Howdy, howdy, Internet-Land! I hope all is well with you on this 27th of August! It’s hard to believe summer is soon coming to its close. I think I really need one more camping trip here in the near future! Let’s see ~ I guess I’ll start with a quick re-cap. The last two weeks have been filled with work, physical therapy twice a week, doll clothes sewing, and two back-to-back doll shows. Whew! What a whirlwind. Now that I had some “regular home weekend time,” I needed to work on some long awaited projects around my house. I have lots of dolly ideas, but my brain wasn’t feeling too creative because I knew I had so much “property” work to do!

So ~ I made my list and set to work! I knew these would be fairly big jobs, but my brain works sooooooo much better for fun when I get rid of the “clutter” of “have to do” type jobs. The first one was to tackle the wildly over-grown foliage around my back deck & shed. Over the last two summers, I had a plum tree on the hill behind the shed fall/slide over onto the roof. It was then accompanied by a mass of blackberry vines. With carpal tunnel surgery and a bad fall onto my knee, it’s long been awaiting my attention! I’m happy to report that I have this GIANT task done with the scratches and slivers to prove it! I cut back & hauled out all the berry vines as well as cut down the tree. I still have one portion of the main trunk to cut out, but will get to that part when I can hold the handsaw again! (…and I mean HANDsaw ~ not hand-held power saw!) Here are “Before” & “After” pictures!

Now the berries are easy to reach, and boy, are they ready! I didn’t cut all the vines up from the wall, as they are loaded with yummy, organic berries.

The next job was not nearly as taxing, which was a very good thing! At work, we can get big bunches of clear plastic bags to use as garbage bags. They come all bunched up in a giant bag and need to be folded, or else they take up a large amount of space. I got THREE full bags all folded, sorted, and put away, leaving lots of nice space in my living room. That left time to sort out laundry, and then mow the lawn.

It’s AMAZING how getting all that done freed up my brain. I’ve had a bunch of these weighing on my mind for quite a while, and it feels so good to get things out of the way. The next project is one I’ve been wanting to do for all you guys. I had tried to work on it a couple different times, but with so much on my mind, it just wasn’t coming together. Now that my mind was cleared of all the gobbilty-gook, it was free and clear again. So, now I am pleased to introduce a brand new BJD inspired paper doll, El! She is pretty much the paper doll version of the ball jointed doll I am currently working on sculpting. Now that she is officially on paper, I think my sculpting will also make smoother progress. El is a smaller doll, fitted with her clothing to a horizontal 8.5×11 size paper. I hope you enjoy this new design as much as I enjoyed finally seeing her emerge from my imagination! She will also be posted on the “Free Stuff” tab for easy access. Oh! And don’t forget ~ the Slim 1/3 BJD Lacey Gown & Corset Pattern pieces will only be available through the end of this month, so be sure and get them saved to your files! Have a great week, and I’ll “see” you next time!