November 2008                       Issue 21

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A Renaissance Family visits Ye Wee Peeple Doll Shoppe

This is what we mean by fun and frivolity, right here!  Now there's a dad who knows how to take the wife and children out for a good time! He's got his hands full with those two pistolenas there with the pink wings and mischievious grins...

oh yeah.

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And the Texas Renaissance Festival Continues....

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Inside the Doll Shoppe.............

A noblewoman signs up to receive the Wee Peeple E-mail Newsletter (that would be- this newsletter)

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It's just another cool, bright November Saturday morning,

Ray, friend of the Wee Peeple, stands in a wisp of leaves, watching, as the first handful of early-bird shoppers comes shuffling down the cobblestone sidewalk, huddling excitedly, curiously looking over and shyly giggling as they pass cloaked and croaking hawkers, as wonderful smells waft from the kitchens and the blinding morning sun obscures the sidewalk's end...

when suddenly....

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The Neighbor strikes again!

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Oh yes. We know who she is! Mary Ann,

one of the trio of neighbor gals from next door at the Rose and Crown Pottery Shoppe, was seen passing by on the sidewalk...  Mary Ann has to pass by the front doors of the Wee Peeple Doll Shoppe on her way to the privy. Okay...so...

The Dollmaker looks up and thinks she sees Mary Ann passing by out on the sidewalk. But then, a few moments later, Mary Ann is coming from the other direction- from the far back of the Doll Shoppe. No one saw her enter, yet there she is- standing in front of the counter with another Doll in her hands, and before the Dollmaker can look back out at the sidewalk and say, "but you weren't..." Mary Ann has launched into her famous introductory statement...

It always starts like this... "I wasn't going to buy another doll, but..."

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We love you, Mary Ann!

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   ~ The Repeat Intender Gallery ~  

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speaking of....  "Repeat Intenders" .....

(Customers who return year after year- bless their hearts- to buy more and more dolls!)

Here are some recent photos....

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The Dollmaker loves you people.

We all sure have had a lot of fun over the past 28 years!

Thankyou so much everyone for your support!

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  Remember!   Eight Themed Weekends!  

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We left off at All Hallows Eve Weekend.

Since then there has been Roman Orgy Weekend, Bagpipe Torture Weekend, and Barbarian Ravage and Pillage Weekend, all embraced by the gentle ladies of our Renaissance Village who have watched with hedonistic approval and muffled squeals the patron parade of Real Men in tights, togas, kilts and loincloths...

...each weekend a more astonishing spectacle than the last, as fashionable Real Men dared to sweep down the cobblestone roadways clad in (not always, but often seriously comical) garments adhering strongly to the special theme of the weekend.

(images from the internet)

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An Owl Doll with his like-minded brethren lobbying for a

 "SIEGE OF THE BIRDS OF PREY WEEKEND"....

at the Texas Renaissance Festival-

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Only one weekend left folks-

and yes, we will be open

the Friday after Thanksgiving

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now,

Father Christmas Dolls 

DO have their own weekend... and aren't THEY smug!

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The Last Themed Weekend is the Celtic Christmas Weekend

November 28th, 29th and 30th....

(also known as the Big End-of-Show-Sales Weekend)

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Get ready, get set, SHOP!

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Wooden Doll bodies get TALLER

Remember those first wooden Mini-Wee Doll bodies?

 With their stands they are a mere five inches tall...

The Wee Men use those five inch Doll bodies too, with an extra flat stand underneath.

But now, this season, wood-working Goddess Beverly Taylor

is making the wooden Doll Bodies in 5", 7", 9" and 12" sizes!

The Dollmaker has always wanted to make those tall skinny Folk Art Father Christmases!

yes, these new wooden doll bodies are most appropriate to use

with the new resin and sculpy doll heads...

speaking of which....

by the way.... Alert! Alert!

Long-Time Customers and Friends! Please be assured...

The Dollmaker LOVES Soft Sculpture!

The Soft-Sculptured Heads are not going away!

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                                    All this experimentation with mold-making and foriegn materials has made a few long-time Wee Peeple Doll Customers just a little nervous- several patrons arriving in person at the Doll Shoppe expressed the fear that the Dolls would begin to- OH Horrors! All look alike! All look the same! Become mass-produced! Oh perish the thought, dear gentle customers! Not-to-worry! Those who felt a bit fretful were soothed once they made fifteen trips around the shoppe meticulously examining every doll; they were all satisfied to find that no two dolls looked the same, and surprised to learn that they couldn't even tell which ones were hard-headed and which ones were soft-headed...(as is often the case in life- it's hard to tell at first...)

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Meanwhile,

the Dollmaker has been studying Folk Art...

Wide-set eyes are a characteristic of the new

 Folk Art Catpeeple

Folk Art! Strange, primitive, and child-like.

                      Folk Art just sends our Dollmaker down the patchwork and checkerboard rabbit hole, falling through a strange dream where ancient threadbare fabrics connected with long slightly crooked running stitches meet joyful little dancing buttons in a world where the Plain Queen of (pure and simple if kind of lop-sided) Hearts rules.

Rise from the ashes oh corrugated tin! Barn wood! Fenceposts! Rusty stuff! The more weathered the better! The more white-washed paint ruthlessly lovingly aged by sun and wind, with just the right touch of chickenwire- the better! All so strangely endearing to the Dollmaker's heart.

(Images from the Internet)

Then there are the Folk Cats who wander around the land of Folk Art with such an expanse of understated expression across their wee square faces, the delighted Dollmaker can't help measuring with her mind the distance between their ponderously wide-set eyes!

Folk Art Cat Dolls on the Dollmaker's workbench, raring to go travelling over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house they go... They think they are going to Grandmother's house, because they'd start meowing and caterwalling all over again for a Dominator Cats of the Empire Weekend, if we told them we were heading for TRF...

We shall see what happens in the Folk Art direction...

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Shannon's beautiful Angel Ornaments

 really brighten up the shoppe

and seem to appear in the backround in many of the photos of the friends of the Wee Peeple!

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Shandi Returns

The Lady Kandra in the Doll Shoppe with Shandi who came for a visit bearing handmade gifts- 

Check it out! She painted that very awesome phoenix on the box. And inside this magical box was a small winged horse and two beautifully crafted and painted paperclay pendants.

Kudos and a big Thanksgiving Thanks to Shandi!

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               Farewell to a  Good Friend                

We are missing our dearly beloved, now deceased Blackie, a fine feathered friend, a good hen, who lived part of her life in a henhouse, but most of her life, a free hen. She was a one-winged chicken, a amazing racoon-attack survivor, Blackie was fiesty and fast, one of five hengirls who grew up together, she was the smallest- the one the others always picked on, but her indomitable spirit took her, by the end of her life, to the lead position in her tribe. Her particular chicken strut is sorely missed around here. Blackie, one of the core group of animal friends, may your spirit live on in a chicken-friendly world where nothing ond nobody eats chicken. You lived long, you were beautiful and you were free.

We love you still! 

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We give thanks for all our many many blessings!

Til next time.....

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