Dianna Effner sculpted dolls.....

The weather has been awful for the last week and as a result all the photos that I intended taking, didn't get taken.  So I decided to have a look through my photo 'archives' and post some of my favourites here.  I apologise in advance to those of you who've seen these before, I hope you'll forgive me but I don't want to get behind with my blog posts again and ruin my 'New Years Resolution' of posting more often :)

Starting off with my little Tuesday's Child Daniela by Boneka, sculpted by Dianna Effner.  She is ready to do some modelling for me as I'm going to be making a couple of outfits in this size, hopefully starting this coming week :)  Isn't she a cutie!  I sometimes think her curls are a little bit too large for her face and that I might trim them a bit....then I remember that I'm NOT a hairdresser!!! ;)  The outfit below, I made for my YOSD sized BJDs but it fits her perfectly.

And here she is again in her default outfit, with a straw sunhat that I added to keep the sunshine off her face:

Next we have Ellie, a #1 sculpt, who I'm sure most of you know by now as she has been on here so often!  For those who don't know her though, she is a Little Darling handpainted by Dianna Effner.  Her beautiful eyes, which look like glass, are actually painted layer by layer to achieve this wonderful look.  Ellie arrived in May 2014, the first of my Little Darlings to come and live here.

It's hard to believe that her eyelashes, both upper and lower, are actually painted on too....they look like they must be applied lashes, don't they!

Another of my Little Darlings, this one is a #2 sculpt or 'Asian sculpt' and is also sculpted and handpainted by Dianna Effner.  I call her Gem, she came to me secondhand from an old friend in the US back in April 2015....l love this girl too!!!

Next we have another of my sweet Little Darlings, Nikola, another #1 sculpt, this time handpainted by Nelly Valentino in September 2015.  She had a twin who went to live in Switzerland last year, but I kept Nikola as she was my favourite of the two.

Below we have Rory, another #1 sculpt, who is a tanned Little Darling handpainted by Lana Dobbs....I waited so long for this girl, 26 months, that I thought I'd never warm to her!!  But she is so cute that she is still here, having arrived in June 2016!  Although I've not taken that many photos of her, I've no idea why!  I suppose it's a bit like 'first child' syndrome, the first baby always seems to have loads and loads of photos taken of it....as in the case of Ellie who was my first Little Darling, whilst the others only get their pics taken as an 'afterthought'!!

And an extra photo of Rory in the rain because she's been so neglected!!!

Finally we have Reece who is the only one of my Little Darlings that isn't handpainted by  Dianna or one of her artists.  She is factory painted but I enhanced her a little by adding some finishing touches to her face.  Despite her not being an 'artist' doll, I still love her as much as the other four :)   She is a #2 sculpt and came here in September 2014, my second Little Darling to arrive if I remember rightly. 

 
I hope you've enjoyed seeing my Dianna Effner sculpted dolls again, and apologies that these photos aren't new, but I thought 'old' was better than nothing at all :)   I will try to get more photos of my dolls once the weather improves :)

I hope you all have a great week ahead and that if you're having problems with your weather too, it soon improves :)

Big hugs Sharon x

The Little Darlings family.....

A few of my friends have asked to see all of my Little Darlings together so that they can compare them, so I thought I'd share some photos that I took today of all four of them and also with little Pip, my Ten Ping!  There are quite a few photos, so I hope you're not in any rush ;)

L to R: Finn (#2 sculpt painted by Pat Green), Reece (#2 sculpt factory painted Ana with enhanced eyes by me), Ellie (#1 sculpt painted by Dianna Effner) and Gem (#2 sculpt painted by Dianna Effner)

Below the girls have moved around in the line- up and you can see the differences to their 'skin' tone.   Gem, the new girl, now shown second from left, has a darker skin tone than Ellie and Finn, but is very similar in shade to Reece, the factory painted girl shown second from right.

Here, below, are my three #2 sculpt girls together, L to R, Finn painted by Pat Green, Gem painted by Dianna Effner and Reece, factory painted girl.  Although all three girls are the same sculpt, the #2 or the 'Asian' sculpt as I believe Dianna originally named it, because of the different ways in which they've been painted, they look fairly different.  Finn in particular looks less Asian, maybe purely because she has lighter eyes, as we tend to associate darker eyes with Asian people.

The two brown eyed #2 sculpts, Reece left (factory painted) and Gem (painted by Dianna Effner)  Seeing the two girls side by side you can see that they do look very Asian with their lovely almond shaped eyes.  Some people don't consider the factory painted girls to be of the same 'calibre' as the handpainted ones, and although I appreciate that a lot of work goes into the handpainting of the eyes, I have to say that I'm incredibly happy with my little factory painted girl.  As far as I'm concerned she is every bit as lovely as the handpainted girls!  :)   Although I admit I'm prejudiced! 

Below we have my two girls painted by Dianna Effner, Ellie the #1 sculpt on the left and Gem, #2 sculpt on the right.  Dianna painted Ellie in February 2014 and Gem is an older girl, having been painted in November 2010.  The difference in their 'skin' tone in this photo is very obvious to see.  Ellie has a lighter 'rosier' complexion whilst Gem has a more olive skin tone.  Both girls have brown eyes but Gem's are definitely very dark, almost black and her eyebrows are very fine compared to Ellie's thicker, darker ones.  I do feel very privileged to have both girls as I believe the waiting list for one of Dianna's handpainted dolls is at least 2 years!

