I even wrote a photostory!

Today I even wrote a little short photostory for my Kaye Wiggs light tan Layla....virtually unheard of for me, but she aleady has me wrapped around her little resin finger!!!

This morning Layla got up late, well she's had a busy week and it is Saturday after all.....I thought she seemed to have something on her mind though...

 

After breakfast and shower, I asked her what made her look so worried...

"It's about the Colorado fires" she said, "I'm worried about the brown bears......"

"Well," I told her, "those firefighters are doing their best sweetie. I'm sure if they can rescue those bears, then they will do so...."

 

"This bear came from Colorado you see...
And I'm worried about his brothers and sisters left behind...."

"I'm sure your family will be ok...."
Layla tells her small brown bear friend Estes.

 

 "I hope the fires go out soon Mama!"
Oh yes, so do I sweet girl, so do I!

 

 Layla and Estes

Layla used to live in the mountains of Colorado before coming to live here in Spain.....and Estes was already living here, waiting to be reunited with her one day! He was a gift from an old friend and is a brown bear from Estes Park in Colorado.

Who'd have thought it!!

My little Kaye Wiggs light tan Layla arrived on Wednesday and I am absolutely smitten!  I really didn't think that I would feel so strongly, so instantly, for a doll!  She is just soooo cute, in fact 'cute' doesn't even partly describe her!!!

Before she arrived, I really did think that the hands and feet would bother me; they are very different from other bjds that I have and I've always liked nicely sculpted hands in particular....but they really don't bother me at all, they are absolutely fine and there is nothing about her that I would change!

I've already taken tons of photos, even made a little photostory, which I'm going to share in a separate blog entry later today.  Clothes-wise, she has a lot to wear!  The items that I made for her before her arrival mostly fit, although the dresses could have been a bit longer.  A hat I made for her has been given to Narsha as Layla has a very big old bonce!!!  The hat sat on her head like a 'pimple on a mountain' as the expression goes!!!  I will make her another one though as I think it would have suited her, I'll just have to increase the size of the pattern.

She also went through the clothes that were already here, as well as the shoes box, and she's taken quite a few things for herself.  I have so much stuff in this size that I didn't even realise I  had......I'm such a hoarder, I keep everything!  Some of the best fit are things that I made a long while ago for the Kish Seasons, so she has some girly dresses too!

Well without further ado, please let me introduce you to my Kaye Wiggs light tan Layla with faceup by Raw Kiss/Forever Virginia....

Scissor Happy Again!

We came back from the coast a couple of days ago and if it was hot down there, then it is absolutely burning here inland.  We've had temperatures well over 40 centigrade in the shade (if you can find any!), which is really hot....especially when we don't have central air conditioning!!!  Our very old (200+ years old) Spanish house is allegedly designed to keep out the heat....yeah right!  The walls are very thick downstairs and the windows quite small, so to a certain extent the heat is a bit less intense, however upstairs is another story.  With the shallow roof having the sun beating down on it all day, the bedrooms are like ovens!  Thank goodness for portable air con units!!

Today I received a couple of wigs in the mail from Facets by Marcia, who I can highly recommend for her great customer service, www.facetsbymarcia.com 
and the fact that she never fleeces her customers with high postage.  I ordered a week ago, so they arrive really quickly too!  One of the wigs is for one of my incoming dolls, which I will write about below, but the other was for Keiran, my Puki Fee Bonnie, who has been without a decent wig of her own for some time now.  I got her a Monique Gold Jojo in Brown Blond and as usual it was miles too long both at the back and in the fringe, so I've cut it into a cute chin length bob, as well as removed a couple of rows of the hair at the front.....I'm quite happy with how it has turned out.

Whilst I had the scissors handy, I gave little Latidoll Yellow Dragon Gabie a quick trim too.  She has a lovely curly lambswool wig but I find that unless they are tamed a bit, they tend to overwhelm small dolls....I'm happy with her new shorter curls, plus it'll be so much cooler for the poor little thing in this hot weather!! ;-)

Finally, as mentioned above, I have another new doll coming!  It wasn't quite meant to happen but it did, so I currently have two girls on their way to me as we speak.  The first one, light tanned Layla by Kaye Wiggs, I wrote about several days ago, but the other one is another Kaye Wiggs doll and she is a sunkissed beauty called Hope.  I'd originally put a WTB up for either her or Layla, bought Layla and that was it.  However on the very day I'd paid for her, I got a notification email from Jpopdolls, the company that distributed Kayes dolls, saying that there would be two further opportunities to try for a Hope on Thursday, 21st June!  Oh boy, how could I pass that one up! 

