Pretty Exalted Girl and Benign Girl

Kind of a funny Christmas this year. We're rather far from our family members and our local friends are out of town. We had our festivities already with a party over the weekend. My friend Rosalie surprised me with a gift of an antique porcelain doll head which was funny because she hadn't read my blog and and we were out of touch enough for her not to have any idea that I had begun collecting them. When I showed her the collection she then lavished me with several more pieces!

We took a jaunt out to our new property on a fine sunny day, exploring the nearby trashed out shack and found the most wonderful pile of partially painted and nicely rusted metal tiles that will make perfect little canvases for altered art pieces.

When I find myself in new places for the holidays I like to create new traditions. Last year

we had stopped in the border town of Douglas. My favorite thing is to go through the Mexican style dollar stores that have mariachi music blasting out on the sidewalks and throngs of people that have come over the border for their Christmas shopping. Two thirds of the license plates on the street seemed to be from Sonora. It was on our way home so I suggested that we stroll through again this year.

Rosalie and I got such a kick out of "Pretty Exalted Girl" doll that we each couldn't resist buying one.

The funny thing is that most of the goods are from China but they don't have the typical dollar store assortments. I just couldn't resist a couple of these 99 cent toys with their botched translation labels. I'm sure I'll find a use for the Mother Mary earrings in some project or another.

We finished our festive jaunt in the Saddle and Spur Tavern of the historic Gadsden Hotel.