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
I got back on Tuesday from my five day trip to the UK and I felt exhausted, which is odd because I didn't do that much really! I was really happy to see that my mum is doing so well, she is now walking quite well with either the walker or her crutches, she's also cooking and able to do light housework. The only thing she's not doing is going outside on her own, which is fair enough as the weather isn't good and I'd hate for her to slip over.
Whilst there I did a little bit of shopping and met up with friends. My friend Sue, who I've mentioned several times before here on my blog, brought a parcel over to my mum's house, which I'd had sent to her from Dollstown in South Korea. I will share more of that in a future post. Anyway, it was lovely to catch up with Sue again if only for a brief time.
One of the dolls I brought back with me is Sienna by Kaye Wiggs. I bought her from a friend in the UK who is downsizing her collection. In fact I bought two dolls from her but will show them seperately.
Sienna is in Coffee tan resin and I have to say that her sculpting just blew me away, she is so beautiful. I think that she is my favourite Kaye Wiggs doll sculpt so far. She is so realistic!
Please excuse the dust particles on her face, I forgot to blow them away before taking the photos.
This girl is 43cm tall and has the 'Abby' body, which is the smaller of the two MSD bodies released with Kaye Wiggs dolls. She has beautiful Coffee Tan resin which is darker than my other Kaye Wiggs dolls and is such a pretty dark tan. There were only 50 of this doll released in this colour resin and all of them have had their faceups enhanced by Kaye herself. My girl is number 29.
The wig in the photos is a very dark Tibetan lambswool and although it's very full, I think it's absolutely perfect for her face sculpt. The only problem is, I don't see all the stray hairs in the photos until I've uploaded them and put the doll away, so apologies for all of those!!!
My friend sent her with this outfit as well as two others, so Sienna has some different clothing options until I can sew for her. I love her in these colours, I think they really suit her.
I believe these glass eyes are the ones she came with from Kaye.
I think in the past I read an interview with Kaye where she was asked where she got the inspiration for her sculpts and if I remember rightly she said that she sculpted the faces of the children she saw around her in her home country of Australia. If this is the case then she really is spot on with this one, she so reminds me of the little Aboriginal children that live down there in Oz, she's just gorgeous!!!
Have a great weekend everyone!
Big hugs
Sharon xxx
Most people complain that January goes by so slowly after the rush of December and Christmas but I must admit, that having been in the UK from the 3rd to the 11th, the month seemed to whizz by! I was hardly home when the 31st arrived and brought with it my son Brendan who came over for a week's holiday with us. He mainly comes to see us on his own as he has more holidays than his wife Virginia, so when she comes to Spain she naturally spends the time with her family. Anyway, it was a great week, we did lots of chatting and laughing and of course shopping, Brendan always wants to buy things here that are apparently much cheaper than the UK, so he keeps us very busy!!
Lucy loves having Brendan home!
On the dolly front I have sold a couple of dolls and done a bit of sewing as well as have taken some photos of different dolls who've had a change of clothes or wig. The weather has been lovely, very warm and sunny, perfect weather for taking my girls outside to photograph.....
Here is Holly (formerly Wentje, the doll I showed in my last post), she is a Zwergnase Junior and is 55cm tall. I changed her into this dress that I made ages ago for another doll that has since left for pastures new. I then added a 'shirt' underneath so that it looked a bit different from when the last doll wore it. When I first got her I wasn't sure about her but since I got back from the UK and have had a chance to 'play' with her, she's really grown on me.
Also today I changed the wig on my Little Cosmos Dolls Robin. I've always thought of her as a dark haired girl but yesterday I received this wig from a group order I'd participated in back in the autumn. By the time it arrived, I couldn't remember who I'd ordered it for!!! So Dylan (Robin) tried it and I really think it suits her so she will keep it.
Who'd have thought she'd look so angelic as a blond! Funny how looks can be so deceiving though😉
I also changed my little Sienna (Bastian, also by Little Cosmos Dolls) into this cute outfit by the Gorjuss company. It seems odd to have a coat with short sleeves but it's not cold here now so little Sienna doesn't mind 😉. This girl's face so appeals to me, she always looks so worried, like she's scared she's about to be told off!!!
