All the best laid plans.....

Firstly I would like to wish everyone who reads my blog, a very Happy New Year!  I hope that 2020 is a great year for all of you.

Secondly I would like to apologise for not wishing you all a wonderful Christmas, but the truth is everything went pear shaped for us here just before the holidays and I never got the chance to post on my blog as planned.

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that I was going to the UK on the 14th December to meet up with my mum and my brother John and travel back with them to Spain on the 15th for them to spend Christmas and the New Year with us.  The journey to the UK was uneventful and although we had a slight delay on the way back to Malaga, all went well and we arrived home to my place at about lunchtime.

We had lunch and chatted for the afternoon, I think, if I remember rightly, my mum started to knit a woolly hat for one of my dolls.  Then my mum went to my friends place (she was away and offered my family her place to stay in as since moving we haven't a lot of room), just a minutes walk away, to unpack.  

A little while later my brother came running back to tell me that my mum had fallen over and he couldn't get her up.  I ran with him back to my mum and she had fallen backwards down a small step......

The ambulance came and took her to hospital, she was in a lot of pain and having a panic attack because of this pain.  

To cut a long story short, my 83 year old mum was hospitalised with a broken hip and was operated on the following day.  Here in Spain, you're more or less expected to stay in the hospital 24/7 with your person, so I slept in the chair next to her bed for four nights.  We went home on the 19th and from that date on I looked after my mum at home, she was encouraged to walk using a walking frame, and has been doing really well, thank goodness.

My mum needed a lot of help at first, especially with her personal care, and I stayed with her at my friends place whilst my brother stayed with Brian and the dogs at ours.  My brother John has learning disabilities so he needs a certain amount of supervision too.

Christmas Day was nice though, if hard work.  We had our dinner outside on our deck as it was such a lovely day.  I didn't get time to wrap the presents until late on Christmas Eve, the Christmas cards remained in the box, the proper linen napkins and table cloth remained elusive and we had to resort to a paper tablecloth and paper napkins....the prawns for my seafood starter were uncooked so we couldn't eat those, and I had to substitute them for some crab sticks that were in my fridge that were barely in date.....and it wasn't until halfway through lunch that I realised I'd forgotten to put glasses on the table and wine in the fridge...but apart from that the food tasted good and there was plenty of it!!!!

After Christmas mum's insurance company sent a nurse from the UK to travel back with her to her home on the 3rd January, I had planned to go with her for a few days but decided to stay for just over a week so that I could help her in her home as well as get a care plan in place for when I came back home to Spain.

I arrived home last Saturday, 11th January, and slept in my own bed, with my husband for the first time in almost a month!  I have never appreciated my own bed so much! 😊

In the meantime my mum has a carer visiting each morning and a physiotherapist has been each day this week to help her to regain a good level of mobility.  She seems to be doing well and hopefully when I return to the UK again next month to visit her, she will be able to go back upstairs in her house as so far she has had to remain downstairs.

So today I got back to my Christmas present doll from my husband Brian.  She is a Zwergnase Junior Wentje and she is 55cm tall.  Wentje is one of a limited edition of 50 dolls worldwide, she is handpainted and has a human hair wig.  I haven't had time to sew her anything yet but hope to do so soon.  

Here are a few photos of her.  I think she is one of those dolls that really benefits from being photographed in natural light as she looked quite plain inside my doll room, but I think she came more alive when I took her outside this evening just as the sun was starting to set.

So there you have our Christmas.  My mum falling was a horrible end to what had already been a really awful year.  I am hoping that 2020 will be better for all of us.  I'm very glad to see the back of 2019 to be honest and am going into this new year with a positive attitude. 

I hope 2020 is great for all of you.  Thank you for continuing to visit my blog, please keep coming and commenting as I really appreciate it.

Big hugs to all of you

Sharon xxx  



 

Happy New Year!

I just wanted to stop by and wish all of my readers and blog followers a very Happy and Healthy New Year.  I've been a bit lax with my blogging recently but plan to try harder in 2017.

The last year has been a really mixed bag for me.  At first I thought to myself "WOW, 2016 has been a really sh*tty year!"  But then I had to slap myself around the head a bit to remind me what great times I've also experienced this past year!

The biggest being my son's wedding of course, gaining a gorgeous new daughter in law in Virginia, and really the wedding itself was just amazing.  I cannot count the number of people who've told us how wonderful it was, in fact everyone who spoke about it, actually said that it was the most beautiful and romantic wedding they'd ever been to, so that can't be bad. 

