Leah Becomes "Little Leah"

When I made this doll, I had no idea that one day soon I would meet a wonderful lady named Leah and I would give her my doll to take home to India with her.

Leah and her friend Dolly (I just now noticed the “coincidence” as I was writing this.) went to India when they were both in their early 20s to spend at least three years doing missionary work. They planned to come home after three years, but God had different plans for them. They founded the Kulpahar Kids' Home and have raised hundreds of children. They also built a school and a hospital. Leah is almost 90 years old now and is still in charge. Dolly is buried in their little cemetery by their church which is also on their compound. When we (my husband and I) were there in 1999, Leah showed us the spot next to Dolly where she will be buried.

I first met Leah when she came home shortly after we came to Phoenix in 1989. At that time the church we came to had been her Living Link sponsorer for almost 50 years. After that, we got to see Leah every three years when she came back to the U.S.A. for a visit. The last time she was here was over two years ago. Each time she came home, we would think “This will probably be her last time to come back.” I don’t know if she will be back again but I wouldn’t be surprised. When she celebrated her 80th birthday, she asked God for 10 more years.

When I gave Leah to Leah, she said, “I’ll call her ‘Little Leah’”. She sent this picture to me of her and Little Leah right after she got back to India. “Little Leah” has been in India a long time now. When I saw her there in 1999, she looked right at home.

Here is the website for the Kulpahar Kids' Home:
http://kulpaharkidshome-school.wmww.org/index.html
This is another “miracle”. They didn’t even have electricity when they first went there.

This is Leah

This is Leah - the doll with the sailor dress on. After I took this picture, I thought she still needed something. Yes, that's it. She needs glasses. So I bought her some glasses. There, isn't that better? I also bought Joy a pair of glasses.




Leah lived in my doll room for a few years but has lived in Kulpahar, India, for about the last 17 years. Tune in tomorrow for the "rest of the story".

Best Friends

Today I want to introduce you to my two oldest and “bestest” friends. Of course my first oldest and bestest friend is my husband. We first met in 1948 when I was 11 and he was 13.

Irene has been my friend since I was in the 6th grade. She was a little over a year older than I was. I first met Dorothy when I moved to Oklahoma in the 9th grade, and we became good friends. She was a year younger than I was. I have kept in touch with both of these friends all of these years. Irene was my friend in California, but now lives in Oregon. She spent most of the years in between in Brazil where she and her husband were missionaries. Dorothy left Oklahoma and lived in Arizona for several years, but now lives in Tennessee.

This picture was taken in 1954 in Oklahoma when my California friend (Irene) rode the bus to see me and attend my high school graduation. I’m so happy to have a picture of me with both of these friends.

We are all in our 70s now. I may or may not ever see these two friends again in this lifetime, but I sure expect to reunite with them and be best friends throughout eternity.

P.S. How about those hats (we also wore gloves). Can you imagine teenagers dressing like this today?

Meet Opal Flutterglimmer

Who is Opal Flutterglimmer? She's a fairy I created at http://www.disneyfairies.com/pixiehollow/12371FlutterbyForest
It's easy to do, and I think it's a lot of fun. This is a Disney thing (and it's free of course). This probably was created for kids, but like Disneyland, I think adults appreciate it more. Like blogging and video games, it can be somewhat addictive so beware. If you decide to make your own fairy, you won't make just one.

A Rainy Sunday Afternoon

What does one do on a rare rainy Sunday afternoon in Arizona? Why blog, of course. My dear husband is watching the Suns play the Bulls. I'll go join him in a while. I like basketball and I especially like the Suns. He wrote his blog this morning before we went to church. He has been blogging for a couple of years now and enjoys it almost as much as I do.

We had a guest preacher at church this morning - Darrell Bock who is a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. He has written a lot of books including Breaking the Da Vinci Code. He had an interesting message, but I missed Jamie. Jamie will be back next Sunday.

Better go watch the game now and think about what I'll write about tomorrow. I tend to get hooked on whatever projects I'm doing. Before blogging, it was making DVDs. Wonder what will be next? I think this blogging may last awhile. I'm having so much fun.
Have a great day and a great week!

TAGGED

After being tagged by Ginger, I tagged Nannykim, but Nannykim had just recently already been tagged. So, I looked at other blogs, and it seems like just about everyone has recently been tagged. Since I couldn't decide on anyone else to tag, if you're reading this, and you haven't been tagged in a while, consider this as your tag. You're the lucky one.

I'VE BEEN TAGGED

Ginger at http://enchantingcottage.blogspot.com/ has tagged me to tell 15 reasons it's good to be me. Here are the first 15 that came to mind.

