Sasha Shangri-La

Last year I was thrilled to learn that Janet Myhill-Dabbs was planning to interpret 20 studio dolls made by Sasha Morgenthaler herself. I contacted Janet and she provided a list of the dolls she had under consideration. From there, we selected two dolls and I packed up two Sasha doll candidates and sent them on their way to Janet. This first doll is a doll that I particularly liked in the Sasha-Puppen Book plus I had seen her in museum photos that have been shared on facebook.  She is #11 Blond Smock. 🙂

This lovely Certificate was made by Janet. As you can see, this pretty girl began life as a blonde Gregor. 🙂

The back of the Certificate explains how Janet came to create the studio interpretations. ❤

Here is the lovely girl who just arrived at Sasha Shangri-La last week. She was created last Fall in 2014 and she remained in the UK in order to attend the wonderful Sasha Celebration last month.   I am happy that those in attendance were able to see her in person. 🙂

A closer view of this soft, sensitive girl. ❤

Janet made her entire outfit with wonderful handmade layers of clothing. 🙂

Her socks are handknitted and her slip on shoes are made of leather.  Wonderful attention to detail. ❤

A lovely scarf as adornment plus flowers in her hair. ❤

A very pretty pose. 🙂

A side profile of this dear, sweet girl. ❤

A photo of the back of her studio dress with tiny little buttons and her fabulous braid that Janet wove into her hair at my request. It was important to me to have this pretty braid addition for this girl and Janet made it so. 🙂

The second Studio interpretation is #7, Red Smock.  She was also created last Fall and was part of Janet’s display at the recent Sasha Celebration. 🙂

This beauty began life as a White Dress girl. 🙂

I love the fabric used for her studio dress. It reminds me of a sputnik-type or atomic age design. ❤

A beautiful girl now living at Sasha Shangri-La. 🙂

I love her strong facial features. Her unique sprinkling of freckles are a perfect surrounding to her green eyes.  Her hair was perfect as is and was left alone and it still has that hard to find, new doll smell. 🙂

She has lovely under garments that she shyly agreed to show. 😉

The knitted stripy socks and leather studio shoes are perfect. ❤

She is watching a butterfly that is floating by. 🙂

A beautiful, pensive girl. ❤

Thank you for visiting the blog and I hope you enjoyed seeing two of Janet’s studio renditions. It is very special to be a part of this tribute to the artistic genius of Sasha Morgenthaler. ❤

Time to say goodbye to the month of May, one of my favorite months of the year. I love the warmer days from those remembered during the long and lingering winter. Most of all, I love the beautiful new display of flowers and trees and the return of the hummingbirds and other birds and wildlife. There are so many varied shades of green in the trees and that means new life to me. ❤

I am very vunerable to Sasha waifs and this pretty little golden eyed 1960’s Gotz girl captured my heart on Shelly’s site. I watched her for what seemed like an eternity and finally contacted Shelly and adopted her. 🙂

Remember her now??? 😉  This was Shelly’s photo.  She is a waif most definitely!

This little girl is quite assertive and immediately wasted no time and told me her name was “Mae” 🙂

Her hair is very silky and her fringe strands are shorter so we tried placing a pretty clip sweeping most of the fringe aside. 🙂

I had this nice butterfly dress made by Jadzia and found a pair of gold leather JJ shoes for Mae to wear.   She loves her new outfit. ❤

A photo of her looking off in the distance. Wonder what is commanding her attention?….

Well, hello there girls!  Now I see that Mae was looking at Tassie (redhead) and Sammie who are both lovely repaints by Cassie Rogers and also recently adopted. ❤

It is so nice to see these girls together and they have become fast friends since they arrived at Sasha Shangri-La at nearly the same point in time. 🙂

A final photo for you to see. Tassie, Mae, Sammie, and I all wish you a wonderful week to come as we begin to live in the beautiful month of June! 🙂 xxx

Laura Ward and I had a four day visit with Cassie Rogers in Santa Monica, CA. We arrived on Wednesday, May 13th and returned home on Sunday, May 17th. This was my first trip to California and my first view of the Pacific Ocean. We stayed at the wonderful, historic Culver Hotel in Culver City. All of the meals we had on the trip were wonderful and my number one favorite restaurant was “The Wallace” which is also located in Culver City.  Yummy! 🙂

Cassie was a perfect hostess and we had a very wonderful time!  Cassie gave us a wonderful tour and drove us up the Pacific Coast Highway through Malibu and viewing the amazing homes in that area of prime real estate,  Then, on to Ventura where we visited many antique and speciality shops.:)

This is the view from the beautiful Hotel Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica. We stopped there to have refreshment and to enjoy the view. Afterwards, we walked to the lovely beach.