Also I had a great trip to the UK in November with my friend Magdalena, her first trip outside of Spain and of course first time flying.  We went to visit my mum to celebrate her 80th birthday with her and we had a very good trip.

And of course after my health scare back in September, it was excellent news in October to hear that I was in the clear.....I cannot tell you how difficult the seven weeks 'without knowing' were!! 

There are lots of other things that I could put on here but I wanted to keep this short and don't want to bore anyone!

On the dolly front, there were some comings and goings.....probably more comings than goings to be fair, but I'm happy.   I know that I've not been sewing my commissions but I'm slowly getting back to sewing, so who knows what the future may bring.

I will leave you with a few photos of my newest addition, the last doll to arrive here this year.  She is a tanned Mini Fee Chloe by the BJD company Fairyland of South Korea, and she is MSD sized, approx 40cm tall.  She has a custom faceup by Caroline of Viridian House in the UK.  I have been hankering after another MSD for a while now, so when this lovely girl was pointed out to be as being for sale here in the EU, I decided to go for her.  I plan on making her some clothes in the New Year but for now she is borrowing from other dolls! :)

Thank you all for visiting and commenting on my blog in 2016, I hope you will continue to come here in 2017.  I wish you all a very Happy and Healthy New Year, may it bring you all that you would want for yourself...and then some! 

With love and big hugs
Sharon xxxx

Looking back....and moving forward!

I'm a little late with my New Year greetings as whilst my mum and brother were over here from the UK I didn't manage to get on-line much, but still wanted to post an 'overview' of last year and wish all my readers a very Happy New Year!

Firstly I would like to thank those people that have commissioned me to either sew for their dolls, or do dolly makeovers for them in the last year.  My list has been (and still is)   incredibly long and sometimes the wait has been as much as 8 months....I hope that people have felt the wait was worth it!  I wish that I could work quicker but sometimes 'real life' just gets in the way.  Some people have said to me that perhaps I should close my commissions list when I reach a certain number of names, or maybe limit the number of outfits that a person can order at any one time, but to be honest, when a person has waited months to reach the top of my list, to then tell them that they can only have 'x' number of items seems a bit mean.  However I am constantly trying to think of ways to shorten the wait time, so maybe in time I will come up with an idea that works better for everyone.  Anyway, thank you so much for your patience and continued interest in my work.

On the dolly front I've had a fair few 'ins and outs' this year!  Several of my dolls moved on to new homes, and I got my BJD numbers right down, however, my interest in BJDs was piqued again with the arrival of Reira by Atelier Momoni, a lovely doll sculpted by the Spanish artist Lola Palacios. 

Although Reira had the cutest face, and her quality was excellent,  her more mature body wasn't for me and a couple of months ago she went to live in France with a new mum.  However, I received my lovely tanned Fairyland Ante in June for my birthday and am very very pleased with her.  She took a while to find a name and a wig that suited her, but now she is just perfect!

 And next came little Valentine, my tanned Secretdoll Person #21.  She came to live her from her previous home in France, and has settled in well.  She's a grumpy little thing but I just love how expressive her face is!

The last edition to my BJD family in 2015 was Bordie, an Iplehouse BID Brody in 'special real skin'...Brodie has proved to be a hit with many people and several people have ordered one like her for themselves!!!  Here is my girl wearing a wig I made for her.

I do have one more BJD on her way to me as I type but I won't give any details of her until she arrives safely and settles in!!

I added four Sasha's to my dolly family this year too.  Well in theory I suppose we could say 5,  but because the No Navel I bought wasn't for me, I traded her and she went to live with Jenni in Wales, whilst Teddy, a Goetz Toddler Erik, came to live here in March.  He is such a cutie and fits right in with the other Sasha kids!

The very same month, having moaned that babies just weren't for me, I took the plunge and bought a Brunette early 70's baby from Ebay.  She is very cute but seriously neglected here, and may be looking for a new home in a few weeks.  It's such a shame because she's really in great condition with matt face and non falling hair, but I will repeat it again, babies just aren't for me!!!!

In April I spotted this lovely 1969 blond Sasha on Shelly's website and fell in love with her beautiful face, so brought her home to live with me.  Her hair was a little bit dry on the ends so I decided to cut it into a long bob, and named her Skye.  Here she is on the beach, she takes after me and is never happier than when she's near the sea!

And finally this year I added a Cora to my Sasha family.  She is lovely but I'm ashamed to say that so far I've hardly done a thing with her since she arrived here in May.  I will try to rectify that this year!  Here she is with Teddy, he absolutely adores her!

