The kids turned to see a big black bear looking directly at them....

"He's coming this way!"

"Everybody RUN!!!!"

They all got out of there as fast as they could.....

...leaving behind all their teddies.....and all the food.....

*Continued tomorrow

I'm working on all the fairy wings this week, but it's going very slowly. I'm really liking how the sheer blue organza wings are turning out. When I apply the glitter paint, it goes right through the fabric to the backside, so I apply glitter to both sides of the wing at once. Which means I can't lay it down to dry, but have to support it in mid air with a hemostat - but I only have three hemostats.  

So, while I wait for the paint and glitter to dry, I'm also trying to catch up with all the incomplete photo albums. I've posted 'Pink Day', 'Canada Day', and updated 'Special Days'. Now there's still ' Killarney Adventures', 'Out of Scale',  and the 'Teddy Bears Picnic'.

The children and all their teddies were having a fine time at their picnic....

Erzulie was trying to decide which donut to choose....

....and Elin was about to reach for a hot dog....

.....when suddenly there was a noise behind them, and they all turned to look....

*Continued tomorrow.

Earlier in July there was a 'Teddy Bears Picnic Day', but I thought instead of one or two 'Special Days' shots, I'd do a whole little story. And what better place to have a Teddy Bears Picnic, than in the woods up north? We found the perfect little spot along a path through the woods at the Killarney lighthouse. 

Invitations had been sent, and children started arriving with their teddy bears....

Bonnie and Elin brought a whole wagon full.....

The others were already there with their Teddies. They had laid out a picnic cloth, set up a table covered with all kinds of treats - sandwiches, hot dogs, hamburgers, and all manner of yummy cakes and pastries.   What fun this was going to be!

Tomorrow: an uninvited guest.

We just got back home after spending the last four days helping our daughter (and family) move into their new home. And of course no visit would be complete without some new photos of my adorable grandson. He's five and a half months old, and can sit on his own........

...he's discovered his toes....

...and he loves to stand...(actually he's been standing for months already)

Sorry, can't help but brag - it is a Grandma's prerogative after all.

Well, time to finish cleaning up, and then tomorrow it's back to doll photos,
 and the little photo story I promised.

One of the best things about camping, is roasting marshmallows over the evening campfire. My kids had the opportunity to do just that several times.   

Efreet really enjoyed chopping the firewood, and would haul it into the campsite in his wagon...

Before the fire was even lit, Bonnie was already getting her marshmallow ready....

Byuri helped Efreet build the fire, while Elin went to get other snacks....

Nami prepared roasting sticks for everyone else....

..and then everyone enjoyed the evening around the fire....

Well, I'm off again for a few days, and when I get back I have a treat in store 
- I'll share a little photo story we shot in the woods up north in Killarney.

There's not been much time to work on my fairy wings this week, but I think I've figured out what I'm doing.  I glued a 'test wing' and after we came home from our weekend away, I tried pulling the fabric off the wire to see how much force it would take to remove it. Quite a lot - I'd say a lot more than what the wings would get in normal use. 

I think I also solved the problem of how to attach the wings to the tiny costumes - green velcro!  I wouldn't go this route with larger, heavier wings, but for this size costume with the light weight wings, it seems like a good solution. I tried it out on the original fairy costume with the store-bought wings; loops on the back of the bodice, hooks on the wings. The wings stay on nicely.

Now I have to get ready to leave again. I think I'll take the wing patterns and wire along, so if I have free time I can form fairy wings. Then next week when I'm back I can proceed with gluing on the fabric.

A few more photos of the kids out on the rocks at the mouth of Chickanishing Creek....

And for those becoming concerned at how much time my resin kids seem to be spending in the sun, when everyone knows how bad the UV rays are for them, I took this photo while Jan was making a few last minute adjustments. The dolls get protected by an umbrella, which gets removed just long enough to take the photos, then it's put back again to minimize exposure to the sun.

The red granite rocks of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron, are one of my favourite places to visit. I love the scenery there, and took along several dolls each time we went out in a boat to explore....

I'm still working on putting everything away from the weekend. The dolls are back out already, but all the props still need to be unpacked and put away.  I always take a lot, since I never know what I'll need and it's nice to be spontaneous sometimes. However, many never get used.

The dolls did get the chance to try out the new camera that arrived last week. It's a super tiny Pentax, just the right size for my dolls. Being a 'Canon person', I'd have chosen a Canon, but there wasn't any choice. I still need to make a strap for it so it's safer for them to take along on outings.

