Greetings & Salutations! I hope all is well with you as we near the end of October. A long-time friend gave me an idea for tonight’s post. Many years ago (in the OLDEN days of the 1980’s) I spent many hours drawing out coloring projects for my Kinder-Reader students. Several were seasonal and/or holiday themed. Most are still around and contained on a CD that I often have for sale on eBay. They are formatted for 8.5×11 size paper. I thought it would be fun to offer a couple here and on my facebook page (where you will find two more): facebook.com/missysimaginings

The scarecrow page is designed to be colored, cut out, and then have the pieces glued on black or dark navy paper. Enjoy!

For those who love the Tonner / Wilde Imagination Evangeline Ghastly line of dolls, you will appreciate the nightmare of having a Parnilla come apart at the waist! I had an idea for a gown last night, and woke up at 5:00am still thinking of it. So, what do you do when that happens? You shower, and get working on the pattern! After sewing most of the day, the dress was finally done and ready for pictures. Then the unthinkable happened! Parnilla was undone! Part of the mechanism that connects her was still in tact, but the part that connects inside her torso was completely apart. Here is how I put her back together.

First, I gently and firmly disconnected the clip in the torso from the pin in the hips. When I looked inside, I discovered what must be the common problem for these dolls (as many seem to get floppy with age). The ball joint that is inside the torso section rests in a ball type socket. Upon inspection, I found that the edges of this “socket” had become brittle and little pieces had broken off, thus letting the ball  fall out of it. I cleaned out the broken fragments to make sure the socket was empty and I inspected the clips for the hip section.

Next, I moved the ball to one side. I put some clear Gorilla Glue on a Q-Tip and carefully put it inside & smeared it inside the socket. Then I moved the ball to the other side and added glue to the other side of the socket as well. With the glue in place, I pushed the ball back into the socket and adjusted it to make sure it was straight. Then I let it rest for a few hours to cure. Once the glue was dry, I gently and firmly pushed the clip back onto the hip “pin” until it snapped into place.

Now it’s like Parnilla has had a small section of her spine “fused.” She isn’t quite as poseable, but she’s not in two pieces! She’s still able to stand well and look beautiful, and her bust line joint still gives good movement for natural posing. Now she was ready to model! 🙂