Just because ..... Núria

I know some of you will have already seen some of these photos on Facebook, but I thought I'd add them here too.  They are some 'just because' photos of Núria, my 1968 redhead ballerina who came to live here last year from the UK.  Núria is named after La Vall de Núria, ("The Valley of Núria") in Catalonia here in Spain.

Núria was enjoying the sunshine yesterday and looked so lovely that I had to try to capture it with my camera......and thought I'd share....

Outfit by me, shoes by the late Jean Jensen. 

For Sale - Coat/jacket for Sasha Toddler *** SOLD ***

I have for sale a hooded coat for Sasha Toddlers.  The coat/jacket is made from baby pink fine corderoy and fully lined with white dotted with pale pink Swiss batiste fabric.  This fun coat has a hood decorated with two wired rabbit ears and the front of the coat has two lined patch pockets.  It closes with metal snaps covered by small white buttons.  All fabrics are new and clean and I finished sewing the coat today.

Teddy, my Gotz Toddler Erik, who is in touch with he 'feminine' side is modelling the coat below for you!

Price is £18 plus postage from Spain.  Postage to the UK is £4 and to the US would be approx £6.  Paypal only and payment as gift please!

Please email me if you're interested:  dambuster0662@gmail.com

Thanks very much for looking!

SOLD THANK YOU!

The Little Darlings family.....

A few of my friends have asked to see all of my Little Darlings together so that they can compare them, so I thought I'd share some photos that I took today of all four of them and also with little Pip, my Ten Ping!  There are quite a few photos, so I hope you're not in any rush ;)

L to R: Finn (#2 sculpt painted by Pat Green), Reece (#2 sculpt factory painted Ana with enhanced eyes by me), Ellie (#1 sculpt painted by Dianna Effner) and Gem (#2 sculpt painted by Dianna Effner)

Below the girls have moved around in the line- up and you can see the differences to their 'skin' tone.   Gem, the new girl, now shown second from left, has a darker skin tone than Ellie and Finn, but is very similar in shade to Reece, the factory painted girl shown second from right.

Here, below, are my three #2 sculpt girls together, L to R, Finn painted by Pat Green, Gem painted by Dianna Effner and Reece, factory painted girl.  Although all three girls are the same sculpt, the #2 or the 'Asian' sculpt as I believe Dianna originally named it, because of the different ways in which they've been painted, they look fairly different.  Finn in particular looks less Asian, maybe purely because she has lighter eyes, as we tend to associate darker eyes with Asian people.

The two brown eyed #2 sculpts, Reece left (factory painted) and Gem (painted by Dianna Effner)  Seeing the two girls side by side you can see that they do look very Asian with their lovely almond shaped eyes.  Some people don't consider the factory painted girls to be of the same 'calibre' as the handpainted ones, and although I appreciate that a lot of work goes into the handpainting of the eyes, I have to say that I'm incredibly happy with my little factory painted girl.  As far as I'm concerned she is every bit as lovely as the handpainted girls!  :)   Although I admit I'm prejudiced! 

Below we have my two girls painted by Dianna Effner, Ellie the #1 sculpt on the left and Gem, #2 sculpt on the right.  Dianna painted Ellie in February 2014 and Gem is an older girl, having been painted in November 2010.  The difference in their 'skin' tone in this photo is very obvious to see.  Ellie has a lighter 'rosier' complexion whilst Gem has a more olive skin tone.  Both girls have brown eyes but Gem's are definitely very dark, almost black and her eyebrows are very fine compared to Ellie's thicker, darker ones.  I do feel very privileged to have both girls as I believe the waiting list for one of Dianna's handpainted dolls is at least 2 years!

Here are some individual photos of the girls ~ Gem:

Ellie, not a great photo though!

Gem again!

Reece, looking very serious!

And Finn, looking startled!  I have struggled with finding just the right wig for Finn and have another currently on order.  I hope that when it arrives it will be perfect for her.  I don't like the wig in the photo below, it looks too 'big' for her although it is her size!!

Finally, as requested, we bring little Pip (Ten Ping by Ruby Red Galleria) into the equation!  She looks very tiny in comparison to the Little Darlings but I do think with her Asian look she makes a cute little sister for Gem! 

 Sisters!

I hope you've enjoyed seeing all the girls together and the comparisons.  If you'd like to see any other comparisons then please let me know in the comments and if I can, I will do them for you!

Thanks for looking and gave a great weekend!

Another package!

It would seem that like buses, packages tend to come all at once, if this week has been anything to go by!

