The children were all excited that it was their Mom's birthday, had gotten up early, and couldn't wait any longer, so came rushing into their parent's room.... "Happy Birthday Mom!'
Winston had delivered all the flowers, and Lawrence had placed them all in their private rooms. "Happy birthday, sweetheart..." "These are all so beautiful!" "Wherever did you get them?" "I had them flown in, specially for your birthday..." "Say what?? Flown?? How??" "Well, I do know a dragon...." "That was so sweet of you....." "I love them....."
Narae was busy wrapping up all the flower arrangements.... "Thanks for doing that. At the speed and altitude I'll have to fly, there wouldn't be much left of them if they weren't protected..." "No problem. It's always a good idea to wrap any flowers." "I think that's almost all of them..." "Here's the last one..." "Thank so much. I'm sure my client will be very happy with these." Winston picked them all up.... "Are you sure you can carry that many?" "Sure. This is fine. Thanks so much. I'll be back later this evening for the rest...."
"Are you looking for anything specific?" "Well, I'm here on behalf of a very important client. It's his wife's birthday tomorrow, and she loves flowers, but up in the northern lands we are barely out of winter and there's nothing blooming yet. So he asked if it was possible for me to fly down here and get some as a surprise for her." "Do you know what she likes?" "Her favourites are pink and red, especially roses. And she also loves purple and blue flowers." "Well, I have plenty of all of those..." "My client has many skills, but I doubt flower arranging is one of them, so I think I should take some of your beautiful, professional arrangements. Like this one..." "That's one of my most expensive arrangements." "That's fine. Price is no object. I'll take these as well..." "...and both of those..." "That should do for my first trip...."
Far away, in a land where flowers bloomed all year, Narae had a little shop, where she sold the beautiful flowers she grew in a field on the edge of the village... She made the most beautiful arrangements for the local nobility, as well as the common folk... She was just putting the final touches on a beautiful new arrangement.... ...when an unusual visitor arrived... "Can I help you?" "I'd like to buy some flowers..." "Well, you've come to the right place.."
I finished Smuzhka Raccoon's outfit a few days ago, so yesterday he, Ginger, and Miss Kitty went for their very first walk outside in the garden... The guy's clothes are taking an awful lot longer than the ladies. Must be those tiny fitted suits. Plus I got side tracked taking lots of photos. I did enjoy photographing these three characters, but found it frustrating how their bare resin feet constantly slipped off their wooden bases, so I ended up gluing suede to the surface of the stands to keep their feet from slipping. That should help a lot.
I'm so excited by all the crocuses in my front garden. It's been such a long dead winter, and after six long months, it's so nice to see some flowers again. Every day there's more out there - way more than ever before in previous years - so of course I had to take some more photos.
Lonnie was my very first Iplehouse KID, and arrived in December of 2012. She was given a beautiful faceup by Charie Wilson, then went on to star in many photos and stories. But by 2018 she was starting to show a lot of wear so I asked Charie to give her a total redo. Well, I'm not good with change at all, so it took forever for me to get used to her new look. She was painted lighter, and even though I'm no faceup artist and can barely see what I'm doing, I darkened her a touch. Even so, Lonnie just spent most of the last two years in the background. Until yesterday when I changed her back into her contemporary outfit, and thought she looked so beautiful after all. I guess 'absence does make the heart grow fonder'. So she's back... It's high time for her to star in some photos again....
I had a castle room all set up for my next photos shoot, and was putting together some extra flower arrangements using my vast collection of tiny flowers... Then Jan asked where they would be getting flowers this time of year with nothing blooming outside yet. And it wasn't like they could order flowers from far off lands and have them express delivered while the flowers were still in their prime. Which gave me an idea. So I raided the doll's china cabinet for every porcelain vase in there, and gathered every container off my prop shelves that could hold flowers, and a few hours later, after emptying out the castle, I had an entire flower shop set up on my dining room table.... By the time I was finished, the sun was shining in on the scene, and it was too late to take any doll photos for that day. But it made the shop look so nice all on it's own.... There's even some real plants in there, including my miniature palms and cyclamen...
Some of you may remember back in January 2019 when I borrowed some of my sister's little OOAK gnome characters, and photographed them for 'A Gnome Family's Christmas'. They are small, posable, soft sculpture characters made by an artist friend of her's. Well, she put the photo story together in book form, and had it printed. Yesterday she surprised me with my own copy.... It's so cool to see my photos in print! But this by no means suggests that more doll books are around the corner. As cool as this book is, most of my doll stories, and photo books, would need to have a lot more pages, and this book was expensive enough to produce, and far beyond what the casual doll lover would be willing to pay.
Just saying. So don't ask. |
AuthorMartha Boers is an award-winning Canadian doll maker and costumer specializing in fantasy and historical-style costumes. Archives
September 2024
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