Happy Birthday Narsha

My first ball jointed doll, Narsha by Dollmore in South Korea, reaches 12 years old this month so I thought I'd share a few photos of her that I've taken over the years.  I hope those of you who've followed me for a while won't be bored with me using some old photos!  

Narsha arrived here in September 2006 and she was my biggest dolly purchase at that time.  I could hardly believe that I'd spent so much money on a doll!!  And neither could my dear husband when he saw the amount come up on the bank account! LOL  Not that he was annoyed with me, bless him, he was just concerned to see this big dollar payment for a company in S.Korea, show up on the bank statement!

So Narsha arrived pale and beautiful, wearing a little white outfit, a very pale blond wavy wig and big blue eyes.  She had long spiky eyelashes and I thought she was just perfect.  Even though I'd not been sewing for long, I started making clothes for her straight away.  A lot of them were a little bit 'hit and miss' but I kept sewing as I just loved this doll so much.  I remember that she used to sit on the back of the sofa in the evenings when I was relaxing and at night I sat her on my bedside cabinet, it was just lovely to see her last thing at night and then first thing in the morning again!

Here are some of my first photos of her:

Wearing a Betsy McCall outfit:

With her 'friend' Bitty Bethany Kish:
 

My first attempts with photos of her in grey scale:

Narsha the Flower Girl:

However, very quickly Narsha started to yellow.  I'd read about French resin yellowing with UV light so I was really careful with her, always bringing her straight back inside after photos or if I was sewing for her outside and needed her for a model, I was always careful to cover her with a big black cloth.  What I'd not read though, was that French resin would yellow not just with UV light but with heat too.....so as a result Narsha did not remain this pinky white for long!

There were a lot of 'firsts' that Narsha and I shared.  She was the first doll that I actually took outside to photograph in public...and you can see how rushed those photos were as I tried to take the photos as quickly as possible to avoid being seen 'playing' with a doll....

She was also the first BJD that I tried to knit for.....poor girl!  This photo taken in Nerja show her wearing a terribly 'out of scale' roll neck jumper that I knitted for her.  She looks like she has a doughnut around her neck!!!!

 
Narsha was also the first doll that I took on holiday with me.  She traveled on the airplane with me to visit my family in England and I 'bravely' (read 'quickly') took photos of her looking out of the plane window on our journey....

She was even there with me when we adopted our first donkey at the local sanctuary....

As Narsha changed colour so my collection of BJDs grew and she took a bit of a back seat when I got my first MSD, but she's always been there in the background....and she interacted very well with my newer BJDs.....

Once Narsha reached a creamy yellow colour and her faceup got a few rubs from all the handling I gave her, I decided that she needed a new faceup and attempted to give her one myself.  I believe this was the first faceup that I ever did...and it was quite dreadful but I was quite happy with her at the time!!  

But eventually I decided to send her off for a professional faceup and thankfully she went to the US to visit Raven, who gave her a wonderful new look!  I must admit that at first, having got used to her looking a certain way, I struggled to 'bond' with her again, but after a few weeks I just loved the new look Narsha....

Finally here are a couple of photos taken a few days ago to celebrate her 12th birthday!

 
Narsha may not be perfect, she is quite different in colour to when she arrived and she is only single jointed but I still think she's a beautiful doll and hope you've enjoyed seeing photos of her to celebrate her 'birthday'!!

Thanks for visiting, I hope you're all enjoy the rest of your weekend :)

Big hugs, Sharon xx

 

Bring out the old!

Over the last couple of days I have been having fun with a couple of my old BJDs (ball jointed dolls), dolls that I've had for quite a while but have been neglected.

The first of these to get some attention was Samantha, my Hana Angel by the company Elfdoll in South Korea.  I don't think that Elfdoll are still trading these days but they used to make some great dolls, lovely sculpts and great quality.  Over the years I have had several of their dolls in various sizes but now I have just the three, and Hana is the tallest of these at 20cm tall.  Hana Angel has been with me for many years now, she came here back in June 2009 when I received her in a trade, however she had actually been with me prior to that when I bought her new from Denver Doll Emporium in June 2007!  I sold her to a lady in California and then regretted it straight away so when the lady decided to sell, we traded and I got Hana back again, however this time she came on a newer body!  Some years later I replaced all her faceplates (she comes with three faceplates showing different expressions) by ordering directly from Elfdoll.

So yesterday I decided to change her body again. This time she has 'grown' a little and is now using a resin body which I bought last year.  It is the perfect colour match to the resin of her faceplates and I really like that although the body is almost identical to her original, the legs are a little bit longer.  Here she is in an outfit that she's 'borrowed' from another doll:

I think what I really like is that whereas before, Hana was a difficult size to dress, being the height of say, Riley Kish, but skinnier, now she can wear clothes designed for Blythe among others, so there is a whole lot of patterns and ready made outfits available for her!

