Author Archives: Cindy Rice

About Cindy Rice

My wonderful husband, my beautiful daughter, and I live in northeastern Illinois with our two sweet chihuahua boys. For as long as I can remember I have loved dolls and making things. I got my first Barbie when I was only three years old! My mom sewed for my Barbie dolls and taught me how to use her sewing machine when I was only seven. I cannot believe she let me near that needle, but she did. Not having enough money for my clothes habit in high school and college led me to start sewing all of my own clothes. There were so many fabric stores around back then and fabric was so inexpensive. I would wait for the 99 cent pattern sale and go crazy. Sewing for myself continued well into my 30’s. (I even made my wedding gown and bridesmaid dresses.) Shortly after I got married I left my full time graphic design position and started designing cross stitch patterns. I called my company “The Lilac Studio” and sold my botanical patterns at trade shows, through distributors which sold to retail shops, and mail order. My most popular pattern, “A Bouquet of Pansies” sold 5000 copies and won a J&P Coats Golden Needle Award! I was also featured in various cross stitch magazines and designed special projects for the magazines. When my daughter was born I didn’t have the time needed to cross stitch and design patterns all day long so I let my pattern design business slip away. And then I started discovering dolls again and I now had an excuse to start buying them. The only problem was that they were for my daughter and not for me. I soon discovered all of the adult collectors out there and decided I would be one of them. I started small at first, collecting Mattel Kelly dolls. Soon I collected over 100 Kelly dolls! After Kelly, I discovered Helen Kish’s Riley and Tonner’s Ann Estelle. I have since learned to knit doll sweaters and love an excuse to knit so most of my doll outfits include a sweater and/or hat. I love creating miniature outfits for dolls and enjoy sharing them with others. Currently I create doll ensembles for Ruby Red Fashion Friends, Kish Bethany, Dianna Effner's Little Darlings, Wilde Imagination's teeny tiny Amelia, Kaye Wiggs BJD, Boneka 10", Linda Macario's Penny.

Gina Loves Rudolph, Do You?

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I had to use this “super cute” print again for one of my last 2015 Christmas dresses and Gina begged me to make it for her. Who can say no to Gina? Certainly not me!

Last year I used this print for Talyssa. You can see that ensemble here.

Gina’s sweater is knit with tan mohair/silk lace yarn. Embroidered all the way around the neckline are berries and leaves. I’ve also embroidered a few hearts because there are hearts on the dress.

I wanted to make Talyssa a Rudolph toy last year, but didn’t, so this year I was determined to give it a go. It’s a fair amount of work to draw the pattern pieces, dye the felt, and put it all together. The little faces, or expressions, are the most important part on these little toys, I feel. They have to be “super cute” and make you say “awww”. I hope I was successful…

This little guy is a two dimensional toy and stuffed with plastic bean bag pellets to give him some weight. I think Gina likes her little Rudolph.

For more information on Gina’s “I Love Rudolph” ensemble, please visit the “Shop What’s New” page at cindyricedesigns.com.

Springtime in December

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We woke to another dreary day with the rain slowly coming down, but the temperature, oh the temperature, it’s near 60ºF or 16ºC. Unbelievable! and Wonderful! Who cares if it’s raining!

Gray skies!

Raindrops on the window.

Red crabapple berries are so colorful on the trees against the gray skies. What a wonderful spring, (I mean late fall) day!

The feeder isn’t too busy this morning: sparrows,…

… a chickadee,… and a house wren.

My husband started setting up our Snow Village houses yesterday. I don’t have many, but just enough. Part of my collection is my grandma’s church and house which are very special to me.

We don’t put them out every year and we don’t have a set place for them. One year they were in the bay window and other years they’ve been on the buffet in the dining room, other years we will put a house here and there. This year my husband put an old bi-fold closet door on the desk in the family room. It seems to be the perfect size. Here’s a sneak peak at our little village.

I’ve been collecting these houses since the late 1980s. They used to be really really popular, but you don’t see them for sale too much anymore. I remember that it seemed like every Hallmark store or gift shop carried these houses and had massive displays of them.

Here’s a photo of a little tray of Santas that I have on the table in the foyer.

And last, but not least, here are Gina and Lucy sharing their special things as sisters so lovingly do. Gina is letting Lucy hold her Rudolph toy and Lucy is giving Gina her silver ball ornament to hang on the Christmas tree. ❤

Hope you all are having a sweet and peaceful weekend.

A Beautiful Beginning and a Beautiful Ending

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When the day starts and ends as beautifully as today did, what happened, or did not happen, in the middle doesn’t seem to matter so much. As you can see, the day started out with a beautiful sunrise, which I was up quite early to see.

I was in the car for about an hour and a half bringing my daughter to school and then making the trip back home. When I got home I discovered the power was out (it never is), so the garage door wouldn’t open and, here’s the really unfortunate part, I had locked all the storm doors (nope, no keys for those), so had no way to get in the house. I’ll leave out the parts about what came out of my mouth and the kicking of the storm door (to see if it would have pity on me and unlock itself), not a pretty site.

I didn’t get back inside the house until 12:30 in the afternoon (enough time to eat breakfast (or lunch), shower, and get back in the car for pick up! Knitting, sewing, embroidering, crocheting? … no, not today, I’m afraid.

And, now here’s how the day ended. It took my breath away, and made all the craziness of the day disappear.

The sunset is reflected in the windows; can you see it?

We have these cute paper houses in our bay window. You can see the roof tops of some of them in the photo above. They are super easy to put together and last from year to year. They are pinned on my “Paper Crafts” board here. Or, you can go directly to the websites where these came from: Dover Publications and welovetoillustrate.blogspot.com to print them out for yourself. Each house prints on a basic sized sheet of paper.