August Already.....how did that happen!!!

I cannot believe that we're already in August, how on earth did that happen so quickly?  I can only think that because our summer seemed to take ages to come this year, so it seems to be passing quickly too.  Hopefully we'll see good weather well into October though, which is an added bonus.

Well the temperatures here have been very high, it's not dropped lower than the mid 30s centigrade for weeks and last week we saw temperatures into the mid 40s.  I always say that I love the heat, and it's true, I really do, and I'd be more than happy to have summer all  year round, but even I had to admit that it was hot!  Perfect weather for the beach though, especially later in the day when the sun isn't quite as intense.  Having said that, apparently the weather this year has been perfect also for jelly fish, so we've had to be careful when swimming in the sea!

I haven't done much with my dolls for a while although I have sold a few and taken some photos of a few others.  I am selling some vinyl dolls so will add photos here in case anyone is interested.

My BJDs are still getting most of my 'play time' and attention and today I took a couple of photos of the Fairyland crew.  I would love to take the second photo in a beach setting, perhaps with a camp fire in front of them but we all know that that isn't going to happen with me!  So here they are on our deck.

This first photo is of the Minifee girls, (all tan resin, all 42cm tall) it would have looked better if I'd had them standing further away from the 'backdrop' but they kept wanting to fall down so I thought it was too risky....I did NOT want to damage their faces!!

L to R: Chloe, Mirwen and Ris:

Now joined by the two Little Fee Antes: Fiona and Tyrone.  Ris is strumming a nice chill-out tune for them:

Another girl who got a change of clothes, twice in fact, was Jo (Zwergnase 55cm Junior Miriam), in the first two photos she's wearing a summer dress I made from an American Girl sized pattern....

I really like this girls unusual face:
 

And here she is wearing a dress I made for her in anticipation of her arrival last year.  I made the pattern from looking at a photo of a child's dress so it isn't perfect on her...but she's happy enough! ;)

Another thing that I've been doing this summer, apart from relaxing and reading, is making dolls eyes!  I watched several videos on You Tube on how to make resin eyes and decided that I would give it a go.  I love to change my BJDs eyes but I hate that I can only get the eyes I want from outside of Spain, from either Greece, Hong Kong or South Korea, and I sooo  hate the long wait.  By the time the eyes arrive I've often forgotten who it was that I ordered them for!  So I ordered the supplies and also some silicone molds on line and thankfully they all arrived quite quickly.  And I was off!  I've only made 8 pairs so far and some of them have been...erm...pretty disasterous, but I have also had some small successes so I'm happy.  And I will hopefully improve as I continue making them.

Here are the first ones, these came out a complete mess!!!  I'm not sure what happened but the domes all went flat!  And there were a lot of air bubbles......the little balls you see in the blue ones are not air bubbles though, they are tiny little balls that I found in a shop selling finger nail decorations!

The second batch came out a lot better, there were minimal air bubbles and the green pair are actually better than they appear in this photo....LOL....but not a lot!!!!!

And finally I was able to make a pair that were good enough to use!  I wanted a pair of brown eyes for my little Secretdoll Meng as she came with a sort of lavender eyes that I thought I'd change.  I know you can't see the details here but they are definitely wearable!

 And here she is before her eye change, I had to add these photos as she looks so cute!

Now on to girls for sale.  I am selling only vinyl dolls at the moment. I have a Gotz Happy Kidz Sophie looking for a new home.  Sophie is quite a 'hard to find' girl these days as she is from 2012.  She is a beautiful redhead in lovely condition and includes her full outfit with shoes and shoulder bag.  The only fault she has is her knees are quite loose, although the hips are fine.  She can stand on her own, but she really could do with those knees being tightened, I just don't know how it's done so I've not touched her.

I'm asking £125 for her plus postage from Spain.  I do not have her large original box but she does have her wrist tags.  