I have been waiting on a package from the US and it was posted on the 10th April.  I'd hoped that it'd take about ten days.....but as I've probably said a million times on here before, Spanish customs, like customs everywhere I'm sure, are a law unto themselves...literally!  So the parcel was finally released from their custody last weekend and I expected the it to arrive with me on Monday, particularly when I saw that the tracking showed the status as "in the delivery system", that usually means delivery is imminent.  So I waited and waited, as we do when anything 'dolly' is involved, but no package arrived.  Spanish tracking remained the same but later in the day I received an update from USPS to say that an attempt had been made to deliver the parcel at 9.16am  and they would try again later in the day.  Well to cut a long story short....so as not to  bore any of my readers with my continuing sagas with parcels from the US, the parcel had indeed been in the delivery system, but in a town hundreds of kilometres away in Miraflores, Madrid!!!!!  This particular town had one number different to ours in their postcode and for some reason the parcel went there!  Luckily it had to be signed for and the mistake was noticed and after a bit of a palavar the parcel finally arrived here at about 5.30pm on Wednesday!!!  Oh, and in case you're wondering, yes I did get caught for customs, but luckily just 24 euros!!!

So my lovely new girlie had arrived!!!!  The girl in question is another Little Darling, this time a number 2 sculpt and painted by Dianna Effner herself.  I was fortunate enough to be asked by a friend in the US if I was interested in adopting her lovely girl and because the price was just so good, I went for it!  Never mind the fact that the doll is just lovely too of course!

So here she is, she came in the black bobbed wig but I've changed it for the Monique Gold Roxie, I think the colour is Brown/Black so it's a little softer than the solid black she was wearing.  I think she looks quite Asian which I'm really happy with as my other two girls who are the same sculpt do not have that same look.   I've not dressed her yet, she is still in the knickers and petticoat that she arrived in but hopefully very soon she'll be going through the clothes box and borrowing something from the girls.....just until I can make her her own outfits.

She is from November 2010, so an older girl and she's really lovely....although I admit that I'm prejudiced!!!

All she now needs is a name........

Thanks for looking!  I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Introducing Ruby Red Galleria.....Ten Ping!

Well I had absolutely no intention of buying a Ten Ping from Ruby Red Galleria, not because I didn't like them or anything like that but because I have recently being going for bigger dolls rather than smaller....and to be honest, I'd not paid much attention to them, not being in the market for another small doll.  So when a dear dolly friend of mine told me that she'd actually ordered two and would I be interested in a trade, I thought "why not!" 

The little sweetie arrived today and I have to say, one glimpse of her in her white padded sleeping bag and I was smitten!  She is the cutest little thing!  She arrived very well packaged.  The outer box is sturdy cardboard and has a black and white photograph of the doll on one end. 

Inside this outer box is another sturdy brown box, this one has some great artwork on it, as well as another  photo, this time in colour, of the doll.  I particularly like this type of artwork, simply drawn but very effective.

The five piece outfit is separately packaged inside the box, and consists of a thick fully lined jacket with very cute closures on the front, a pair of flowered trousers, a blue collared long sleeve top, again fully lined, beige socks and blue canvas shoes.  I haven't tried the outfit on her yet because it's very warm here and she wanted to wear something more summery! ;)

Ten Ping also comes with gold coloured earrings and a skipping rope.  I won't be putting the earrings in her ears because I prefer her without them, plus once the holes are made, of course they cannot be 'un-made', so they will remain in the packet.  

Ten Ping herself comes safely tied with white ribbons inside this lovely white padded 'sleeping bag' with a fully separating zipper up the front and a red and white Ruby Red Galleria tag attached.  She has a face protector and hair net to keep her wig from getting messy in transit.  Her wig is lovely and soft, made from faux mohair I believe and styled into two plaits, one on each side and is kept in place by a silicone wig cap.  Her eyes are deep brown inset acrylic and she has attached eyelashes. 

And also she comes with a short book about her and her brother...I will read this when I get a minute!  Again it has the lovely artwork throughout!

Once Ten Ping was removed from her sleeping bag, I saw that she was also wearing her white cotton knickers. 

She immediately wanted to look for something to wear in the doll clothes box and came up with this sweet outfit which fortunately I've had here for years!  It was made originally for a Lati Yellow Special and fits her perfectly!  It also has a pale turquoise hooded cardigan to go with it should the evenings, down here by the sea, get chilly.  The sneaker boots are for Lati Yellow and although I could get them on, I did have to remove the laces to be able to do so.

Ten Ping is made from hard vinyl and plastic and is 8 inches tall.  She is fully jointed but she's not ball jointed, her joints are more mechanical, they remind me a little of the Obitsu dolls but Ten Ping's joints seem stronger to me, and very nicely made.  She poses really well and has good balance as you can see in my photos above.

I have decided to name my Ten Ping, Pip because she's tiny!!

Now on top of all the above, my box also included some wonderful gifts from my friend in the US!  Six different pieces of lovely quilters cotton fabric and  toys for Pip!  I really am very lucky!! 

Thank you very much J for this wonderful trade, I hope you will be as happy with your outfits as I am with Ten Ping!