Wendy's Sugar Plum Dreams

Wendy started ballet lessons and she practices ceaselessly, hoping to someday dance the part of the Sugar Plum Fairy in the Nutcracker. Such a graceful and determined girl, she's bound to achieve her goal!

I just reached a longtime goal of my own: I got my red star on eBay! This means I have positive feedback over 1000. Feedback is a huge deal on eBay, as it determines your seller fees, your listing visibility, and even whether you can be a seller. It's especially important to me, because I became a Top Seller on eBay through my exemplary customer service, not through large sales volume. I'm a tiny one person operation. I want to thank all of you who've purchased from me and left me positive feedback, and I have almost everything in the store 20% off through the 20th to celebrate! Check out my sale and my fab new star in Atelier Mandaline.

Wendy after restoration.

The ALEX mark

This was a pretty straightforward restoration. I actually finished Wendy last week, but I've just been too busy to write a blog post for her. This time of year is just so ridiculously hectic, and we've added to that by starting the process of putting our teen in braces. I've spent the last two mornings sitting in the orthodontist's office. All the children and I are being evaluated, and I think all but the youngest of us will be fitted with braces pretty much immediately.

At any rate, Wendy just needed some cleaning and re-stringing. She had very tiny splits starting inside her hips so I just dabbed some epoxy on those; nothing major. Wendy has the same unusual wig stitching as my Wendy's wedding doll, and that is the same kind of doll, a bent knee walker from the late 1950s-early 60s. This wig was messy but seemed to have been arranged in curly pigtails originally. I've seen this hairstyle before, but rarely, and it's especially unusual in red! I gathered the red curls back into low pigtails, and I think it's adorable. After restoration I dressed Wendy in a tagged Madame Alexander ballerina costume from the late 60s-early 70s, still with the satin tie shoes correct to her period. I couldn't resist giving her a little gold plastic tiara. She holds the bouquet original to her outfit.

Wendy dressed in a tagged costume.

Her tagged dress.

As always, I strung Wendy rather loosely to protect from splits. Her walker works, but you do sort of have to press her hips together when she walks to get her head to turn. The loose stringing does allow for a great range of poses, essential for any ballerina!

Wendy can hold many poses.

Wendy's paint is perfect and her sleep eyes work well. She's just a wonderful example of the late 50s Wendy-Kins!

Wendy holds a bouquet.

She can sit and stand alone.

Her paint is perfect and original.

I have tons of Wendy-Kins listed right now. They date from one of the earliest straight-leg walkers to the 1990s. I actually have the Wendy Loves Learning to Sew kit from 1994 right now, mint in the package! I searched and searched for this and won it for quite a high price, trying to get it for my daughter's Christmas. She's been learning to sew and I wanted her to have her own tape measure and things. The Wendy kit comes with a Wendy doll, the materials and instructions for three outfits for her, extra hose and a sun suit for her, and then all the regular sewing basket things, like a thimble and needles and things. It's super, super rare, so I was more than thrilled to find it. I envisioned her happily sewing for her doll, with my assistance (knowing my daughter this was probably a pipe dream, but you know we all have to dream!). Unfortunately, my mother-in-law decided to buy a different sewing basket for her birthday and had it mailed here without telling me, so it was opened and used immediately, leaving me stuck scrambling to find a different gift. Now the Wendy kit is for sale in my store, Atelier Mandaline, along with Sugar Plum Wendy, so please check.

Rare Wendy in her sewing basket.

Outside of fixing dolls and taking people to the orthodontist I've been trying to keep up the Christmas traditions of my youth and pass them to my own children. Every year we make a gingerbread house. I used to make it from scratch, cutting the pieces with my mother's old cutters, baking it, melting sugar glue. This was a process so long and difficult my husband referred to the house as the "cussing house". If you've never tried to use sugar glue, it involves dipping things in boiling sugar and then fitting them together. If you drip boiling sugar on your hands and then have it stick so you can't wipe it off you might say a thing or two as well! Luckily for us, Ikea sells a gingerbread kit already baked. Then we also found gingerbread tree ornaments at Ikea. Apparently, baking cookie ornaments is a Scandinavian thing. We used to do this quite often when I was a girl, and my kids would always listen in horror as I described baking and decorating cookies and then NOT eating them because they were tree ornaments. This year they got to decorate the tree ornaments themselves without having to bake them first. Actually one year my mother did give in to the clamoring and let us taste the gingerbread house and ornaments after they'd been on display for several weeks. They were awful of course, dry as dust and hard as bricks! We never begged to taste them again. Maybe I should let mine eat some so they learn!

Cookie ornaments

Gingerbread House

Sugar Plum tree

I once saw a "Sugar Plum Tree" at a Christmas display. It was all decked out in ornaments that looked like lollipops and cupcakes and things. The cookie ornaments give our tree that sugar plum look without me having to buy all new ornaments. I do like these, and the gingerbread house, for the smell. Our living and dining room smell like cake because of the frosting right now, and it's perfect for the holidays. That's the only thing I miss about baking our house and cookies: when you bake them these decorations smell fabulous and your house smells like you're baking all the time!

I'm trying to avoid eating all the seasonal sugar plums drinking the Young Living Slique oil, and I've lost five pounds in the first week! I think I'm going to order more of this. Getting thinner is the best present I can imagine! Like my Facebook page, Naturally Amanda, for more Young Living tips, and, speaking of scents, make sure to watch for my scented pine cone tutorial. Those make great gifts!

Slique Essence