I am also selling this 18 inch girl by Robert Tonner, she is a Tonner My Imagination Deluxe Basic girl with jointed knees.  She is all vinyl and comes with two wigs, the brunette in the photos and a blond one that has never been used.  You may remember that I opened the pate on the top of her head under her wig and repositioned her eyes as they were very 'deer caught in headlights' looking.  Her eyes are her original ones and are now held in place with eye putty.  She will also come wearing her original underwear as shown in the photos.  I don't have her box either but she will travel safely packaged to her new home.

I'm asking £75 plus postage.

If you're interested in either of these two, please email me:

dambuster0662@gmail.com

I will also be listing some other vinyl dolls in the next few weeks or so, so please stop by and see if there is anything that takes your fancy ;) 

Finally I just wanted to add a couple of photos of my handsome son Brendan and his beautiful wife Virginia.  These were taken last weekend at a wedding near Pisa, Italy.  I thought they looked too lovely to just keep on my laptop, so thought I'd share here:  

For a young woman who, as an archeologist, spends her working week thigh deep in mud, Virginia certainly 'certainly scrubs up well' as us Brits say!! :) 

 

Thank you very much for stopping by, I hope you are all enjoying your summer and hope you also have a great 'rest of the week' !!

Big hugs Sharon xx

Some Gotz Girlies......

The weather has continued to be very unsettled here with very heavy rain and then bright sunshine....and then repeated all over again!  But I wanted to take some photos of my Gotz Hannahs and my Happy Kidz for the Gotz Facebook group so I managed to squeeze in some photo time between the rainfall!  I thought I'd share them on here too.....

Here is Hannah Summertime, she is a 2017 girl and comes wearing a flowery cotton dress with short puffed sleeves, as well as a white 'straw' sunhat, pink glittery sandals and heart shaped sunglasses....all very cute but not really that appropriate for heavy rain!  So Hannah immediately changed into this cute and colourful outfit that I bought recently on Ebay Germany, I'm sure you'll agree she looks very sweet and childlike in it, and it's certainly more than adequate for the weather!

I thought that Hannah looked a little pale so added a bit more blush to her chubby cheeks.  It's subtle but definitely makes a difference to her face :)

The rest of the girls wanted to join in, so here are a couple of group shots........

Left to right:  Charlotte (2016), Asian Hannah at the Ballet, Hannah Summertime (2017), Happy Kidz Emily (2016), Happy Kidz Sophie (2012) and Happy Kidz Emily (2015-rewigged):  Charlotte got caught by a sunbeam!!

I'm sorry that I've not got much else for you this week, so I'll just add here some photos that I took on one of my morning walks....hope you enjoy them!

A few signs of spring....

I'm not sure this is really a 'sign of spring' but liked the variegated leaves....

Looking west towards Malaga.....

And east towards Nerja......

And finally, south towards Africa!

I hope you're all having a lovely weekend and that the weather has improved where you are!
Have a great week ahead!

Big hugs, Sharon x

Winter warmers..

I've not been up to much recently but did get a few of my dolls into winter clothes, although to be honest, the weather is still quite warm and I felt guilty that they were dressed up in woolly hats whilst it was 26C and I was walking around in short sleeves.  Yes, I admit it, I'm completely nuts thinking that they mind what they're actually wearing ;)

Unfortunately all photos were taken inside....I know, I know, I'm a wimp but there were too many people about for me to be seen with a bunch of dolls!!!

So my four Gotz girls were changed into warmer clothing first.  Here is Asian Hannah at the Ballet, wearing an outfit I made a couple of years ago.  She is also wearing a woolly hat that I found in a toy shop here, plus boots from Primark which are made for babies of 0-3  months!  What a find, bearing in mind the price of doll footwear, these ones, made for human babies were only 5 euros a pair!!

A close up of her sweet little face:

Next Happy Kidz Charlotte from 2016, who is also wearing an outfit that I made some time ago.  She is also wearing the same type of baby boots from Primark.  Her dress is made from a child's hoodie which I bought and unpicked to use the fabric.  I love this fabric, as well as being pretty, it's a lovely weight of knit fabric to work with.

