Rain, Rain Go Away For Warm Heart Wednesday #23

It's already week #23 of Warm Heart Wednesday sponsored by Ms. Jenny at Jenny Matlock..."off on my tangent."

Rain, rain go away!  That's what we've been saying in Houston this week.  I live in the Clear Lake area and we probably got a fraction of the amount of rain they got in other parts of town.  I stayed home and kept busy working on some of my dolls.  That always warms my heart.

I recently won a set of Birthday aprons on Ebay.  Back in the 1950's the Vogue Doll Company made a set of aprons for a little girl and her doll.  Here's one of my little girls with her doll.

I was thinking of starting a new tradition.  Whenever a family member has a birthday I'll bring out these dolls to help celebrate.  Don't you know my grown sons will just love this new tradition? Oh well, at my age they can just tell everyone their mother is senile.

I've been working on some recent purchases too.  Most of my dolls are fixer uppers.  I like the idea that some little girl back in the 1950's had fun playing with them.  I also like the idea that they're much less expensive that way.  I see beautiful mint Vogue Ginny Dolls on eBay for $200 and up...sometimes over a thousand.  No thanks.  I love dolls, but not that much.

I recently bought the two dolls in the middle of this photo at a doll show.  The one of the left was $27.50 and the clown was $25.

Both of them had glue all over their faces.  I managed to get it all off without damaging their facial paint and then they had a good cleaning to remove 60+ years of dirt.  Then I removed the thin cut wig on the blond doll.  It was shot.  I rewigged her with another blond wig that I had and reglued the clown's wig where it was coming off.

I still have to comb and rebraid the clown's hair.  

Then my son helped me put in some new elastic so their arms could hold a pose.  He asked that I keep him out of the photograph.  He does not want to be known as a doll doctor.  I respect his wishes so he'll help me again the next time.

Here's my semi-finished Ginny.  I say semi-finished because I'm disappointed with all the flyaway hairs in her wig.  I'm hoping I can tame them.  I ironed her dress and gave her some reproduction black center snap shoes.  She has beautiful facial coloring.  Often these old dolls are faded and/or the brows and lashes have turned green due to copper that was in some of the paint.  She's wearing the Cathy dress #63 from 1953.  She's missing the hat that came with this dress.

You can see a mint Cathy doll on eBay and she can be yours for $365.  I'll put up with my less than perfect Cathy for $27.50.

Before I go I thought I'd share some pictures my friend texted to me this past week.  Sherelyn lives on the northwest side of Houston where I lived in the 1980's.  That area was hit particularly hard with flooding.  She was stuck home for days, but was fortunate not to get any water in her home.  It came close though.

Her next door neighbor is 7 inches lower than her.  That made a big difference.  Their house took in water.  She said they were away when it happened, but are back now.

This was her neighbor's backyard.

These are some views of the street.

It's very important to have flood insurance in the Houston area.  This area is very flat and when a storm stalls and keeps dropping rain the water can't run off fast enough.  Then you also have creeks and bayous overflowing their banks.

It rained again today, but hopefully that will be it for a while.

Please head over to Ms. Jenny's blog for a list of this week's participants.  Thanks for visiting...