Greta's Blog

Flower beds and thinking...

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 14:26:00 -0500

Hi!

The fog is lifting this morning, which is a good thing because it almost looked like October outside and I was ready to start sprinkling fall leaves around Pleasantville until I remembered that it is still just the beginning of August!

Changing seasons in the doll town is a really fun thing to do, and it adds a lot of interest to photos since when you have the gardens and decorations and clothes constantly changing throughout the year, every picture you take tends to be slightly different and you can always tell what time of year it is, based on whatever is in the background of the photo.

We love to go to Joann's superstore, where they sell lots of "fake" flowers and greenery, or what they call the "floral" section of the store. Here you can find neat flowers and seasonal plants for your doll houses. To make flowerbeds, we usually get little lengths of styrofoam as garden beds and then cut the individual fake flowers shorter and "plant" them in the styrofoam so they stand up straight. Combining lots of different flower types makes the garden more interesting and makes it look more realistic, too.

Whenever you want to decorate the dolls' houses, they can pick flowers from their actual gardenbeds, which also helps to deck the house out in the right seasonal colors.

Have you tried planting doll gardenbeds or using fake flowers for your dollhouses? Another easier way to get a quick garden is to choose a few flower rings from Joanns or Michaels. Flower rings are rings of fake flowers that are made to go around candles or centerpieces, but if you bunch a few of them together they look like a neat little garden.

Some ideas to try!
See you again soon!
:-)
Greta

Hey Hey Long Time No See!

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 11:53:00 -0500

Hello there!

Summertime in Pleasantville is my third-favorite doll season. Second favorite is Autumn, and favorite is Christmas. That doesn't mean that I don't enjoy it, I love it! We weren't able to find the time to hold a doll county fair this year, but that means that it has cleared the schedule enough for Suzanne and Cristal to hold the Masked Ball again, which they are fully planning to do. Just yesterday they were having fervent discussions about table linens and flower arrangements.

The Merrimans have been making new kinds of tea for the General Store, which is much-needed because they have had the same tea selections for nearly four years now and everyone is kind of tired of serving the same flavors at teatime every day. So Nan and William have been glueing together new tea boxes and pouring tea leaves into little teabags all afternoon.

Mr. Merriman is still quite worried about his finances, but he hasn't let on to anyone in the family besides William so Lily hasn't fainted yet.

I hope you all managed to see Nafy's new video blog (#13) because it was HILARIOUS. We were all laughing so hard. Actually I think Suzanne is pretty patient because Nafy has a VERY hard time finding something to like about her singing lessons. My favorite part is when she puts on a little twang and starts stomping along singing "I want to laugh like a brook...."

Anyway, see you next week!
:-)
Greta

Rainy day activities

Fri, 4 Feb 2011 12:34:00 -0500

Hi all!

I do deeply apologize for the lack of blog entries on my part for the last few months. My last entry was so long ago that the new movie wasn't even out and no one had seen it yet, and it was before Christmas and everything!

Christmas has definitely come and gone here, and we're thoroughly enjoying cleaning up all the houses and putting away the decorations. Now it's almost Valentine's day so it is fun to dip into the Parkington's Valentine decorations box and put up all of the little crafts we made for them last year to make their house and now the Post Office all the more cheerful.

Last week we had a really neat meetup with two readers of this site, Hallie (who is also a moderator now on the message board along with Kylie and Amy) and her family plus her friend Mallory (who also reads the site) came to breakfast with us when we were passing through their town and it was quite lovely. We talked and laughed about dolls and NafyCast and quoted Nafy's blogs and they were both such nice girls and people.

Later, we went down to the river and had some fun at a playground and on the carousel. I love meeting people who also love dolls, there is something very special about those types of girls! ;-)

Now we are home and there is nothing of much importance to note going on in the town, besides Cristal breaking her leg and having to wobble around the town on crutches provided by Josefina. Angelica has started up a competitive game of solitaire to bring customers into the Grumpy Troll. The cards are set out on the table and everyone who plays has to pay $2 if they lose. If they win, they get the whole pot. Even though Suzanne and Cristal are scandalized and are certain that Angelica is encouraging gambling in the pub, they have both tried very hard to win that pot of money when there is no one looking. heehee!!

Anyway, it is a rainy but surprisingly balmy day out here, and great for working on some new projects. So I will sign off now but hopefully be back to blogging sooner than in three months!

:-)
Greta

Movie and Traditions

Fri, 29 Oct 2010 11:26:01 -0500

Hi everyone!

Long time no blog! I am sitting here on the couch looking over at the Parkington's house, which is all decked out for Halloween right now, waiting for Trick-or-Treaters. The Parkingtons are very excited about holiday decorating, but the thing I am getting the most excited about are their traditions.

