Yeaaah, a good dolly day!

Today I have been very busy dolly-wise, firstly starting AND finishing the faceup that I've been doing for my friend Joanie in California.  The faceup was finished without further incident and now I'm just hoping that she'll like her little Californian girl!!!

As I had all the faceup stuff out, I decided that I would finally redo the lips on my tiny Elf Elly Eomji.  Eomji, who is just 5.7 inches tall, has been with me since November 2008 and when she arrived from Dollmore, I wasn't keen on her lips, so I redid them.  I wasn't totally satisfied, but because her lips are so small, I decided to leave them as they were.

So today I finally redid them in a more appropriate colour for such a small doll.  However, that wasn't all.  Whilst I had her wig and headcap off, I decided to change her eyes.  In all the time she's been here, she's never had her eyes changed, I had one other pair in this size, 6mm, and got them ready to insert.  The old eye putty completely crumbled when taking out her old eyes, they'd been in there that long!  Whilst the eyes were out, I decided to apply some upper eyelashes as she looked a bit 'bald' without them.  That was a challenge.  The eyeholes are sooooo tiny!  But finally, after getting a lot of glue on myself, I got the tiny little lashes in.  Once they were in, well the eyes were a doddle to insert! 

I also added some extra blush.  So here she is!  Looking very cute with her Chihuahua which was a gift for one of my Sasha girls from my friend Ronny in the UK....thank you Ronny!!!

Gutted!

I spent much of yesterday and more time this morning, working on a faceup for a friend of mine in California.  The facemould to start with has been a bit of a challenge as it I feel it looks neither one gender or the other, although it is supposed to be a little girl.  Because I wanted her to look more girly, it has taken me a while to start on her and to really know what colours to use.  I didn't really want to use anything too strong, after all, this is a 'child' doll, but I though too neutral would make her look too boyish.

So finally I thought I'd got it right and gave her a final coat of MSC (Mr Super Clear flat) sealant before adding the varnish and then later the eyelashes.  Then just as I was adding some tiny freckles so I noticed a little speck of dust on her face which I touched with my finger, only for a big patch of MSC to come away from the face!!  It brought with it the layers of blush from underneath and now I have had to remove the whole lot and will be starting over again tomorrow.

Arrrrgggggh!  All that work wasted!  I can only think that the MSC was a bit cold as although I shook it really well, it had been standing in the shade in the garden.  I even tested it before spraying and thought it was fine, but obviously not!

Oh well, tomorrow is another day!!

Fiona...

I've been working again with the macro lens and took some photos of Fiona, my Little Fee Ante, as I've tried many times with my regular lens to get good close ups of her but often fail.  I took these in the garden in natural light, this time using the manual focus rather than the auto.  I'm pleased with how they came out.  I think for me natural light is the way to go, although as we all know, it's not always possible to take photos in the garden.  Having said that, sometimes I find that the light here is too bright, and my photos can look washed out.  I guess it all comes down to practice!

So here is Fiona who has been with me since April 2009, and she was secondhand then!  But I feel her Fairyland default faceup is as beautiful and vibrant now as it was back then when she arrived!

Starting as I mean to go on....

Leading up to, and during Christmas, some of my dolls have been neglected, so today I thought I'd start the year as I mean to go on and make two new dresses, one for each of my two Kaye Wiggs MSD girls.  I think if I were the type of person to say that certain dolls were 'forever' dolls, then these two would be on the shortlist because I really love them both.

As it happens, I got carried away with surfing the internet so only had time to  make one dress but hopefully tomorrow I'll make the second.

Hope was the recipient of this one.  The fabric is really lovely soft corderoy which I bought from Finland.  Unfortunately my photos are not showing the true colours of the fabric as they are taken in artificial light.  I will try to take some more another day in natural light.

Here is Hope, modelling for me, although you can only see part of the dress.  She is also wearing a new wig which I really like on her:

And because I wouldn't want little Loulou (Light tan Layla) to feel left out, here are the two sisters together.   Loulou is wearing an old Kish 16 inch Seasons dress, but is looking forward to a new dress all of her own.
 

If there's a Macros for Dummies book then I need it!

I've been using my new Canon Macro EFS60mm lens that my dear hubby got me for Christmas and, if the expression "practice makes perfect", then I have a lot of practicing ahead of me!  I used my smallest ball jointed girls as models, they are my Elfdoll Monnaemi Sisters which are 14cm tall and mega skinny.  I tried both the auto focus and the manual focus.....I took loads of photos and these are the best of them....and they're not that good either! 

First up is Song, she is a Bong Sun Hwa from May 2009.  She has a default faceup and is a very shy little girl until she gets to know you!  Here she is dressed as one of Santa's little helpers!

