Happy Birthday now let's play Dress-Up Gabby!!

Today my sweet niece turns 2! I haven't talked with her yet because the party animal was still asleep a while ago because she burned the midnight oil by staying up past 1:00 a.m.! Mommy was trying to get ready for the big party this afternoon (insert sad face because we can't be there). We will see her in 3 1/2 weeks though - I'll be starting to count down the days! She is such a HUGE blessing to us all & everyone's lives now center around her (even mine and I live over 1,000 miles away!) We'll start sharing the love with her brother soon though.

In a few days I should have some birthday pics from my cousin Andrea, but above is an adorable one taken a few weeks ago where she reminds me of Lily in the set Dress Up Lily I knew when I saw this set from Pink Cat Studio that I would use it a lot because of this precious little girl. What's so cool is that she now personalizes the set for just $1 so I had her make mine Dress Up Gabby. How cute is that?! Of course, I will keep the stamps *wink* but I can use these not only for cards & projects for her but for scrapbook pages too! Talk about getting a lot of mileage out of a set!!

Here is my first project that I envisioned when I first saw the set! Do you remember Colorforms? Do you remember paperdolls? Well those 2 were some of my favorite toys growing up! I had a monchichi colorforms set that I ADORED! Well, I decided to make Gabby her own modern set incorporating my love of stamping! This project turned out to be the most intensive labor of love just yet for my sweet niece but she TOTALLY deserves it! I got my set on Thursday evening & went to work on it right away and just finished it up this afternoon. I started with stamping & coloring LOTS of the images. Then, I cut them out & laminated them, cut AGAIN and stuck magnets on the back of EACH of the pieces. Last year I bought this magnetic bulletin board from clearance at Michael's for $4 and had NO clue what I was going to use it for but when the idea came for Gabby's paperdolls I knew it would be PERFECT! score....

Next, I got Melanie's What's in Your Tin set 1 by Gina K (which coincidentally arrived yesterday) and made an tin to house all Gabby's Dress-Up Accessories. Some are so tiny, I hope she is very careful & doesn't lose any. If I know my sisters, I think they will be sure she doesn't because they will appreciate the time I spent making it all. The back of the tin is covered with a magnet so it will stay real well on the board! Here are some close-ups of the dress up Gabbys. You'll see some of them have paper-pieced clothing. Some are using Prismacolor pencils & OMS and some Copics. I jazzed them up with Sakura glitter pen, stickles because Gabby has to be dressed to the 9's

Angel Gabby

Ice Cream Gabby

Princess Gabby

Party Animal Gabby (oh yea)

Mod Podge Gabby (not sure what I was thinking when I dressed her in this ensemble?)

and my favorite Easter Bunny Gabby

I have to confess - I was squealing with delight as I was putting this together & was having so much fun playing with it that I was almost wished I made a set to keep for myself. I know, weird...because I'm 36 and still a kid! Guess that's a good reason to have one of
my own someday *wink* ?!?!