JANE ARDEN IN WESTERN GARB FROM JANUARY 7, 1934

Here we have our friend Jane dressed as a cowgirl.

1/7/1934

Converted to black and white

I do have the paper doll that follows this one and will post her in 7 days. 

I haven't mentioned any books I've been reading of late, just wanted to keep the posting swift and up to date.  I'm reading a book now entitled THE KNIGHT'S BRIDE by Lyn Stone, it is the first in the Trouville Trilogy. The book takes place in 1314 during Robert the Bruce's fight for the
scottish throne.  It is about a knight, Alan Strode, who answers his friends dying wish that he take care of his "bonny" bride Honor, with whom he fell in love with. Honor, on her part, though she cared for Tavish, didn't love him as she should have. In fact she'd used him to get away from her father and an unwanted betrothal to a man she despised and feared, although she made Tavish think that the marriage was sanctioned by her father. She actually forged the marriage papers and lied to him. So far I'm disenchanted with the heroine of this novel. She wants to manipulate Alan, to control him like she did Tavish. So far Alan has unintentionally thwarted her at every turn. He on the other hand has fallen under Honor's spell. He adores her little knowing that she wants to control him so she can have some semblance of freedom.  He's never given her a moment in which to think he is anything like her father, who abused her by locking her away and beating her from time to time, and yet she still wants to have him at her beck and call to do her will.. 

Honestly, the woman annoys the heck out of me. From not wanting Alan to touch her or have any relations with her at all, to trying to entice him to make their marriage "real", she's sending the poor man mixed messages. He figures she is still in love with her first husband, when it is the opposite. She figures that if she allows him access to her and his husbandly rights, she will have more control over him. Alan is not stupid just blinded by her beauty and wanting to be worthy of her by changing his speech (like all scotsman he has that lovely brogue) and even changing his

CIRCA 1440

way of dressing and wearing the garb of an Englishman who'd left his clothes behind after the battle of Bannockburn (where Tavish sustained his mortal wound).  Honor wants him to go back to being a "savage" highlander while Alan is determined to be more of a refined knight and worthy of her. Personally she isn't worthy of him. She's manipulative and tries to use her looks to get what she wants. I mean Alan has taken on the rearing of Tavish's daughter, which he didn't have to do. In fact he loves little Christiana as if the little babe where is own. What more can a woman ask for? At any rate, I suppose I can understand why she's the way she is given the time period she lives in where pretty much all women were considered property rather than a person within themselves with thoughts, feelings and ideas all their own.  I'm at the part in the book where Honor's father has just shown up and demanded that she be returned to him, to which Alan has refused. Seeing as her father has brought an army with him, she's afraid that he'll overcome Alan's meager forces and she'll be forced to wed the man she ran from. Alan has sent a message to his estranged father (who he hasn't seen since he was 7 and he's in his twenties now) for help but has yet to receive a reply
I have to purchase the other books in the series but at least I started with the first one. There are actually five books that have characters that are related in one way or another to each other. I found out about the fourth and fifth books, THE QUEST and MY LADY'S CHOICE, when I was looking up the synopsis for the second book in the series, BRIDE OF TROUVILLE. 

                               ALOHA!!                              

WONDERFULLY FUNNY NOVEL

I don't normally start off my blog with a comment on a novel I'm reading but in this case I can't seem to help it as I'm reading a wonderfully funny one entitled: A LOVING SCOUNDREL by Johanna Lindsey. It's the 7th book in the Malory family series and deals with Jeremy Malory, son of James Malory who meets up with Danny who is a thief living in the seeder part of London. Jeremy is trying to help out a friend and needs to hire a thief  in order to do so and Danny ends up being the one enlisted to help him retrieve some valuable jewelry from the person who stole it from his friend. While some readers will go into length on what occurs in a book, I never have the heart to as I don't want to ruin the novel for any one who might be viewing this blog. Suffice it to say what it states on the outer cover is true...it is indeed witty and sinfully sensual. I can't put the book down and while I want to finish it and move on to Captive Of My Desires, at the same time I don't want it to end at all...I still haven't found out who tried to kill Danny when she was just a child and before she took up her "thieving" ways as it were. And I've only got a few more pages to go before I'm finished with it. I'm up to the part where Jeremy's father, with the help of three friends, has just extricated Jeremy from being forcibly leg shackled to a woman he never even gave the time of day to and yet she had decided SHE was going to have him as a husband whether he wanted to marry her or not. Anthony Malory, Jeremy's uncle, is down right put out that he wasn't let in on Jeremy's problem and asked his advice on the matter. So, as usual, this has caused the two brothers to argue. It's such a delightful scene and hard to imagine that these two siblings didn't really exist at one time but sprouted from the fertile imagination of the author. The story moves along quiet nicely without a slow or dull point (at least thus far) in the entire tale. I simply never tire of the Malory's and in my humble opinion, someone in Hollywood should snag these novels and write a screenplay about them in order to turn it into a movie. I would LOVE to see them brought to life on the big screen. I don't know if Lindsey will write any more novels featuring the Malory's and Andersons (Georgina (or George as she's commonly known by) is James's wife and Warren (who we meet in Gentle Rogue and again in The Magic of You) is George's sister) but then I haven't read the last book in this series yet either so I will probably find out if she's left it open for more stories. There is still the rest of the Anderson clan to "marry off". I'm not a big fan of the Regency era but when it comes to this family I dive right in! By the way...I didn't mention but Amy Malory (Edward Malory's daughter, second eldest in the Malory clan) is Warren's wife.

