A Few Little Crafty Tasks....

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

My UK Trip and a Stowaway!

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
 

Introducing Harucasting Eminor...

Last night my husband returned from almost a week in the UK spent with his family and grandchildren.  I stayed home to look after the dogs!  Whilst Brian was over in the UK I arranged for him to meet up with my lovely friend Sue so that she could give him my Eminor by Harucasting that I recently had sent to her from the artist in South Korea.

Without further ado, here is the lovely girl!  (Sorry that the photos are a little repetitive!)

Eminor is named after the artist's favourite chord apparently!  

 Her resin colour is called Soft Tan and it is very light and creamy. 

Her beautiful faceup is by the Russian artist Blisslacosta, I love those freckles which actually are on her forehead too, but only lightly.

The wig I had in mind for her was too big, so she is currently wearing this one which is the colour I wanted for her and very close to the style I had in mind.

Eminor has small eye sockets and she needs to have eyes with a low dome.  I wanted brown eyes but those I had were not suitable because of the dome size, so having made these a while ago from resin, I tried them and they fit perfectly.

Eminor comes with two pairs of hands, a pair like the one shown in the photos below.....

And a second pair that are more open hands....I've not tried those on her yet.

She is wearing a raglan sleeved tee shirt that I made some time ago with no-one in particular in mind, and it fits her perfectly.  She is also wearing a pair of 'aged' jeans that I've had for ages, they also fit her which is great because up until now I have been justifying keeping them as they fit no-one!!!!

Now all she needs is a name!  I will take more photos of her posing soon, she poses beautifully.  I will also try to do some comparison photos with other MSD sized bjds that I have here.

Have a lovely Easter weekend, I hope the weather is good and the sun shines down on you.

Big hugs Sharon in Spain xxx

Hope by Kaye Wiggs...

Today I thought I'd make a dress for Hope, my limited edition MSD sized girl from Kaye Wiggs.  It occurred to me that Hope had been here for some time but I'd not sewn anything for her in ages....I checked and was surprised to find that she's actually been in my collection for almost 6 and a half years, having arrived here in July 2012! 

If you don't know the history of Hope by the Australian artist Kaye Wiggs, then let me tell you a little bit about her.  Hope was sculpted in September 2011 in order to raise money for "3 Angels Nepal".  "3 Angels Nepal"  is a charity who help rescue young girls who were sold into prostitution and slavery, by setting up manned booths at the border to stop the rickshaws etc before they could take the girls out of Nepal.  They also rescue young boys who are sold for body parts.  The sale of Hope raised approximately $90,000 for the charity and some of the money was also used to buy land for growing vegetables etc for the orphanage where they housed the rescued girls.  The charity was also able to purchase a water truck and water pumping facilities so that they can now supply water to surrounding villages.  This brings them an income so they can continue their rescue work as well as help meet the expenses of the orphanage.


So Hope, in her new dress, got some time in front of the camera.  I hope you like this small selection of the photos.  The weather was a bright and sunny 23C but was a bit blowy later in the day....and once the sun had started to dip in the sky, so it became quite chilly.  But the photos didn't come out too badly, Hope never fell over or out of the tree and the sunshine through the leaves of the tree did make some nice dappled shadows on her :) 

I'm sorry the photos are a bit 'samey' but hope you enjoyed seeing Hope again.  Tomorrow I hope to start on a new outfit for her sister, Layla, my other doll sculpted by Kaye. 

Doll: Hope in Sunkissed resin sculpted by Kaye Wiggs
Faceup: Hope's faceup is by me.
Outfit: sewn by me.
Wig: Monique Gold restyled by me.
 

Thank you for visiting, have a great week!

Big hugs Sharon in Spain xxx

Angel

Angel received a new camera in the mail.  She fancies herself as a bit of a photographer!  Now she wants a nice strap to hold the camera apparently.....so back to the sewing machine!

Happy Monday everyone!

An Amazing Coincidence!

I feel like just recently I'm always posting about new arrivals and today is no exception, but I must tell you the story behind this latest adoption because it was so funny how it came about.

The doll in question is called Ziya and she is sculpted by the French artist of Youpladolls.  My dear friend Sue in the UK had one of these dolls and I always thought she was lovely, so when Sue mentioned to me that she was thinking of selling her, my ears pricked up.  But it seemed Sue was a little bit undecided because the doll had been a surprise gift from her husband and she wasn't sure if she should sell or not, but the doll wasn't getting any attention.  In the doll hobby we collectors are like "if the dolls not getting attention then maybe it should go to someone who will love it more....bye!"

Anyway, Sue was undecided at that point and I thought that I'd wait until she listed her for sale before mentioning my interest.  I'm such a worrier that I was reluctant to say that I'd like to adopt her in case Sue thought I was after 'mates rates' or something!  So, as I said already, I waited in the hope that as soon as she listed her for sale, I could go for her at the asking price.  Alas, the saying 'he who hesitates is lost' springs to mind because the following day Sue happily tells me that she's sold her Ziya, the doll was snapped up straight away.  Oh well, I thought, it was not to be!

In the meantime, the artist behind the doll had had a stand at L Doll in Lyon, France and the event had just finished so I emailed her to ask if there were any dolls left over, I would be interested in purchasing one.  But within a few hours I'd had a reply to say that there weren't any tan dolls left after the event...so that was that, it obviously wasn't to be!

I decided that I'd just catch up on some emails that I'd been meaning to do for ages.  I started with another lovely dolly friend, Jane in the UK, as I'd owed her a reply for ages.  I started typing out my email, telling Jane all my recent dolly news and about the new arrivals.  Then I told her what I'd been up to and how I'd been trying to buy Ziya and what had happened.  I sent the email and moved on.  

Within minutes an email came winging it's way back to me from Jane.  She'd read about my search and was amazed that she had, that very same day, made a decision to sell her Ziya!!!!  Was I interested in her?  Well, how funny was that! The only reason Jane's doll was not yet up for sale was because she'd not yet got around to taking photos for potential buyers!  So of course I said yes!!!  I would love to adopt her doll and that's exactly what I did!!!

So Ziya arrived a few days ago, she took less than a week to arrive from the UK and she is lovely.  Her name previously was Angeline but I have shortened that to Angel.  Jane sent her wig, eyes, an outfit and shoes!  Such a lovely parcel to open 😃  The doll is tanned and she is MSD size, in fact she is a smaller MSD at 39cm tall.  She wears a 6.5 inch wig and 10mm eyes.  I've not taken many photos of her yet because I've had a very busy week but you can be sure that I'll be taking more photos very soon.

She was a little pale from living in the UK 😉 so I added some blush and some tiny freckles across her nose and cheeks.  They look a lot more prominent in the photos than they do in real life for some reason!  I've not sealed them so they will probably fade or rub off in time.

Here are a few photos of her for now, it was a very blowy day!   I hope you like her!

She has beautifully sculpted hands which you can just see in this photo below....

Well that's all I have for you today but hopefully soon I'll have some more photos.  I will also be posting some vinyl dolls for sale, including Gotz, Zwergnase and others.  I am also going to be selling one of my tiny BJDs, a Lati Yellow Cookie in tan, so if you're interested please watch this space.

Have a great weekend!

Big hugs Sharon in Spain xxx

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