Happy 75th Anniversay to my beloved Gone With the Wind!

75 years ago today~ June 30, 1936 ~ Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind was published! I'm sure Windies everywhere are celebrating!
In the summer of 2003, my husband and I took a GWTW vacation. (Thanks again Kevin!!) We visited The Margaret Mitchell House in Atlanta, The Road to Tara Museum in Jonesboro, the Scarlett on the Square Museum in Marietta, and then drove on up to Savannah, GA.
Here is a slideshow of some of the photos from the trip~ minus Savannah~
It was so awesome to stand in the same room where Margaret had typed out her masterpiece.



Those smokey pics and hoodlums hanging out on their cars... that was at our hotel one night. The entire place was full of street racers. Long story~ but we got our money back.

I've been trying to cut back on my GWTW spending and collecting. Recently, I was SO excited to have won a blog give away prize! A 75th Anniversary edition of the book! YAY! I probably would not have purchased this for myself and am a very happy camper!

Thank you very much dear Kate! Please visit her at Southern Belle Simple~ a darling blog!

Peggy, we cannot thank you enough for your talent.

For more Windie fun, please visit the following sites!

Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind: A Bestseller's Odyssey

GWTW...But Not Forgotten

"It's Windie in Kansas!" (a gwtw event coming this November!)

Walter Plunkett, Costume Designer

The Making of a Masterpiece

Gone With the Wind Museum in Branson, MO~ JUST OPENED!!

...Next trip I'll bring you some green silk for a frock to match it~

...Rhett says to Scarlett as she wears the green plumed bonnet he brought her from Paris.

As some of you may recall, I had Scarlett's Green Christmas dress made. To see the development and Scarlett's dress from the film, click here. Though no watered silk could be found, the fabulous jacquard made a lovely reproduction. It turned out beautifully! Thank you Christine!! Pics to follow!

I recieved it just in time for a Gone With the Wind event in St. Louis, MO. "Gateway to the Wind." Author Sally Tippett Rains wrote a book about Margaret Mitchell's GWTW titled, "The Making Of A Masterpiece". Sally put on quite a soiree~ In collaboration with actual stars from the film and many special guests, you were pea green with envy if you did not attend! Check out this recap of the three day weekend!

Day one was at White Haven, Ulysses S. Grant's home at Grant's Farm. Costume was not called for this day, but since I had spent the entire week previous to the event revamping a white ruffled dress I found on eBay; sewing on over 50 YARDS of lace... I had to wear it!
Here's a before pic of the dress as purchased~

I removed the red buttons and added white satin bridal buttons, adjusted the belt and added a vintage buckle, made a brooch, sewed lace to the bodice and tiers...

...added a hoop slip and voilà! Scarlett's white ruffled prayer gown~

On the eve of the second day, there was a charity ball for Rainbows for Kids. This my friends, is where I got to wear my green Christmas gown.... do you want to see?? OK!

Here I am giving that dyed hair woman Belle Watling a piece of my mind!

Hobnobbing with the guests...

Standing next to Sally Tippett Rains~ thank you so much Sally, for everything!!

Oooo, and a red taffeta petticoat!

I had a wonderful time and met so many new friends. SO much to tell!
This post has become quite *windy* so I shall share more later. Afterall, tomorrow IS another day!

Welcome to the Gone With the Wind Ball!

Warning: My posts can be very "windy".... this one is especially long but I assure you I could go on forever! Much of my collection has been packed up or on the back burner for years, so I am thrilled to be getting everything out!

Thank you for attending, I'm so glad you are here!

Our dear Margaret Mitchell had no idea she would create such a stir with her incredible talent. We are celebrating 70 years of the film Gone With the Wind (1939), but the book was published in 1936.

If you have not read the book, you simply must. You don't know what you are missing. So much that they could never fit into a movie, and they tried their hardest!

We took a GWTW southern vacation before Nova was born. We visited the Margaret Mitchell House, the GWTW museum in Marietta, and the Road to Tara museum in Jonesburo.

It was SO amazing to stand in the same room that Margaret created the novel in. She sat in the corner by the windows. None of the furniture is orginal though.

While there I also got to see the front door from Tara, and the actual painting of Scarlett from Rhett's bedroom. This brought tears to my eyes. And for a long time, it had hung in an elementary school and has a lot of damage from kids poking holes in it, etc. WAHHHH!!!

In Marietta, one of the actual film gowns was displayed. I tell you, I was in heaven on this trip. It was the honeymoon/shopping spree outfit. Just phenomenal. So tiny, and such detail. The sleeves were amazing.

Margaret herself said that the film had the PERFECT cast. I love these photos of Margaret and Vivien Leigh~ both avid cat lovers. Just like Scarlett, Vivien was from French descent. Viv was so passionate about wanting to play Scarlett and it was an absolute miracle that she was discovered for the role.

I had to include a photo of Clark Gable without his mustache. Be still my heart...

