My Little Cosmos Girls Again....

I'm really enjoying my two new girls from Little Cosmos Dolls, more so than I've enjoyed dolls in ages I think.  I've been sewing again for both of them and taking lots of photos.


Here is a dress I sewed a couple of days ago for Sienna (Bastian).....I used a very basic pattern and then added a white collar, I then made the socks and hat using some mustard coloured ribbed knit.  I made the leather bag previously....she looks all ready for school now!

 

Every time I look at her in this hat I'm reminded of Winnie the Pooh!  I think it's the 'ears' on each corner!  🌝

I also made this sleeveless summer dress, in fact I have made three of these dresses, one for Sienna and two others the same, as gifts.  The fabric was from a human baby dress that I bought especially to unpick.  I managed to get four dresses from it.  It's such nice fabric and looks like it's handpainted, although I'm sure for the price I paid for it, it clearly isn't!!

Today I finished off an outfit for Dylan (Robin).  I say 'finished off' because this outfit has been mostly made for ages, I just hadn't got around to finishing it.  I think the legs could do with being a bit longer on her but it wasn't intended for her, so I'd not adapted it.  I added the patch pockets by hand this morning, a challenge as I kept accidentally sewing the legs together!!  Cute rabbit hat is by Dafnery Dolls here in Spain.

You may have noticed something else about Dylan!  I have changed her eyes to brown glass ones, but more importantly, I have changed the colour of her lips to a lighter shade.  It's not that I didn't like the custom faceup by Under the Fern, but I just wanted her to have lighter lips.  So this morning I removed the existing ones and redid them in lighter shades of pastels.  I'm pleased with how they've come out.  

Here is a before and after comparison, before is on the left:

Apart from that, I have another new girl coming here early this week!  She is a ball jointed doll from another Spanish artist, this one based in Sevilla.  I love being able to support the individual BJD artists....and of course help the Spanish economy!!!  Well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!

I hope you're all having a lovely weekend and that the week ahead is good for you.

Big hugs Sharon xxx

The Third Newbie!

As promised I am sharing here a few photos of the third new BJD that I mentioned in my previous post.  Unfortunately things haven't quite gone to plan yet and she is still waiting for a professional faceup, however, because I wanted to take photos of her, I thought that I would give her a temporary and very basic faceup myself. 

I'm not as happy with this faceup as I was with the previous one I did on my Volks doll, but it did enable me to feel more happy about dressing her and taking some photos.  Her face was a much tinier 'canvas' to work on and her eye openings are really, really small, so a real struggle to get the upper eyelashes attached, but hopefully you will think she 'passes muster' for the time being until she can be done properly!

So without further ado, here is Gala, she is Adori, a Yosd sized, all resin, fully jointed BJD from Harucasting of South Korea.   Haru offers many different shades of resin and I chose Milky Tan for my girl.  She is approx 26cm tall, wears a size 6/7 inch wig and has tiny 10mm eyes.

Thank you for visiting, I hope you've liked seeing this new little girlie of mine.  I hope those of you who're experiencing bad weather in the form of heavy snow, keep safe and warm.

Have a great week!

Big hugs Sharon x

A bit of face painting!

When I was over in the UK at the Chat n Snap, a very dear dolly friend of mine asked me if I would redo the faceup on one of the BJDs that she'd brought with her.  The doll in question is a Custom House Petite Ai, I think the mold name is Gabby but I'm not 100% on that.  Anyway, the doll still had her original faceup which I think was from about 2003 and although it wasn't in bad condition it had faded quite a bit and as a result looked very pale.

I was reluctant to remove a perfectly good faceup so I suggested that perhaps it would be better if I enhanced it a little and gave her new eyelashes as the original ones were also pale and faded.

I only brought home the dolls head so please forgive the fact that she doesn't have a body to pose on and is actually using a glue bottle!!!

Here is the before photo:

And here she is almost finished, just needing applied upper eyelashes.  I decided to just basically thicken and darken her brows and bottom eyelashes, I gave her new colour on her lips and then I gave her quite a bit of blush to hopefully 'bring her to life'.....

Then I added upper eyelashes.  They are not quite dry here so look wonky, but they are in fact the same both sides!

 I replaced her brown glass eyes with a similar pair that had a lower dome than those she came with, I felt the high dome dominated the eye socket too much and you couldn't see the whites of her eyes much.  She is also borrowing one of my dolls wigs here:

I hope you've enjoyed seeing this little sweetie with her new more colourful look.  Her mum is happy with the finished result so when I can find a box small enough, she'll be heading back home to the UK to be reunited with her body!!! :)

Hope....

