Tag Archives: BJD

“Garden Delights” & “Nature’s Surprises”

I hope you all are having a great summer weekend. We are enjoying beautiful summer weather here in northern Illinois. The humidity is low, the sun is shining, and for July the temperatures are staying on the cooler side.

Yesterday, I got my promised Mother’s Day visit to the Chicago Botanic Gardens. We usually go either at the beginning of the growing season or towards the end in late August, so this time was a little different.

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Today I’ll show you the photos from our first stop at the gardens. Please excuse the quality of my photos; it was a very sunny day. The Butterflies and Blooms exhibit was moved this year, so we actually noticed it and decided to check it out.

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This exhibit is a large screened in enclosure with butterflies flying all around. Flowers that butterflies particularly love are planted everywhere.

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The butterflies will land on you too. I was told that they seem to love white the best. I was wearing a darker colored top, so they left me alone, but landed on my daughter’s shoulder.

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These little feeding stations are set up throughout the exhibit. I think these two are dining on banana.

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The chrysalises are purchased and hung on wooden dowels until the butterflies emerge. Here is one that is almost ready to fly free.

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This visit to the Butterflies and Blooms exhibit at the Chicago Botanic Gardens was perfectly timed (not planned though) to show you Talyssa and Gracie’s new ensembles. I don’t usually make two at the same time for Kaye’s MSDs, but the fabrics are from the same collection and begged to be made into coordinating sets, so I did just that. I hope you like them. By the way, both sets are the same size so can fit both the 17″ and 18″ MSD bodies.

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As you can see, Talyssa found her own butterflies in the garden.

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And Gracie, found a little house wren that she befriended.

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Gracie’s “Nature’s Delights” and Talyssa’s “Garden Surprises” ensembles will be available tonight (July 10, 2016) at 7:00 pm CST, cindyricedesigns.com. Check the “Shop What’s New” page at that time for more details.

“Heavenly Hydrangeas”

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I love hydrangeas! I cannot grow them, but I love them all the same. I see hydrangeas blooming in neighbors’ yards seemingly without any extra care or attention, and they are so BEAUTIFUL! They don’t even want to grow for me, much less bloom. I did have one hydrangea??? grow for me, but the blooms were so tiny and not at all hydrangea-like, so I question whether it was a hydrangea or not. And, the fact that it actually grew leads me to believe that it was mistakenly marked as a hydrangea and NOT a hydrangea at all. Oh, well. . . maybe one of these days I’ll get lucky. I surely won’t give up!

My daughter brought home a couple of cut hydrangea blossoms for me the other day. The blue color reminded me of a dress that Sugar has been wearing for a couple of weeks now. I couldn’t decide on the embroidery to get it finished, so it waited for me to be inspired.

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Aren’t the blossoms gorgeous? And don’t they match Sugar’s dress perfectly! They were just the inspiration I needed. Sugar is one happy little Pukipuki.

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Clusters of colonial knots worked perfectly to give the feel of a hydrangea bloom. Since I love both pink and blue hydrangea blooms equally, I decided to use both of these colors along with white in my embroidery.

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“Heavenly Hydrangeas” will be available tonight (July 7, 2016) at 7:00pm CST, cindyricedesigns.com. You can find more information on this set at that time under the “Shop What’s New” tab.

Bye for now!

“Cutie in the Garden”

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Look who was roaming around the garden yesterday! It’s Millie, my Kaye Wiggs 11″ BJD.

Millie wanted to have her photo shoot in the grass, and surrounded by flowers. I said okay, even though it’s physically harder to take photos “way down there”. I thought I’d give it a shot though; I didn’t want to disappoint my tiny Millie. I found the perfect spot in the shade of our apple tree and gave a small patch of lawn a hair cut, so she wouldn’t get swallowed up by grass. I brought out my yoga mat to lay on, but sitting on the grass was the perfect height. I was actually quite comfortable once I got situated.

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You might recognize this fabric. I used it for an ensemble for the Little Darlings earlier this year. Here is Lucy modeling “Pink Happiness” in case you want to see it again.

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Millie’s little cardigan is knit with blush pink lace weight baby alpaca/silk yarn. It’s super soft! Ivory/pink roses pink up the background ivory of the dress. I added a tiny bit of pastel sky blue embroidery. It’s in the print, but is very light.

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Millie’s headband includes a crocheted ivory rose made with very fine cotton. A hand made bow is tucked underneath the rose for added prettiness.

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I haven’t used my park bench for a photo shoot in a long time. I used to use it all the time when Bethany was getting lots of attention. The seat is a little deep for Millie, but she tried very hard to sit up straight for me.

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Millies is such a feminine little miss, isn’t she?

“Cutie in the Garden” will be available tonight (June 28, 2016), 7:00 pm CST at cindyricedesigns.com. At that time you can go to my “Shop What’s New” page for more information.