TWO NEW DOLL BABIES

I’ve been playing in the sewing room and have two new little baby dolls to add to my doll family. Now that I think about it I seem to have a habit of doing two of whatever it is I’m making at a time. I wonder if that means something……. probably not.

For whatever reason my dolls are almost always children but it’s been years since I made baby dolls. Back in the 1980s I took commissions for Cabbage Patch style dolls and all of those were babies or toddlers but since then these two little dolls are my first attempts at making babies.

Both of these babies are barely over 10 inches long which makes them much smaller than the ones I used to make. Jamie is a chubby baby boy with pale blue eyes. Since he has no hair and this house is quite cool this time of year I’ve made him a cap to match his sweater. He still needs some booties or shoes but right now he’s at the age where he’d be trying to pull them off and I do so love sweet little baby feet.

The baby girl Kimie is not as chubby and is dressed in only a sweater and diaper. I’d thought of making her a bonnet or hat but why cover all of that honey blond hair? Her eyes are a darker shade of blue than Jamie’s.

The way these two have been constructed allows them to be posed to assume many positions.

As fun as it was to make these two I don’t know if I’ll be making any more. Two seems to be my limit these days.

The other day I broke down and visited the craft store. I know I said I wasn’t going to go until I used up some of the supplies on hand but I’m weak and have no self-control!  I’m kidding.  I actually have tons of self-control. Really I do. Serious self-control… Anyway, back to the trip to the craft store. I went for one certain item, make that two items. A set of water color pencils and some water color paper.

I may have superior self-control but I'm also very suggestable.  After seeing what two of my friends posted on their blogs showing what they had been doing with water color pencils I wanted to join in on the fun. So far I haven’t had much success so I won’t be showing you anything right now. Maybe I’ll never have anything that is worth sharing but I am having fun playing around and wasting paper.

You should visit my friend Karen Anne at Ireland Brady and see the beautiful series of Bitty Betta Fish she’s just finished. They are amazing.  I also suggest that you visit Pam at yoborobo to see what she has been doing with her new Inktense water color pencils. These two talented artists have made working with water color pencils look easy but it really isn't so easy for some of us.  

Wishing you a happy week and as always, thanks for stopping by.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

This Valentine’s Day thing is not happening the way we had planned. It is nothing like we thought it would be. We thought our mom was going to buy us materials to make cards to send to our friends but she didn’t. We thought that she was going to make us special treats like heart shaped cookies or a Valentine heart shaped cake but she isn’t going to do that either. We thought there might be new outfits for us but she hasn’t brought out the sewing machine or gotten out boxes of pretty fabric so we guess that isn’t going to happen either. All she does is clean closets and cupboards. That’s no fun at all!!

We decorated our tree and set out our decorations over two weeks ago but Mom didn’t seem to notice.  We’ve come to the conclusion that our mom just doesn’t love us anymore.

We got this card from our beary dear friend, Prudence. Isn’t it pretty?

We told mom that she doesn't love us any more and she told us don’t be silly. Now what does that sound like to you? Doesn’t that sound like she’s tired of us?  She always liked our silliness before. She would rather spend all day sorting things and putting things into boxes and labeling them or into big black bags and taking them somewhere not here. The hug has been staying in our room because we’re afraid she’s going to put us in one of those bags and that’s just the beginning.

When we asked her if she was going to make us some cookies or a cake she said that she’s doing something called South Beach and doesn’t want the temptation of having sweet treats in the house.  Now everyone knows that we bears live for those sweet treats. She did put out some candies for us so maybe she still likes us a little bit.

We wish she would stop with the cleaning and stop doing the South Beach whatever that is and start having some fun with us again. Okay, so Valentine’s Day is a bust but we still have St. Patrick’s Day coming up and then Easter after that. Those are good holidays, right?? We need to figure out how to make our mom want to do things with us again and being the relentless and resourceful little bears that we are we will come up with a plan.

So dear friends, forgive us for not sending you some beary special paw made cards and for not inviting you to share Valentine shaped cookies with us or having fun at our Valentine’s Day party because none of this is our fault. We wanted to do all of those things but it just didn’t happen because our mom would rather clean cubbies.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of our beary good friends

Hugs,

Bellamine & Wendy

Special Teddy Bear Muffins

This morning we decided we wanted to bake something special. So, after putting on our aprons we headed down to the kitchen.

