Doll Diaries Is Sponsoring a Cool Giveaway!

In addition to sewing Barbie doll clothes for my website, Barbee and Friends Doll Clothes, I also like to sew for American Girl dolls as well as collect American Girl dolls. I belong to The American Girl Fans Message Board and today I saw a post for a site called Doll Diaries where the owner is wanting to get people to come sign up for her first ever giveaway. Just to give another plug out, the giveaway is sponsored by Beautiful Doll.

What is she giving away, you might ask? Just check out out this page to sign up to win an adorable pumpkin costume for your American Girl or other 18 inch doll. All you have to do is make a comment on her blog, tell that you'd like to win and maybe mention another costume that is your doll's favorite for Halloween. Very simple! Actually I shouldn't be telling you because I'd like to win it! Just kidding! I am really wanting to help her out by getting some more sign-ups for her contest. She's very excited about the giveaway.

While you're over there, browse around Doll Diaries for some other blog entries as well. It's not just about 18 inch dolls. I saw some links to posts about other dolls too. There are a lot of good resource links, photos, tips and reviews there too for different types of dolls including Barbie. When you're all finished looking there, you can come back and get your handmade Barbie clothes from me! All links above should open in new windows. Good luck! (I think! heehee)

Some Changes to the Cheerleader Outfits/Poms

As you may know if you've visited Barbee and Friends lately and checked out my Barbie cheerleading outfits , I can no longer get the Team poms that you see pictured with my Ohio State cheer outfit. I am running very low on the scarlet and gray color ones but in other colors I have quite a few. The Team Poms company has gone out of business and I have bought all that I could of what the craft website that sold them had left.

I have purchased a pom maker now so that I can hopefully make whatever colors I don't have as the Team Poms brand poms. The first color I had to make was white and maroon. I am thinking it was for Oklahoma University. My customer was very pleased with the outfit but she thought the poms were just a touch too small.

That's why I wanted to write this little article. When you receive handmade poms, they won't look anything like the poms shown on the website. My daughter is going to be in charge of making them and she does a really nice job. But with the yarn weight available, it's not really possible to make them look identical to the manufactured Team Poms. It could be a very long time before I totally run out of Team Poms, but there are just a few color combos out there that have made me have to resort to making the poms for different teams.

Also on 99% of the tops, I will be making a computer transfer to iron onto the top but with some of them, like OSU (Ohio State) I will still be hand lettering these. I just think the OSU in the gray fabric paint looks really nice. If you only have 3 letters required on the top and I have the fabric paint available, I will go ahead and hand letter these.

This probably has not been the most interesting article but it just lets me ramble a little bit about the Team Poms and how disappointing it is that I can't get them any longer. Another hint when buying a Barbie cheerleading outfit , if you need more than 5 of this outfit for maybe a fundraiser or just little gifts to give your cheer squad, please allow ample time for them to be done. Always assume there are several people in line ahead of you, just like at the store. A week for every 5 outfits might be a good rule of thumb, although in most cases I know I could have them finished sooner.

Well till next time, I hope you'll shop my site often and please remember my deadline for guaranteed Christmas delivery is November 25. If you celebrate a different winter holiday that comes earlier, you might want to order by November 18 just to be safe. Thanks for reading!