Another Random Thursday

I seem to be back to posting once a week at best. The truth is, there's just not that much going on. Unless you all really want three posts a week detailing how much cleaner my floors are lately, or what a relief it is to have finally picked up all that clutter in my basement. If that's the case, I could keep you riveted for days.

Here are some random shots instead:

The Dirt Dog really is the greatest thing that ever happened to me as a housewife.

Rosemary's Baby is a big fan of huckleberry jam. Good thing, because no one else is, and I have about 10 quarts of it in the pantry.

Check out what RB has recently started drawing! Must be all that brain-boosting huckleberry jam.

It may be time to patch up the hole in the basement ceiling...

Over the holidays, I discussed the lousy selection of Barbie outfits available these days with Sister #1. She has three girls, so she keeps up on these important issues. When I went to buy a Barbie for the gift tree at Zellers last month, there were about 20 different Barbies but only 3 (pretty skanky) outfit packages to choose from. This confused me, because when I was 10, the Barbie section at K-Mart was like heaven on earth for a budding fashionista. There must've been hundreds of outfits to choose from. These days, the evil geniuses at Mattel have realized that if they don't make extra outfits, the only way for little girls to get a good Barbie wardrobe going is to buy dozens of dolls. It was bad enough that the original store-bought clothes were about the cheapest quality you could get. Now they're trying to squeeze even more money out of this by not making clothes at all? Well, screw that! I've come up with the smartest business idea ever. Behold! Practice Gown #1:

This is my ratty old Sindy doll, and she's the only doll I will ever use to model these sorts of things. No flawless, botoxed, anorexic, flashy new Barbie dolls at MY modelling gigs. Here, you get the real deal!

If you do any shoe shopping online, you might be familiar with the satin shoe bags that some companies include when you buy their stuff. That's what I used to make this navy strapless ball gown with a bubble hem and bow detail in the back (it's more form-fitting than it looks. The bow bulks up the look a bit and I need to work on my photography skills). The best part about making Barbie clothes for my nieces is that I can use up scraps of fabric that aren't really big enough to do anything else with. Here are some more examples of fabric/yarn scrap use in action:

I'm still at the practice stage, but essentially, there's next to no cost, it doesn't take a lot of time, and there's a need for this particular product out there on the market.

If I could dig down deep and find my inner entrepreneur, I'd be a millionaire!