So, now that I've gotten that off my mind let me proceed with more personal issues...which, for a change, there aren't that many. I'm getting my blood sugar problems under control. It's staying under 200 after I've eaten and I wake in the mornings and it's been as low as 85. Which I don't think is to serious as my monitor hasn't given me the message to "see my doctor". So the insulin twice daily is helping. I inject 20 units in the morning and 26 in the evening. This of course, combined with the Metformin, is helping me keep it down to a more normal level. I've also stopped stressing about my home situation. If, and I hope it isn't the case, we have to move because the new home owner decides he no longer wants us to pay rent, well, then, we have to move. I still want us to buy the house back but that may not be feasible (we have to wait at least four years before we can try to get a loan again) and I'm accepting that no matter how much I think it sucks. This is the hardest I've had it in all my life, at the same time I am grateful that we've been able to stay in the house as long as we have, some families haven't been so lucky and they've had to move out soon after they were foreclosed on.

Cow girl fashions from Katy Keene No 4  1951

On the job front...nothing yet. I keep looking and nothing seems to be available out there, for me any way. It is hard not to let my spirits get down, but I do try to keep them up by doing things I love...like reading a good book (goodness knows I have the time now) or drawing and finishing art projects that have been sitting on the back burner for years. I've been doing a lot of scanning lately...mainly my Katy Keene comic book collection. You never realize how much you have of one thing until you attempt to store it all in some way or another. I am, however, enjoying going through them all. Some of the comics, though, are seriously falling apart, literally crumbling into dust. These are the ones I have to scan from cover to cover the soonest. I pretty much have all the comics from the 1950's...though I am missing number one but trying to complete my collection is sometimes virtually impossible due to the price of the earlier ones...mainly 1 through 20.  Still if I can obtain a number one at a decent price I'll buy it. Since I am doing a cow girl theme with the Katy Keene's I thought I'd continue along those lines with today's paper doll.

It's almost February and I still haven't posted this blog. What with one thing and another this is pretty much low on my "things to do" list. So, having said that I promised myself that I WOULD post before the end of the month.

Al  Moore

I did alter this pin-up a bit...just took out the "hole" that graced the calendar it was on.

January 30th 1944

The paper doll for today I found at this site: http://mostlypaperdolls.blogspot.com/ It's a GREAT source for old newspaper paper dolls and she has a variety of Boots ones all in black and white. I think they were originally in color and she's made them into ones that you can color but I'm not sure. I don't have the color version if this particular one but I'm on the hunt for it. I love the paper doll because she's Boots' heavier friend and her clothes are chic and not frumpy. I always disliked it when people assume because you are heavy you can't dress nicely. Now that isn't to say being heavy you should dress in something more suited to a thinner person...it just doesn't look right in my eyes when a heavy person shows a lot of skin. One can dress "sexy" but cover up those rolls and flabby areas, please. :) I'm not familiar with the Boots characters so I'm not sure who this lovely lady is. I do know she is a friend of Boots though.

