Some Gotz Girlies......

The weather has continued to be very unsettled here with very heavy rain and then bright sunshine....and then repeated all over again!  But I wanted to take some photos of my Gotz Hannahs and my Happy Kidz for the Gotz Facebook group so I managed to squeeze in some photo time between the rainfall!  I thought I'd share them on here too.....

Here is Hannah Summertime, she is a 2017 girl and comes wearing a flowery cotton dress with short puffed sleeves, as well as a white 'straw' sunhat, pink glittery sandals and heart shaped sunglasses....all very cute but not really that appropriate for heavy rain!  So Hannah immediately changed into this cute and colourful outfit that I bought recently on Ebay Germany, I'm sure you'll agree she looks very sweet and childlike in it, and it's certainly more than adequate for the weather!

I thought that Hannah looked a little pale so added a bit more blush to her chubby cheeks.  It's subtle but definitely makes a difference to her face :)

The rest of the girls wanted to join in, so here are a couple of group shots........

Left to right:  Charlotte (2016), Asian Hannah at the Ballet, Hannah Summertime (2017), Happy Kidz Emily (2016), Happy Kidz Sophie (2012) and Happy Kidz Emily (2015-rewigged):  Charlotte got caught by a sunbeam!!

I'm sorry that I've not got much else for you this week, so I'll just add here some photos that I took on one of my morning walks....hope you enjoy them!

A few signs of spring....

I'm not sure this is really a 'sign of spring' but liked the variegated leaves....

Looking west towards Malaga.....

And east towards Nerja......

And finally, south towards Africa!

I hope you're all having a lovely weekend and that the weather has improved where you are!
Have a great week ahead!

Big hugs, Sharon x

My Dolly Week....

This week we went to a local castle/fortress which is just about 15 km from us and yet we'd never visited there before.  We did actually try to go there last week but loads of roads were closed due to a cycling event.  So we tried again and this time our satnav took us somewhere entirely different.....and then finally we just took a chance on directions and found the place!!  But I must say it was a bit stressful as the roads we were sent down by the satnav were really scary, very narrow, very steep and some with sheer drops with no barriers.  One paved road was so steep that as I turned into it, still in 1st gear, our tyres just started to spin on the road surface, they just couldn't get a grip on such a steep road!!!  Never again!

Anyway, as I say, we finally found La Fortaleza de Velez Malaga and it had beautiful views and you could see the Mediterranean Sea in the distance, as well as several churches and the town of Velez Malaga from above.  You can read a little bit of history here:  (If you click on the photo it will enlarge)

I took two dolls with me; Claudia by Bonnie & Pearl and my Gotz Happy Kidz Emily from 2015.  I walked up to the top of the tower to take some more photos, there were about 100 narrow winding steps to the top and fortunately no-one else was there because there's no way I could have got past someone coming in the opposite direction whilst I was holding a big bag, a camera, a handbag and two 19 inch dolls!!!!  It was definitely worth climbing those stairs, the views were wonderful.

Claudia, from Bonnie & Pearl,  enjoyed her morning out.....

The gardens outside the castle are very pretty and nicely laid out, the shade from the palms and the olive trees was very welcome as it was quite hot up there....

Claudia and Emily...

Resting at the top of the castle....

Although it's a little hazy, in the distance you can just see the Mediterranean Sea....

Evidence of the Moorish architecture....no, not Brian, the archway behind him! ;) 

The red and yellow Spanish flag and the green and white Andalucian flag, flying in the breeze.....

Views north towards the mountains....

Church of San Juan Bautista....

I hope you've enjoyed seeing our local castle and the girls who visited with us.

Have a great weekend everyone!!

Hugs Sharon x

Winter warmers..

I've not been up to much recently but did get a few of my dolls into winter clothes, although to be honest, the weather is still quite warm and I felt guilty that they were dressed up in woolly hats whilst it was 26C and I was walking around in short sleeves.  Yes, I admit it, I'm completely nuts thinking that they mind what they're actually wearing ;)

Unfortunately all photos were taken inside....I know, I know, I'm a wimp but there were too many people about for me to be seen with a bunch of dolls!!!

So my four Gotz girls were changed into warmer clothing first.  Here is Asian Hannah at the Ballet, wearing an outfit I made a couple of years ago.  She is also wearing a woolly hat that I found in a toy shop here, plus boots from Primark which are made for babies of 0-3  months!  What a find, bearing in mind the price of doll footwear, these ones, made for human babies were only 5 euros a pair!!

A close up of her sweet little face:

Next Happy Kidz Charlotte from 2016, who is also wearing an outfit that I made some time ago.  She is also wearing the same type of baby boots from Primark.  Her dress is made from a child's hoodie which I bought and unpicked to use the fabric.  I love this fabric, as well as being pretty, it's a lovely weight of knit fabric to work with.

Although the Emily sculpt is my favourite of the Happy Kidz sculpts, I really do like Charlotte too, she has grown on me a lot since she's been here:

My rewigged Emily from 2015 is wearing a knitted dress from My Doll Best Friend, I love this dress and wish they did it in other colours, but the deep pink and turquoise works so well on her.  Her boots are doll ones and she is wearing Gotz leg warmers over her tights.

