Yuletide Greetings

Thank you for understanding the small delay in our holiday plans.  But we're back now with some last minute presents and gift boxes.  Because everyone needs fancy boxes to store presents.  And cookies.  The round boxes make wonderful cookie boxes.

Cookie Swap!

 The designs for the boxes are plain, and are meant to be printed out on fancy cardstock.  The human had several packages of winter/holiday themed cardstock left over from last year that were perfect for this.  To get mix-and-match lids and boxes, print the same box on two different coordinating cardstocks and just swap the lids.

Get the box designs here.

The instructions are from http://www.auntannie.com/BoxesBags/OvalBox/.  There's all sorts of cute boxes, most of which don't even need to be resized for miniatures.

And what did we store in the rest of the paper boxes?

Yes, those are Pleasant Company reproductions

Vintage and antique paper dolls.  Lots of them.  

Dating from the 1830s all the way to the 1940s.

Get the Pleasant Co. paper dolls for Samantha, Kirsten, and Molly

But going a bit back in history:  the first paper dolls were elaborately hand painted, not printed.  Paper dolls certainly weren't cheap toys, but rather expensive treasures.  The box on the left is a reproduction of a set of a French paper doll and her wardrobe from the 1830s.  The doll was double sided, as were all of her clothes and hairstyles.  This was so fashion designers and home dressmakers could see both sides of the dress should they choose to make it for themselves. 

Get the 1830s French paper doll and the box.

This was rescaled from a set of paper dolls at ufdc.org.

 'But there aren't any paper tabs to put the clothes on the doll!'  That's right.  Back in the dark ages (not quite, but close), you put clothes on paper dolls with tiny dabs of sealing wax or pins.  Tabs on paper doll outfits didn't happen until McLoughlin Brothers invented them in the 1880s or thereabouts.  You're going to hear a lot about the McLoughlin Brothers, because these were also the people who took advantage of chromolithgraphy (one of the first color printing techniques) to mass produce paper toys for children.  They're the ones who produced the original paper doll on the right.  The original dates to 1865.

Get the Civil War paper doll
This was rescaled from a set of paper dolls at ufdc.org.

The McLoughlin Bros. were known for their children's books, games, and paper dolls in the late 1800s.  We also managed to acquire a small collection of those.  First some 'themed' paper dolls:  Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes, Fairy Tales, and Little Women.  Each of these sheets has a doll and 4-5 outfits of characters.  There's also three sheets of more generic dolls, each with 3 outfits (with hats).

Ge the McLoughlin Bros. Victorian paper dolls

We hope you have a happy holiday season and a joyous Yule.

RIP Cailynn 4/23/2003-12/15/2017

We lost her yesterday.  She was a good cat.  She was a very good cat.  She was 14 years and 7 months old, and lived with us for 12 years and 6 months.  She only had one working kidney for 9 years and 7 months out of that 14+ years.  She lasted longer than anyone thought she would when she was in kidney failure in 2008.

She's chased mice (and left dead mice for me multiple times.  Once I thought it was a toy and thought didn't think we had toy mice that size, only it wasn't a toy.), watched birds outside windows, batted at fish in a tank, slept in cabinets and bookshelves and cardboard boxes and on top of every tall place in the house.  She's lounged in sunbeams on a summer's day and curled up in front a fireplace and a wood stove on a winter's night.
She slept on my pillow every night, even when I tried to chase her off.  She also snuggled under my blanket, even though that meant waking me up 3 or 4 times a night.
She had the sweetest (and sometimes most annoying) meow.
She purred.  A lot.  A little rumbling motor.
She also had 5 medical crisis, one every 12-36 months since May of 2008, and we stopped counting the vet bills she racked up.  I think it's in the low 5 digits at this point.  And it was worth it, every penny.
She was everything a cat should be, and we love her very very much.
She was very sick at the end.  It was a fast decline, in the span of a week.  It was clear it was the end, so we took her to the vet yesterday to give her an easy trip out.
I miss her a whole lot right now.  There's a Cailynn-shaped hole in my life and my daily routine.  We haven't stopped crying yet, and I don't think we will for a little while.
Bye Caily-cat.  See you next life.

Advent Papercrafting: Gift Boxes

We're back!  Are you excited for more cute Christmas crafts?  We've been crafting for weeks now getting ready for the holidays (and there's still more cute things coming up).

