I scored this little baby a while back, the vintage Starwberry Shortcake Garden House and I’ve been wanting one for AGES.  This one was a steal!  And it’s totally mint, came with a rough old box and instructions…  It took an extra long nap for the kiddees and some Star Trek on while my little bro visited for me to pull it out (cause it would have been rude to lock myself in the sewing room of course.)

Austin is not one to be left out of anything….

Stella, says, ‘Come on over!’

Ramona is such a wild one!  Check out that hair.

Don’t often see Nina and her sister Colleen out together.

Cheers!

Nancy and Audrey love a glass of homemade berry wine on a long weekend…

Isobel and Colleen

Colleen and Nancy say pets are welcome!

Beach?

Audrey hanging out.

Stella and Ramona, hey lets get going!

Love these two!

Besties.

Now, they’re not usually all this disheveled…  but it was exciting!  Clothes…

Might have to get the Berry Bake Shoppe out next time…

Audrey, Isobel and Nancy hanging out after the big beach day…

Audrey enjoying the view.

Good times!

I’m sorting through my Strawberry Shortcake girls, some need new homes, some need warmer clothes on, it’s freezing here!

I had an Almond Tea Party Pleaser when I was a kid, and she’s still my favourite, close to Plum Pudding.  I do love the blue haired girls (Crepe Suzette and Blueberry Muffin) and Orange Blossom is lovely too.

I have three Sweet Sleepers, only one is complete however, Lemon Meringue, above are my Blueberry Muffin dolls.  I find myself wanting to make Luna and Blake some giant Strawberry Shortcake sleeping bags…

More blue hair!  Crepe Suzette is one of Strawberry’s International Friends – I would have loved to see here as a Party Pleaser.  I have seen some really nice custom sweet sleepers on ebay…

Peach Blush is another one of the more hard to find dolls, and alas, my girl has no hat!  She is in great condition though.

Plum Pudding looking snug and warm!

My Almond Tea girls, as you can see I can’t get enough… though after the Big Sort Out, one needs a new home.

I also have a couple of play sets, the Berry Bake Shoppe, and the Escargo picnic set, and some minis.

My two pretty pegasus ponies…  Skyflyer and Glittering Gem.

And Gusty, my all time favourite!  Just a couple of photos..

Sparkly leaves!

Gotta love the red and green huh?

Glory is so pretty too.

This girl really is in mint condition, both Glory and Gusty are not new girls for me, but I couldn’t help a couple of new pics for you vintage My Little Pony fans out there.

We were at the last one, and it was fun, so we couldn’t miss the show this year.  This time there was a Zoo collection, and it was a bit smaller, with less exhibits, and they were more traditional.

Cute craft supplies shop!

A bicycle, so retro.

So much detail!

I LOVE vintage gloves.  I really, really do.  I love to have them, and I love to wear them, infact Summer is one of those seasons I stuggle to find gloves for it’s just too hot.  So roll around Autumn and I’m happy.

I’ve been planning on photographing my collection for ages, and it will take a while, I’m not sure how many pairs I have…  I have most of my Nana Shirley’s gloves, I wore the fingerless gloves she made for her own wedding when I got married, see?

They’re probably my favs, but I don’t wear them, too fine and lacey.

Thing thing I love about a good pair of gloves is they do keep you warm.  You can wear them with almost anything, swing coats for shorter gloves and for those bare sholders and halternecks who can turn down some silky full length numbers with those impossible-to-do-up-with-gloves-on pearl buttons?  Not me.  Then you just need a good hat…

I’m really excited, I’ve started putting together some ideas for some new sewing kits, I’ve got all the bits, and I really just need to make a couple of samples up to see how they look and work out what each will need.  Lucky Luna and Blake will have some new toys over winter!

I’ve been quite distracted with cutting up the patterns and fabric to make up some tops and a dress with the cool vintage patterns I posted about earlier, as usual, too many things and not enough time!  The most helpful thing is the kiddies are sleeping better now, little Blake will give me a couple of hours in the evenings, but staying up sewing till midnight and rising at 6am gets a tad draining – although it is so much fun.

I do LOVE buttons, I caved and bought a couple of bags of new buttons from Spotlight and they have provided hours of fun for everyone.  I’m also exploring using some more natural stuffing/filling for my soft toys, as an alternative to polyester filing.  I’m trying to rid my life of plastic, it’s a long process, but the good thing is there are alternatives around.  I came across Innergreen if you’re interested, and hopefully I will be hearing back from them soon.

Some early ponies, from left to right; Blue Belle, Butterscotch, Snuzzle, Peachy, Blossom, Blue Belle and Cotton Candy.  I have mostly concave footed girls, with a couple of flat footed ladies, Blue Belle and Cotton Candy.

Time to share some photos of my favourite ponies…  I had My Little Ponies when I was a kid, and I LOVED them.  Then, one day when I was all grown up mum asked me if it was ok to give them all to another little friend, I said ‘yes’, then many years later I of course regretted it!!!  What was I thinking?  And why didn’t I say take all the Barbies instead??  Who knows, maybe mum loves the Barbies the best.

So I started to collect a few, I discovered $.99 ponies on ebay, and occasionally I still do.. then there is Trademe.  Anyhow, one thing lead to another and so I now have more Ponies than I had when I was a kid *sigh* I don’t have the playsets or the complete Pony Wear sets though as those babies go for a mint!

Here are some of my new old girls.

The ponies I had when I was a girl are; Gusty, probably my all time favourite, Galaxy, Blossom and Baby Blossom.  I also had heaps of Pony Wear sets, and Cuddles and her Pram set.

Parasol is so pretty..  and Applejack?  Just lovely!

Parasol and Fifi…

Bubbles and Fifi again.

Last photo is another of Gusty, just love that red and green mane.

Crafternoon Tea was a little quiet on the weekend, but as usual lots of fun seeing all the clever crafters and I even came home with a little treat for myself!  I swapped a cupcake pincushion for a cool octopus necklace made by Karin from Exter Creative.  SO exciting as I had been drooling over one I had seen listed on Felt.co.nz ages ago so all in all it was an excellent day.

Here are some more of Karin’s necklaces…