When we were in Killarney, I decided to take the kids to the falls on Chikanishing Creek, to see if they had gotten over Elin's traumatic fall into the water last summer.  Elin seemed okay, as she proceeded to tell Bonnie and Efreet (who were not there last year) all about it...

"I don't know...I was sitting on the rocks over there one minute, and then I was in the water!"

"Oh, wow!!" You must have been so scared!!"

 "It all happened so fast I didn't even have time to panic - until afterwards. 
That's when, I realized how lucky I was that someone jumped in to pull me out.  
I couldn't stop shaking when I thought about what could have happened"

Byuri put her arm around Elin, "I'm so proud of you for being able to come back here."

We went 'camping' up north this past weekend - at least as close to 'camping' as it can be in a fully equipped RV. Jan likes to go canoeing and kayaking, and my poor arthritic body has about a forty five minute tolerance for sitting in a canoe, so I bring dolls and props along, with the hope of taking lots of doll photos while he's out paddling. I brought my six BIDs.

Marianne loaned me her Barbie camper that I made for her some forty odd years ago. It was a miniature replica of our actual family tent trailer, complete with benches, table, canopy, and license plate.  I know it's a bit small scale-wise for my BIDs, but figured it might be fun anyways....

"Get up! The sun has been up for hours, and it's time for breakfast!"

But Nami was way too comfy in her sleeping bag.   

The camper came equipped with foam mattress pads and sleeping bags, all of which I made long, long ago when I was just a teenager. Marianne said all her friends used to be jealous of her stuff, because they only had the standard plastic Barbie sleeping bags, but she had covered foam mattresses, and flannel-lined, satin sleeping bags that actually did up with a zipper!  Comfy!!!

Borrowing that toy camper on the weekend, brought back lots of memories from when we camped in the full-size one as a family. When we were kids, our parents took us camping many times each summer. As soon as we pulled into a campground, my Dad would unload the boat off the tent trailer, set it up for my Mom, and then he'd disappear with his boat to go fishing, reappearing only at meals.  We kids used to amuse ourselves swimming, exploring the woods, playing games, and I used to collect wildflowers, mushrooms and fungus.

The only camping memories I have of my Mom are of her cooking, and cleaning the trailer - sweeping it out several times per day - then sitting in her lawn chair in the afternoons reading her romance novels. Each afternoon she'd also come for a short swim, doing the breast stroke with her head a mile above water, because she didn't want to get her hair wet. We had to keep our distance and were forbidden to splash her.

Well, I thought it would be fitting to take a photo in tribute to the camping memories of my Mom. My girls don't have any bathing suits, plus they couldn't do the breast stroke even if they had one. They are also too young to be reading romance novels.....so that left one mental image...cleaning!

I think that toy camper was made the year the real one went into retirement. The license plate says 1973, which means I was 18, and that was the last time it came along on a camping trip. We had just spent two weeks at our aunt's cottage north of Ottawa, and it had rained so much, and with the canvas being no longer water-proof, it was never set up. But the wood had absorbed so much water from all the rain, that the screws popped out of the hinges holding the wooden sides on, and the tent portion was more or less loose on top.

On the way home there was some issue with one of the car tires. We stopped once to take a look at it, and it seemed okay, but a bit farther along, the tire went flat. So my Dad changed it.  A few hours later down the 401, the camper decided to have a flat too. Well, it had been imported from the Netherlands years before, and didn't come with a spare. So my Dad unhooked it, and my cousin and I were delegated to stay with it at the side of the road, as the rest of the family piled back into the car, heading off in search of a new wheel that would fit. So there we sat, my cousin and I, two teenage girls, along the busiest highway in the country.

Some time later, they came back. They had found a garage that sold tires for European imports, and bought the one they thought would fit best.  My Dad changed the tire, and off we went again. Being the nervous sort, I kept looking back to check on the camper.  It was smoking!!!  The Tent trailer was on fire!!  We immediately pulled over!  It wasn't actually on fire, but the new wheel was a tad too big for the wheel-well, so the friction was causing it to smoke. I'm sure it would have burst into flames at some point. By this time my Dad had had more than enough. He grabbed the axe, and as we stared in shock, he made short work of the wooden compartment surrounding the wheel well. Now there was plenty of room for that wheel!!!!  

We never used that tent trailer again.

But Marianne sure had a lot of fun with the toy one!