Kelley Corbett

Well, I pulled up my blog today to see that I hadn’t written a post since September.  Then I just laughed…because that is so indicative of my life.  October, November, and December are always a big blur – a fun blur – but a blur.  So now I am back to share with you my new obsession – making doll clothes for my daughters’ American Girl dolls.   I am hooked!  We have had so much fun sewing these outfits since November.  It was definitely my sanity through the holidays.  When things got crazy, I would sit down and sew an outfit.  Good times!  And now I am happy to be back to sewing my dolls.  I have some great new bright colorful fabrics to brighten up the spring dolls, and am very excited.  So stay tuned…spring is on its way, with a new batch of dolls to brighten the day!

How is your week going?  I hope well.  I am sooo excited!  I received my new fabrics in the mail today.  I just love France – and if you have seen the last doll I made (she is one of the spring girls listed at kelleycorbett.etsy.com), she is my “Shopping day in Paris girl”.  I loved the fabric so much, I started trying to track it down on the internet.  And I found it at ladybuttonfabrics.com.  A great little website with unusual and hard to find fabrics.  The service was great, and I hope to order some more fabric from them in the future.  If you enjoy fun and unusual fabrics, I highly recommend them.  I can’t wait to turn these fabrics into cute little dolls.  I promised to work on the princess dolls this week, but I hope to get to these fabrics real soon!  Take a little look-sy below and have a great week!  Take care.

Have you ever tip-toed through the tulips?  Or perhaps the bluebonnets?  The flowers this spring are beautiful!  Probably nature’s reward for the especially cold winter we had.  Whatever the reason for this season’s beauty, I hope you have an opportunity to take a nice afternoon walk and enjoy the flowers that are native to your neighborhood.  I love meandering with my family down to the duck pond at the end of our neighborhood street.  It is adorned with a blooming rosebush, bright pink bougainvilla, and  bunches of bluebonnets and wild buttercups.  We think it is as delightfully perfect as the turtles sunning themselves on the edge of the pond do.  And on a sunny Sunday afternoon, nothing is better to put our family in the frame of mind to face the week than a walk together along the pond’s edge!

I have a new collection of spring time dolls to share with you that are inspired by these afternoon walks in the flowers.  I am particularly excited about this group because they all share a new pattern that includes full, gathered, skirts –  just like those poofy Easter dresses that little girls look so cute in!  I hope you have a chance to check them out at kelleycorbett.etsy.com.  There is a sneak preview below of my favorite!  In the meantime,  have a great weekend and take care!  I hope you have a great sunny day to get outside and enjoy!

Don’t you just love it when you receive an exciting surprise in the middle of an otherwise normal routine day?  That exact thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago…

I was sitting in my gameroom catching up on e-mails when out of the blue I received a chat and video request from a longtime friend.  “Are you there?” it said.  My first thought was – How do I look? Am I still in my pajamas? – because video chats are a whole different ballgame, you know.  Then the message said, “I really need to talk to you!”  Then it didn’t really matter how I looked, I was worried.  My friend, Herve, and his wife Mireia, were expecting a baby, but not for two more weeks.  The good news is… Celia decided she wanted to enter this world a little bit early.  Bless her heart!  I just love babies who don’t make their parents sweat it out past the due date.  I mean, after all, in our fast pace, instant messaging, get it when you want it world, how many of us are prepared to wait past any due date?  I digress… Anyway, my family and I could not be more excited to celebrate the birth of Celia.  And how fun – I had yet another reason to make a doll!  She follows a new pattern I created for a nice full skirt, and she has a matching diaper tote with coordinating cloth diapers/burp pads.  I love the new pattern and hope to make many more.  My best wishes to Celia and her family – her big brother is very proud.  I hope she and her new doll have many fun adventures together!

Hello everyone!  Hope you are enjoying some nice spring weather.  I got my flowers in the ground over the weekend – impatiens, begonias, and dianthus.  I have found the dianthus flowers to be a year round flower in my garden so I planted even more of them this year!  One of my favorite events of the year is going to the nursery with my kids and picking out flowers.  They got very excited this year and picked out fruit trees and plants – blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and a fig tree.  We will see how green our thumbs are because I haven’t tried these before.  I might end up at the grocery store buying blackberries, raspberries, blueberries, and figs!

I am very excited to let you know that the Easter girls are now up on my kelleycorbett.etsy.com website and ready to be viewed.  I hope you enjoy checking them out.  I had super fun with the bright spring colors and can’t wait to make some more.  Here’s a little sneak peak below.  Have a great week and take care!

One more day!  Spring Break is almost here!  I am so excited, and ready, and I bet you are too!  I spent this week working on the spring collection of dolls.  I can’t wait to put them on the kelleycorbett.etsy.com website.   They should be up right after spring break.  But in the meantime, I have a sneak peak below.  The  plaid couple is my favorite, and totally modeled after those little girls who love fun sunglasses and glittery shoes, and little boys who refuse to wear shoes of any sort!  The other couple belongs to my daughter as she helped me sew them.  It was getting late at night, so we made a deal.  She sewed the hats, and they could be her Easter dolls.  I hope you enjoy the preview and have a great spring break!  Stay tuned for the rest of the dolls next week.  I promise bright colors and bright smiles!  Take care!

Hello everyone.  I hope you are enjoying warmer weather this week!  We have finally warmed up to the 70s – yeah!  I spent yesterday in the yard cutting back all of the dead plants – philodendrums and agapanthus.  I even moved around a few plants.  It was just nice to be outside.  And with the warmer weather comes a new zeal for spring.  Don’t you just love spring?! – the bright festive colors and beautiful spring flowers.  I got out all of my fun spring fabrics and set my mind to sewing dolls again!  Here are a few of the fun fabrics I am using.  I hope to show you the dolls soon.  In the meantime, enjoy some warmer weather and think spring… think spring… think spring!

Good Morning!  Just a note to wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  Best wishes from our home to yours!

Wait, Wait, Wait… OK.  Today.  Today is OK.  These have been the words to my daughter for the past week -wait, wait, wait.  Isn’t that how it goes in December?  You rush to get everything ready and then comes the wait- along with the excitement.  I decided I would be organized this year (hee, hee, hee), and get my gifts done early.  The flip side is, I have a daughter who is sooo full of Christmas spirit, it is oozing out of our house and onto the street!  She has replayed to me several times already where her Santa gift is going to be placed, and how it is going to be posed by the tree, and exactly what time she is going to get up Christmas morning (I won’t be sleeping in!)!  What a long month for a little girl!  She asked me to make dolls for her teachers’ Christmas presents.  How could I say no?  What a fun project.  So I went to sewing early, only to find that she then had to wait closer to Christmas to take them to school.  Today was as long as we could wait.  Her homeroom teacher has a cupcake theme in her classroom, and her math teacher has a frog theme.  Their pictures are below.  Her homeroom teacher’s doll came off my kelleycorbett.etsy.com website – you may recognize her.  And then I made a cute little cupcake to go with her and placed it on a little saucer.  Her math teacher’s doll has a definite green frog theme, although she is very fashionable, and a cute little lily pad to “sun” on.  I hope her teachers enjoy them in their classrooms, and I hope your Christmas planning is going well.  Not too much longer to wait!  Have a good week!