Hope also got a chance to relax on the beach too, so I thought I'd share just a few photos of her from Monday morning.  Because she's resin and resin can be damaged by the sun, I made sure to just keep her out in it for a short time!!

Now I'm seeking opinions here....does this girl need a new faceup?   Either professional or by me?  I'm thinking that she could be redone and have seen some beautiful work recently by an artist in Russia......decisions, decisions!  And I'm not asking this 'fishing for compliments', I really can't decide on my own what to do!  I'm terrible at making decisions about dolls!!!!

Never say Never....

Last year I said that I wouldn't be buying any more BJDs, I wanted to get my numbers down and I have downsized a bit.....but last weekend I saw a very cute girl for sale on Den of Angels,  I wasn't looking for a new doll, honest!  I was only snooping about, I mean looking to bump up my own 'for sale' thread on there!!!  So there she was.  A bald, unpainted little girlie who just called out to me from the page.....what could I do but go and look at her?  And that was it, totally hooked and obsessed over this doll which I'd never seen or even heard of before.

She looked rather impishly at me and I was smitten!  But when I saw that she was being sold by someone here in Spain, I knew that it was meant to be, so I bought her and she arrived in two days!!!

This is Reira, she's created by a Spanish artist called Lola Palacios of Atelier Momoni.  Reira is 33cm tall and has a body shape that is very popular at the moment in the BJD world, her hips and bottom are large but her waist and bust are small.  It's a challenge to dress her because of this shape, but I think it'll be fun finding her style.  I do believe that this style of BJD is called 'artist' doll....but Reira is a 'true' artist doll anyway!!

Because Reira came blank (without any facepaint or 'faceup' as it is called) I thought I would give her a temporary faceup myself, before I decide who to send her to for a professional one.  One of my favourite faceup artists, Raven, no longer works on dolls, so I will have to look around for someone who has a slot available, but more importantly, who's work and style I really love!

So here are some arrival photos.....The box is 'stylish', quite plain with the Atelier Momoni 'crown' logo in cerise pink and company name in grey...

 

The doll came with a certificate of authenticity and a postcard sized sketch of the doll, drawn by the artist Lola Palacious

Inside the box, Reira was safely nestled in her lovely pink and white polkadot padded cushions.  You will see she came without eyes or wig.

"Hey, let me out of here!!"

"Phew...that's better!  Although I'd have liked something other than this cold tile to sit on!!"

Reira's skin tone is called 'toffee' and it really is a nice creamy tan.  I love tan dolls, with the bright light and sunshine here, they photograph so nicely.

Being the impatient person I am, I decided to start on her faceup yesterday afternoon.  Having sewn all morning, it was nice to put the fabric to one side and do some work on her.

"Are you ready?"

I use artist quality watercolour pencils and chalk pastels and Mr Super Clear Flat to seal between layers.  I'm not entirely happy with the end result but it will do for now!  Unfortunately by the time I'd finished it was dark so the photos are taken with flash....I planned on taking more photos today outside in natural light, but after yesterday's sunshine, today we have rain!

I'm not sure which wig she'll wear yet.  Her head is quite small, 5-6 inch wigs are too small though and 6-7 are a bit big.  The burgundy wig below is quite big on her whereas the brown one is a bit small!  I think she needs an exact size 6, which I don't have much of.  So I will be on the hunt for a new wig for her, I may even consider making her a Tibetan lambswool one....I think that style would suit her.  The eyes I've chosen are oval hazel brown glass.  I think she looks a little bit like a cat!! :) 

Here are some posing photos, she poses beautifully as she is completely double jointed, and can touch her face or her hair.  It was still raining as I took these so I apologise for the poor quality of the photos.....I will take more when the sun comes out!! 

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my new girl and I hope you all have a lovely week ahead.  And for those of you with very cold weather and masses of snow....please keep safe and warm!

A (temporary) new look for Hope! (LOTS of photos!!!!)

This morning I decided to remove Hopes faceup!  I generally remove the existing faceup if I'm sending a doll off for a new one because some faceup artists prefer it and also I always think that it just saves them the job!  I know I'm a bit premature because my slot with my chosen artist won't even be available until the summer, but I did it all the same.  Then I thought I'd have a little practice on her myself.  She looked quite scary and ugly without her face!!!

Once she was all nice and clean I sprayed her with a coat of Mr Super Clear Flat (sealant) and then got to work.   Now I'm not the worlds best faceup artist....in fact I'm not very good at all, but I like to have a go....and it's only temporary!  As it happens though, I'm really quite pleased with how she's turned out, she actually looks rather sweet!  Apologies for all the photos, they are a bit repetitive but I couldn't choose which ones I liked best!!!

Wig and overalls by me.  And faceup, obviously!!!