I love traditions. I think traditions are great. Aren't they the part about a year that you remember most? How when you were little you always used to bake Christmas cookies on a certain day, or how you used to always watch movies on Fridays with the family, or have a Valentines swap with your friends and eat candy hearts? Traditions put your whole calendar in order, they always give you something new to look forward to with every season.

I recently read a book about Victorian traditions and I'm working on bringing some of them to Pleasantville, because there are so many great ones! There are so many days in December that have different kinds of Christmas celebrations on them that no one celebrates anymore, but are so cute and fun. I'm hoping to add some of them as well. What is your favorite tradition that you always look forward to?

We finished filming the movie last week with some really adorable scenes that will just make it more full (not that it isn't already full- it is a very BIG movie for such little characters, hehe!) In fact, bits of it are quite epic. But I won't say anymore just now. ;-)
The whole movie is about an hour and 45 minutes long... so I think there'll be just enough room to fit a blooper reel on the DVD as well. That would be good because there were some hilarious things that happened on the set! (Mostly involving Nafy, lol.)

Speaking of which, we're sending a big, exciting, important letter about the movie out to you all on Monday morning (the day after Halloween) which you are not going to want to miss. As I say, there is some VERY GOOD news in this letter.

So, with that I will conclude all my rambling and go check out the message board. Hehehe!
See you on Monday!
:-)
Greta

Autumn and Proper School!

Fri, 24 Sep 2010 10:52:14 -0500

Hi everyone!

Wow it has been a while since I wrote a blog. I've missed you all! The dolls are all very busy stocking up their shops. Because while we have been gone for a few weeks, we have not been lazy in collecting things for them! lol. Finding little tiny doll-sized things at shops is my one weakness. We went to a shop in Pennsylvania called "Christmas Tree Hill" that had a lot of little mini sized items. You can see some of them here:

As you can see, we found a terrifically cute clothes stand for Cristal's clothes boutique where she can display the latest fashionable clothes for everyone to see, as well as a few holiday couch cushions for the Parkingtons (they were tree ornaments!) and even a little mini microphone!

Nafy is very busy at the General Store fixing up all of the displays to fit the new items, although she still hasn't found anyone to buy her pink pig in a cake pan, despite what a good sales pitch she has for it.

In Pennsylvania it was still Summer, but out here it is already almost like Winter! The weather is dreary and so we are sitting inside most of the time, either playing music or working on new doll projects and drinking tea.

Hope you are all doing well!!
:-)
Greta

Summertime and Dolls

Fri, 6 Aug 2010 11:11:39 -0500

Hey everybody!

Long time no blog! I am in WI right now, but the neat thing about the website is that it can keep going whether we are physically in Pleasantville or not. I thought that I wouldn't be able to keep updating, but I've managed to find enough wifi at restuarants and such to keep them coming.

I was really happy this year to actually have a little bit of our summer that we could play dolls in. The county fair was lots of fun to put on and last year we got to do the Gala ball. What do your dolls normally do during the summer? Hopefully it is not too hot to get some good quality playtime in.

It was fun to re-order the chores page this week, since we took those pictures somewhere around three years ago, a lot of peoples' chores have changed. We should take some new pictures sometime to share some of those with you, especially since some of the new characters who have chores (like Ana and Tomas) weren't even in the town yet!

I am working on plans for several big updates in the next few weeks, so keep your eyes out for some new additions to the site, including a *new contest* and a new episode of NafyCast, to start with. :-)

Take care everyone, don't get too sunburned!
:-)
Greta

Hi all!Well it has been a long...

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 13:44:59 -0500

Hi all!

Well it has been a long time since I last wrote a blog. I guess we are always busy on Fridays or something, but for some reason Willow gets to write all the blogs these days! lol

As you've been hearing a lot lately, we are working on everyone's projects for the County fair, although Lisa roped all her friends into going down to the river for a party the other day and it was fun except she kept telling everyone exactly what they were supposed to do next. Angelica and Alex really wanted to go get summery drinks at the Grumpy Troll, but Lisa insisted they stay by the river (even though it was practically raining) and play volleyball because it was fashionable.

Suzi went along with her on everything but at the end of the day everyone was pretty happy to be "allowed" to go home from Lisa's "party." haha!

We put together a rough cut of the movie yesterday and watched the whole thing. We determined that it is too long right now, but it is really hard to choose anything to cut. :/ I think that in the long run it will make it better and tighter though, so it must be done! I also started on the blooper reel- there are seriously so many bloopers that if I put them all in they would be longer than the actually movie, lol! So only the most classic bloopers will be making it to the final cut. ;)

We have a lot of plans for the website this summer, so a lot of pictures have been taken and you'll be seeing the results in the upcoming few weeks. I hope you enjoy them, we're really excited about them.

How are your Summers going so far?
:-)
Greta

The Movie is Coming Along....

