Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone who visits my blog!  I am sorry that it's been such a long time since I last posted on here, but like a lot of people, I've lost interest in my dolls over the last five months or so and the interest is only really coming back now!  I suspect the virus has got a lot to do with it, l suppose you'd say that 'real life' got in the way.  

I would like to apologise for not commenting on any of the blogs that I follow.  Sadly with the loss of dolly interest, along went any interest in dolly blogs.  I hope to rectify that really soon.

Well a fair amount has happened in the last six months since I posted. First of all we moved home and we are now living just five minutes from where we were before, but we have a lot more space and I have a lovely new doll/sewing room, which unfortunately hasn't seen much action recently, but I do have a lot of things planned for the spring.  The house itself though is lovely, we have beautiful views of the sea and two nice terraces which I need to utilise more for dolly photos.  Having said that, I did take a few photos recently, so I will show them here.

Dolly news, I have received two new dolls recently.  The first to arrive was Nora by Irrealdoll here in Spain, she is very cute but I've not taken any photos of her yet because she is waiting on a wig.  So far I have made the wig cap using white glue but am now waiting on the lambswool to arrive from the UK.  What with the virus and Brexit, I suspect it'll be a while before it arrives, so I will have to be patient and poor Nora will have to stay safely in her box.

The second doll to arrive, who also arrived just before Christmas, is Johanna, who is an Wichtel artist doll by Rosemarie Muller.  She is 32cm tall and all vinyl and such a cutie.  She came in this beautiful smocked dress, lacy socks and pretty sandals, and she even has tiny gold studs in her ears.  You might remember that I had three of the Wichtel dolls before but sold them in 2019, and I missed them so decided to add another to my collection.  I decided on this sweet girl with her small smile....and although I don't usually go for smiley dolls, I'm glad I did on this occasion as she is very pretty. 

Isn't she a cutie!  I can't wait to start sewing for her 😊

In the meantime, I finally got to take some photos of my latest Zwergnase Junior doll, Rixte, who arrived here last October.  She is one of the 45cm girls and has such a cheeky face.  I changed her from her default outfit into this super Brownie dress made by Passion for Sasha on Etsy....she is now looking forward to starting Brownies very soon! 😉 ☺️

Apart from that, all is well here.  My mum and brother came over here to stay with us on the 4th November because I was really worried about how things were going, virus-wise, in their area and they are still here some two months later.  I think it was the best thing for them to do, coming here, because not soon afterwards, their borough, just east of London, had the highest numbers of new virus infections in the whole of England.  Scary stuff.  Thankfully they are safe and well here and long may that continue.

I hope you and your families are staying safe and well and that 2021 will be a good year for us all.

Big hugs and thank you for visiting

Love Sharon xxx

Gotz Happy Kidz Emilia...A New Custom!

Last week I bought a Gotz Happy Kidz Emilia because I both liked the sculpt and wanted to do some customising.  I got Emilia because she has an interesting face sculpt, not the prettiest of the Gotz Happy Doll sculpts but a face that I find I'm drawn to.  I liked her on arrival but always like to make my dolls 'my own' and she was no exception.

Emilia before:

I've always liked Gotz dolls as their quality is very good and they're great as play dolls, being made with very safe and well tested materials, and for adult doll collectors too.

Firstly I removed the factory makeup and the acrylic eyes.  The eyes were not bad quality but I prefer them to be more realistic so they had to go, along with the eyelashes.  Here she is with her cleaned face, but eyes and lashes still attached.  I felt these eyes were also a tad too large for her eye sockets too.

The hair on these dolls is rooted so I covered her head with an old shower cap to protect it from the chalk and the sealant.

The hardest part was getting her head off.  I had to soak it in boiled water until the vinyl was soft and then pull it off.  The eyes are seated in little 'pockets' inside her head but the back of these are open so you can easily remove the eyes through the neck hole.  Here she is will her default eyes and lashes now removed.

 

I then gave her a new faceup using watercolour pencils and artist grade chalk pastels.  I wanted her to have glass eyes but I found that the ones I have here (and I have quite a few pairs!!) did not suit her or were the wrong size.  In the end I decided that I would stick with acrylic, so these eyes are by Glastic Realistic, unfortunately I have no idea what the colour is called.   As acrylic eyes go, I think these are a great alternative to glass or resin eyes as they are very detailed and natural looking. 

Between layers of chalk pastels, Emilia is sealed with several coats of Mr Super Clear Flat sealant. 

I hope that I've bought her more 'to life' and less dolly looking.  I enjoyed working on her, customising really is one of my favourite parts of the doll hobby to be honest!

She's wearing an outfit that I made for my Zwergnase dolls, I thought the grey of the outfit went well with the grey of her eyes.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you're all having a very nice weekend.

Big hugs and stay safe!
Sharon xxxx
 

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 Few Little Crafty Tasks....

Hello and welcome back to my lockdown world!!  Things remain the same here except that the lockdown is now being extended until the end of the month....I suspect it will be extended again after that, but I'm fine with it, as long as it keeps us all safe.

I have spent so much time on the internet and chatting on social media, but I have managed to read a few books on my Kobo and now I've actually done a few dolly things too.

Firstly I finished an outfit for one of my Kaye Wiggs girls that I'd actually cut out back in January.  I put it away when my son was coming to visit and had every intention of actually sewing it when he left on the 7th February.  Well that never happened but finally I started and finished about a week or so ago.  Here it is being modeled by Layla....

The outfit consists of a knit fabric hoodie with separating zip, a cap sleeved striped tee shirt and a skater skirt with attached leggings.

Another job that I've been meaning to do for ages is some partial re-rooting to one of my Sashas.  This girl is called Destin and she has been with me for almost 6 years, she is a Gotz Sasha Slate Eyes made in Germany in the mid 1960s.  She has nice thick hair at the back, although the ends are a little dry, but at the front on top it was a little thin.  I just happen to have here the perfect match in hair for her.  It comes from a modern Gotz doll that I used to have.  I cut off her hair and kept the hair before wigging her.  So the hair has been waiting to be used for this particular Sasha for maybe two years!!!  So I did that a few days ago and the hair really is the perfect match for her existing hair.  I didn't do too much, as I said above, her hair was thick at the back and I didn't want to overdo it, but I filled in some thin hair plugs and added just a few more.  Here she is before:

And here, showing you her new look:

Beautiful spring outfit is by Sarah Williams AKA Vintage Sasha
Orangutan is from IKEA
Socks by me and
Beautiful leather shoes by the late great Jean Jensen.

Finally,  I took some photos of Bailey, my 1971 wider faced brunette (rewigged) as she'd not been in front of the camera for ages.  I used my friend's camera to try it out....I didn't take many photos but thought these show her as she actually is....

Well that's all for now, so I will sign off and hope that you all remain safe and well.  

Big hugs

Sharon in Spain xx