So I set my alarm for 3.50am on Thursday last and when it went off, struggled quietly out of bed and switched on the laptop and internet.  I kept refreshing the page until finally after what seemed like ages, but was only about 5 minutes, Hope became available on the Jpop website.  I quickly put her into my cart and went to pay but in just a few seconds she was gone from my cart.  The way a lot of these websites are set up is, although you may actually have the doll (or other item) in your cart, it isn't yours until you've paid.....so the item(s) are available for any other purchaser who might be quicker than you are!  And so this was the case.  I was a bit disappointed but went back to bed thinking that maybe I would try again in the morning when the second selling period arrived.

Sure enough, in the morning, the very same thing happened, someone snatched her out of my cart as I was trying to get to paypal!!!!  But the weird thing is, at 6 minutes past the selling time, she appeared back up for sale, so I quickly grabbed her, paid and waited with baited breath for the confirmation email!!!!  So now I have both Layla and Hope coming to live here with me!!!!

Here is a photo of Hope; isn't she lovely! (Obviously not my photo!)   All the procedes from the sale of the Hope dolls will go to Kaye Wiggs' favourite charity, the information of which, is also below:

So all in all, a GREAT dolly week!

Here is a link to Kaye Wiggs' favourite charity who will benefit from the sale of her Hope girls:

 http://asianaid.org.au/au/womens-safe-haven.aspx

Please take a look, it is such a worthwhile cause.

A real change of heart!

I've always thought that the Kaye Wiggs dolls were cute and a couple of years ago I had a Kaye Wiggs Pepper with a Volks SD10 body, but sold her because, lovely as I thought she was, she rarely got any attention, being so big.  However since Kaye started working with Jpop Dolls and producing full dolls, I've never really paid that much attention to them.  I looked in passing and liked their faces but really wasn't keen on their hands and feet.

However, this week I've been looking and looking as I felt I'd reached a bit of a crossroads in my dolly collecting....I wanted something different and something that would inspire me to get sewing properly again....and Kaye Wiggs girls sprung to mind.  They are very popular and as such are very expensive to buy on the secondhand market.  And I really can't be doing with the long wait for them after pre-ordering.  So I decided I'd have a good look at the photos of them on Flickr and started narrowing down my choices.  I finally decided that if I were going to go for one it would be a light tanned or sunkissed Layla or Hope.  I made up comparisons of both molds and thought "well I prefer Hope's nose, but love Layla's lips", then it was "I like Hope but she looks a little bit older, whereas Layla looks quite child-like".  In the end I put out some feelers in the form of "Want to buy" ads on several doll sites and waited.  And just for my friend Kate's information "YES, Kate, I did indeed use the Four Day Rule!!" ** (see below)

I got quite a few responses and finally decided to buy from a lovely lady in the US called Judy.  So I've paid for her and hopefully very soon I will have a light tanned Layla coming to live with me!!  I feel quite excited!

Layla has a faceup by Forever Virginia and it looks very sweet in the photos supplied by the seller....I'm sure she will be even lovelier in real life!!!

Here is a photo of her from the seller, I'm sure she'll not mind me using it for my blog!

So all in all, a great dolly decision day!!!

** The 4 Day Rule: thought up by my friend Kate, it is when you think you really really must have a doll and want to buy one immediately...you sit on your hands for four full days, looking but not doing anything about purchasing.  Then if after those four full days you still want the doll then you go ahead and buy or order her!  And I tell you, this rule really works.  There have been so many times when I've been determined that a particular doll is for me, only to wait and realise that after the four days have passed, I've already moved on to another one!!!!  Fickle or what!!!!!

A wonderful surprise!

