Countdown to Halloween: Outfits and Activity Books

Nora here.  The human has been too busy to sew for us lately since she needed to get our candy and book stash under control.  When we asked her for new clothes, the human made some rather irritating noises about 'too many clothes' and 'not wearing perfectly good outfits you already own', so Cauth and I braved the depths of the storage closet for some festive clothing.

These were made in...Fall 2015, if memory serves.  The same time as the rest of the attack of the novelty Halloween fabrics.  The human has learned better since then, so we're not subject to such blinding combinations as much anymore.  (The shirts look just fine with jeans.  Novelty print capris, not so much...)

To go with the rest of our goodies, we also got some festive activity books.  At this point, we have quite a collection.  Space, Christmas, and now Halloween.  Maybe next year we'll add Valentine's Day, Easter, and the 4th of July to the list of holidays that we have activity books for.  These books contain free printables from Dover Samplers.  They're super quick and easy to make, 5 min or less for something cute to play with or give to a trick-or-treater.

Get your Halloween activity books here.

Instructions

Science Fun (part 1)

It's not every day that the human gets a day off from work, and definitely not every day that the science lab is set up for business.  And, if you haven't met me yet (don't worry, the human has been really really slow about introducing me to the world), I'm Vega.  Jaime Luciana Vega.

And we (meaning Shep, myself, and the human), have been planning space adventures.  Hence Shep's new stash of space toys, and my stash of activity books.  Now for the human to get logistics under control.  Maybe start the Space Tourism Bureau?

I'm not the only new inhabitant of (well, I want to call it the SR2 Normandy.  Raise your hand if you get the reference), but I'll go with 'The Presidium' because it sounds better than 'The Madhouse with a giant cat'.  Meet Liz, the lizard, current perching on Nora.  Next thing you know, there'll be an octopus in the neighborhood.

My new activity books are mostly made from official NASA printables, shrunk down to 1/3 scale.  All except the 'My First Outer Space' coloring book.  That one was made from Dover free samples.  We've got a nifty little 'Space Tech' activity pad, and a little 'What we need to colonize Mars' activity book.  And then we've got some color books on the latest and greatest NASA gear:  the Space Launch System and ORION.

Doll Sized:

Outer Space coloring book

NASA activity books and Assembly instructions

Orion and Space Launch System coloring books

Human Sized:

NASA Space Tech Fun Pad

NASA Surviving and Thriving on Mars

and other coloring books from NASA

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

The cookie and cake party spread

Lily frosting cakes with some unwanted help

Samantha and Nellie with books and cookies

A holiday cookie platter with milk

Cauth and Anora in a heated game of Set

Z and Shep at the dessert buffet

Kana and Lily enjoying the roll cake

and someone trying to steal a cookie or two

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.

Summer Sewing 5/5 (Nautical Dresses)

More from the 'fabric scraps from garage sales' collection:  it started with me finding that scrap of light blue fabric with little navy blue polka dots and tiny white anchors and going 'that's perfect for a doll dress'.  Never mind that there was maybe a little over a fat quarter of fabric in about 4 different pieces, some of which were 2" wide at best.  I can work with it.

A search through the pattern collection and the rest of my fabric stash, and I've found the coordinating fabric of navy with white dots, and two patterns, the Heritage sundress, and MatildaJo's 'Inspired by Zooey' dress.  Now, I definitely did not have enough fabric for the sundress as the pattern was written, so I used the skirt from the LJC Aspen dress with the bodice from the sundress, and cut those from the light blue fabric.  There was just enough of the light blue left after that to make the contrast underskirt and pockets for the other pattern.

All in all, a win.

Classic horror stories

Anora here.  These were actually the books the human made for Halloween last year.  I believe we may have fallen behind slightly in documenting the extent of our library...

None of us actually enjoy gothic horror that much, but the classics are classics for a reason.  We have Carmilla (it's a rather special novel, and predates Dracula for gothic vampires.), the classics Dracula and Frankenstein, and finally, a copy of 'The Raven' by Edgar Allen Poe.

I think we will save these for Halloween again...

Animal stories

Hello.  It's Anora.  I've taken over for Nellie in showing off some the newest novels in our collection.  I enjoy adventure stories much more than romances, so it's my great pleasure to have two of the most famous Jack London novels, Call of the Wild and White Fang.  These have the first edition covers.

I am now also the proud owner of the The Jungle Book (with the complete short story "Mowgli's Pack") and The Second Jungle Book (with the complete short story "Rikki-tikki-tavi").  These stories even have the full illustrations from the original books.  Aren't they darling?