This next photo is of Callie who was my first Monnaemi Sister, she is a Jin dal Re, she came here in late 2008, but she is from an earlier release, although I'm not sure which one, possibly second edition.  She has a default faceup but one day I would like to send her off for a custom one as this faceup is showing signs of age now.  Callie is a funny little thing, she can be quite a worrier and fusses over her sisters all the time.

Next up are the twins, this first one being Twiggy, a Min dal Re from May 2009.  She has a default faceup and a bit of an attitude.  She thinks she is bigger than she is!!

And finally we have her twin sister, Minxie, another Min dal Re but an earlier edition, again I'm not entirely sure of which edition she is from, but I think she is from Rainman's second edition of Monnaemi Sisters.  She came to me secondhand in October 2009 and had a few problems including fading faceup, all her fingers missing on one hand and her legs were very misshappen and bandy because of tight stringing.  However, she was an easy fix and I fixed her up in no time.  She finally got a beautiful new faceup this year by the very talented Raven of Ravendolls in the US.  How Raven managed to work on someone so small, I'll never know.....look at those beautiful lips!  Bearing in mind, they are only 4mm, yes millimeters, from corner to corner!!!  But she is just perfect!

I love my little Monnaemi Sisters, they are such big 'personalities' in tiny bodies! 

On a non dolly note, I would just like to thank everyone who reads my blog, and wish all of you a very Happy New Year, may 2013 bring you everything that you would wish for yourselves, but especially good health and happiness.

My Sasha family.....

Just before Christmas, I was lucky enough to receive two new Sasha kids who came to join my dolly family.   They made their appearances, a day apart, just after my mum and brother arrived from the UK to visit us for Christmas, so I was unable to really do anything more than take them from their boxes and check them over.  The first to arrive was a little red head Sasha 'waif', who I have mentioned in a previous blog entry.  She had previously had her beautiful two tone red hair cut into a cute bob, and I couldn't resist her when I saw her face looking out from my computer screen when she was listed for sale on Ebay.

I have dressed her in a little dress that I had previously made for my blond Sasha, Millie,  because I didn't have time to make her anything in anticipation of her arrival.  My mum gave her a pretty pink cardigan which she'd knitted for her for Christmas, and so this morning I made her some pink lacy knit tights to go with it and added brown suedette shoes, my 'not so great' first attempt at making dolly footwear.  Unfortunately, Ellory, as she is now called, let me know in no uncertain terms, that pink really is NOT her colour!  But as I told her, "It's pink or nothing for the moment, I'm afraid!" she agreed to wear the pink outfit until I can make her something more suited to her tomboy personality!  (LOL, you can see from her face in this photo that she is not overly impressed!)

Next to arrive was a cute brunette dark jeans Gregor from 1973/74 from Shelly at Sasha Dolls UK.  He had been described on her website as having good shiny non falling hair that needed restyling because it was sticking up in the air.  I found his face really appealling and knew that with a bit of patience his hair would soon settle down!  So he was bought by my husband as one of my Christmas gifts.  As soon as he arrived I put a beany on his head to help flatten his hair and sure enough it is now more or less flat and what a cheeky little chap he is!  He is very handsome and his name, he tells me, is Alexander, but we can call him Alex, apparently!

Now that my (human) family have gone back to the UK, I will make some clothes for these two new kids!  Luckily the weather has been beautiful and sunny and very warm, so I was able to take quite a lot of photos in the garden today.  Here is a cute photo of Devon and Millie, my little blond twins hanging out in the sunshine:

And finally here is my full Sasha family!!  I don't know how it happended that I ended up with four kids, I honestly only planned on having the two!

Feliz Navidad to all my friends!

I've not had very much dolly time over the last week since my mum and brother have been here, but today Millie, my blond Sasha, received a new outfit that I won on Ebay, so she immediately had to change into it....and of course that meant photos.  I know that I said just a few weeks ago that I would join Lorraine with her quest not to buy any clothes for the Sasha's for a whole year and I already broke it!!!  Ooops!  I really wanted something warm and cosy for Millie and I can't knit properly so when I saw this sweet outfit by Dee, anislynn1066 on Ebay, I couldn't resist it.  (That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!!) 

So on went the new outfit and of course Millie wanted to go out to show it off, so off she went to Santa's Grotto, where she met up with his little 'army' of snowmen!  This year we didn't have the tree up (long story) so I put together this little 'grotto' instead!  

Anyway, I think Millie was totally enchanted and mesmerised by the  frosty little men and she really loved Santa who came here from Germany and is wearing blue rather than the red that we're more used to.

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all my friends a wonderful holiday season and I hope that the New Year brings you everything that you would wish for yourselves, but especially good health and happiness.