 

 My sweet little wigged Emily in close up:

Next we have Sophie, a beautiful brown eyed redhead from 2012.  She is wearing a skirt and sweatshirt that I made earlier this year.  Her brightly coloured owl hat was a gift from a dear dolly friend in the US a couple of years ago, I thought it went perfectly with her outfit!!

 And a close up of her owl hat, and very pretty face :)

Finally of the Gotz girls we have my new 'replacement' blond Emily from 2016.  She came here in August but what with the wedding and everything else, I never got the chance to photograph her until now!  I'm really pleased to have a blond Happy Kidz again, I really should learn my lesson from this and keep the scissors away from them!! ;)

She's wearing another outfit that I made previously, I loved this on the original (now wigged brunette) Emily so new Emily gets to wear it:

And a close up to see her sweet face, she is almost exactly the same except she has a side parting whereas original Emily's was middle parting if I remember rightly!

OK, so five down......quite a few more to go though!  I hope you've enjoyed this brief post of a few of my girls.  I hope everyone has a lovely weekend and a great week ahead.  I will be off to the UK on Wednesday to help celebrate my mum's 80th birthday.....I'm away for a week and hope to take a doll with me, but at this moment in time, I can't decide who to take!!!!  All suggestions welcome.

Big hugs Sharon xx

Disaster....averted!

Although I don't show her on here that much, one of my favourites of my 19 inch vinyl dolls is Emily, my Gotz Happy Kidz Emily from 2015.  I really like her and think her sculpt is my favourite of the Happy Kidz, being very innocent and child-like. 

A couple of months back, for some very strange reason I suddenly thought that I'd prefer her with a fringe.  She had lovely hair, but it was in a centre part with no fringe.  Now why this crazy thought came to me I have no idea, and why I decided I would act on that crazy thought, I have even less idea....but I did!  And woah, did I regret it the moment those scissors started cutting into her hair.

Now most of you know I can be a bit 'scissor happy' sometimes but I really was not happy on this occasion.  First of all I cut the hair far too short, but secondly, I could not get the newly cut fringe to lay flat.  I tried wetting her hair with boiling water and then leaving to dry covered by a beanie hat, I tried a wide rubber band around her head, I tried warm curling tongs, I even tried ironing it down with a hot iron over a wet flannel, nothing would work.  Oh it would work for a few hours but as soon as I left her, so the fringe would spring up again and look ridiculous!

Here's how she looked before:

And here's how she looked once I'd got carried away with the scissors:

Poor girl, she really doesn't look at all happy, does she?  And what is that longer bit on the right of the photo!!!  I'm sure it was straight when I cut it!

So yesterday I decided that as I'd already ruined her, I might as well go the full hog.  I carefully removed all her hair and left her with just stubble.  I then went through my wig box.  As you already know, I have a ton of wigs here as I've been collecting them for more than 10 years now, so I was sure that I'd find something to fit her. 

As it happens, I recently bought (yes, I'm still adding to my wig box!) a new Monique Gold wig that I thought would be perfect for her.  It's a Geneva in brown/black, although I have to say it's really much nearer to brown than black and it fits her perfectly.  It was a bit long, reaching down to the back of her knees and the fringe was down over her eyes, so I cut about 10cm off the length of the wig and about 1cm off the fringe.  I'm delighted with her new look.  The stubble on her scalp keeps the wig perfectly in place and I just think she looks so incredibly cute again!

I particularly love the two photos below of her, I used the mosquito net to difuse the direct afternoon sunlight that was coming through our bedroom window....I think she looks incredibly child like here.....and I love the way her face is in part shade.....

So now I have a little brunette, but because I miss my blond Emily, yesterday I purchased a 2016 version from My Doll Best Friend in the UK.  She will be delivered to my son's address and he'll bring her over for me at the end of the month when he comes home.  And if I am ever tempted to give her a fringe again.....please slap those scissors right out of my hands!!!

Emily....a little bit spoilt perhaps?

I don't know what it is about this particular doll but Emily, my Goetz Happy Kid, who came to me secondhand (admittedly almost brand new in box) from Ebay, has fast become one of my favourite dolls!  She has such a lovely face and is really nice to sew for.  Being bigger than the majority of my other dolls, I can use fabrics that wouldn't be any good for smaller dolls, such as this knit fabric which was a gift from my friend Anita in the US, and with which I've made Emily's latest outfit.

The dress is a basic smock style with three quarter length sleeves and I added red and white striped leggings and a Liberty cap in plain red knit.  I love sewing in knit fabrics...which is funny really because when I first started sewing I hated knits as my sewing machine tended to 'eat' them, now they're definitely my favourite fabrics.  I just wish that more patterned knits were available to purchase locally as I like to feel the weight of the knit before I buy and that is very difficult with buying on-line! 

Anyway, without further ado, here is Emily modelling her new outfit which she seems to be very happy with.  We went into the 'campo' yesterday to take these and the air was filled with the scent of wild mountain thyme....lovely!!

The usual abundance of photos as I can never choose which to keep and which to discard!!!  

Because we were high up, we got a good view of the sea in the distance.  It was very calm.

 Another abandoned watch tower...

I hope everyone had a great weekend and hope the week ahead is good for you....and for those of you with cold weather and snow, please keep safe and warm.