News Article Reads: BLUE RIBBON WINNER - Lillian Page, owner of Page's Dolls in Soo Hill, earned top honors for her porcelain doll, "Sapphire" at a doll show in Illinois.

Page's creation top scorer at doll show

Escanaba - Lillian Page, owner of Page's Dolls in Soo Hill , entered a doll named "Sapphire" into an Illinois doll show and returned home with a blue ribbon for her efforts.

According to Page, the doll is a modern doll and has a full porcelain body. The category the doll was a entered in was Dimensional Eye Painting. Page said to do this type of painting , each layer of china paint placed on the eye of the doll gets fired to a cone 018 which is 1407 degrees F.

Page states the doll head with painted eyes went through eight firings. "I believe by the time I got through with the firings , I had 18 firings. I have never been so nervous painting a doll as I was with this one. Knowing it was going for competition and I wanted a blue ribbin , I did not want anything to go wrong," Page added.

The doll show was sponsored by Seeley's, a well known company for teaching the art of porcelain doll making and judging the painting of porcelain dolls.

" I prayed that I would get a blue ribbon and when it happened I was just amazed . I was speechless when they told me that I won. But I should not have been as I asked the Lord for the ribbon and He gave it to me just as He gave me the talent to do the painting."

Page said she frequently goes to seminars to learn different techiques in painting dolls and then shares those techniques with the students that come to class. " The seminars are very costly," said Page. " We used to have an instructor through Seeleys come to our studio and teach weekend classes and it was wonderful as so much can be accomplished in three days. Raising cost has prohibited us in continuing to do this."

Page explained that each doll entered in competition is judged by its own points. "They all start out with 100 points and as the judge sees things not acceptable, points are taken off," she explained.

"It is very difficult to get a blue ribbon in this category, much less to get a rosette for the best of the category and then to top it off with a trophy," she added.

Points needed to receieve ribbons are: blue ribbon , 90 to 100 points ; red , 76 to 75 points; and green , under 65 points.

Sapphire, the doll entered by Page, earned 100 points.