I made a couple of outfits for my Kaye Wiggs girls, here is Gracie modelling the outfit I made for her....It wasn't quite finished in this photo, I'd forgotten to put the cord through the bottom of the sleeveless hoodie!!
Here we go, the cord is now done and I made another outfit, this time for Hope.
I have a third outfit cut out and ready to sew for Layla, I'll get to that soon I'm sure!
In the meantime, I am off to the UK again on Thursday to see my mum and brother. My mum has been doing very well since her fall and is completely on the mend now, thank goodness. She was recently discharged by the physiotherapists and is now walking well with the aid of a walking stick or a walking frame. I'm only going for five days but looking forward to it....apart from the weather!!!
I have some dolly purchases to pick up whilst over there so hopefully will have some new arrivals to show you on my return.
Have a great week ahead, and for those of you being affected by Storm Ciara, keep safe and warm.
Big hugs
Sharon in Spain xxx
It's been more than a month since I last wrote anything here on my blog but now that the evenings are darker, I'm more inclined to be sitting inside using my laptop, rather than outside so thought I'd do some catching up! I don't like putting the clocks back, the sun sets here at about 6.30pm and I thought that was bad enough until my son, who lives on the south coast of the UK, sent me a photo this afternoon at 5pm UK time, and it was completely dark!!!! We are very lucky here to be honest, as even in the middle of winter, it never really gets dark before about 6.15pm.
That aside, the weather here has been beautiful. The temperature during the day is still in the low to mid 20s centigrade, so I really cannot complain. I think waking up to bright mornings with blue skies and lots of sunshine really does help my frame of mind. And it has certainly made my morning walks easier to get up for!!!
On the dolly front I have been busy. I have recently sold another 6 dolls and a Super Dollfie sized body, so of course that money was burning a hole in the bottom of my paypal account. I ended up buying two dolls, one was an impulse buy and the other was a doll that I have wanted for absolutely ages but had not been able to find within the EU and I was not prepared to buy from elsewhere as I didn't want to get caught for customs charges.
So the impulse buy is by an artist that I've admired for a while but never thought I'd find one of her dolls for sale within the EU. She is a Madeleine by the Australian artist Liz Frost and she is approx 12 inches tall. Madeleine is a tan resin ball jointed doll (BJD) and I adopted her from a friend in the UK....I am thinking that I might give her a new faceup or at least partially redo her as I'm not sure about her current blush. We shall see. The good thing about this doll is that she can share the clothing belonging to the Little Darlings, so that gives her a lot of options as they have a lot of clothes!!!
Here she is on arrival day:
The second doll that I bought recently is one that I have wanted for AGES! I mean a really long time! Probably since she was released back in about 2011. I remember wanting to pre-order her but again the customs charges put me off as she would be shipped from the US. So I decided that if I was to get her then it would be secondhand ... but each time she was for sale within the EU, so I was broke! In the end I sort of moved on. However about three weeks ago I saw one for sale on Ebay and she was being sold in France. The seller had stated she'd only ship within France but several messages later she was coming home to me! She is just what I was looking for. A Kaye Wiggs Gracie in sunskissed skin tone with a default faceup. She arrived last week and she is just so incredibly cute, I'm really glad to have found her and can honestly say that she was worth the wait!!!
Also my new body (I wished!!!) arrived for the Dandelion head I bought back in September. I bought this head actually as a full doll but I didn't like the body so I sold that body and ordered an Elf body from Dollstown. Now I'm very happy with her new look. I took a few very quick photos of her when the body arrived and some photos of the head on the first body....
And some quick photos of her with her new body. I will take more detailed photos soon.
I quickly made her this blue top but need to make her more of a wardrobe of clothes, as I don't have much in this size :) I'm actually looking forward to sewing in this bigger size again after years without a Super Dollfie sized doll, even if she is actually considered to be a 'smaller super dollfie'. 😉
There are some other 'newbies' here but I will leave them for another post. I hope you've enjoyed seeing a brief post of what I've been up to.
Have a great week ahead!
Hugs Sharon x
