnolia Plantation garden, in South Carolina....

I have to admit that beach photos were the easiest - just park and take the dolls in their boxes out to the beach, set up, take some photos, shake off all the sand, and clean up again. The most challenging is taking a few dolls along on a walking tour in a city or public place. Wrapping them up, putting them into a bag, taking them out for photos and putting them back in again. There were also plenty of times when a single doll just popped out for a quick single shot somewhere. I'm still not comfortable taking photos in public, but hopefully that might change someday.  Anyway, my plan is to process the doll trip photos and post them here, one outing at a time, then put them all together into a trip album.

So now I have to unpack, and clean up, and get back to "normal routines". Two weeks away with nothing to do but eat, sleep, drive and sight-see, living in a very small space, is ever so easy compared to a big dusty house. And now that I have my computer back, that eats up a lot of time too. Well, better go put in some more laundry, and put some more trip stuff away......

Yesterday's blizzard gave me the opportunity to photograph Kyle and Aeran, as a couple out in 
the snow. I love these two, but they haven't seen much camera time since their big adventure....

Well, back to packing!  

Normally a big snowfall is cause for excitement, but today the girls weren't in the mood....

They were focused on their upcoming holiday, and it was packing day...so, as the blizzard 
raged and the snow piled up outside, they got busy gathering clothes for the trip.......

I'd made them some nice new spring clothes....

But the girls who weren't going on the trip were tired of hearing the others all 
excited about their new clothes and the fun they were going to have. So they 
went out into the blizzard to check on their snow fort...

What was left of the fort was buried deep under the fresh snow....

"I'm tired of winter. I wish we could go to Florida too."

What a difference a day makes! Today the temperature has shot up to over 13C in the shade! It's warm and sunny, the birds are singing, and you can almost stand and watch the piles of snow shrink as they melt away. Elin and Bonnie went to check on their fort and snowmen, but it was a sad sight....just a wet, dirty mess.....

And of course, tonight the temperature is going way down again as we are supposed to get yet another snow storm, with strong winds and temperatures not going above -10C. Welcome to spring!

I have just two days left to get everything ready, so I'm taking a bit of time to submit a couple of photos to Springbok's annual Photo Contest. Here's a few I'm considering.....

Today was a better day, and the sun was shining again, so I took the girls out to continue playing out in the snow. The squirrels had eaten the snowmen's raisin eyes and buttons, so we needed to replace them - but they had left the carrots. Obviously not into healthy food!

The snow was so wet and soggy, I think this will be the last time the girls get to go out and play in it. I'm going to put together an album with all their photos.

In case anyone who came here earlier is wondering, I removed everything from the second 'Sugar Bush" post, and added it into the bottom of the first one, so there would be more continuity of story. I moved people's comments as well.

Well, back to the summer clothes. I have two nice KID outfits made, and now I want to make two BID ones. I just designed a pair of coveralls, and a long top with leggings. The T-shirts that go with both of those are done and just need snaps. I'll take photos when I'm done.

The girls had gathered some tools and all their pails, and had gone outside, so I decided to go see what they were up to. Imagine my surprise when I found them around the maple tree out front.

"What are you girls doing??"

"Getting maple syrup of course! When the snow starts to melt, the sap in the trees starts to run up the trunk, and it's time to stick taps into the tree to get the sap to make syrup."

Each of the girls was intently watching their pail to see if any sap was dripping into it yet. But nothing was happening.

"I don't know if that's the right kind of maple tree, or if it's old enough to tap". Anyway, it's way too dangerous for you all up there!  Come down right away, and we'll go to a real sugar bush."

After the disappointment with the tree on the boulevard, I took the girls to a "real sugar bush" (woods full of maple trees, that are tapped for sap each spring). It was a nice sunny day, and the sap was running freely. Elin was excited to watch the sap drip into the pail

Nami and Byuri were allowed to help carry the pails of sap to the waiting sled.

And dump it into the big metal tubs, so it could be taken to the Sugar Shack to be boiled down.

It's Spring Break here in Ontario, but you'd never know it was supposed to be "Spring". Yesterday when it was a bit warmer, we built a snow fort and some snowmen out in the upper garden. It was too late in the day for photos, but today the girls went out to add some finishing touches. 

You can tell by the warm light that it's almost spring, but the temperatures don't reflect that at all. It's a good thing we went out to make the snow fort and snowmen yesterday, because the temperature did a nose-dive overnight and everything froze rock solid. Also, yesterday I was feeling a bit better, so it was fine to go out and play with the packing snow. However today I'm feeling a lot worse again, so even though there might normally have been lots of interesting "playing out in the snow" photography ideas, I just shot a few quick photos, and took everyone back inside, and that's just going to have to do. Tonight we are supposed to get more snow, so if I don't feel too bad tomorrow morning, I may take everyone back out again.

In the meantime, I'm working on some summery clothes for my small dolls. I'm using Lisa as a model for the KID outfits, but have left the BIDs in their winter wear so they can play in the snow as long as possible. However, today someone is going to have to get stripped in order to design some summer overalls patterns. Who shall I choose and deprive of any further showtime fun?

Today I have a couple of photos reworked in sepia tones to suggest vintage Victorian images....

Someday it would be nice to make some more Victorian gowns for the ladies, as well as some Victorian dresses for the smallest girls, and then take group photos of them all together - of the girls watching, or helping, their Moms or older sisters getting ready to go out for the evening.

We were away all day yesterday, having gone to visit my daughter and her baby (and the rest of the family too, of course) and got home quite late. Went to check my emails, and the Inbox was full of Personal Messages from DoA members, letting me know some Matthew Christopher Nelson was advertising "his original paintings" for a book he was planning, but the images were all doll photos he'd stolen from various websites, and he'd reworked them heavily in PhotoShop. People had taken screen-grabs of the guy's Facebook pages just in case he decided to delete them, and anyone who recognized their own, or other's photos, was reporting their images. There were over 14 pages of posts on DoA, but I figured it was too late to get into it, so just went to bed. Here's the screen grab from the very first post on DoA .....

So many people immediately recognised that "original painting" as a PhotoShopped version of one of my photos, and contacted me.  Here's the original photo, taken in June 2012, at Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta.....

And here's another composite photo someone posted of my Carina, and the guy's so called "original paintings" of one of the characters in his story....

Anyway, this morning, the guy's Kickstart Project has been suspended; "Turn the creative vision of "The Road to War" into reality. is the subject of an intellectual property dispute and is currently unavailable.", and many of the reworked doll photos on Facebook have been removed. At least, I think they have. I couldn't find any made from my images anywhere.  Looks like the Ball Jointed Doll comunity rallied together in support of each other yesterday, and forced a shut down of a blatant copyright infringement. 

So, what can we do to prevent our photos from being pirated? Some people suggest adding substantial watermarks onto any photos you post on the Internet. But this guy just cropped around them, or PhotoShopped over them. So unless one slaps a watermark right across the doll's face, it won't stop most people, and what's the point of even posting a photo of a doll with it's face hidden with an ugly watermark? I hate the look of a watermark, so won't be adding any.

For anyone wanting to learn more, here are all the links;
1 - DoA - Another Artist using Doll Likenesses without Permission
2 - the Kickstarter Page for the Project these images were intended for
3 - the "Artist's" Facebook page

Well, the day is already almost half over, and I've done nothing yet but look into the copyright infringement stuff. And I'm coming down with a cold, so don't feel that great. Time to make some lunch, and then do some hand-sewing on the outfits I started two days ago.