Finn also enjoyed the ocean view sitting on the lifeguard’s stand. The tote bag was a gift from Cassie and it contained sand buckets and shovels for our Sashas. 🙂

Kendal joined Finn for fun at the beach!

Too chilly to swim, Finn was content to build sand castles. 😉

What a great place to play!

Laura dipping her toes in the Pacific and holding Kendal. ❤

Cassie and Finn enjoying the day. ❤

Cassie gave us a great tour and we were able to see Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

More high-end shops.

This hotel is the Official Beverly Wilshire Hotel, A Four Seasons Hotel where the movie “Pretty Woman” was filmed starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.

Driving through Hollywood was quite a sight!  Very crowded and full of tourists.

The Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was difficult to get a photo with all of the people walking around the stars.

The sign for the TCL Grauman Chinese Theatre.

Construction underway as we left the Hollywood area. You won’t see billboard signs like this in West Virginia! I admit I blushed a bit myself. 🙂

Interesting buildings and advertisements.

We attended a local doll show in Pasadenda which was wonderful! I talked with a few doll dealers that I have known over the years which was a special, unexpected treat. After leaving the doll show, I snapped this photo of the iconic “Hollywood” sign located in Hollywood Hills in the Santa Monica Mountains. 🙂

As fabulous as everything was, the highlight was spending time with Laura and Cassie in Cassie’s studio. Cassie created this fantastic “Dollywood” scene for the dolls and Finn and Jessie really enjoyed posing in a star’s spotlight on the red carpet.  Cassie had tiny, metal Oscar awards for the winning stars! ❤

Shown are a few of the wonderful stars that Cassie made for Laura and me.  These “Walk of Fame” stars line the red carpet runway above.  Each one has a name of a special Sasha Doll belonging to Laura and me plus she made one with our names too. 🙂

Tha backs are made of cork and they are coasters! How creative and thoughtful of Cassie to make them and I love them! ❤

Cassie gave Joy a special hair styling session.  She also helped Laura with a couple of Sasha projects.  We learned a lot by watching Cassie. 🙂

I brought a redhead White Dress girl with me in my suitcase and Cassie graciously offered to repaint her. This is her with her new look and her name is “Tassie”.  I love her beautiful brown , hand painted eyes and brows! ❤

A full length view of Tassie wearing a knitted outfit found on ebay and her lime green leather shoes were made by Jean Jensen.  It was 39 degrees yesterday morning so we are able to wear long sleeves and sweaters for most of the day. 🙂

A closer view of Tassie. ❤

Tassie is happy to be here at Sasha Shangri-la. She arrived earlier this year so she counts as a 2015 purchase. 🙂

A photo without her hat. Tassie’s hair is fabulous and thick with loads of natural curl. While at the Pasadena Doll Show, I bought a sandy haired “Party” girl (1985) that had no original outfit except her shoes and a blonde Gregor denims boy with brown leg stringing. They were sold together as a pair and I was happy to find a Sasha because many doll shows will not have a Sasha doll for sale.  The boy Gregor is with Cassie visiting but Cassie offered immediately to repaint the Party girl and I was able to bring her home on the plane.  Here she is, drum roll please………

Please meet “Sammie” a lovely Party girl and the first one I have ever adopted. The sandy blonde hair is really a lovely and different color. It looks more like a strawberry blonde color to me.  Her previously stamped blue eyes are now a lovely blend of blues and grays beautifully captured by an artist’s brush and palette. Thank you Cassie. ❤

I dressed Sammie in a pretty blue corduroy dress set by Ruthsdolls. She looks so nice in this color.  Sammie and Tassie both had a nice bath and shampoo before they were painted. 🙂

A closer view of Sammie.  She is getting to know everyone here on the farm and is very close to Tassie. 🙂

A side view of Sammie. 🙂

Sammie, Tassie and I want to thank you for visiting with us. We are sending hugs to you and happy wishes for this weekend and the week to come! 🙂 xxx