Tag: dolls

Memories

This is Hallmark’s 1995 Holiday Memories Barbie. She was designed to commemorate 85 years of Hallmark, who described her as wearing an early twentieth century outfit (with “faux fur”) to go shopping for holiday postcards on a snowy afternoon. I think she’s got the right idea. In these days of e-mail, texting, and easy accessibility by phone, there’s something special about getting a card, a letter, or a postcard in snail-mail. Receiving and sending cards are two of the things I like best about December.

On this day last year, The Compound was in upheaval, Tim was in Maine, and Rex was lonesome. And as always, I was thinking about my friend John and imagining what trouble he’d be charming his way out of if he were still around.

I wouldn’t forget this…

Thank goodness LJ managed to reappear so that I could recognize that today is the birthday of venusunfolding. In your honor, Johnnie, I’ve shot Jazzie (who recently played Keelie on Runway Monday) wearing a vintage Mattel coat (with matching purse) over a sweetheart of a dress made for me by my mother, lo those many years ago when no one thought it was bizarre for me to play with dolls.

And you, my friend, STILL don’t, and for that, I thank you, and celebrate your kindred spirit. Happy birthday!

I am missing my Sunday night doll posts

About this time last year, Tom and I went to the dandelion fountain to shoot some photos. I had an entire storyline in my head to share, but then I never got around to doing it. My readership is an imaginative group. Here’s your chance. What story (remember, mine is a PG-13 journal, please) is being told by these photos?


One night…

click here for the rest of the photos

A word about pink


Mattel Top Models Summer, Teresa, Nikki, and Barbie wear pink
in my designs for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The breast cancer awareness movement began when the first Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure® was held twenty-five years ago, in October 1983, in Dallas, Texas, with eight hundred participants. By 2002, more than 1.3 million people participated in races throughout the U.S. and other parts of the world.

The first pink ribbons connected to breast cancer awareness were handed out at the 1991 New York City race for breast cancer survivors. In 1993, Evelyn Lauder of the Estée Lauder Companies founded the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and established the Pink Ribbon as its symbol.

During this month, many companies adorn thousands of products with pink ribbons, color their products pink, or otherwise specially package them with a pledge to donate a portion of their sales to support breast cancer awareness and research. Several advocacy groups reject such commercialization as a marketing ploy, and question the use of possible cancer-causing agents in some of the very products sold to raise money. Even Barbie was in the middle of the controversy in 2006.

I might not buy a product specifically for the purpose of raising money (say, a pink Dyson vacuum cleaner, because for one thing, it’s out of my price range), but if I’m buying something I use or need anyway, it’s nice to know some of the money will go to breast cancer research. You already know which side I’m on in the Unrealistic Body Image Doll versus the Develop Your Imagination Doll battle. Politicize dolls if you must, but I had a step-grandmother who had a radical mastectomy and lived to be old enough for me to know her as my only grandmother. Her spirit, her love for my grandfather and my family, and her kindness to the bashful child I was, made her beautiful, and no Barbie has ever made me see her any other way.

LJ Runway Monday, Final Collection

RIP, Mr. Blackwell

At last, I present my final collection for LJ Runway Monday. It amazes me that this all began because I bought a Summer doll to use in a promotional photo for my forthcoming contemporary romance, A Coventry Wedding. It’s been wonderful to do this with Mark and Timothy, and amazing fun the way Marika supervised it all as Heidi Gunn, Greg and Rhonda took on the roles of permanent judges Miranda Priestly and Michelle Hors, all the guest judges treated it with a wonderful blend of respect and humor, and so many loyal and new readers checked our blogs every Monday to see what was new and maybe a little crazy. LJ Runway Monday was done with respect for Bravo’s Project Runway, and I think my fellow designers and I have a new appreciation for the creative processes of PR’s contestants.

I love Mark’s art-influenced and Timothy’s fashion-forward designs, and I’ve been surprised every time I won a challenge because I think they take bigger risks than I. So often when I’ve seen their posts on Sunday nights/Monday mornings, I’ve gasped with admiration. Every week, their knowledge and creations have inspired me to learn a little more and try a little harder.

Since this did all start with my novel, I wanted to finish it that way, too. So this week, my inspiration is my characters in A Coventry Christmas and A Coventry Wedding. Rather than try to create couture, I had fun imagining how these characters would dress in ways that reflect their personalities and lifestyles.

A look into ‘The Tiny Town with the Big Heart’

Birds!

Whenever anyone talks about Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, I always think of my friend Geof, who does a great impression of Tippi Hedren from that movie. You can’t imagine the self-control it took for me not to buy this* when my sister and I were on our recent trip:


I especially like the three birds who are on her.

*This does not mean you should buy this for me.
I don’t have room for it.
You know who you are.

LJ Runway Monday, Final Collection, Part 1

On the most recent episode of Bravo’s Project Runway, contestants were sent home from New York to work on their final collections. Among their assignments: Include a wedding dress as part of the collection. Style guru Tim Gunn visited the designers in their homes, then they were brought back to Manhattan to face one new elimination challenge before Fashion Week: Design a bridesmaid’s dress to go with their wedding dress.

LJ Runway Monday producer Heidi Gunn decided there was no need for the Runway Monday designers to spend our time on a bridesmaid’s dress, since all of us are showing final collections. Although she was unable to personally visit each of us as we worked on our final designs, she did send her Fashion Ambassador to check on us. Who could possibly know more about fashion than our producer and judges?

Click here to find out.

Making it count

Apparently a few Mattel Top Models were concerned to hear that the High Priestess of Plastic, Mattel Top Model Barbie herself, was looking for them backstage at Fashion Week. No worries. She’s joining Tyra Banks, creator and executive producer of America’s Next Top Model, to promote the web site declareyourself.com. On Declare Yourself, you can find your state’s guidelines for early voting; how, when, and where (including online deadlines) you can register to vote; and information about issues.

No matter what your political leanings, it’s important to be part of the process. Voting is one way you use your voice. Fashion is fabulous and dolls are fun–but the Mattel Top Models (plus Alan) agreed to model my design challenge winners and pose with Barbie’s Uncle Sam to remind you that:


ONLY YOU CAN SILENCE YOURSELF!

Thank you, Lynne, for Uncle Sam.

Runway Monday results


Summer, no doubt annoyed that I previously won with Nikki as my model, did her best for me this week–and we won! You can read what the judges had to say about each of the designs here.

Thank you to my fellow designers, Timothy and Mark, who did great jobs for:

Nikki

and Figaro
.

Thanks also to the judges for giving their time and consideration to the designs, and to Heidi Gunn for producing us.

Bravo’s Project Runway designers are now into their final collection phase, with no more weekly challenges. That means the challenge the Runway Monday designers just completed is also our last regular challenge. I’m not sure what goodies we’ll have in store for you on Monday, October 13–workroom drama? an unexpected curve thrown at us by Heidi Gunn because of something that happens on the show? a model meltdown or two?–but we’ll have our final collections ready for the judges’–and your–consideration on Monday, October 20.

Thanks for following along while we did this. It was done in fun, but it was surprisingly hard work–at least for me–to conceive of a design each week then try to make it–since I don’t know much about fashion and I don’t know how to sew! The most fun has been hearing from people–friends and strangers–who I never expected would be so amused and eager to see our designs each week.

Ultimately, I think it’s the magic of Barbie. Whoever designed these dolls for Mattel really did create models in Summer, Nikki, and Teresa (aka Figaro). I hope they’d be amused to see that their dolls are getting to model original designs. I also hope they don’t file a cease and desist against Mark for Figaro.