I've been hard at work getting things ready for the Ball. Our home is 100+ years old and we have been working on it for 6 years. This is our stairway. We only recently took down the safety gate for our son. There is still much to do in this area. No trim around the windows but I just had to dress them up for the occasion!

I found the sage velvet drapery panels for $10 each. Here is Katie (Katie Scarlett), overseeing my progress...

I am the queen of cheap and when I saw this trim at a fabric store that was closing, I waited until the price dropped very low! It was originally $11.99/yard and I got it for $22 for 25 yards! It was fun to "pet" the whole bolt, so soft!

I just swagged the panels over the rod. I attached the fringe trim with safety pins. Yes, that's what I said.... it's just pinned on!

I went ahead and pulled the drapes to the side because I couldn't stand how dark the hall looked with them down. But I wanted to have something on the windows to protect my framed art.

These botanical prints are coming down.........

And my Walter Plunket costume sketches are going up!

These are each personally signed by Plunket, who designed the costumes for the film. He put out a 1000 copies~ my set is number 226. It is one of my most prized gwtw memoralbia. You can still find them sold separately, for around $125 or so each.

His work is amazing. He did a version of the velvet party gown in green as well, as it was described in the book.

There was another version to the drapery dress too, but it was deemed to exspensive to make.

There were also other variations of the BBQ gown... but this one won out. I'm so glad!

Now let's see.... whatever shall I wear for the BALL?

I've always dreamed of having a wardrobe like Scarlett....

And slowly, my dream is coming true! Let's go in for a closer look~

The drapery dress? Naw... much too bulky.

The blue mill bustle gown? Uh-uh. Too constricting.
And naturally I can't wear a red robe to a ball either!

(God's Nightgown!!)

White ruffles? Hmmm... too frilly.

Ahhh, the blue portrait gown. Nope, too heavy.

The jewel encrusted velvet?? My heavens NO!
Only a jezebel would wear such a thing!
Scandelous!

Green sprigged frock? YES, just right!


Mammy, be a "doll" and help me put on my dress~


I just took this Timeless Treasures Scarlett Barbie out of her NRFB state yesterday. What fun! Mammy is a World doll, they were sold in Cracker Barrel restaurants for the 50th Anniversary.

I had better get into my corset first~ custom made by Christine Hall.




This dress is actually a work in progress. The skirt is replica fabric from Pegee of Williamsburg and cost around $600 for the bolt, all of which is needed for the gown. I bought the dress pre-made from my friend Dee of Scarlett Online. She had had the dress made for herself many years ago and the seamtress butchered the fabric and made a very ill fitting garment for Dee. She wanted to have another gown made by a new seamstress, so I took on the task of fixing the frock for myself. I will have to make new ruffles for the neckline, the original gown from the film had over 1,000 buttonholes for the velvet to weave through! ACK!

Dee then found *the* GWTW seamstress extraordinaire and is very happy. If you want a screen accurate, museum quality garment, please visit GWTW4Ever, she does phenomenal work and is a long time gwtw collector.

So, for this picture I am actually wearing the Pegee fabric skirt with the top from this "naughty Scarlett" costume, LOL!

Most of my gowns need some sort of revamping. I need to find about 50 yards of lace to add to the ruffle gown. I have fabric stashed for the paisly robe and calico war dress. I need to finish the velvet party gown and the blue mill. All of these will be blogged about over the next several months! Christine Hall is making the green Christmas dress for me, which we put on hold for now. I have been learning how to sew and I'm anxious to tackle those BBQ buttonholes!



Scarlett wore 35+ costumes in the film. When the Franklin Mint came out with the 16" vinyl Scarlett doll years ago, I had to have her and all of her clothes. Some of the outfits I had made by Alana, as the mint didn't offer them at that time. Such as the wedding gown and the shanty dress; both of which the mint put out later.

Then in recent years, Tonner has come out with a GWTW line as well. Of course I had to buy one of their Scarletts! She can wear most of the mint's clothes and they have put out a fine wardrobe too.

The Franklin Mint Scarlett doll case was fashioned after the hat box that Rhett brings from Paris.


Here is Melly, (Melanie), laying on the bed while I took all of the ensembles out of their boxes and put them in the doll cases. (I have Rhett and Rose from Titanic too.) I don't even think Melly was full grown here. She has been doing fine, BTW. Still on the special cat food diet.

OY! This was before we redid the bedroom. I hated that Cookie Monster blue carpet!

Here's a collage of some of my dolls and the intricate little dresses~
click to enlarge, then click the back button

This is a 21" Madame Alexander Cissy doll, dressed in the red staircase robe made by Alana. She needs a new wig. I have the wig from the plaid mill dress, but not the dress.

I think I had better stop there, whew!

Here's a few links before I sign off. I run two yahoo groups if you are interested in learning more about the costumes or dolls, Gone With the Wind Garments and Scarlett O'Hara Vinyl Portrait. If you'd like to see more of my collection or better photos, click here. The tags at the end of this post will direct you to other gwtw posts here at The Scarlett Rose Garden.

