A bit of sewing for Holly....

Holly is my Zwergnase Junior Wentje who came here at Christmastime, a present from my  husband Brian.  Until now the poor girl has stood for ages in her default outfit then she was changed into a 'hand me down' from one of my other dolls, but today, finally, she has an outfit of her own.

I wanted to make her some loose fitting linen overalls and so searched on line for photos of what I had in mind.  So firstly I made a pattern by taking her measurements and drawing it out on a large piece of brown paper.  She's 55cm tall so the usual A4 sheets wouldn't work for her.  I tweaked it a few times and then decided to use an old pair of trousers of mine to cut up for the fabric.  I don't have much linen type fabric here and all that I do have would have been too small.  Plus I didn't really want to use good fabric in case the pattern was not a good fit for her.

I'm really pleased with how they've turned out.  I used some red metal overall clips that are meant for human sized items, and they worked perfectly for her.  I made a simple cap sleeved white tee shirt to finish off the look.

The overalls have large pockets on the sides so that Holly can fill them with her belongings or of course she can fit her hands in them too.

I have tweaked my pattern slightly to make them a little less full under the arms, and next time I think I will make them with short legs for the summer.  

I hope you're all keeping safe and having a nice day.

Big hugs, Sharon xxx

Doll Review - Daniela with Pink Outfit by Llorens of Spain - PHOTO HEAVY!

In my last post I wrote about my impulse buy from a doll store here in Spain.  The order was for a Daniela with Pink Outfit by the Spanish doll company Llorens who are based in Onil, Valencia, Spain.  Well the doll arrived very quickly, the company I bought her from, Dolls and Dolls state on their website that they will ship within 24/48 hours and I ordered her on the 18th April which was a Saturday.  The Monday was a public holiday in Valencia where the doll was made and so she shipped on the Tuesday and arrived on the Wednesday.  A very quick service. 

I apologise in advance for the number of photos but wanted to be thorough 😃

The doll was packed safely in a brown shipper and then inside she was in a very sturdy decorated cardboard box which could be used by a child in a number of ways. 

She was held safely in the box by some ties but none of those horrible plastic ones that are often pushed into the dolls head.  

Unfortunately I didn't take any photos of the box but hope you'll enjoy this little review of the doll out of the box.  (I would have liked to have photographed her with other dolls in this size range but I don't really have anyone to compare her to!  But if anyone wants photos of her alongside dolls that I do have, such as Sashas, then please just give me a shout).

  
Straight out of the box.  She is wearing this very cute winter outfit consisting of pink knitted jumper with long sleeves and hood, the hood is edged with beige cream faux fur, a pair of mid calf length knitted leggings, a pink knitted bobble hat and faux suede fur lined 'Ugg' type boots.  She doesn't have any underwear or socks.

The yarn used for the jumper and hat is pink but it has a sort of 'tweedy' effect with white and grey flecks.  The jumper has pink turn back style cuffs.
 

 She has a very pouty face, the sort of face that really appeals to me.

She stands really well straight out of the box.  
 

Daniela has a very sweet profile, the scult is child-like with a cute nose and pouty lips.

The face painting is soft and natural looking.  Her eyelashes are a little on the long side for my liking but they are not too bad.  I will probably replace them with slightly smaller darker ones at some point.

Her hair is lovely and well rooted, there don't appear to be any big gaps between the rooting holes.  The hair fibre feels very much like the more expensive modern dolls from Gotz in Germany, very silky and soft.  The colour in the photo below is not true to life, the real colour is more like my other photos, it's a warm golden blond.  The style is good too, it falls nicely into a short bob.

She has cute well sculpted ears.

Her eyes are blue inset acrylic and they are quite detailed.  She does not have sleep eyes.  Her eyebrows are very sparcely detailed, I may well redo those by filling them in with more 'hairs' using watercolour pencils and chalk pastels.  And she doesn't have lower lashes, so I will add those, again with watercolour pencils.  

Her lips are very detailed with lip creases and are not overly painted or glossed.

Below you can see the outfit with the hood up. 

Daniela has quite a lot of head movement, she can pose with her head looking up, or over her shoulder, she can look down (although her head tends to want to come up again from the looking down position).  When her head is turned all the way around to the back, it remains level and does not look upwards as some play dolls do.  She certainly has good and natural head movement.

Her feet are quite detailed, with cute little toes and neat nails.  

Her hands are also very detailed, with small neat fingernails and lines on the finger joints.

She even has detailed lines on her palms!

Also her hands are not the same, each hand is slightly different!  Below you can see how detailed the lines on the fingers are.

When Daniela sits down her legs do splay outwards but not as bad as some dolls do.  She can sit up unaided without falling backwards.

