Monday, October 10, 2011

“Les Célébrations des Poupées” THE UFDC CONVENTION ANAHEIM

 Photos taken at the convention are to be labelled as taken at the UFDC Annual Convention 2011 in Anaheim, California. Most of the photos in this post are from the convention.

Each year the convention receives donations from various corporations, doll clubs and other venues and these are raffled off to earn funds to keep the UFDC running and give them capital to operate on. This year there were more than 400 fabulous donations, it took 3 big rooms for all the displays of donations to be set up in. They sold raffle tickets outside and you would go around the rooms and put tickets in bins to try and win things. The bin in the first picture is the donation bin to win the prize in the second picture...which was donated by one of the yahoo groups I belong too, The Bleuette Sewing group. Candy Anderson is a fabulous doll artist and made the bleuette doll in the photo and many members of the bleuette sewing group run by Martha Nichols made and donated clothing, furniture, shoes and toys to go with the dolls. Isn't she pretty? Alas I didn't win her or any of the prizes although I bought tons of tickets. A funny story though, we found a big bunch of tickets and they had initials but no names on them. The owner had the second part of the tickets but had dropped the tickets that they meant to put in the bins. I was in a quandary what on earth to do with the tickets, there were so many volunteers, I was afraid if I turned them into someone they might get set aside and the owner not check with them and not get his or her entries in. Finally I went around the various rooms and put tickets in bins so at least their tickets would be entered for something. After the draws were done, when I went to check if any of mine had won (not) I checked the lists to see if the mystery ticket owner with only initials on their tickets had won anything from the tickets I had put into bins...well imagine my surprise when I talked to one of the workers at a side table and he said my mystery person had won three items and he had them set aside while she went to retrieve the ticket stubs from her room! I bet she was one surprised conventioneer to find out that she had won three times with the tickets she thought she had lost!

 The convention had a Christmas theme, hence the silver Christmas tree and revolving light wheel (we had one of these trees and light wheels when I was a child!)
 This is Gael and Admiral Claire, her little resin Bleuette who leads us all through summer camp and many misadventures every summer, It was so nice to meet the infamous Admiral Claire in person and of course wonderful to finally meet her creative Maman Gael.
 This is me and Susan Sircus who writes doll books and patterns.
 This is Agnes Sura, a lovely lady who is quite the authority on Bleuette and gave several lectures and a meet and greet for Bleuette fans. She is also a member of the Bleuette Sewing Club.
 This is Gael and Admiral Claire meeting Agnes.
 This is Samy Odin, famous author, from the Musée de la poupée de Paris. He is also now the Region 16 director for the UFDC which is the region I belong to.

 The display above and below are from Samy Odin's booth in the salesroom at the UFDC convention

 Marie from the BSC invited all the members of the Bleuette Sewing Club to Happy hour in her room where we got to chat and meet one another and show off our dolls to each other as most of us had only seen pictures of these dolls prior. It was such fun!

 Vickie at the back, then me, Mary in front, Laurie in back then Gael in front, Nicki, Marie and AnneLise and Ann in front.
 Vickie, Loretta, Laurie, Mary, Gael, Nicki, Marie, AnneLise and Ann
 The girls of the Bleuette Sewing Club.
 Everyone is admiring the contents of Admiral Claire's trunk that she had packed to go to camp.
 Ann accompanied us out to dinner one evening, Here were are on the Anaheim Transit bus on our way to the restaurant. We ate at Mimi's.
 As we had to go back into the park to get a bus back to the hotel, we made a stop back in Downtown Disney where Loretta, Robert and I bought hoodies because we were freezing...
 Would you believe Best Buy has vending machines in Downtown Disney and even at the airport?

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