1. I’m a child of God
2. I have a wonderful husband
3. I have two precious children who are both faithful Christians
4. I had parents who gave me unconditional love
5. I’m pretty healthy for 71
6. I have a nice home
7. My husband vacuums and mops our house
8. I have a nice car to drive
9. I have many wonderful Christian friends
10. I have had the opportunity to travel to many other countries.
11. I’m an American citizen and live in the best country in the world.
12. I get to see my kids often as they live close by
13. My husband is a “bookaholic” and I have plenty of good books to read
14. I had the opportunity to learn quite a bit about computers while I was a church secretary.
15. I still have one knee that doesn’t hurt and I can still get around (slowly)

I think I'll tag Nannykim. I chose her because she was the first one to comment on my blog and has been one of the most consistent to visit. How about it, Nannykim? http://nannykim-nannykim.blogspot.com/

Show & Tell

Today I want to share these pictures of a dress my mother crocheted for me when I was in the fourth grade. There was a girl in my class that wore crocheted dresses to school. I thought they were so pretty. I was especially impressed because this girl, Sharon was her name, and I were both vying for the attention of a cute boy in the class. His name was Charles. My mother, bless her heart, told me she would make me a crocheted dress, and she did. I thought mine was prettier than any of Sharon's. The dress has been hanging on the wall in my doll room for the past 18 years. After I outgrew the dress my mother sent it to my aunt in Oklahoma for her girls to wear. After they outgrew it, they sent it back and I ended up with it. I'm so glad I still have it.

Serendipity

I had a "serendipity moment" last week when my husband and I drove out to Cave Creek looking for a new kitchen store called Epicurean Palette. We finally found it, but before we found that store, we ran across another one in Carefree which runs right into Cave Creek. This store was called English Rose Tea Room. I was glad I had my camera with me to take pictures. I bought a coffee pot night light at this darling little shop. The Epicurean Palette was a nice store, but I like Sur la Table, which is similar, much better.

ANOTHER DAY

Well, the knee injection went much better than I had anticipated. (I decided to call it an injection. That doesn't sound as bad as "shot".) Now I have four more injections to go, one a week for four weeks. The doctor said I might not get any pain relief until I have gotten all four of them. He said it helps 80% of the time. Sure hope and pray I'm not one of the 20%. I am thankful for all of you that are praying for me.

Today I want to talk a little about making doll clothes and shoes.

I searched around in my doll room closet and came up with a shoebox size plastic box that I had stored extra doll shoes in. I bought patterns for the shoes and bought remnants of leather from a store that sold leather. The remnants were not very expensive. Making shoes was not hard, but it was a little tedious, especially the smaller ones.

Making clothes was really fun. Here is a picture of some of the patterns. Collecting lace, small buttons and buckles, etc. was fun too. A lot of the stuff I bought at doll shows. They had some wonderful doll shows in California where they sold all kinds of stuff for making dolls and, of course, they sold dolls too. There were also some stores that stocked a limited supply of doll making stuff.

A Shot in the Knee

A shot in the knee - that's what I have to look forward to today. I'm scheduled to get the first of five shots in my right knee that hopefully will make the pain better. When I had arthroscopy surgery on it in November I thought that would solve the problem. It didn't. Now the shots will start. If that doesn't work, knee replacement is the next option. Ouch. I don't want that. What happened to my knee you may wonder. It was fine until I slipped on the top step getting into our pool and twisted it really bad way back in July. Don't ever try to enter a pool with flip flops on. It's extremely dangerous. I'll never do it again - but once is all it takes. Prayers would be greatly appreciated.

One bright spot for the day. My sweet hubby is fixing dinner and our daughter is stopping by to eat with us. Tomorrow is another day. I promise my blog will be more interesting.

My Dad's Birthday

Today is Martin Luther King Day. For me it is my Dad's birthday. He would be 95 years old today if he was still alive. He passed away over nine years ago. Today I want to remember him by posting this picture of him and me taken when I was about eight years old. I have tons of pictures but very few of the two of us together. This one is my favorite. In my baby book my mother wrote that some of my first words were "Daddy's Palsy Walsy", "Friends to the end" and "Friends togetter"(together). She said these were said by me to my daddy. I miss him today.

This picture must have been taken on a day I went to tap dancing class because I have my tap shoes on. I loved those shoes. Come to think of it, I love shoes - period.

ANOTHER GREAT SUNDAY

I'm always amazed at how good the sermons are at Scottsdale Bible Church. The preacher is getting into the book of Esther, and it is exciting. If you would like to listen to some good sermons, go to their website and download a sermon. Here is the site: http://sermons.scottsdalebible.com/sermonsearch.asp
What to do on Sunday afternoon -- My husband will be watching football games. I will watch a little bit of the games, but I'm not that much into football. Guess I'll spend some time looking at other blogs. I'm amazed at how many fantastic ones there are out there. I appreciate everyone that has visited my site and the kind comments that were made. I'm looking forward to the days ahead. Things keep popping into my head that I want to talk about. We'll see what pops up tomorow.

