My creations

Okay next I’ll show you dresses I made for my porcelain dolls. I rescue porcelain dolls from thrift shops that have potential for improvement and give them makeovers. :D The blond girl dressed in yellow I dressed from head to toe and I’m pretty proud of it. The one in the pink and white dress I’ve also made the dress. She is a musical doll resting on a plastic cone and plays “Thank heaven for littlegirls”, that includes the ones trapped in 40+ year old bodies... ;D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6VxBbAJQnw

Now the Asian doll’s dress was made with a wine bottle cover that I tapered, but I made her hair ornaments and her socks and shoes from a description my daughter gave me. If you can see the little butterfly she’s holding, that came from a sweet EBay seller, direct from China. Enjoy! Hugs to all, Sylvie :D

Hi friends, today I’ll upload pictures of other non-musical creations. My kids used to love McDonald’s toys and that’s where I got the idea for the first book I made, when my youngest daughter was 7 or so. I just covered up a cardboard box and used the material off a broken lampshade to make it look like pages and even made a bookmark with a tassle on top. :D The second picture is the book when opened and the third picture is a wooden box covered to look like abook and due to the size, it had to be “Great expectations”! :D That big wooden box is where I put my music box movements, waiting to go in my creations. Enjoy! Hugs to all, Sylvie <3

They are beautiful Sylvie and I absolutely adore the little telephone and especially too the little tune it plays....let me hear Lionel say that to me any day .....and thanks for all those links so that we can hear the music and it is quite funny but my sister had a musical jewelry box that my brother had brought home from Japan for her on one of his trips and it was Rachmaninov that that played....always wondered if that was where my love of his music stemmed from and so glad you picked it for one of yours !! :)

Thanks again for sharing with us Sylvie !! :)

Sylvia.   Your wee Scottish friend.

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In reply to Diane: I'm sorry sweetie, I didn't realize I hadn't responded to you. To answer your question: yes, the blog works backwards, just like Michael's. And yes, a lot of both love and work went into those. Sometimes it's not easy to sew things in layers like my snail or around inside corners. I'll see if I can also upload pictures of music boxes I've given to people, but the quality might be lesser, because they're taken with a dinosaur camera... :D I've made music boxes that looked like books and to sew material between the book cover and the pages isn't easy. I have to use a curved needle. I can't promise but I'll see what I can do. I hope one day I can share the pics of the one I made for MB... after I've given it to him. XD Take care Diane and thank you too for your interest sweetie, God bless. Hugs, sincerely, Sylvie from Canada

Hi Kathy, thank you for your comment sweetie. You really like it? I wasn't even sure if I was gonna put that one in the picture... As I've said, it made sense in my head at the time. I'm guessing you haven't seen it, but "Ice castles" was a skating movie.

I loved the movie but something struck me about it. I don’t know if they actually show it in this trailer :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjHRC5iO7fE

but in the movie, which I remember seeing, the way the character sees, is pretty much the way I see now so it stuck with me. Speaking of seeing, thanks for giving me a mental picture of your patio sweetie, especially the colors: it sounds gorgeous so drink it in! :D Take care sweetie and thank you very much for your interest. Big hugs, sincerely, Sylvie <3

All right friends, here are my earliest music boxes from top to bottom: top one plays “Through the eyes of love” which is the love theme from the 1978 movie “Ice castles”. I made it with a tiara that was included with a collector’sdoll I bought. It’s not the best-looking but it made sense in my head at the time. :D Here’s the music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WjosN1HaNA

I loved the song, but this movie and the connection to it made it more special. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll understand. The green one right underneath, that kind of looks like a phone plays “I just called to say I love you”. I realized that I needed to get slightly bigger boxes to try and hide the key. The green (I think) one on the left with a “G” on it and the 2 flowers was my very first one. The “G” was for my godmother who’s name started with that. The blue one with the butterfly on the right plays “Feelings”. I made it only with silk ribbons, of every shade of blue I could find and yes, all the tiny flowers were all sewn one by one. The light blue one in front with 2 white ribbon roses was the second one I made and it plays “Somewhere in time” from one of my all-time fave movies, here’s the music from it:  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o36EXzADXWc&feature=related

There are sounds of SIT music boxes on YouTube but they don’t do it justice, so thought this would be prettier. The last pink one with the red rose and the feathered fan plays “18th variation on a theme of Paganini” by Rachmaninov, from the same movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFLvNGFDMow

I made the feather fan because I was told that the Jane Seymour character has one in the movie and it was a good way to camouflage the key! :D Well girls, that was the beginning, when I made them more generic: I had to start somewhere... :D Hope you like them none the less. Take care and hugs to all, Sylvie <3

Hi my wonderful friends and thank you all so much for spoiling me with all your kind words but oh my, please pace yourselves, there’s more! Lol Just remember that I’ve seen before so I have a picture in my head on how they’ll turn out. Well Sylvia, the “why me?” period happened a long time ago for me and my music boxes really happened by accident, literally. Let me give you guys a little background. I think it was in the summer of 2005, I broke a music box my godmother gave me but didn’t want to throw it out. Through the I.N.L.B. (Institut Nazareth & Louis Braille), I got a special needle-threader and a Braille label-maker to Braille my spools and started slowly doing the mending on laundry day and realized that relaxed me, with 4 kids, I needed it. :D Anyway, I first thought to put the music box mechanism or movement in a little pillow but my husband figured they’d sound better in a wooden box. I also had another movement from a kid’s toy. Hubby quickly realized the great choice there was on EBay for movements so he started buying more and then our Dollarama started selling plain wooden boxes so got into that and the rest is history. Now Sylvia and Kathy, just give me a couple of months in advance if you want the music box as a wedding present and we’re all set! :D My next post will have that first music box and all my earlier models. À tout de suite! :D

Thank goodness got note that you had been in Sylvie as for you Diane....no.....no notification of your post but will probably get that in a couple of weeks and yes Diane there are gremlins in the works as far as e-mail notifications are concerned.....Sylvie and I picked up that there was something wrong and Sylvie contacted Gail and I have put in little comments about in replies I was putting in and because of one or two of the girls have come in and said that they were experiencing the same problems but Gail has got in touch with ning who operate the site and is waiting to hear word from them.   I have just cleared e-mails yesterday relating to Monday and today I have been getting ones from Tuesday and Wednesday and in this little batch I have got I have one notifying me about the blog post "Leaving Sydney"...how long ago was that put in ??? LOL.  

You are on Sylvie for the decoration for the top of my wedding cake and you'll get the first invite and then you can bring it with you....that okay ????? ROFL   As for getting all the praise....you only get because you deserve for all of those musical boxes would still be absolutely beautiful if made by a sighted person but knowing YOU have made them....WOW....they are EXTRAORDINARY and the sight you must have through your fingers is just absolutely bloody wonderful Sylvie for you must have gone through a little battle to accept it was the only way to go forward and to get what you wanted out of life that you have allowed yourself and opened yourself up to being able to accept and to feel and see in that manner.....OMG.....goosebump time for me just thinking about it and it is some achievement Sylvie, some achievement and I thank you for sharing part of that with me....thanks Sylvie !!! :)

Sylvia.   Your wee Scottish friend.

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Hi Sylvie, I'm a bit confused with the notifications, and the blog seems to work backwards ... or it could be me!   Anyway, at least I got to see your latest, absolutely superb 'musical box'.     It's much, much more than that, you put so much into and I can tell it's with great enjoyment rather than hard work!

It's beautiful Sylvie, absolutely beautiful! :D   Thank you so much for treating us to a view of your talent .... loved it ... in case you hadn't realise! :D

Hugs from di xxx

(Scotland)