Rainy Day, Dolly Play...

This morning we woke to rain and as the day went on, so the rain got heavier, to the point that we needed our lights on in the middle of the day!  It doesn't rain that often here in southern Spain but when it does, my goodness does it rain!

I'd planned on taking some outside photos but with the awful weather that wasn't to be, so I decided to set up my indoor 'studio' lights and the second backdrop that I received a couple of months ago from Ebay.  You may remember I posted about the first of the two backdrops here:  

If-you-go-down-to-woods-today   

So the second backdrop arrived and was more similar to the first one than I remembered but that wasn't a problem as they are very cheap.  It needed ironing as, like the first one to arrive, it had been folded down to fit into a smallish envelope.  I used my iron on a cooler setting as the backdrops are sort of plasticised fabric, and I didn't want to burn it.  This one is not as good as the first one though as it has paint/printing missing on the creases, but I guess for the cheap price, what could I really expect! 

I have been changing some of my ball jointed dolls into warmer clothing, so thought I'd use the backdrop to take some photos of the girls in their winter wear.  I attached the backdrop to the wall with poster tack and then, as suggested by Sandi of Xanadu Dolls blog I used the ironing board as the 'table' for the dolls to stand on, and I set up the two photographic lights on their tripod stands.

First to have her photo taken was my Fairyland Mini Fee tanned Chloe, with her German Shepherd dog.....I think there is too much light in this photo but when I turned off the lights, so there were shadows created which made the backdrop look very artificial.  The backdrop has sunrays coming from the top left hand corner as you can see.  This is supposed to represent sunshine coming through the trees.  I believe it looks too artificial and unnatural....(any suggestions gratefully received!!!)

Next up we have Dylan, my Little Cosmos Dolls Robin, wearing a different wig.  I'm not sure it's 'her' but will keep it on for a while.  I think I'll probably go back to the red plaited wig in the end!

Riley Mai, (Ppinkydolls Malisa) hasn't had any camera time in ages, so I took a few photos of her too.  I changed her eyes from brown to these two toned, blue/green eyes.   I'm actually thinking of changing her body from her original resin one to a hard plastic Pure Neemo one....so watch this space! 

 

This poor girl hasn't had a change of clothes in probably a couple of years!!!  So I think that'll be my job for the next few days, find her another outfit that suits (and fits!) her!

Next up we have tiny little Marley, (Tanned Meng version 4 by Secretdoll) who I had been thinking of selling as I couldn't 'bond' with her.  I decided to change her wig and eyes and as soon as I saw her in this wig so I realised just how cute she is, she just hadn't found her 'style'!!!.....she will be staying!!!

Finally we have Gala (Adori in Milky tan by Harucasting).  Gala has had several changes of clothing over the summer but I kept forgetting to photograph her.  But now she is in her winter outfit looking all cosy and warm!

I think what I've learned this photo session is that the studio lights are great for eliminating the shadows behind the dolls but I've come across other challenges.  The dolls look a little bit pale and washed out and the colours do not 'pop' like outside photos do for me.  Also, the tripods on the lights are not really tall enough for the dolls when they are standing on the ironing board, I need to take it all a little lower.  So here we have two studio lights, one on either side of the dolls, and an overhead spotlight bulb in the ceiling.  I didn't use the flash in any of these photos, so it really is purely the studio lights. I think I need to find a way of defusing them!  

Well I hope you've enjoyed seeing some of my little girls today.  I will change some more soon and take more photos....hopefully the weather will be dry and I can go back to taking them outside.

Have a great week ahead!

Big hugs Sharon xx

August Already.....how did that happen!!!

I cannot believe that we're already in August, how on earth did that happen so quickly?  I can only think that because our summer seemed to take ages to come this year, so it seems to be passing quickly too.  Hopefully we'll see good weather well into October though, which is an added bonus.

Well the temperatures here have been very high, it's not dropped lower than the mid 30s centigrade for weeks and last week we saw temperatures into the mid 40s.  I always say that I love the heat, and it's true, I really do, and I'd be more than happy to have summer all  year round, but even I had to admit that it was hot!  Perfect weather for the beach though, especially later in the day when the sun isn't quite as intense.  Having said that, apparently the weather this year has been perfect also for jelly fish, so we've had to be careful when swimming in the sea!

I haven't done much with my dolls for a while although I have sold a few and taken some photos of a few others.  I am selling some vinyl dolls so will add photos here in case anyone is interested.

My BJDs are still getting most of my 'play time' and attention and today I took a couple of photos of the Fairyland crew.  I would love to take the second photo in a beach setting, perhaps with a camp fire in front of them but we all know that that isn't going to happen with me!  So here they are on our deck.

