In the Magic Talisman, the Evil Queen had raised a son, who was actually the twin brother of Eric. They had been separated in a battle, and Eric ended up raised by a farmer couple...

But the second boy, was raised by the Evil Queen as Prince Tanis...

Both twins were played by my son Nick....

 They eventually found each other, and through the old school, special effects magic, of multiple photos and a little scissors and glue, ended up fighting together against the Evil Queen...

A friend sent me some beautiful fancy laces recently, and I thought they'd make cute little party dresses for my BIDs. The laces were not that wide - just long enough for a BID skirt - and there wasn't enough to make little puffed sleeves, so they had to be sleeveless....

Sartoria is a relatively new BJD company, started by someone who used to work at Iplehouse. They started out by offering special edition heads, to fit on the larger Iplehouse doll bodies. Then they developed their own bodies for their dolls. Even though I don't buy the larger dolls, I was smitten with Jude, as Braveheart, when they released him...

 So when they released him as a Limited Edition in Fashion size, I knew I wanted him....

I had alway thought that he reminded me of Rex, my favourite Iplehouse sculpt, but when I compare their photos side by side, they are very different....

So he'll be coming to join my gang at some point.  I'm not sure how he will fit in with the existing 'family' dynamics, but I can figure that out later.

After five weeks of posting segments in my Blog, I have finally put David's Birthday story, with all 230 photos, together into Favourite Photos 2020, as four linked albums.
​Just click on the photo below to start at the beginning....

Versailles....

The three companions in the Magic Talisman had to overcome all kinds of misadventures, conjured up by the Evil Queen Silvara.....

she was played by my eldest niece, Judy, who was 8 at the time....

Queen Silvara with her trusted, companion....  the Raven....

Make a wish! 

Way back in 1987, my sister Marianne wanted to make a Fantasy photo story using three of my children, and two nieces, as the main characters. She would take the kids out on location, dressed in outfits put together from my dress-up closet.  Since it was way before the days of digital cameras, all the special effects had to be done manually by cutting the kids out of the photos and gluing them into other scenes, and then taking a new photograph.

I wrote the story, based on Marianne's ideas and photos, and together we made four books, hand colouring all the borders on all the pages.

At that time I was still making cloth dolls, and I decided to make a series representing the main characters dressed in costumes, based on what the kids actually wore, but more elaborate in the way I envisioned they could have been.

The dolls have been on display in my doll case for over 30 years, and after debating about making some room for years now, I finally decided to give the entire set away to my daughter-in-law. But before doing so, I first wanted to take some photos of the dolls in settings similar to ones in the book.

First, the three main characters....Eric, Flint, and Galan.....  

Eric met Galan, a brave Knight...

The third companion was Flint, an Elf....

She was played by my niece Kelly, and my daughter Mary would be her stand in for back views when Kelly wasn't available.  Both girls were almost 5 at the time.

The dolls have never been properly photographed, and I thought it might be fun to take some photos of them in various scenes out of the book. So I took them along this week on a little drive up into the country.

​One of my favourite photos from the book has always been the one of Eric starting out on his adventure, heading through a cornfield....

So we stopped beside a cornfield to take some photos....

Doing a bit of spring gardening....

Coming home....