The Iplekids Yahoo group that I belong to, is starting an 'Out of Scale' game for the month of July. We are to post photos of our dolls with items, or in settings, that are out of scale. The first person chooses a theme - flowers, food, technology, summer fun, sports, whatever - and after five photos are posted with that particular 'out-of-scale' theme, the next person gets to change it. Sounds pretty easy, but I've trained myself to try make my dolls look like they always are in scale. 

I thought I'd start with a flower photo. I chose Elin because I wanted her to actually be out of scale with the huge flowers for a change. When she was a fairy, it didn't matter how big the flowers were, since all of them would be in scale to a fairy.  But as a real girl, the same flowers would be out-of-scale.  So here she is with one of my hibiscus flowers.....

My group of little BID children is growing - I've adopted a brother for Erzulie.  Last night I went to take a quick look at some of the doll forums, and someone had just put up a light brown Efreet BID for sale. He is one of the four original BIDs that were released as part of the Elemental Guardian series, and they can only be ordered thru the Doll Choice system.  I was actually thinking of getting him if Iplehouse held their 'Doll Choice at Basic Price Event' event again this coming Christmas, but there he was at a price I couldn't resist. So I bought him.  Now I'm seriously going to have to make some little boy clothes!

Well, we are into a mini heat-wave, and it's already 30 C in the shade, with Humidex around 40 C. Later this week there is actually a 'Fry an Egg on the Sidewalk Day', and since it's supposed to get worse out the next couple of days, I figured I might as well let my dolls test out the theory today - before the egg isn't the only thing that gets fried out there.....

Seems to be working just fine! 

Ringo was even clever enough to bring out a little carpet to protect his knees so they wouldn't get burned, and he also brought some salt and pepper - just in case the dirt and gravel  on the sidewalk aren't seasoning enough.  Yummm!

I recently found some very nice, tiny maple-leaf prints at Fabricland, and bought a 1/4 metre of two of them so I could make some 'patriotic' sundress sets. Bonnie likes her's so much that she's already wearing it, even though Canada Day is still two days away.   Hope she can keep it clean!

Someone on the DoA  JID Discussion thread asked what was everyone's favourite JID girl, which got me thinking. I don't know if I actually have a favourite, but it might make for an interesting group photo, especially if I put plain contemporary Leona in the middle among the other four elaborately dressed fantasy girls. I can just imagine them giving her the once over - like what are YOU doing here with us?!?! Except for Asa, my Queen of the Night, who would be too aloof and self-asured to care....  so, for the very first time, all together....my five JID girls.....

All five girls were painted by my friend Charie Wilson Grenier. Four are Special Real Skin, while Kassia is Normal. The two on each side have the 'new' girl bodies, while Leona has Asa's old one, which is the original JID girl body, and is a touch shorter.    Definitely an interesting group!

There was a 'Cow Day" last week, and like usual lately, I'm a wee bit behind with my Special Days photos. Oh well, better late than never!  I saved most of my kid's Fisher Price toys from years ago, and now my grandchildren play with them. I'm finding the old toys are coming in very handy nowadays for doll photos - monkeys earlier in the week, and today cows.   

So, some of the girls had the chance to play 'farmers' this morning. 
Nami liked the Richard Scarry cows..... she thought they were especially cute....

I'm not sure if 'Cow Day' is just for the female animals of the bovine persuasion, or if all cattle count, but Byuri was keeping a close eye on two big bulls, not sure what they were up to...

Seems they just wanted to join in the fun....

Happy Cow Day!   Moooooo!

Today I have to alter a birthday present I bought in New Orleans way back in the spring, for my granddaughter whose party is tomorrow. Then I have to finish some patriotic sundress sets for Canada Day, and of course, take more photos. Then I have to fit in a couple of simple BID Renaissance dresses for a special photo shoot for mid-July, and then I can finally get back to my last two commissions. 

Earlier this week was 'National Pink Day'. I had been meaning to take a photo, but with all the rain we've been having, I wasn't going to take everyone outside.  But today was a lovely day, so we had our 'Pink Party'. Everyone dressed in pink, and Byuri even tied pink ribbons on the puppies.....

They blew up lots of pink balloons, and had a Pink Party....

I'm so glad yesterday's photo issues were just a temporary blip, and that everything is back to normal again. With the endless rain and humidity, and then the Weebly issues, I was seriously losing interest in taking photos. Well, the photos are working again, and it was very nice weather today. Tomorrow will be as well, and then we are heading into a really hot humid spell. So I have to take as many Special Days photos as I can tomorrow, before it gets too hot and muggy. 

