Month: April 2018

Civil War Battle’s with Cats!

/ lydiaanntravelingdoll

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Yesterday It was a beautiful day and I actually had some free time(gasp!). I decided to take a walk since the weather was so nice and I ended up at an fun and offbeat attraction Gettysburg called ” Civil War Tails at The Homestead Diorama Museum”. If you like cats, the civil war, history or dioramas you will love this place! I figured this museum would have beautiful dioramas and the rest would be ok. The rest being the tour portion.

I was partially wrong.

The museum does have beautiful Dioramas. But Rebecca (one of the sisters who gave me a tour) was knowledgeable beyond what I find in most museums! As I was looking at the dioramas, she was regaling me with the history of every scene and going into technical detail on how they were constructed! I was blown away. Right now this is a very small museum but they are working to expand right now.

So now for the important details:

This museum is run by two sisters Ruth and Rebecca Brown. They are both awesome!

There are a grand total of 8,500 cats in the museum but *only* 6,000 are on display in the dioramas. That’s a lot of cats. Rebecca told me it takes her only 7 minutes to make one cat. If she is sculpting a horse with a cat rider that takes 1 hour and 15 minutes.  That’s impressive.

And there is only one dog in the museum:

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There are 3 huge dioramas and many small ones. Currently they are in the process of making Little round top.

Now I will leave you with the photos and the website to get more information on this wonderful attraction!

The Grand Central Depot for Cheap and Popular Prints

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This is what Currier and Ives called itself. The name says it all! If you go to antique stores, browse eBay etc. etc. you have probably seen these cheaply produced but colorful lithographs before. They vary in subject matter from landscapes to pretty ladies to kittens. But the subject of today’s post is not those subjects but Mourning prints.

During the Victorian years  (1837-1901) there were many popular types of mourning art for a person’s walls. One type was hair wreaths or hair art. These would have been  pricey unless in the case of the hair wreath, you did it yourself. Another type of mourning art was embroidered mourning pictures. Think of these as a huge investment and to own one you needed to have money to “burn” so to speak. What did the average person in the mid-19th century do for “mourning art”? Currier and Ives had the solution. They were selling every other genre of cheap artwork and then added mourning art to their repertoire. These were printed so that you filled in the name and dates of your loved one or loved ones. Many you find today are framed in the “Currier and Ives” style frames. This is a simple frame that has a thin layer of veneer on it.

I have several in my house and LOVE them! They adorn my living room walls for all to see. After staring at these for a while, I decided to reproduce one for Lydia Ann.

There were many to choose from so I just picked the first one I saw and went from there. I figure I can make more at a later date if I want to(which of course I will!). After I had the images printed to the correct “scale” for Lydia Ann and other 16″ to 18″ antique dolls; I contacted a company to custom make the frames for me.

After waiting for a little bit for those to arrive and assembling the pieces; voila! We have doll wall artwork!

The finished project:

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Then after I took the first photo I couldn’t stop myself from playing dollhouse:

 

Here   is the link to buy your doll her very own copy of this limited edition product!

If you want to see more period style artwork for dolls comment on this post or contact me through my shop on Etsy with your suggestions!