Because the weather is warm here I wanted to make her something more summery to wear, so I took her measurements.  I compared her measurements with the Heart 4 Hearts dolls, Corelle dolls and the American Doll Wellie Wishers who's details I found online.   It turns out that she is almost the same size as the 14.5 inches Wellie Wishers dolls!  This was great to see as I do have patterns already in that size.  I think the only difference is that Daniela's hips are a couple of centimetres bigger.  

I made her this outfit below, in my favourite colours of blue and white, which I think suits her perfectly.

Outfit and socks by me, shoes by the late Jean Jensen (made for Sasha dolls and slightly too big for this dolls feet).

So to sum up, would I recommend this doll?  Yes!  I definitely would recommend this doll for both children and adult collectors.  She is very well made, using high quality and safe materials.  Her hair can be combed or brushed and she is sturdy enough that a child could play with her without fear of her falling apart quickly.  The company recommend her for children of 3 years and over and I would agree that she would be perfect from that age upwards.  Price-wise this doll is excellent value for money; she cost me 37,95 euros plus 6 euros postage within Spain.  

I would certainly recommend both the Llorens company doll and the Spanish retailer Doll and Doll for a good dolly shopping experience.

I hope you've enjoyed this review and seeing this new little girl!

Thank you for stopping by, keep safe and well everybody!

Big hugs Sharon in Spain xxx

A new outfit for Alice...

Alice is my little Kidz n Cats girl who arrived, and I customised, just before Christmas.  I really don't see her as 'Alice' so I'm currently trying to think of a new name for her. 

In the meantime, she got a nice new outfit a couple of days ago and so insisted that she wanted to have her photos taken and show it off on my blog! 

So here she is, my sweet little girl with her big brown eyes, sharing an outfit that I bought from a seamstress in the UK:

Sorry there are so many photos of her, I just like her sweet face so much that I couldn't choose which photos to use!!!

Thank you for visiting, I hope you're all having a great weekend :)

Hugs Sharon xx

First attempt....Pocahontas has a new look!

After posting yesterday about my new customised Disney Animator Rapunzel, today I was itching to have a go at customising one of the two girls that I already have here.  I bought two girls for the price of one in the sale at the Disney Store in Romford last October when I was in the UK for the Chat n Snap.  I thought I'd take advantage of the cheap price and brought home both Mulan from Aladdin and Pocahontas.  They've been standing around for a whole year waiting for me to have time to work on them and finally today I took the plunge!!

I decided to start with Pochontas, for no other reason than she was already undressed!  Here is how she looks in her default state.  She is actually quite cute but I don't really like the printed eyes:

Because these dolls have rooted hair rather than wigged, I wanted to make sure her hair was completely covered during the 'makeover' process, so as not to ruin it with the sealant spray:

Having covered her hair, I removed her original face paint.  You can just see a very faint mark where her original eyebrows were as the paint was very dark and stained the vinyl.  It wasn't a problem though because that would be covered by the new eyebrows:

I used white acrylic paint to paint the whites of the eyes and I used brown chalk pastels and watercolour pencils for the new eyebrows:

I then used watercolour pencils for her new pupils and irises.  I used chalk pastels for the lips and blush.  I added freckles using thinned down acrylic paint and a cocktail stick!  When the face was complete, I sealed it all with Mr Super Clear sealant.   I didn't take photos of the individual stages here because I got carried away with it!!! 

Once the new face was sealed, I used a water based gloss varnish on her eyes and lips, one layer on the lips as I didn't want them high gloss and about 5 thin layers on the eyes.

After the varnish on the eyes was completely dry, I added human sized false eyelashes on the upper lids and then she was finished!!!

Below she is wearing an 'angel top' that I made some years ago for Sasha, tights, thick socks and she's borrowed boots from my Wichtel dolls.

I washed and conditioned her hair to remove any 'dressing' and then  cut approx 5cm off the length.

I'm actually really happy with how she came out because I've never done eyes before, but I have learned a few things in the process. 

Next time, when I customise my other Disney doll, I will do a couple of things differently.  Firstly, I don't think I'll use white acrylic for the sclera (white part of the eye) as it makes an uneven surface for the watercolour pencils, I would prefer the surface smoother.  Next time I think I will build up layers of white using a white watercolour pencil.  Hopefully then I will get a much smoother finish on the iris.

Secondly, I will wash and condition the hair prior to starting work on the face, I think it's safer that way! 

Apart from that, I think I will probably work roughly the same way on Mulan and I don't think I'll wait a year to start on her either!!

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my customising of Pochontas, thanks for stopping by.  I hope you all have a great weekend!