I've had several new additions to my Little Darlings family this year .... I started the year with Ellie, my first Little Darling, going back to Dianna Effner to have her eyes repainted....she had a bit of a journey back and finally arrived home again some three and a half months after she left!  It was a stressful and worrying time for me, especially having to deal with Spanish customs who wanted to charge me for importing her back into the country, but I stood my ground and in the end, having held her for some 6 weeks, they finally only charged me the admin fees!  (Funny that because it was me doing all the 'admin' work, but there you go!)  So Ellie got newly painted eyes and it was lovely to have her home again!

Here she is on her 'homecoming day', the other girls threw a party for her!

In April, a long standing dolly friend of mine in the US, contacted me to ask if I were interested in adopting her Little Darling, Zoe, a #2 sculpt, hand painted by Dianna.  I immediately said yes as the price was right and she is a lovely girl.  I named her Gem!

Later on in the year, September to be exact, my order with the LD artist Nelly Valentino, placed on the 4th January, was ready.  The 'twins' as they so became, arrived home.  I hadn't intended to make them twins, in fact I'd actually thought I might sell one of them, but twins they became and I fell in love with them both!!!

Nikola on the left and Antonia on the right:

This brought my Little Darlings numbers up to 6, with one still on order with Lana Dobbs!!  And I only intended having the one!!!

In the meantime I also brought home a sweet little Boneka Tuesday's Child, from a doll shop in France.  Also designed by Dianna Effner, Daniela makes the perfect younger sibling for two of my Little Darlings, Finn and Reece.

Not long before Christmas I was lucky enough to adopt a second Boneka Tuesday's Child from a doll shop in the US.  My dear friend Jan in the US, got her for me and  I will introduce her here on my blog very soon!

I also adopted some vinyl 'play dolls' this year, a couple came from here in Spain, one from the secondhand market in Fuengirola, a soft bodied girl by Zapf Creations, with vinyl limbs who has yet to have anything done to her, not even an outfit!  I don't actually like soft bodied dolls as a rule, but just thought she had a cute face and knees, yes you read that correctly, her knees were so cute as you'll see below!!!

The plaster/band aid, is actually printed on to the vinyl, but looks very realistic!

This next girl came from a local toy shop, she's about 18 inches tall and is made here in Spain by the Antonio Juan company.  I bought her to customise, but she's so nice that I haven't done anything but cut her middle parting into a fringe.

Whilst in England in October, I collected some dolls from my mum's house that I'd bought previously from UK sellers.  The first was a lovely Finouche Alice by Sylvia Natterer, which came from My Doll Best Friend.  I wasn't sure about her at first but when I brought her home and photographed her in natural light, I really saw the loveliness of this doll sculpt:

And from a seller on Ebay UK, an almost new in box Goetz Happy Kidz Emily, who is such a little cutie!  And having recently hot glue sueded her joints, I'm even more happy with her!

 I brought this little Natterer home from Ebay Germany, but she is very very unsteady on her limbs so is currently in pieces waiting for me to restring her.  I just need to get the right elastic and hopefully she'll be all back together again soon!  She is a Goetz Finouche from 1989.

I'm sure I've missed someone but never mind, having counted them all up.....I think this is enough of a revelation as it is!!!!  It's amazing how, when spreading the dolly purchases out over the year, it doesn't seem like hardly any at all, but when you lump them all together in one blog post.....well, it's a bit of an 'OOooops!  How did THAT happen!' sort of moment, isn't it!!!! 

Dolls aside, I'm sure that 2016 will be a great year!  My lovely son Brendan will be marrying his gorgeous Spanish fiance, Virginia, on 3rd September and they'll be having their wedding here in Spain.  Soon I will be starting the search for my outfit!  Wish me luck on that!

On that note I'm going to sign off for  now but want to say thank you once again to everyone who takes the time to stop by and read my blog.  I hope that everyone had a lovely, lovely Christmas and that the New Year will bring you everything you would wish for yourselves, but especially good health and happiness!

Here's to the next dolly year!!!!

That was the year that was!

I thought I'd do a summary post of how 2014 was for me, I hope you'll enjoy it :)

The year 2014 started for me with the usual New Years resolutions!  This year, amongst other things, I was going to try to downsize my doll collection, try to find more 'props' to use in my doll photos and for about the 3rd year in a row I was going to be more confident, or maybe I'll rephrase that and say "less embarrassed" about taking doll photos in public.  Oh yes, I was also going to try to lose weight having put quite a lot on over the last 10 years.  OK.  So how did I get on?