Copyright NJD 1983/2012

Well, I've come to the end of another blog entry. But I leave you with yet another one of my own paper doll creations...well the doll any way. Her name is Anita and she was created back in the 80's and has outfits reflecting that era and if I remember right her costumes were inspired from outfits worn by Betty and Veronica. I used to own quite a few Archie comic books but after various moves they were lost in the relocation from Hawaii to the mainland. The paper doll was created when I lived in the islands. Living in the islands did inspire me as I created, at the time, over 100 sets. (Anita was number 51) I've yet to find them all. I still just get tantalizing glimpses of the sets I created. I'm SURE I still have them all as they were all in the spare room in our old apartment. and I KNOW I brought them all from Hawaii. I'm hoping I didn't leave them behind at one of our old residences.
.

I did revamp Anita. Gave her a new border design which I obtained from The Graphics Fairy. Her site is such a wonderful source for borders. http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/. Anita's pose was also inspired by Betty walking but can't be absolutely certain as it was quite a while ago since I created her. Regardless I do like her. I have a thing about making dolls with quite a few wig changes as well as various shoes in her wardrobe. She used to have 9 pages of clothes but thanks to Photoshop I was able to reduce it down to 7 pages by reorganizing them. Many of her outfits are mix and match.

Well, that will be all for this entry. Until next time.....


                          ALOHA!!

Katy Keene

From Katy Keene Charm

I'm a HUGE Katy Keene fan. So in conjunction with the other pictures I've been sharing, I thought I'd share my Katy Keene collection. Not only the paper dolls but the entire comics as well. I did have quite a few Katy's on Webshots but when they changed to Smile and charged a fee I began taking all my scans down and saving them to my external. I DO have a flash drive somewhere with all my Katy scans on them but I can't seem to find the darned thing. LOL   I only scanned a few of the comics. The larger ones, like the Annuals and the Pin-up Parades take awhile. I also have a few other comics she appeared in like Wilbur, Pep, and Laugh. (By the way...it's not that I object to charging fees on Websites, it's just that I simply don't have the money to afford the monthly/yearly fees at this time)

It may sound silly, but I enjoy making the pin-ups in the comics into coloring pages, like the picture above. This, however, takes time because it's a matter of tracing over each line. In most cases the picture I'm working from is rather tiny but after blowing it up (thanks to Photoshop) it makes a decent coloring page. I do the same thing with the paper dolls. I have the original, then make a coloring page out of it as well as a color version with a white background making it easier for other Katy fans to print out. 

For example...the Katy to the left. This is how it appeared in Katy Keene No. 23. the background is "colored" which of course uses more of your color ink than you would think. But eliminate the background to white and the only "color" that comes through is the color on the doll and clothes. Then I've created the black and white version for those who might like to color the clothes in different colors other than the original shades.

I rather like how it came out after I finished recoloring it. I try to get the colors as close to  the comic version as possible. I think the computer version colors are richer and more vibrant.  What I find amusing is that this one has been popping up on the Internet on various websites. I don't mind really as I re did the paper doll for the express purpose of sharing it with other fans. :) Eventually I want to do all my Katy's like this. It's just time consuming and there are days when I really don't feel like working on them. 

I've also been trying to gather together the Katy's with the same pose  from the comic books and making one series featuring the doll and all her wardrobe. That also takes a lot of time but through scanning the comics I figure I will eventually have all the dolls in various poses and all the outfits that go to that particular doll. I am also thinking of doing "theme" dolls...perhaps on this blog...like the one above featuring cowgirl fashions or butterfly fashions. At any rate I hope by featuring my Katy collection it will bring more people to my blog. If for no other reason than to see if I have one they've never seen before posted. 

Courtesy Wikipedia

The book I've been reading is another historical romance but this time by Beatrice Small entitled: The Border Lord's Bride. It's pretty good so far and is filled with real characters like James IV who was one very randy monarch. Since he was not only married but had several Mistresses, 4 to be exact. He did love the ladies!! I suppose he was handsome though I figure it was more because he was a Prince then a King that truly appealed to the ladies. The Border Lord's Bride is the 2nd book in a series of 6. I have the third book but still need to buy the last three, but with finances being what they are at this time, they;ll have to wait. I do like to read the books in order without a break though until a series is finished. I've always loved Scotland and enjoy reading anything I can about the country. My favorite books are the ones by Diana Gabaldon. She has a new novel out entitled Trail of Fire. When finances permit I will DEFINITELY by the book. I absolutely LOVE her Outlander series.  

I couldn't find a paper doll for this date from my collection so instead I'll share a Katy Keene pin-up coloring page. Staying with the cowgirl theme...here's Katy on a horse. My friend Lilly would LOVE this one. 

 Til next time...

                                                            ALOHA!!