In the pink.....

My little brunette wider faced girl has been helping me around the garden.  This morning we picked up all the lemons which had fallen from the tree whilst we've been away.  Quite a few of them have seen better days, having laid in the sun on the floor for goodness knows how long!  Unless they appear any good for juicing, they'll go in the bin, and some are badly bruised from when they 'splatted' to the floor from the tree, but there are quite a lot which are unharmed, so they'll be used for various things......at some point!!!!  To be honest, we have far too many lemons to think what to do with them all....I really need to be more adventurous and find more recipes which use lemons as one of the ingredients!!!

We also picked some nectarines as they are ripe and ready to eat....I'll probably have those for my supper this evening.  And the grape vine is absolutely ladden down with bunches of grapes!  They're not ripe yet but I'd say in about two/three weeks, if the wasps don't get them first, we can pick them!  We were told by a neighbour that we'd probably not get much fruit this year because of the snow back in February, but it is nice that she was proved wrong!

And these are just the ones from the floor....the tree is still full of fruit in various stages of their growth!

My Shelly repaint....

Today we came back from the coast after almost 7 weeks away.  I won't go into how untidy and dirty the house was on our arrival home, suffice to say that I nearly turned right back round and left again! 
And the heat!  Oh my goodness, who turned off the lovely sea breeze???? It is soooo hot and our thermometre which is in the shade has been showing just over 40C all day. 

Anyway, we had to come back because we've been invited to a party on Saturday night so I'm off to have my hair done tomorrow....although I'm sure it will be a waste of time as the heat will make it look as bad as it does now!  The party is to celebrate the 25th Wedding Anniversary of the parents of my sons girlfriend, Virginia.  It kicks off with a Mass at 9.15pm Saturday night, to renew their wedding vows.  Then afterwards a 'bash' at a local bar.  I hope the weather will have cooled a little by the time we're getting ready to go out, because otherwise the makeup just slides straight down off my face as I try to put it on!!!

On the dolly front, my lovely brunette girl came back from visiting Shelly in the UK and now has gorgeous 'Shelly Made' eyes!  You'll remember that I wasn't happy with her flat printed eyes and so asked Shelly if she'd work her magic on them for me, and she really has!  I'm very pleased with my girls new look.  I had sent just her head to Shelly to avoid expensive postal charges both ways, but when I came to reattach her head, so the darn elastic came apart at the metal clip.  I tried fixing it again but in the end I had to restring her with Super Dollfie sized elastic, but all now seems to be well.

I made her this outfit for her return from the UK and although I like it on her, I feel that the smocking is not very good.  It is such a while since I did smocking and even then I only did two dresses, that I'd forgotten what to do.  My smocking book was here and I was not, so I had to 'wing it'......it could have been better, much better!  But for now she's happy with it.  I think the colour suits her and the dress has matching pants, so she seems to be pleased with it!  (Socks by me, shoes by Ruthsdolls).

A spot of fishing....

It's Sunday night at 9.30pm and I'm sitting on the beach with my son Brendan, who is doing a spot of fishing.....all is well with the world!

Ellory models a new outfit!

Ellory wanted a new outfit more in keeping with her style.  So I made her this A line mini skirt with matching waistcoat and a brown tee shirt.  She added her brown leather sandals and wants me to make her a big, hairband and necklace....which I will get to eventually!  (Waistcoat is made using Ted Mentons pattern which is soooo easy to use!)

One of the best things about Summer...

.....are cherries!  Big black sweet juicy cherries are my favourite fruit.  I'm embarrassed to admit that I eat about a kilo of them every two days!!!

Just about to make a start on these!!

A new outfit and a new name!

My new little blond girl now has a name, she is called Jojo.  Of course Jojo isn't her 'real' name, she is really called Joanna, but that's a bit of a mouthful for such a small girl, so Jojo it is!

And Jojo also has a new outfit.  I made her this little blue flowered classic smock dress with matching knickers/shorts,  in this pretty sky blue flowered fabric.  I really like the colour on her, it really seems to bring out the blue of her pretty eyes.  I do need a ribbon for her hair though, but didn't have one here so we'll wait on that!!  And her fringe remains wilder than ever!  But I love her all the same!!

Brunette in Purple.....for Kendal!

At Kendal's request, I took some photos of my Brunette girl in the purple and lilac outfit, and have to say that I so prefer her in this one to the green set.  For some reason though, my photos of this lovely girl are not the best....I will have to work on that!  I've yet to photograph my blond girl in the green outfit, but will do that soon.