I guess my biggest achievement this year has been the weight thingy.  I started a more healthy eating plan on the 13th January.  I had intended starting on the 2nd but all the best laid plans .... plus my mum and brother were still here from the UK and also the festivities aren't really finished with here until after The Three Kings on the night of 5th January, so I kept putting it off.  But finally, I started.  And it wasn't so bad! :)  The weight came off and I got used to eating well instead of eating everything in sight!  This morning I weighed myself and I am a little over 57 pounds lighter, or 4 stone and almost 2 lbs, whichever you prefer!!!  I even lost almost one pound over Christmas, but that could be a fluke as I'm not well at the moment and so not eating much.  Anyway, I'm very very pleased with myself, as I'm sure you can imagine!

On the 'reducing dolly numbers' front, maybe I wasn't quite as successful! LOL.  I did indeed reduce my BJD (ball jointed doll) numbers, and one or two customised Blythes, but unfortunately I spent the money on vinyl dolls.  My biggest purchases of the year was probably Ellie, my gorgeous Little Darling painted by Dianna Effner, she came here back in late April, early May:

and then Núria, my beautiful 1968 Sasha Redhead Ballerina, who came here in July.  Talk about "in the right place at the right time!"  I just happened to spot her when Sarah of Vintage Sasha posted her for sale on her blog and jumped in quickly with an email!!!  I was very fortunate to get her, she's a real little beauty to me :)

A little later in the summer, August in fact, Finn, my sweet Little Darling #2 sculpt arrived from the Effner trained artist, Pat Green.  She was ordered back in March and took 5 months and I love her!  I recently changed her wig to a different one from the photo below but I think she'll be changing back soon, as I love this faux fur one on her :)

A week or so later I was tempted by Ana, the #2 sculpt Little Darling UFDC souvenir doll, so I contacted the UFDC and managed to snag one.  And so Reece came to live here :)  The UFDC girls are not handpainted by the Dianna Effner artists but they are produced by the very same factory as the artist painted dolls, which I'm told arrive 'blank' to the artists.  I have since enhanced my girls eyes a little so that they have more shine and therefore come alive.  I will have to share some close up 'after' photos at some point.  I have to say that once I'd changed this girls wig and removed her default outfit I love her every bit as much as my other two artist painted girls :)

Since the summer I have added a few more vinyl girls to my dolly collection, one is Hannah at the Spa by Gotz (below left) and the other is my Limited Edition Giselle also by Gotz in collaboration with Steif.

Also, earlier in the year I adopted a sweet Zwergnase Junior, Tanya from Maru & Friends, and Olivia Kish, all three dolls fit in nicely with my growing vinyl family :)

Zwergnase Junior Marlene, now known as Marlie:

 Maru & Friends Tanya, who's kept her default name but received a new wig:

And my sweet little Olivia with her now bright red hair :)

And then, you might remember I bought a couple of Kidz n Catz dolls which I decided to customise, Grace and Elise.

Grace, now known as Sian:

Elise, who currently keeps her factory name:

And then my recent purchase, my little Sidika Himstedt:

There are a couple of other girls here waiting to be introduced but they're for another day ;)  Plus I have a sweet little visitor here from Wales, who wants to show her face to her Mamma on here, just to prove she did as she was told and didn't go elsewhere :)

So I'm not really sure that I actually 'achieved' my goal of reducing dolly numbers, but haven't counted, so just maybe...... ;)

As for the other two 'resolutions', getting more props/furniture and taking more dolly photos in public without embarrassment...I don't think I've really achieved those two at all. :(   Unless you count props sent to me as gifts, which I have to say were most welcome :)  And we won't mention the second one....how does one learn NOT to be embarrassed?  I end up looking 'furtive' and that's not a good look when you're in public places, especially shops, and are poking about shoving things quickly in your handbag ;)

So those two will go to the top of this years resolutions list, along with doing more exercise and continuing with the healthy eating plan.

Finally, one of the highlights of my year was my trip to the UK where I was lucky enough to meet some of the lovely people that I'd only previously met on line.  I had the greatest time at Dee's Chat n Snap and it was super to meet other dolly lovers :) and not feel ashamed of gushing over dolls!

I look forward to the New Year, 2015, and to continuing with my dolly hobby, meeting new people who share it and keeping in touch with those I already email/phone with.  I wish everyone who reads/follows my blog the very best for the coming year, may your lives be filled with fun, may your larder/fridge be filled with food and may your hearts be filled with love :)

Big hugs, from Sharon in Spain xxx