„La Isla de Las Munecas“

One of my dolls, in a tree, a Christmas tree.
It is in porcelain and very tiny, but very cute!

Before I go to sleep, I usually read something short enough to keep me concentrated and awake. For some evenings ago, I read an article about „La Isla de Las Munecas“. I had heard about it, but never really got deeper in to the story. 

But this time, surfing the net, I ended up on a newspaper page with different short stories about strange places in the world. There was deep caves under water, burning holes in the ground and other stories. This one, about some dolls on a island caught my eye. 

About an hour from the Mexico City lies Isla de las Munecas, the Island of the Dolls. It is a chinampa, a floating garden and is in Xochimilco. On the island lived a man named Julian Santana Barrera and he was a native of the La Asuncion neighborhood. He was a loner and lived on the island all by himself. 

There is a legend that tells that Julian found a little girl drowned in mysterious circumstances in the canals. He also found a doll floating in the water, nearby the girl. He assumed that these two belonged together. In a sign of respect he hung the doll in a tree. Then he started to hear whispers, footsteps and wails in the darkness, even if he was miles away from civilization. He got scared and for 50 years he collected dolls and doll parts and hung them in the trees, just to appease the drowned girl’s spirit. 

Julian died in 2001, in the same place as the girl was found drowned. The place is now a popular tourist attraction and some visitors bring more dolls, just in case as something that appease the dark spirits there. The new doll connects then with the other dolls on the island. The place is not haunted, but charmed, as the locals say. Some visitors hear whispering and think that it is a creepy place. It was never meant to be a tourist attraction, but some paranormal happenings made people interested. 

Even if this island sounds like a very scary and odd place, I am still intrigued. At the moment I do not think that I would take a trip there, looking at some photos is just enough. And if I visited the island, I would take a doll along. Just in case.

The dolls are still there, with marks from the sun, rain and wind. It looks like the dolls have had a rough life. No-one knows what brought Julian to start putting dolls all over the island. His family says that Julian believed that the island was haunted by the spirit of a little girl and he thought that he could make the dead girl happy and keep evil away, by hanging up these dolls.

Jolly Dolly - just a magazine

A seasonal magazine, ready to embrace You, Dolls and the Holidays of Autumn

Last night I browsed on the doll blogs and found a great post at Xanadu Dolls, "Did You Know?". And of course I wanted to join this fun "meme" to celebrate the ongoing season - with First Day of Autumn, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Pumpkins! And the 17 years of the modern BJD.

I would love to see your magazine cover too! Let me know if you take this "meme". Here are some thoughts, that I copied from Xanadu!

1. You need to think of a name for your magazine.

I named my magazine "Jolly Dolly", because the doll hobby is very fun and something to enjoy. 

2. Choose a theme 

Autumn and the festivities that we celebrate during this season.

3. Take an appropriate photo using your own BJD's.

Zipporah is the cover girl with a fabric soft pumpkin made by my youngest daughter, a big pumpkin painted by my oldest daughter and some oats. She is sitting by one of our windows, down stairs. Esther is posing for the article about fashion for Autumn and Halloween.

4. Use your own editing programme (let us know which one you used).

I used Moldiv and PicMonkey, two apps on my iPhone and computer, with lots of stickers and extras.

5. Most of all . . . have fun!

This was fun! Let's do one for Christmas, Easter, Summer......too! Hehe, anyway - it was a great break this day.

Spring time

When I logged into Facebook one evening, I saw that several of my friends had a painted picture as a profile photo. It looked like a famous painter had done it, so I had to find out more.

Noomi in her blond wig and an painting by Claude Monet
(Woman with a parasol, 1875) combined.

A photo of Noomi, combined with an Picasso
inspired painting.

Esther and Zipporah, combined with the
Swedish artist Carl Larsson and his painting
"Till en liten vira" from 1901.

There is an page and an app called deepart, that helps you to make your pictures to artsy masterpieces. I had to try, so I took some of my photos on my dolls and combined these with some of my favorite artists. I do not know what to say about the result, but it was a joy to try it out. It is a new way to express ones art in an easy way, especially if you are not so good at painting. I’m an amateur, but it even gave me some ideas for my own artsy hobby. Hope to have time to test my brushes, pens and colors later when it gets more sunnier and warmer.

The Youth Choir, with their roses.

When I sit and write this, it is early morning over here in Sweden. The sun is on its way up, the kids are trying to wake up and I am preparing breakfast. It seems to be that a good day is on the way. The Easter is on its way too and Spring is getting closer. Yesterday evening we went to the church and listened to the youth choir sing songs like ”Amazing Grace”, ”Outlaws”, ”You raise me up” and other beautiful songs. There was even a visitor from Syria and he played on his oud. It sounded exotic, different and wonderful.

I wish you a wonderful day and a great new week!