Fri, 14 May 2010 09:20:56 -0500

Hello everyone!

I have been having the most enjoyable time in the last few months editing through this movie, "Nafy's Christmas." It has been such a learning experience (so far) and also is so enjoyable to see all the bits and pieces finally coming together!

I'm working on one of the most fascinating scenes right now. It has many, many parts and it took us almost two weeks to film (which you could never tell by watching it... alas....) and with all the bits and pieces coming together it is turning into a full world and story. :)

A few people have been disappointed with the release date announcement being in December. Let me explain why it has to take that long. The process is slow for editing, because this time I am sorting through hours of footage for every few minutes of actual video. I've been editing since early February and I'm only about halfway done. So the editing could go on through the summer until early September.

When the editing is done, it is time to do all of the sound editing. This means making sure all the audio from the characters talking needs to be balanced and mixed with other sounds and sound effects to make sure that a banging door is not going to blot out the sound of someone talking, which is the more important sound.

After sound editing, we get to start working on the music for the movie. We're already talking about many ideas we have, but it will take watching the whole completed movie all the way through to decide on most of the musical exerpts.
Once we have decided where to put the music, it is time to write it, learn it, record it, and sync it up with the movie.
When all that is done, I have to put everything together and print the movie onto a disc, figure out the cover art for the DVD case, and upload the pictures to the website so you all can see it!

Probably with all of that going on, the most realistic date we can hope for is December 1st. And it HAS to come out in time for everyone to watch it around Christmas, so you can get in the spirit! :)

So, hopefully you are ok with the Dec 1st date, and I appreciate everyone waiting so patiently for the movie to be done. It will be worth it, I promise!!

:-)
Greta

That Elizabeth Cole

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:56:51 -0500

Hello everyone!

It has been a long time since I wrote a blog. How did I skip so many Fridays? That's just not fair. Anyway, here I am now, hopefully some people still read this blog. ;)

Elizabeth Cole is a really funny character. I didn't used to know exactly what she was like, but I've realized that she is just a grump. She likes just being herself and doesn't listen to anyone else's opinions or orders. Right now she is sitting on her bed with her head stuck in the bell of her Victrola (Rebecca's music player from AG) and listening to "Take me out to the ball game" nonstop.

Elizabeth actually has had quite a lot of influence on Nafy over the years. In fact, I think it is probably safe to say that Elizabeth is one of the only people that Nafy listens to and takes advice from. The two of them are the crazier two of the four kitties, and they don't care what people think of them. Nafy has to try and fit into her time period though, so she has to use manners and wear the right kinds of clothes. Through reasons and means unknown, Elizabeth has managed to bend the time period rules of the Parkingtons' house just enough that she can wear the fashions of about 10 years ahead of them and listen to more modern music than they do. Needless to say, it drives them all crazy because she is such a radical.

hehehe! On Easter Elizabeth spent the whole afternoon after finding her Easter jelly bean eggs putting them on top of the spinning record on her Victrola one by one and letting them fly off as it circled around, then laughing at where the jelly bean landed. Soon there were jelly beans all over her bedroom! The maids didn't really enjoy that too much, lol!

Hopefully you all have been well and enjoyed hearing a little bit more about Elizabeth, she's quite the character.

:-)
Greta

The Parkingtons' house is finally decorated for...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:18:30 -0500

The Parkingtons' house is finally decorated for Spring instead of Christmas - that took long enough! Heather got out all of the boxes from the attic and replaced their winter clothing with Spring dresses that have been packed away for the last six months. It was so refreshing to fill up their closets with pastels and white lace after the months of dark plaid and long sleeves.

The Larson family is trying hard to get going on a planned schedule, even though none of them are really that type of person. Anna is the only one who continues to successfully do their chores.

Lisa and Suzanna had a race at the clothes boutique the other day to see who could come up with the best reason to buy a bolt of blue satin. They both wanted to have Cristal make it into a ballgown, so they fought hard. In the end, Lisa won because she thought her red hair and blue eyes would look better in it than Suzi's blonde. So Suzi settled on a different bolt of fabric to be HER new ballgown, and they both submitted their orders to Cristal forthwith. They have also been gathering sewing projects together to make fashionable modern clothing at sewing circles.

Mei Mei and Vera are VERY happy with their new home in the new bank roof, and have decorated it with carpets and hanging silks. They don't bother Lisa too much unless they feel like things are getting boring, and they spend most of their time hanging out of the roof and looking around town square.

Laura and Paul went rock climbing by the river, which was a great idea until Paul let go of the line because he "saw a fish." Laura slipped sideways and was soon hanging by her harness out over the river, yelling at Paul, who was a little sheepish.

So town square is having a good 'ol time, and around here in Pleasantville the dolls could not be happier that Spring is coming at last!
:-)
Greta