Our mom loves to bake and has all sorts of baking stuff but out of all of the stuff she has there is this one very special muffin pan that we are beary excited about. We think she must have gotten it to make muffins just for us.  It makes the most BEE-U-TEE-FULL muffins in the shape of eight little Teddy bears.  Each one of the bears is different, sort of like we all are. She told us it was made by the John Wright Company and that she has had it for nearly 30 years.

This is from the bottom side

And this is the top side. Isn't it just the sweetest pan you ever laid eyes on??? We asked our mom if she would help us use it to bake some muffins for our hug. We need her help lifting it because it weighs a ton.  Mom says it’s so heavy because it is made from something called cast iron. It looks really old and before we can use it mom says we have to season it. We guess that means we have to sprinkle salt on it.

Mom wanted to know what sort of muffins we are going to bake and when we told her we hadn’t decided yet she said she’d season the pan while we look through the recipe boxes and figure it out. We looked at the recipes but couldn't find one we both could settle on.

That's not a problem when you're experienced bakers like we are. We can invent a recipe for the best Teddy bear muffins that there ever was. It’s not all that hard to invent a recipe you know. You just need to start with a basic recipe for something and then get creative. Anyway, that’s what our mom told us.

So...After checking both pantries to see what we have to work with we put together a  recipe and we gathered together all of the things we are going to need for our muffins and then we start measuring and mixing. Here's the recipe and we're naming it:

Bellamine & Wendy’s Sweet Potato Teddy Bear Muffins

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup mashed canned sweet potatoes

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Heat oven to 400 degrees F (204.4 degrees C) for ordinary muffin pans or if your pan is cast iron like ours 375 degrees F (190.5 degrees C) Spray muffin cups or teddy bears, the ones in the pan not each other with cooking spray.

In a medium sized bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg; set aside. In a larger bowl beat the egg slightly with whisk then stir in milk, mashed sweet potatoes, brown sugar and butter; stirring until thoroughly blended. Stir in dry ingredients just until flour is moistened. Batter should be lumpy. Spoon batter into the Teddy bears (or muffin cups) filling them 2/3 full. Sprinkle each bear with 1/4 teaspoon of sugar. We used this really big chunky sugar that we think is called Turbinado sugar or something like that. It’s supposed to be healthier than regular sugar but we used it anyway cause we think it will look good on the muffin bears. Hey Wendy, We're sugaring their back sides. heheheheheheheh

Put in oven and bake for 18 to 20 minutes. Ours went the 20 minutes and got really puffed up and are the perfect color of little Teddy bears.  

Remove from pan immediately and gobble them down while they’re still really warm with mugs of hot chocolate. Be beary careful you don’t burn yourself.

They're almost too cute to eat but we ate them anyway.

If you don’t have canned sweet potatoes you can use canned pumpkin instead. We wanted to make pumpkin muffins but we didn’t have any pumpkin cause Mom used it up baking bread and pies at Christmas and never got around to buying more. Don’t worry, we were very helpful and put it on her shopping list. We think that the next time we bake these muffins we’re going to use honey in the place of the sugar in the recipe. We didn’t try it this time cause that’s another thing Mom forgot to get at the market and we’re running dangerously low. As in we might run out if we’re not beary careful. We added that to her list as well. The hug was beary impressed with our baking skills or maybe it’s like our mom says and they just like sweets. Cocoa is one more thing we had to add to the shopping list. We’re starting to wonder if we should be worried about our mom’s forgetfulness. Forgetting to buy honey and cocoa? Really Mom what’s next? Are you going to forget the Peanut butter and miniature marsh mellows?

We’re thinking about making a batch of the Teddy muffins to give to Santa to see if he gives them the Santa Seal of Approval. It’s a special award that is reserved for only the beary best of whatever he decides to bestow the award on.

Now that we have filled our tummies we’re going to visit with our friends to see what they’ve been up to.

Hugs,

Bellamine & Wendy