Blog Archives

Pirate Month

9/28/2024

August was International Pirate Month, and Captain Hook and some of his crew had come ashore to dig for treasure.

The Captain's first mate had secured the map that had led them to this secluded beach...

...and they had found the treasure exactly where it had been marked on her map.....

The quartermaster was in charge of loading the treasure into the longboats ...

"Make sure you take every doubloon," ordered the Caption.

"and don't leave anything behind!"

"Yes Captain!"

"We'll get it done Captain."

"You better!"

'Well, this boat is full. Time to take this load back to the ship."

But the two cabin boys were distracted by the colourful tropical birds...

*PS - I'm going to leave you here with the Captain and his crew for now, as I'm taking a short break from my computer for a little while.

In the Rainforest

9/27/2024

June 22nd was National Rainforest Day, and Byuri and two of her little dragon friends were exploring the giant old growth trees in the Cathedral Grove rainforest on Vancouver Island....

Just a few photos of my doll furniture collection along the wall of my basement photo studio. It first started out years ago as a single book case, but expanded over the years as my collection grew. The shelves house all my furniture and medium sized props. All the smaller props are stored in labeled boxes on the main floor.

The corner shelves in the basement used to house toys for our kids, and then our grandkids, but most have moved on, and my doll furniture and horses are slowly taking over.

I forgot to take a photo of the three other horses (the most often used ones), all the styrofoam castle pillars, and my collection of doll size carpets stored on an old dresser on the other side of the room. Oh, and there's boxes with picnic tables (3 sizes), bicycles, and lobster traps, and an OG car stored under the photography studio table.

Behind Naomi's Birthday

9/25/2024

I shot all the photos for Naomi's birthday in April. But then when I started posting the story four months later, I realized there were important scenes missing, especially with the sewing machine. The initial photos went from the surprise to the hug....with nothing in between....

I felt I needed more photos to fill in the story, and that meant setting up the entire scene all over again. Every detail had to be identical in order for the new set of photos to fit seamlessly into the first set. The bed covers needed to be the same, the pillows stacked exactly the same way, Naomi's robe draped the same way on the chair, and in the scenes after she'd opened the first two gifts, those had to be positioned exactly the same way on the bed.

And I had to find new pink ribbons to tie onto the sewing machine that would resemble as closely as possible the ones in the first set of photos. Then an entirely new, additional set of photos was taken to fill in the scenes where Naomi reacts to the sewing machine, and sits down to take a closer look....

And while I was at it, I also took additional photos I'd not considered months earlier. Like the children hugging their Mom...

...as well as a more intimate photo of Baron and Naomi first thing in the morning...

Photo taken in April...

New photo taken in August....

The new photos fit seamlessly into the story. The only discrepancies in the photos were the heights of the candles in the background, which I wasn't even going to try and deal with. And I realized that I'd forgotten to put Baron's boots at the foot of the bed the second time. But otherwise everything else was perfect in Naomi's Birthday.

Calendar Update

9/24/2024

Just a quick note to let everyone who has ordered a 2025 calendar know that there's been a bit of a delay, and I won't have them until after Thanksgiving, in mid October.

And for those who would still like one, it's not too late to order yours. I'm offering two different calendars this year...

Stories 2025

Fantasies 2025

They will cost $25. US each plus shipping. To get a better view of all the photos in each calendar, go to Books & Calendars in the header at the top of the page.

Behind Agnes in the Garden

9/24/2024

I take all my exterior 'garden' doll scenes on the table on my backyard patio. Right now it's late September and the garden is starting to fade into fall...

But all the photos of Agnes and Matias in their garden were taken in August, when everything was much fresher. Every spring I always buy several baskets of million bells, with their small in-scale flowers, to serve as background for my doll's 'gardens'. I set up a scene, with the upper garden and urn in the background, but then the dolls are backlit because the open sky is behind them. So a white card is always necessary to bounce light onto the dolls, and because the table isn't big enough for something to support the white card, I always need a volunteer to hold it for me...

The white card bounces light onto the dolls. Unfortunately the pillar in the background isn't tall enough so I have to extend it higher in Photoshop....

The scene with Agnes visiting Naomi also needed a white card. But I'd gotten tired of always having to extent the top of the pillar, so Jan added an extension to the top...

I take the photos using forced perspective, but that still has certain limitations to consider. I need to take the photos close to the dolls in order to make the urn on the pillar in the background look a reasonable size, but then the pillar (and everything else including the dolls) will start to flare out towards the sides. But if I get further back away from the table to get a better view of the dolls, and then zoom in, the urn on the pillar starts to become too big and somewhat out of scale.

Little Ladies

9/23/2024

The girls gathered round their Dad to get a closer look at their new little sister sound asleep in his arms...

"She's so cute!"

"She certainly is." agreed their Dad.

"Well, with another little girl in the family," noted Agnes, "you've definitely become outnumbered as the only man in the house."

"I was already." smiled Matias, "And that's fine..."

"As a father I couldn't be more proud of these three beautiful little ladies."

Big Sisters

9/22/2024

Agnes passed the baby to Matias....

...so she would be free to hug her other two girls...

"I love both of you so much."

"And I just know you are going to be the best big sisters ever."

the New Arrival

9/21/2024

A few days later the time had come and Agnes sent for Matias. Their baby arrived in the night, and in the morning Matias brought Olivia and Mika in to meet their new little sister....

who was fast asleep in her mother's arms.

"She's so cute!" exclaimed Olivia. "She's a little elf, just like Mika!"

Yes, the new baby was another little elf....

"We've named her Gabriella,"

"And we'll call her Ella."

Becoming Friends

9/20/2024

The cookies had done the trick, and the children started interacting with each other.

Daniel picked up his favourite teddy to show Mika....

...while Olivia helped Fiona build her tower of blocks.

Naomi was happy to see the children starting to play together. She knew how important it was for them to have some friends, but there were no other young children in the castle, so she had hoped that Daniel and Fiona would become friends with Agnes' girls.