More Stained Glass

I did other stained glass projects including a frame for my third grade class picture. (That's me fifth from the left in the middle row). Now that's really an "old" picture (1944).

Besides frames, I also made night lights, Christmas tree ornaments and other small projects. The stained glass in the side bar is in my laundry room. (Note the wash tub that the bird in perched on.)
Today is my first anniversary of blogging. I started one week ago today. It's been fun.

Show & Tell

I'm not sure how this Show & Tell thing works. But I'm going to try it. I want to share this stained glass window panel I made for my kitchen.

Stained Glass

I decided to take a break from the dolls and talk about something else today. Stained glass became my hobby after we moved to Scottsdale. We had narrow sidelights by our front door and thought stained glass would look good there. I had a lady come out and give an estimate for several areas. Too much money. We couldn't afford it. So, I decided to take a class and learn how to do it myself. It was almost as much fun as doll making. I made the valance over the window a couple of years ago to replace the outdated ones I had made a few years earlier.

Leisel and the Red Cross

The doll in the middle on the left is Liesel. I made her for my daughter Carol. She gave her the name. Carol was working for the Red Cross at the time, and wanted me to make her a little doll to put in her office. So, I made the doll on the right. I don't remember her having a name.
The little black doll on the left I made for one of my nieces who lives in southern California. During one of their earthquakes this doll fell and broke her head. I made a new head for her.
Liesel was made from the same mold as Joy. This was a very popular mold. I think everyone in the class made at least one doll from that mold.

After Pierre and Gloria there was Joy

My intentions to make one doll were blown away after I made the first two dolls. I was hooked already and didn't know it. I thought "I'll make just one more doll". I named this doll Joy. Picture on the left is how she looked originally. Later, I made her a new outfit. I sold the original dress to a lady in the doll class that didn't sew. (Luckily her purse went with both outfits.) I also made the shoes she has on in the picture at the right. Making shoes was fun. I'll talk more about that later.
One of the fun things about making dolls was changing their wigs and outfits to make them look different.

The Beginning of my Doll Making

When our son moved out of our home after graduating from college, I decided to turn his room into a sewing room. So - out went the waterbed. Up went the wallpaper (another thing I learned to do while living in Stockton, California.) I had loved to sew since I was about 10 years old when I learned to sew on a treddle sewing machine, making doll clothes incidentally. The theme I had chosen for my sewing room was "Love Makes the World Go Round".

When Carol Wyrick announced at church that she was going to start a class on making porcelain dolls, I was excited. I told her I wanted to make a clown doll for my sewing room. She said she recommended making two dolls at once because you could be painting one of them while the other one was being fired. So, reluctantly I started making two dolls. Here are those dolls. I no longer have the clown doll, but the other doll I named Gloria. I named all my dolls, but for the life of me I can only remember the names of a few of them now. I knew I should have written them down.

Picture at the right is the greenware for one of the dolls I made. This is how each doll started out. Carol had the molds and she made the greenware for the students. We smoothed them up and she took them home and fired them. Then she brought them back and we painted them in stages with firings inbetween.

Where Do I Start?

They say to start at the very beginning. That's a very good place to start, and that is what I planned to do, but since the first person to comment on my blog mentioned the doll in the window, I decided to start with her. I made two dolls like this one. One of them I gave to my daughter. She wanted a bunny suit for her doll, so I made it a bunny suit. One of the fun things about making dolls was making their clothes. For some of them I made their shoes too. I'll talk about that in a later blog. For now, here are pictures of the doll in the window.

IT'S SUNDAY - AGAIN

My husband and I are always talking about how fast a week goes by. Seems like we turn around twice and it's Sunday again. I love Sundays. I have been attending worship every Sunday (of course with a few exceptions) since I was 10 years old. I'm 71 now. I never get tired of "going to church". We use to call Sunday "The Lord's Day". I don't call it that now. Isn't EVERY DAY The Lord's Day? Our pastor started a new series of sermons this morning on Esther. He will be centering in on how God works behind the scenes. Boy, has He ever worked "behind the scenes" in my life. I know that I am where I am and doing what I am doing today because of His work behind the scenes. Tomorrow I will write about one of my dolls and post a picture. Today I'm going to bask in the afterglow of what went on this morning at our church.

My Doll Room

One of my favorite rooms is my doll room. I took this picture this morning. While I lived in California, I made over 30 porcelain dolls. I will be featuring some of them in the coming days.

My Name is Charlotte

I was inspired to do this "blog thing" by my niece Ginger. Check out her blog. It's called Enchanting Cottage. http://enchantingcottage.blogspot.com/ I love my Scottsdale home, and want to share it with friends online as well as share some of my life and my faith. I'm a little apprehensive, but Here Goes!