Although the Emily sculpt is my favourite of the Happy Kidz sculpts, I really do like Charlotte too, she has grown on me a lot since she's been here:

My rewigged Emily from 2015 is wearing a knitted dress from My Doll Best Friend, I love this dress and wish they did it in other colours, but the deep pink and turquoise works so well on her.  Her boots are doll ones and she is wearing Gotz leg warmers over her tights.

 

 My sweet little wigged Emily in close up:

Next we have Sophie, a beautiful brown eyed redhead from 2012.  She is wearing a skirt and sweatshirt that I made earlier this year.  Her brightly coloured owl hat was a gift from a dear dolly friend in the US a couple of years ago, I thought it went perfectly with her outfit!!

 And a close up of her owl hat, and very pretty face :)

Finally of the Gotz girls we have my new 'replacement' blond Emily from 2016.  She came here in August but what with the wedding and everything else, I never got the chance to photograph her until now!  I'm really pleased to have a blond Happy Kidz again, I really should learn my lesson from this and keep the scissors away from them!! ;)

She's wearing another outfit that I made previously, I loved this on the original (now wigged brunette) Emily so new Emily gets to wear it:

And a close up to see her sweet face, she is almost exactly the same except she has a side parting whereas original Emily's was middle parting if I remember rightly!

OK, so five down......quite a few more to go though!  I hope you've enjoyed this brief post of a few of my girls.  I hope everyone has a lovely weekend and a great week ahead.  I will be off to the UK on Wednesday to help celebrate my mum's 80th birthday.....I'm away for a week and hope to take a doll with me, but at this moment in time, I can't decide who to take!!!!  All suggestions welcome.

Big hugs Sharon xx

Gotz me some new girls!

I was recently offered the opportunity to buy a couple of Gotz Happy Kidz by a lady in the UK who's doll collection is going in a different direction.  The price for the dolls was just too good to pass up, firstly because one of the dolls is from 2012 and therefore no longer available and the second one has only recently been released in the shops so is brand new.  I can resist anything but temptation!!

The first girl is Sophie, she is a redhead with brown eyes, released in 2012.  She is in excellent displayed condition and her hair is in it's original style.  She came in her full outfit with tags and certificate.  This face mould is my favourite of the Happy/Classic Kidz face sculpts and I now have three with this face, except all are different hair/eye combinations.  I didn't take any full length photos of Sophie, but here are a couple of closeups.  She is wearing her original outfit which is in perfect condition.

I will take some full length photos of her soon.

The second girl was such a surprise to me.  I had seen photos of her from the Nuremburg Toy Fair back in January and then as she started to arrive with collectors, so I saw some 'in real life' photos.  I thought she was nice enough but she didn't 'grab' me.  Then last week I saw some photos of her and thought "she has potential" but is she for me?  But because of the excellent price (who doesn't love a bargain!) I decided to buy the two girls and have them shipped together. 

Well what a surprise!  The second girl is beautiful!  Her default outfit and hairstyle don't do a thing for her in my humble opinion.  The outfit is very well made but the fabrics are too 'grown up' for a child doll.   This is NOT my photo, I have borrowed it from My Doll Best Friend's blog and was taken by Maxine when she visited the Nuremburg Toy Fair.  These dolls are available to purchase from her website:  Happy Kidz Charlotte

So after removing her outfit,  I immediately washed and restyled her hair to remove the styling products that Gotz put in and changed her outfit for something more childlike.  Below she is wearing a baseball style tee shirt that I made this afternoon, having already embroidered the Monster High skull on a piece of fabric in anticipation.  The skirt is a BJD denim skirt from Iplehouse.  I've had the shoes for ages and have no idea where they're from and the hairband was lurking about in my dolls clothes box.  I think she looks so much younger and cuter dressed like this, don't you agree? 

Thank you for visiting, I hope you've enjoyed seeing the new girls that have come to live here in Spain with me.

I hope you all have a great weekend!