(We also have some sad news.  The human has a very sick cat who's been hospitalized and running up a $2000+ bill.  If you've been wanting to purchase patterns for doll books to make your own library, now's a great time to buy some from the human's etsy store.  Or ask about any of doll book patterns featured here so far.)

This time, we made a bunch of different gift boxes, some simple, some exceptionally elaborate.  The gift box patterns are all from Canon Creative Park, resized for us.  It's one of the human's favorite free papercrafting sites.

Assembling gift boxes

To resize the patterns, when you're printing them, go to the 'layout' options, and select '2 pages per sheet'.

We had a lot of fun with these, but some of the boxes were definitely more difficult to make than others.  We'll let you know ahead of time which ones are really finicky and time consuming.  The results are worth it, though.

A Christmas tree box for Christmas

1.  Floral box 

(difficulty:  easy)

2.  Christmas tree box 

(difficulty: moderate at human scale, difficult at doll scale)

The red box actually comes in three different colors

3.  Hexagonal gift box

(difficulty:  easy, with one tricky fold closing the box)

We just love the fancy paper bow on the star box

4.  Christmas Star box

(difficulty:  moderate in human scale, difficult in doll scale)

5.  Dainty gift box (Perfect for Valentine's Day in our mind)

(difficulty:  easy)

Coming up next:  Vintage/antique paper dolls and some space themed things to welcome Luciana.

If you're just joining us, the previous weeks are here:

1.  Christmas decorations and Christmas cards

2.  Christmas coloring books

Advent Papercrafting: Coloring Books

Are you amazed that the human has actually managed to post on schedule?  We certainly are.

It's time for the next five days of crafting:  some holiday themed coloring books!  You can either print out and fold these as coloring books, or cut the pages apart to make a giant stack of pages.  We, obviously, prefer the books.  These are super fast to make up (think under 5 min) and are great for stocking stuffers or decorations or props for a bookstore.  

Coloring Bonanza.  Guess which crayons/pencils actually work.

We keep asking the human for a bookstore or a library, but she claims we don't have enough books to properly equip one.  She may be lying, but if she's not, it means we'll be getting even more books next year.  (Current book tally, for those of you who are interested, is somewhere over 300, probably closer to 400, which you'd think would be plenty...)

Coloring and activity books

Download the coloring books

Instructions

Interior pages of the coloring books

The originals came from Dover samplers, and the human resized them to doll scale.  Each book has six interior pages to color (and yes, if your pencil/crayon is small enough, you can color it.  The human tried and succeeded.)

If these aren't enough and you need more coloring/activity books (or bonus Christmas themed books):

Christmas books (including a book of carols)

American Girl themed activity books

See you in five days for the next batch of crafts!

Advent Papercrafting: Decorations and Christmas Cards

Nora here.  It has been a while, hasn't it?  We finally made the human sit down and organize her photos of us, and it turns out she's got about two months worth of backlog adventures to go through.  You can expect regular updates through February, at which point we're going to have to hound the human again.

Do you like our living room?  We (that being Cauth and I) have taken it over to our own papercrafting, and we'd like to share our new projects with you this December. 

We're still looking for a theme for the last 5 days of crafts, so please leave a comment with your suggestion.

Christmas cards and decorations

It's December, so that means Advent, and we're going to have 25 (maybe with a few bonus crafts) small projects in all.  Some projects are harder than others, and we'll point those out hopefully before anyone gets frustrated.

Projects 1-5: Decorations and Christmas Cards

Our craft table is only marginally messier than the human's

The decorations (on pages 1 and 2) should be printed on lightweight cardstock for best effect. 

Tiny and cute, and currently on top of the bookcases in the parlor.

The original designs came from this book, which was part of a Dover sampler pack.  The human gets a good number of her designs from Dover samplers, if you were wondering.

Next up, the annual batch of Christmas cards.  The human hasn't started hers yet, so we're ahead of the game.  The Christmas cards are on pages 3 and 4, and should be printed on normal paper.  Fold each card in half, glue, and fold in half again.

We always use calligraphy pens for Christmas cards.

The designs are a mix of American Girl catalog pictures (from 2015, which was when the human designed these and then forgot about them for 2 years), and vintage/antique Christmas cards from the NYPL's digital collection (here).

Christmas cards, modern and vintage

Enjoy, and come back on 12/6 for more crafts.