This first photo is of the Minifee girls, (all tan resin, all 42cm tall) it would have looked better if I'd had them standing further away from the 'backdrop' but they kept wanting to fall down so I thought it was too risky....I did NOT want to damage their faces!!

L to R: Chloe, Mirwen and Ris:

Now joined by the two Little Fee Antes: Fiona and Tyrone.  Ris is strumming a nice chill-out tune for them:

Another girl who got a change of clothes, twice in fact, was Jo (Zwergnase 55cm Junior Miriam), in the first two photos she's wearing a summer dress I made from an American Girl sized pattern....

I really like this girls unusual face:
 

And here she is wearing a dress I made for her in anticipation of her arrival last year.  I made the pattern from looking at a photo of a child's dress so it isn't perfect on her...but she's happy enough! ;)

Another thing that I've been doing this summer, apart from relaxing and reading, is making dolls eyes!  I watched several videos on You Tube on how to make resin eyes and decided that I would give it a go.  I love to change my BJDs eyes but I hate that I can only get the eyes I want from outside of Spain, from either Greece, Hong Kong or South Korea, and I sooo  hate the long wait.  By the time the eyes arrive I've often forgotten who it was that I ordered them for!  So I ordered the supplies and also some silicone molds on line and thankfully they all arrived quite quickly.  And I was off!  I've only made 8 pairs so far and some of them have been...erm...pretty disasterous, but I have also had some small successes so I'm happy.  And I will hopefully improve as I continue making them.

Here are the first ones, these came out a complete mess!!!  I'm not sure what happened but the domes all went flat!  And there were a lot of air bubbles......the little balls you see in the blue ones are not air bubbles though, they are tiny little balls that I found in a shop selling finger nail decorations!

The second batch came out a lot better, there were minimal air bubbles and the green pair are actually better than they appear in this photo....LOL....but not a lot!!!!!

And finally I was able to make a pair that were good enough to use!  I wanted a pair of brown eyes for my little Secretdoll Meng as she came with a sort of lavender eyes that I thought I'd change.  I know you can't see the details here but they are definitely wearable!

 And here she is before her eye change, I had to add these photos as she looks so cute!

Now on to girls for sale.  I am selling only vinyl dolls at the moment. I have a Gotz Happy Kidz Sophie looking for a new home.  Sophie is quite a 'hard to find' girl these days as she is from 2012.  She is a beautiful redhead in lovely condition and includes her full outfit with shoes and shoulder bag.  The only fault she has is her knees are quite loose, although the hips are fine.  She can stand on her own, but she really could do with those knees being tightened, I just don't know how it's done so I've not touched her.

I'm asking £125 for her plus postage from Spain.  I do not have her large original box but she does have her wrist tags.  

I am also selling this 18 inch girl by Robert Tonner, she is a Tonner My Imagination Deluxe Basic girl with jointed knees.  She is all vinyl and comes with two wigs, the brunette in the photos and a blond one that has never been used.  You may remember that I opened the pate on the top of her head under her wig and repositioned her eyes as they were very 'deer caught in headlights' looking.  Her eyes are her original ones and are now held in place with eye putty.  She will also come wearing her original underwear as shown in the photos.  I don't have her box either but she will travel safely packaged to her new home.

I'm asking £75 plus postage.

If you're interested in either of these two, please email me:

dambuster0662@gmail.com

I will also be listing some other vinyl dolls in the next few weeks or so, so please stop by and see if there is anything that takes your fancy ;) 

Finally I just wanted to add a couple of photos of my handsome son Brendan and his beautiful wife Virginia.  These were taken last weekend at a wedding near Pisa, Italy.  I thought they looked too lovely to just keep on my laptop, so thought I'd share here:  

For a young woman who, as an archeologist, spends her working week thigh deep in mud, Virginia certainly 'certainly scrubs up well' as us Brits say!! :) 

 

Thank you very much for stopping by, I hope you are all enjoying your summer and hope you also have a great 'rest of the week' !!

Big hugs Sharon xx

A New Arrival!

For a long time I have wanted a tanned Fairyland Mini Fee Mirwen, so back in December 2016 I was trawling through the 'For Sale' threads on Den of Angels BJD forum when I spotted someone was selling a tanned Mini Fee Mirwen head!  The seller was in Canada and I felt the price was reasonable, $125 including shipping.  The head had a default faceup (face paint) from Fairyland, and she looked nice.  Although I would have liked to have bought a full doll, I was more than happy to get the head and thought I could then look for a tanned body for her afterwards.  For the time being she could share my Mini Fee Chloe's body. 

The seller responded to my message saying the dolls head was still available and she would be happy to send to Spain as a gift and would mark the value low.  I was really pleased and as a result of what I saw as her 'kindness' in being so helpful, I sent the $125 as a gift.  And waited.....

