Tuesday, April 17, 2018

The next journey of life coming up!

Well, our little house is about to become much more crowded.  

Many of you "know" my "Baby Grand Girl" Jena.  

She is my mini-me and quite a blooming artist herself.

Well, she is coming to live with us!  

She is now 15 and things are just too rough at home.  
She needs serenity, peace, provision and support.  

So, near the end of May, this beautiful being is going to squeeze into a small part of my already small studio because we have no where else to put her!


And my plan for that squeezing??

I'll be moving the photo studio part of my studio, the clothing and the changing table out to the already very full Dolly House.
I'll take down the smaller crib and cradle to make the space.  

WIP photos may always happen on the island in my kitchen!  (The best place for WIP photos in the studio were the changing table and photo studio table, which will now be in the Dolly House which will take too much effort for quick pics :) I'll have to minimize as much work as possible and take my vitamins!

It will be really nice to have Jena around. She is a very mature young lady.  What a grand opportunity for her to spend these years in the presence of her great grandmother too as yep, my mom is still here :)

Let the good times roll!  

XXOO

Friday, April 6, 2018

That wasn't a very long prototype break!


Well, I said I wasn't going to be doing prototypes for a while...

describe "while".  Hehehehe

I could not resist this darling Lilianne Breedveld baby and since mom is doing SO much better, I will be doing her prototype!  
(It may be 6-8 weeks before the prototype silicone is ready to work on)

This is Nova, a sweet full body newborn by Lilianne Breedveld.  She is only available as a girl.
Claire Taylor will pour her and I will bring her to life sometime this summer.



Weeee...back in the saddle!  
(But I still have a LOT of vinyl kits to work on too!)

Have a wonderful weekend!
XXOO

Thursday, April 5, 2018

ReBorn FX Air Dry Sealer, Ultra Matte Varnish and Matte Powder

Baby FX paints and mediums are no longer being manufactured and there are only a few items left with suppliers around the globe.  

I recently ordered the McPhearson's ReBorn FX air dry products listed in the topic title to use with my Baby FX paints.  

I LIKE THEM!  

I put some of the mixture of the ReBorn FX matting powder (you have to mix the powder with water before adding it to anything...and you can add it to your paints, to the sealer, to the matte...anything you want!) into the sealer and applied one coat on in the manner that I apply all matte liquids with the end of a wedge and then pouncing in with dry wedges.  I used one tsp of the matting powder mix to one teaspoon of the sealer. This coated my entire doll kit (Levi).

I was very impressed with the results and I didn't have much shine at all to deal with.  

I allowed that to dry for a couple of hours and then I applied a layer of the Ultra Matte Varnish.  I did not add additional Matting Powder to the Ultra Matte Varnish.  I was very pleased!   I did re-coat the limbs as the hands and feet still had a little sheen but that second coat did the job perfectly.  

I am so happy that we have another product line that works with our beloved Baby FX!  I don't know about you, but I bought up everything I could that I know I would use when I heard that there wouldn't be any more Baby FX.

For those needing to resupply on Baby FX Slow Dry, you can use the ReBorn FX Emulsion as the thinner (along with a little distilled water) as well as the ReBorn FX Open Time to give a little more drying time to work your paints.  I have just ordered those two ReBorn FX products from McPhearson's, but my good friend, Angie Jones, tells me that the mediums from ReBorn FX do cause sheen, but it can be easily handled using the sealer, matting powder and ultra matte varnish.  

I do not have photos yet of my Levi kit that I used the sealer, matting powder and ultra matte varnish on (and I failed to take good pictures of his hands and feet before hand...as you know, the hands and feet are always the shiniest in the end of painting) but I am most happy! I am working on rooting Levi' head.

Next week I will be tied up in my bathroom.
No, it's not what you think!  LOL
My husband will be out of town and I have a grand opportunity to FINALLY paint our bathroom (after doing some repairs to the dry-wall that were there from the previous owners).  I despise the color of our bathroom so very much.  It will be like a breath of fresh air to have it painted!

If you don't hear from me~you will know why!

XXOO

Monday, April 2, 2018

How is my Mama doing?


As many of you know, on September 30th 2017 my mom moved in with my husband and I.  
She was very sick with congestive heart failure, AFIB and supposedly COPD.

She was on 23 prescription medications that went into her pill organizer boxes plus pain meds that she manages herself.

It was daunting to manage and heartbreaking to hear her slurs her speech, have very active dreams and watch her balance be off and see her fall.

She wasn't hear long before my first call for an ambulance happened.  
Her sodium had dropped to a dangerous level and she was incoherent and couldn't stay awake.

In December I took her to the ER where she was admitted for 5 days with exaggerated lung congestion and again, low sodium.

The doctor put her on a very strict fluid intake where she lost 20 pounds of fluid in those 5 days at the hospital.

He had already been evaluating all of her medications and had eliminated a couple of them.

Upon her release, and to this day, her fluid intake is restricted to 1500-2000 ml per day.  
She does best on 1750 ml per day, but her body handles some mild fluctuations.

She has continued to drop fluid pounds and has lost 40 pounds in fluid alone.  This has helped her tremendously!

From then until now, we have closely worked with her prescriptions and have them now dropped to only NINE prescriptions, three of those being prescriptions supplements!  

I have also consulted with the doctor with the addition of several other supplements and we often time treat minor conditions with essential oils, herbs and home-made syrups. 

She feels better.  She looks better.  The slurry speech is gone.  She hasn't fallen down since December.  She is doing SO WELL! 

Mom's need for oxygen support has dwindled down over the months, and we have been lowering the liters needed as her body has gotten stronger.

Mom turned 77 years old on March 15.  On that day, she had a doctor's appointment.  I had told him that she was down to just 1/2 liter of o2 and was still saturating at 97-98.  He gave her permission to go without and see how she does!!  

WITHOUT OXYGEN SUPPORT???  WOW!!!!!

She took that thing off as soon as we got home!  
She was trucking out to the mail box to get the mail and running all over the house and doing fine!!

On March 19th, we left for a trip "back home".  She had set up a BIG party with all of our family and her friends "back home".  We stayed in a hotel and had a wonderful time!

She only used her oxygen twice over the entire 4 days for a little support while she rested and recovered.  Apparently she does not have COPD...or diabetes as she is off those meds too!

There were 36 people at her party!!

Over the months as well, she has had cataract eye surgery and can now see much better.  She has her first set of hearing aids and can now hear much better.  
We have begun the process of getting her teeth fixed and she is now ready to see the dentist to have some teeth pulled and new partial dentures put in.  (Two of her front teeth had abscesses in them and are in very bad shape.)

OH!  And she got  her first smart phone!  

It is so adorable to go into her room in the morning and see that she is texting family "back home".  

You can teach an ol' granny new tricks!  LOL

So life with mom is good.  We still have a lot of appointments and will over the months as the new hearing aids are adjusted (they are really high tech and very cool!) as well as many appointments coming up for the partial dentures.  I understand it will take about 8 months before those are adjusted to feel just right.  

My heart is very, very happy!

Here is mom toasting a drink to herself at her birthday party.
She drank the whole thing and we didn't have to scrape her up off the floor!



And with her cake:





Isn't she just the cutest???  

We love having her here and love that she is doing so well!

XXOO