Here are some individual photos of the girls ~ Gem:

Ellie, not a great photo though!

Gem again!

Reece, looking very serious!

And Finn, looking startled!  I have struggled with finding just the right wig for Finn and have another currently on order.  I hope that when it arrives it will be perfect for her.  I don't like the wig in the photo below, it looks too 'big' for her although it is her size!!

Finally, as requested, we bring little Pip (Ten Ping by Ruby Red Galleria) into the equation!  She looks very tiny in comparison to the Little Darlings but I do think with her Asian look she makes a cute little sister for Gem! 

 Sisters!

I hope you've enjoyed seeing all the girls together and the comparisons.  If you'd like to see any other comparisons then please let me know in the comments and if I can, I will do them for you!

Thanks for looking and gave a great weekend!

Springtime for the Little Darlings....

My three Little Darlings by Dianna Effner, have been enjoying the spring sunshine.  I thought I'd share some photos of these lovely girlies....

L to R: Ellie, #1 sculpt painted by Dianna Effner and wearing an outfit made by me, Finn, #2 sculpt painted by Pat Green and also wearing an outfit made my me, and Reece, #2 sculpt factory painted UFDC souvenir Ana, wearing a Betsy McCall dress by Robert Tonner:
All wigs cut and style by me :)

My beautiful Ellie with her newly repainted eyes by Dianna Effner:

Sweet little Finn:

Cousins, Ellie and Finn:

Ellie, Finn and Reece:

I hope you've enjoyed seeing these Little Darlings of mine :)

The Homecoming.....

Sometimes the road up to the post office is narrow and steep.........

....But not today!  Today I sprinted up it like a 2 year old, as there was a special parcel waiting for me at the post office!  Yes, this morning I collected my lovely Little Darling Ellie, she'd finally arrived home after being gone for more than 2 and a half months!!!  

For those who don't know the story of her travels, basically on the 14th December I saw that one of her eyes was damaged and so sent her off to visit Dianna Effner in the US for eye 'surgery'.  She left home on the 2nd January and after what was a very 'scary' journey with tracking not working for weeks, she finally arrived at her US destination almost a month later on the 29th January.   After Dianna had worked her magic on her, she was returned to me on the 10th February and arrived back in Spain on the 15th.  As she'd been sent 'express' I thought she'd be back with me in a few days! LOL how wrong can one be!  She stayed in customs for one MONTH all but two days, and finally was on the last leg of her journey on Friday the 13th March!  I had a massive battle with customs in that month, where they asked for one piece of paperwork after another, until finally, they must have believed that I wasn't trying to get something for nothing, the doll was my own property being returned to me after repair.  And so I only had to pay admin fees of €23,50...phew!  So now I can relax and wanted to do a little photostory of her return :)  I hope you like it!

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The girls are soooo excited to have their cousin Ellie back after surgery!  They've gathered in their playroom to welcome her, Olivia (Helen Kish Prima Vera Olivia) and Nicoletta (Imaginarium Nicoletta) came along too to welcome Ellie home.  There were presents and bunting, and I think Ellie was a little bit overwhelmed, poor girl!!!

"Open this one first Ellie" begs Finn as she passes one of the packages to Ellie in excitment!

"Thank you" says Ellie, carefully taking the brightly wrapped present that Finn hands her ....

.....then giving her beloved cousin and friend, a big hug :)

Reece waits patiently to join in the hugging!  

"We've missed you so much Ellie, you've been gone forever.....I thought you was never coming back!"  says little Reece, her voice quivering ever so slightly! 

Poor little Ellie, she's tired and overwhelmed from her long journey home, but like any 4 year old she's keen to open her pressies!!! :)

"Oh wow Mum, red boots!!!  Aren't they lovely!"  These were a lovely gift for all three girls from Auntie D in the US....

"Open the second one Ellie!"  the other girls chorus.....

"Ooooh red and white shoes!  These are lovely too Mama!"   (I got these shoes from Paola Reina here in Spain, very good value and cute shoes but a tiny bit loose on the Little Darlings).

"Oooooh" said Nicolette, "those are lovely, they'd go really nice with my new outfit!"

"Aren't they nice!  You can borrow them sometimes if you want to Nicki" says Ellie :)

Shoes and boots pushed to one side, the girls hand Ellie the biggest pressie of them all, and all the girls gather around to see what the package contains.......

"Awwwww lucky!"  chorus the girls, "a Pinypon!"  As they all lean forward to see better the little Pinypon doll.  Unbeknown to Reece and Finn, I have Pinypons for them too , but I thought it only fair to wait until the three girls are on their own and their visitors have left...because they might feel left out  ;)

Ellie takes her Pinypon out of her packaging and sits looking it her.....I think she seems happy with her new dollie!

A close up of Ellie's Pinypon....

Later, when their friends have gone home, I took a couple of photos of the three Little Darlings in the garden......It's soooo lovely to finally have Ellie home again, we really have missed her.

 

And finally some close up photos of Ellie's newly painted eyes......I'm so happy that Dianna was able to fix her for me, and now she is back to being as she was before :)

Thank you to those of you who've emailed me and sent good wishes whilst Ellie was gone, I've soooooo appreciated all your friendship and support more than I can ever express. :)