On Saturday I had a really wonderful surprise!  Hubby and son told me they were off to the local DIY superstore and because I really am not into DIY in a big way, I decided to stay home and do a bit of sewing.  So off they went and I sat on the deck to make a couple of things.  A couple of hours later they returned and we went inside to have some coffee.  We'd not been inside long when there was a knock at the door, so I called out for the visitor to come on in as I thought it would be one of the neighbours......but who should pop her head through the door, but my MUM!!!!!!  She and my brother had decided to fly over for the weekend from the UK to help me celebrate my BIG 5~0 birthday, which was yesterday and they wanted it to be a surprise for me!

Hubby and son were in on it of course and hadn't been anywhere near the DIY store, they'd actually been to the airport to pick them up!!!!!  I was so shocked that I cried!!!!!  My mum is 75  and my brother has learning difficulties so although they go on many trips, they are usually planned months in advance with near on military precision, but not this time!  My mum decided about two weeks ago that she really wanted to come and share my birthday, so she got on the phone to hubby who booked the plane tickets on line for her!  Now this in itself must have been a challenge as there are not many times when hubby and I are apart so he must have been very secretive!  It turns out he planned his conversations with her very carefully, such as when I went to the hairdressers or to the supermarket.  But I'm so glad they came, even though it really was a very short visit...it made my birthday extra special!

My mum and brother enjoying a stroll on the beach yesterday morning.......

Monday morning rush hour, beach style....

This morning we took them back to the airport and off they went home again....I hope they'll be back in September and stay a little longer then!!!

In the meantime, we're still here at the coast and have no plans to return home yet awhile.  The weather is beautiful and the sea breeze very welcome, especially when it reaches the high 30s centigrade.

In other news, the person who commissioned me to customise a Blythe for her daughter, received the doll today!  Her daughter wrote to me telling me that she is absolutely delighted with her and the photos she posted on her blog are beautiful.  I felt really quite proud!!!!

Lazy days......?

LOL, NO!  Definitely not lazy days that I've been having but  just lately I have been very lax when it comes to my blog!  It's not that I haven't got anything to write about, I've been really busy lately, but more that I just haven't had the inclination to sit down and type!  So today I'm playing catch up!

We came back from the coast over a week ago and there was a pile of dolly parcels waiting for me!  I couldn't remember half of the stuff I'd bought as we'd been gone more than two weeks and some of these parcels were from more than 2 weeks previous to us going down there, so it was really great to open all my parcels and padded envelopes.  There were cute spotted shoes from Ebay for Blythe and the Persons, a pair of lovely TTYA dungarees for one of my Blythes as well as a pretty outfit for Heather Sky from Miema in Germany.  As well as those, there was a Prima Dolly Ebony that I'd bought secondhand on Blythe Kingdom with a view to customising her,  and a gorgeous painting by my friend Fiona Wilson in Scotland.  Fiona is an artist and had painted a tiny portrait of Heather for me.....both Heather and I are delighted with it! ;)

I can't even remember all the other things, there were that many!!!

But one thing that I do remember is one box contained a lovely little Blythe Fuit Punch which had travelled from Belgium for me to customise!  Yes, my first Blythe custom for a paying customer!!!  I didn't start on her straight away as I was already working on my own Border Spirit but once I'd got the carving done on Border, I made a start on Fruit Punch.  I finished her yesterday and sent the final photos to her owner this morning  for her approval.  Thankfully she loves her so FruPu will be off home again within the next few days.  I won't share photos of her here, I'll leave that to her owner, I think that's only fair....plus she takes nicer photos than I do!!! :)

My own girl, Border Spirit is also completed now and I'm really happy with her, she is just as I hoped she'd be.  Now I have to think of a name for her......something to match her personality.  I think this latest girl is the best I've done so far, I have a long way to go but I certainly think that the finished result is my favourite end result to date!!

And finally, today my little Elfdoll tiny Min del Rae, came back from the US where she has been having a new faceup done by the very talented faceup artist, Ravensdolls.  I haven't done anything more than put her head back on her body, so no photos of my own, but I don't supposet that Raven will mind if I share this photo she sent me .... isn't this faceup gorgeous!  When you consider that this head is soooo tiny, the face itself is only about an inch across, if that....the detail work though is just amazing!  I'm very happy with the finished result!