A Tudor swap with friends

The online group I belong to, Small World, has a swap every month or so for most of the year. The last swap had a Tudor theme. Look at all the beautiful things I now have to display in my castle. I think I'm going to have to start that castle expansion project soon.
I made mandolins and "pewter" goblets for everyone.

Just a quick post - I'm heading off to sub at the elementary school for the afternoon. Hope you're all having a wonderful day!

Too much hair!

That's what Ariana told me first thing this morning. And she was right. Her hair was too thick and overpowered her face. So I removed about half of it and added waves to the new thinner hair. We also decided to change her headpiece into a small crown. Here she is playing her mandolin in the chapel. The chapel is the place she feels closest to her mother so she spends a lot of time there.

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I can't believe I did it!

I really wanted to have a mandolin for the castle but I didn't want to spend a lot of money and I wasn't sure I could make one. Today I decided to sort through my miscellaneous wood pieces to see if I had something I could use as a starting point. I was very excited to find a piece that looked like half of a wooden ball with a hole in the center of the large side. That had real possibilities. I got out the Dremel and sanded the ball into more of a teardrop shape like a mandolin. I added a skinny stick, some beads, pins, thread, paint and bits of cardstock and ended up with something that looks a lot like a mandolin. :)
Ariana likes it and she plays quite well.

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