Shabby Chic Bookshelves

The best thing about having a human who loves to craft is the number of books we get to have.  The worst thing?  Running out of bookshelves.  Which we have done.  Frequently.

But this time we have finally found a solution!  My new bookshelves are made from the little wooden crates from Michaels, the ones that are a dollar each, but you can get for cheaper with coupons.  It's 12 crates in all, glued into a stack of 5, a stack of 4 and a stack of 3, and then painted white.

They fit perfectly next to the fireplace, and the shelves are just big enough for doll-sized fiction books that the human makes.  We're starting to collect Newbery award winning books this time.  Once we get more, we'll start doing book reviews.

And after much complaining, we finally have Harry Potter books.

1960s Dresses and other projects

Wren*Feathers has been offering free 1960s dress patterns for AG dolls based on old Chatty Cathy outfits for the last few weeks, and if you make one or more outfits from those patterns before January 1, you can get two more free patterns.  So of course the human had to do this.  And so Sam and I are suffering through the latest bout of sewing.  Because you see, when the human tries out new patterns, she uses random remnants from the stash instead of the nice fabric that we know she has.

I'm wearing the Chatty Cathy smock dress (free pattern here) made in a lightweight turquoise corduroy.  The pattern came together really easily.  For the sleeve cuff, the human used the sleeve cuff from Samantha's Pleasant Company patterns.

 And Sam is wearing a pink cotton blouse (vintage Japanese cottons) and a floral stripe corduroy jumper (free pattern here).   think I got the better deal, honestly.

The human was busy doing other things instead of throwing us a Christmas party, but we got our fair share of loot.  Those are all the new books we got in the last week. 

From left to right:

• Jane Eyre
• Pride and Prejudice
• Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of the King, The Hobbit
• A Little Princess, The Secret Garden
• A Girl of the Limberlost
• The Wizard of Oz, The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, The Road to Oz, the Emerald City of Oz
• Peter and Wendy
• Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
• Robin Hood
• The Boxcar Children
• Little Women
• The Baby's Opera, The Baby's Own Aesop, The Baby's Bouquet (we got them for the wonderful illustrations by Walter Crane)
• A Floral Fantasy (another volume of Walter Crane illustrations that doubles as an herbal)

At this point I can safely say that we have every book that Pleasant Company/Mattel ever made for us historical girls.  And then some.  A good number of these books will show up on Etsy come the new year.

And R2-D2 is holding onto my new lunchbox for me.  I think he'll give it back.  Maybe.  Droids don't need food.