And waited....and waited a bit more! 

When six weeks had passed I contacted the seller and asked if she could check the tracking her end as I'd not received the head.  Ah, she tells me, she didn't send the head tracked, just with stamps stuck on the parcel and she'd thrown away the receipt.  Well I guess that should have sent warning bells ringing in my head but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and waited a bit more.

When more than two months had passed and still no head, I realised that the head was probably 'lost' in the post.  I contacted the seller a couple of times more but she didn't respond, so that was it.  I thought the head might still arrive but there wasn't anything I could do about it money-wise as I'd paid through Paypal as a gift!  So my $125 and my doll head, were gone.

It wasn't until a couple more months had passed that I saw that the very same seller had been banned from the Den of Angels forum.  It turned out that she and a group of other 'sellers' in her location, had been scamming buyers by selling items that they didn't actually have, using other people's photos of the said items, or using photos they'd found on the internet!!!!  I'd been scammed!!! 

It really put me off buying another Mirwen so I stopped looking. 

So a year and a bit went by and I still wanted a tanned Mirwen, so I decided to put my negative experience behind me and I put a 'WTB' (Want to Buy) on Den of Angels and after about 3 weeks I got a message from a really lovely lady in the US telling me that she had a very pretty Mirwen for sale, was I interested?  This time I was prepared and I did a bit of research and saw that she did indeed own a Mirwen and this seller was known to other BJD collectors that I am acquainted with....so I went ahead with the purchase.  Soooo, finally I'm able to show MY Mirwen, and what a pretty one she is too!!!

And here she is!!!!  She doesn't have a name yet, and her wig probably will be replaced when I can get one that I prefer, but apart from that, she is lovely!  Her faceup is custom by a lady called Patricia Preisinger.  Clothes by me, shoes by Summomo on Etsy.

And here are my two girls together, although it's not a great photo....we have SUNSHINE at last!!!! :)

In the meantime, I've been sewing in this size again, the outfit is being beautifully modelled by Chloe....

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my new girl, now all she needs is a name :)

Have a great weekend and thanks for visiting.

Hugs Sharon xx

Sewing for Chloe....

I did a little bit of sewing today for Chloe my tanned Mini Fee by Fairyland.  I have a new Mini Fee coming and this outfit was intended for her but it looked so nice on Chloe that she gets to keep it (even though she already has LOTS of clothes already!) and the new girl will get something else.  She's not due to arrive until early next week so hopefully I will get the chance to make something before then.

This is just a simple tee shirt and skirt set, the tee shirt pattern is for Robert Tonner's Ellowyne Wilde and is a free pattern from Pixie Faire, and the skirt is a basic pattern that I put together myself.  The pretty fabric of the skirt was part of a gorgeous gift from my lovely friend Sandi in Australia, it's a Japanese print and is called Candy Cats.  The tee shirt is made from a cotton knit baby vest that I bought in the sales!

The really cute sports shoes are by Summomo on Etsy.

 

Well I can't believe we're half way through yet another week....and still we're not having great weather here.  A day or two of sunshine then back to showers and thunderstorms.  Hopefully very soon it'll settle and we'll have the good weather that brought us to Spain 14 years ago!!!

The only good thing about the rainy weather is it does wash away the Andalucian dust that we often get coated with when it's very dry!  And it also makes the plant life look very bright against the dull sky.

I took these three photos this morning in the drizzle!!!  I don't know the name of the tree but it looks like one of those bottle brush trees.....

And this cute bronze statue in the centre of Torre del Mar.....a little girl and her grandfather:

Enjoy the rest of your week....and here's to a great weekend!

Big hugs, Sharon x

Wig changes....

Today I got all my wigs out, and my goodness I have loads of the darn things!  I thought I'd change two of my Fairyland girls wigs.  My normal skin Ante, Fiona, has nearly always had short hair, I love short hair on her, but today I changed her to a long wavy mixed blond wig.  I like it but not sure how long it will stay!  I also tried a short wavy brown one too but decided that she really is a blond, or at least fair haired child!  Forgive the poor photos, I was sitting in the shade as I didn't want my BJDs in full sunshine, and my camera wanted to use the flash so I had to turn it off.....I really need to get my tripod out!!

The second girl to get a wig change was Chloe, my tanned Fairyland Mini Fee.  She has already had a few hair colour changes since arriving here but I wanted to try her as a brunette. 

I really liked the one above but finally settled for the wavy brunette one below.  I might go back to the plaited one at some point, but am happy with her new look for now.

Thanks very much for stopping by, I hope you all have a really lovely Easter which hopefully good weather and loads of chocolate!!! 

Big hugs Sharon xx