I finished the five new KID sundress sets a few days ago, but it's not been good weather for taking photos. Yesterday was terribly warm and humid, and I saw the field with clovers had been mowed, so now I have to wait until they regrow. Today it's all wet and rainy, but I did take two of the girls out into the light drizzle for a quick photo.  Here's Lonnie and Lisa modelling their favourites....

I made two new Favourite Photos albums first thing this morning - one with all the Flower Fairy photos, and a second with the new Special Days.  Just click on the photo below to go to the Flower Fairy album...

Edited 06/26: Yesterday Weebly made several changes to their website programs. They removed the Columns option, and changed several of the Basic Tools. As a result of the new changes, all the images that were uploaded were impacted, showing up way larger, and out-of-focus. After trying several times to find a way around the problem, I finally contacted Weebly. They told me their developers were aware of the problem with the image sizing and were working to fix it. Today everything is back to normal. At first I thought I'd leave yesterday's post as it was, but I just couldn't live with the super-huge, out-of-focus images, so have edited my post and replaced the photos with proper sized ones.

Today is 'International Fairy Day', created by Jessica Gailbraith for "believers, collectors, and the young at heart, to celebrate all that is Fae, and reconnect with their imagination and child-like wonder". 

So what could be more appropriate than more photos of my lovely little flower fairy, Elin?

Taking flower fairy photos is so much fun! Everything in my garden is way too big for contemporary little dolls, but with fairies scale goes right out the window. Everything works! From the biggest flowers, to the smallest, they all work with fairies. 

I'm tempted to get out my Cecily M Barker Flower Fairy books and make several more of the little fairy costumes. But, I need to keep the remaining butterflies for a mobile project, so would have to make all the fairy wings from scratch, and I have several other time-sensitive projects on the go at the moment, so really can't spare the time for more fairies. At least not yet.

Saturday was 'Monkey Day', but of course I was too busy out and about taking flower fairy photos, so didn't get around to it. So today I let Nami and her sock monkey venture into the jungle..... ......where they spotted three silly simians, monkeying around in the trees....

Today Iplehouse announced the winners of their three-month long photo contest. They chose the top ten from each month, then chose the top three from those thirty. None of my submissions for March or May made it, but they did choose one of my photos that I submitted in April, as one of the top ten that month...

....my 'Thomas Crapper Day' photo, with the girls lined up at the outhouse.....

I didn't think there was much chance of winning, so imagine my surprise when, in addition to the top three winners who will be getting free dolls, they also decided to give six 'consolation' prizes, and my outhouse photo is one of the three winning $50 towards our next purchase! 
Not so crappy after all! 

I love flowers, but the ones in my own garden are way too bog for doll photos, except as fuzzy shapes in the background. So I'm always on the lookout for patches of wildflowers that might be suitable for doll photos. First in spring, there's the orchard with blue scillas, then the retirement home and high school with the dandelions, and now after all the fields with dandelions have been mowed down, it's a whole new crop of mixed wildflowers; clover, vetches, black medic, scarlet pimpernel. The field beside the Baptist church was solid yellow with bird's foot trefoil, but they mowed it recently, so I'm waiting for it to recover. I love the masses of scarlet pimpernel, but so far I've only seen it right beside the road, where there's no way I'm taking doll photos. I want somewhere much more private.

So yesterday, as we were driving past the Metro plaza, it looked like the spill basin there had white clover. That's a nice private spot at the edge of the plaza where almost no one parks. But it was a clear, cloudless day yesterday, and bright sun is bad for doll photos, so I waited until evening when the sun would be really low in the sky. The soft filtered sunlight is very flattering to dolls.

The spill basin floor was a carpet of white clover, perfect for fairy photos.....

I spotted a flower fairy in my garden this afternoon. She was checking out all the 
biggest flowers, and visiting with the bugs and snails.......so I took some photos.

It was fun to be able to drop everything, and yield to inspiration, and quickly make a little flower fairy costume, then take photos with the flowers that inspired the idea in the first place.  I love the last photo with the giant amaryllis flower. I have a few more ideas for fairy pictures, and hope to take some later this evening.  

I chose Elin to be my Flower Fairy, and gave her the cute little, curly blonde wig I purchased for Ringo for when he's doubling as a girl. She looks adorable in it!  I seriously need to make more of these little fairy costumes some day!