Happy Lunar New Year from Kana and co.

Kana here.  This past Thursday was the Lunar New Year, but we didn't have time to celebrate it until now.  It's traditional to wear red for good luck and to get new clothes for the new year.  I think the human spent this year sewing Valentine's Day outfits, but she promises to have proper New Year's outfits next year.  In any case, I've finally found the perfect occasion to wear the red-and-gold dress of doom...I mean, Felicity's gala gown...

We also have some printables to share with you so your dolls can share the Lunar New Year fun.
Red envelopes and money
Chinese New Years's coloring pages

While the human was busy making food for a dinner party with other humans, we took over Tyson's with a proper feast.  These were originally keychains, but they're the perfect size for us.  We have rice bowls with salmon and eel and caviar and all sorts of noodles.  We'd like some dumplings too, but the human hasn't found any for us yet.

The best part, of course, are the red envelopes that your relatives give you.
 It's called 'ya sui qian' or 'suppressing age money' since everyone turns
a year older on the new year.  

Sharing the loot evenly.  Thank you, human.

Kana:  How much did you get?  Can we afford to furnish the parlor yet?

Nellie:  JACKPOT!  I mean...yes, we can get a parlor set now.

And, just for fun, we made up some coloring pages to celebrate.

Playing in the snow

A Mice Truffle Assortment

Kana here.  We (mostly me and Shep and Elsa because Sam and Nellie are too polite to pester the human) finally got tired of watching the human eat her chocolate truffles that we demanded she make some for us too.

Instructions for doll sized chocolates here.

These are the human's favorite truffless

This is what the human made us.  Aren't they adorable?
Not edible though.

A box of chocolate mice.  In three flavors, even.

The human made more truffles for us, enough that we could open our very own chocolate store.

So we did.

A complete truffle collection

We even had a customer
Not shown: when said customer jumped onto
the counter and knocked over the display.

Snow Day Arts and Crafts (Free Valentine's Day printables)

Hi, this is Samantha speaking.  Or rather, writing.  Nellie and I took over a table at the local generic restaurant (in a place that looks an awful like Tyson's but serves more than just ice cream) to escape from the snow today.

We brought some Valentine's Day activity books and coloring books with us.  Each little book has 6 pages of puzzles and coloring pages, and the front and back have prints of vintage valentines.  We also brought extra coloring pages in case we finished everything else.  They're of really cute cakes and chocolates and desserts.  Our human found the images from the Dover samplers and scaled them down for us.

We also brought our new scrapbook and filled it with vintage Valentines that we found.  The scrap book was made by cutting two sheets of card stock into 8 pieces each, punching holes in them, and tying them together with a piece of ribbon.  The front and back covers have metal eyelets for a bit of decoration.

And finally, because there's nothing like hot food on a cold day, Nellie and I had bowls of ramen with pork.  (And cakes, because our restaurant serves whatever we want.)

Tomorrow's supposed to be another snow day in the Northeast, so we'd like to share our valentines with you.  

Coloring books and vintage valentines: here.

Instructions for folding the books:  here

1940s Valentine's Day Jumpers

The snow days are letting me finish a few more sewing projects before Valentine's Day.  I think this in fact may be the first time I finished all the holiday themed dresses before the actual holiday.  Samantha and Nellie are wearing jumpers made from a Dollies Dressmaker 1940s pattern by Simplicity.

Nellie's outfit consists of a blouse made from a gold glitter fabric and a jumper of mixed pink hearts and gold glitter.  The straps of the jumper have pink braid trim applied.  The blouse is plain except for a tiny satin rose at the throat.

Samantha is wearing a blouse of white glitter fabric and a jumper of red hearts on a black background with lace ruffles at the shoulders and at the hem.  The blouse has a bit of decorative ribbon trim and several rows of pintucks (unfortunately hidden by the jumper).

The only complaint I had with this pattern was the final finishing step.  At some point, I was trying to sew through 6 or 8 layers of fabric, and my sewing machine was complaining about it.  I'll have to see how to do up the back in such a way that doesn't cause that to happen.  Also, the interfacing is totally optional.  The waistbands look just fine without it.