Remember, I'm having a GWTW give away! So please leave a comment so your name can go in the drawing.

All of the GWTW Blogland Ball participants are below and in my sidebar, be sure to waltz on over and see them all! We are so glad you came!

(If your blog is not listed or you want it removed, please let me know!)
A Southern Rose
All the Queen's Chocolate
Angelic Accents
Beansie Babbles
Christine's Home and Travel Adventures
Colleen's Quilting Journey to Oz
Edie Marie's Attic
Fantasy and Fancy
Florence and Mary
Hooked On Houses
Loveleigh Treasures
Monkeyshine Business
My Enchanted Home
My Suzy Homemaker
Rose Vignettes
Rue's Peanut Butter and Jelly Life
Sassy Mini Dolls
Sherri's Jubilee
Simplistic Life in a Small Town
Soul Talk 777
Southern Sass
Tea With Miss Janice
The Pawsh Poodle
The Sunny Side of the Sun Porch
The Way We Are
Todas somos reinas
Unshelved Words
Yellow Rose Arbor

HAPPY 70TH ANNIVERYSARY GONE WITH THE WIND!

Take your hands off me, you drunken fool~

Welcome to REVAMP IT,

hosted by Natasha Burns at Artistic Creations!

I'm going to cheat a bit here.... Natasha's party inspired me to finally finish a long overdue project. I began this robe years ago, but my machine broke. I got a new one but by then the robe was lost in a sea of unfinshed crafts. Um... all I had left to do was sew on the sleeves!! GEESH, how hard is that? LOL~

These mosaics will all enlarge when clicked upon, just remember to hit the back button afterwards and not the X~

I found a red velour robe with good "bones" on ebay. I liked the idea of velour so that I could actually wear this as a housecoat for every day use. It wouldn't have the bell sleeves, but who can cook breakfast in those?

I added a layer of tulle, then hand stitched on each row of lace. I cut the sleeves off at the elbow. Then ripped out the stitches and unrolled the amputated peices, which were then rectangles. Cut these into ovals, then cut out circles in the centers. Added tulle and lace to those as well to make new sleeves. Busted a vintage red beaded necklace to use for buttons.

I was going to make a velvet belt, but lucked out and found a vintage one! Voila!

While you're here I may as well show you a few more embellished costumes.

This is Rose's Jump dress, made from a Morgan and Co. prom dress. I added beading at the underbust, rhinestone buttons, and sequined trim. I made an underskirt with tulle and added two rows of beaded fringe there. I then cut the overskirt at the knees to mimic Rose's gown.

Rose's tea dress made from an A-line bridesmaid dress. I first cut off the sleeves. Then sewed down the sides of the dress to make it more slim on the legs. Bought some matching green fabric for a placket in front and back. Made an overskirt with a dotted lace, used curtain lace for the tiers.



This is my next revamp costume to be. All from a $2 vintage suit. It will be a rather 40's does Titanic version, that I can wear more often than I would a full length suit. I have bought a purple tie, reproduction earrings, and found a gorgeous antique brooch. I have yet to find the right shade of velvet.

...And yes, there's more where that came from but I have to stop somewhere! If you'd like more info or want to see more photos, click on my flickr badges on the right.

Thanks for visiting! Be sure to check out the other REVAMP IT bloggers on Natasha's link!


Don't miss the Gone With the Wind Ball!
Get details by clicking my sidebar button or going a few posts back. Hope to see you then!

Snowman Humor

I'm sure most of you all have seen Calvin and Hobbe's snowmen comics....

It was funny to google this and see all the pics of snowmen people had made trying to recreate Calvin's work, lol!

So you can imagine my amusement when I looked out the window and saw this:

I went out for a closer look and cracked up!

Elvis anyone? "Thank ya, thank ya very much..."


He has been this way for two days!



He's definitely fighting the laws of gravity and Mother Nature~



Of course many captions have come to mind...



"Must....(gasp!) have.... more....snow....(weeeez, cough)"

"There's my nose! If I could just....reach.. it..."

"Help me find my earring!!"

"I'm melting, melting. Ohhhhh, what a world, what a world!"

"Step back everyone, I lost my contact!"

Can you say "osteoporosis"?

"May I have this dance?"

"Doin' da' butt. Hey pret-tay, pret-tay~When you get that notion, put your backfield in motion, hey! Doin' da' butt. Hey sexy, sexy Ain't nothing wrong, if you wanna do the butt all night long~
(Hey yeah-ee yeah. Yeah-ee, Yeah-ee, Yeah-ee Yeah)Ow, what you gonna do about it(Yeah-ee yeah. Yeah-ee) Shake it! (Yeah-ee, Yeah-ee Yeah)"

"I'm gonna HURL!"

"On your mark, get set, GO!"

And last but not least~Naturally I thought of Scarlett~

Anyone else got a caption?