Today I decided to tackle another of my 'oldies but goodies', my very first BJD ever, Narsha by the South Korean company Dollmore.  I bought Narsha back in August 2006 and when she arrived I was just amazed at her, she was pure white and made from French resin which is so translucent, it's really beautiful.  However, French resin does have it's problems and one of those is that it yellows when exposed to UV light.  I knew this when I ordered her, but being new to BJDs and resin, I didn't know that French resin also yellows in the heat.  I was so careful with her, I took her everywhere but always she was wrapped in a dark cloth so that she'd not be exposed to any sunlight....but of course she was being exposed to extreme heat instead and it was only a matter of months before the beautiful white glow became a yellow tint!

The changing faces of Narsha by Dollmore: (top row L to R: when Narsha arrived looking all white and pale pink; when Narsha had been here just a couple of months you can see how she now has the slightest tinge of yellow appearing in her resin.  Bottom row L to R: Narsha returns from Ravendolls with a new faceup;  Narsha looking beautiful with her lovely Raven faceup.

However, I still loved her and in May 2008 I sent her away for a new faceup to an artist that some of you will know, a lady called Raven in the US.  When Narsha came back I was overawed by her beautiful new look but the new look didn't stop the doll from continuing to yellow and as a result I lost a lot of interest in photographing her.

This morning though, I decided to make the effort to give Narsha a good clean up and see if I could make her look better.  I took her head off and thoroughly cleaned her body and head cap with paint stripper.  It's strong stuff and not for the faint hearted, (always use outside or in a well ventilated space) and definitely needs to be kept well away from the face plate.  The yellow remained of course but it looked better as she was cleaner.  I'd noticed that her face paint had started to fade a little and the varnish that Raven used around her eyes feels sticky on one eye, and also her acrylic eyes had cracked which I've found to be quite common, which is why I prefer glass eyes.  So I removed her eyes, and replaced them with some soft silicone eyes because these were the only ones that fitted her eyesockets well.  Eventually I would like to replace these with some brown or hazel ones of the same type.  I reblushed her, adding lots of new blush to her cheeks, chin, forehead and the bridge of her nose.  I haven't sealed it but will redo as and when necessary.

Narsha now has a different darker wig which hopefully doesn't clash so much with her 'skin tone' as her blond one did.  She managed to get some of her clothes back from the Little Darlings who seemed to steal everything when they arrived. 

I'm really pleased with how much better she looks now.  She is still dear to me even after all the time she's been here and all the changes that have occurred to her.  (Sorry about the repetitiveness of the following photos!)

I'm enjoying revamping some of my older dolls and bringing them back to 'life' with a bit of TLC.  I hope you've enjoyed seeing them :)

Have a great weekend everyone and I hope your week ahead is a great one!

Big hugs Sharon xx

A little bit of surgery....

What I do like about BJDs is that when you get fed up with their look you can change them.  I'd been thinking that I was rather bored with one of my little dolls and maybe she should look for a new home.  The thing is though, she's been here a long time, since 2008,  and I felt a little bit mean sending her away.  So this morning I decided to give her a bit of 'surgery'!  She is an Elf Elly Eomji by Dollmore and is one of the tiniest dolls that I have, at 14cm, but she has a beautifully sculpted body and the nicest hands and feet I've ever see on a doll.  They really are very elegant and well done.  So I took her to pieces and removed her old elastic.....it was really loose and floppy which made posing her a bit of a nightmare.  Now I was going to document this process with photos and make a tutorial of it, but to be honest, once I'd started, I really needed both hands AND those of my hubby, to get her back together again.  The replacement elastic was so thin but it was very hard to get through the holes in her feet for example.  Then once she was almost put back together again, I needed the help of an octupus to get her head and headplate back on!!  I also hot glue sueded her, which for those that aren't familiar with this, it is basically that you use a thin layer of hot glue on one side of each joint, usually NOT on the ball joint bit, but that which it goes into....sorry, I have no idea what that would be called...and this helps with posing as it makes a bit of friction between the two pieces of resin.  I then put thin wires through all her limbs and her neck to help even more.  After that, I added extra blush to her face as she was looking a bit pale, and finally a new wig, which I glued on because wigs always ping off her tiny head...she wears a size 2-3" wig and some of those are even too big on her!!!

And here she is, looking very cute I think!!  Oh and I forgot to say, her name is Scout!

Here she is sitting on the steps on my dollshouse, she's the perfect size for posing with 1/12th scale things!

By the fountain in the front garden of the dollshouse:

Helping with the planters in the front garden:

 Posing on the front steps of the house:

It's a good job there's no water running in the fountain at the moment Scout!

 Playing on her skateboard!

Being carried around by a Giant!  Oh no, that's just me!  (Showing you just how small she actually is!)

Biking....

I just realised that all my blog posts recently have been a bit like "this is what I'm working on...." so I decided that although these photos are not new, I thought I'd share them on here instead.

These dolls are tiny, each of them are only 14cm tall and are made of resin and all ball jointed.  Four of them are made by Elfdoll and the other, the blond, is from Dollmore.  I love this size as they fit relatively well with 1/12th (dollshouse) scale items.  The scooters are made of metal and are actually ornaments but fit these girls perfectly!