Long Hot Summer....and not over yet!

It has been a long time since I posted on here, I apologise for that....I didn't have the heart for it back in July when we lost our little dog and then things just got busy!  I threw myself into sewing for a while and time just rushed by.  I can hardly believe that we are almost at the end of September already.  

The weather here continues to be beautiful and sunny but you can tell that it is 'Autumn' because of the change in the quality of light and the way the sun doesn't stay as long on the one spot that I like to sit in to catch a few rays on my deck 🌝

Back to the sewing though.  I did a trade with a dolly friend in the UK, she sent me a cute doll that she no longer wanted and I made outfits for two of her dolls.  The doll I received is Winona by the American artist Connie Lowe.  I wasn't sure that I would like the doll at first, but when she arrived I really liked her face.  I wasn't over keen on her body shape, she has a very big tummy, but I can work with it.  Here are some photos of her, she hasn't got a name yet...maybe she will just be called Winona.

This is how she looked when she arrived.

I didn't think the red wig did her any favours so I changed that and her eyes.  I saw her as being an Asian child and decided to give her brown eyes....it's funny but most of my BJDs seem to end up with  brown eyes, regardless of their ethnicity, I just love brown eyes.

I don't think this girl is pretty but I do think she has an interesting face.  For me pretty dolls are great, I love how they look but sometimes....sometimes they're just that, pretty..and pretty sometimes gets boring, so hopefully this interestingly faced little girl will have lots of adventures here with me in sunny Spain.

So here are some of the outfits that I made for the trade, the first ones are for the little Olivia doll by Helen Kish.  Olivia is one of my favourite dolls and it was nice to sew for her for a change, even if my own Olivia didn't get to keep the outfits!

Summer dress with short socks....

Striped overalls in pale blue and white, with gingham 'accents', red cropped tee shirt and head scarf...

Skirt in lovely Japanese print fabric, with white with pink hearts knit 'body/leotard' and short striped socks...
 

Machine embroidered smock type dress with matching loose shorts underneath...

The next two outfits are for my friend's new Kaye Wiggs Missy doll so my KW tanned Layla, being the same size, is modelling for me....

First we have a simple summer dress with a simple ribbon bow for her hair....

And finally my friend liked the Japanese print so much that she asked if I could make something for her Missy in the same fabric.

This outfit consists of skirt, short sleeved tee shirt, hoodie with front zip opening and socks....

Another of my lovely dolly friends got her first BJD recently and she had nothing in this size for her new girls.  I made the following outfits for her....her doll is off having a new face up at the moment so she's not able to wear them until she is all put back together again, but hopefully she'll be happy with the fit.

Firstly this little dress which I actually made by downsizing a Sasha pattern!

 
 Then I made this outfit for a boy doll....Tyrone, my tanned Little Fee Ante is my 'boy' model!

My friend wanted a tutu and so I cheated and made this 'no sew' tulle skirt with printed tee shirt and ankle warmers....

I believe I made some other things too, but it's possible I forgot to photograph them!

Another dear dolly friend of mine in the UK got some gifts for her girls...a flowery summer dress....

Flowered shorts and machine embroidered tee shirt....Shorts are made of cotton pique.

Shorts have a big bow on the back....

I also made the same shorts in a spotted cotton pique too....but forgot to photograph those.

Finally I made an outfit for one of my own girls, well actually I made this first but never got around to showing it on here!!

Erin, my Harucasting Eminor, got herself a nice summer outfit consisting of shorts and cotton top....

I have more doll news but will keep that for another post.  I hope you've all enjoyed seeing my girls modelling for me and that you've enjoyed your summer :) 

Thanks for visiting, big hugs Sharon xxx

Busy, Busy!

The last few weeks have been very busy for me, I don't mean to neglect my blog...honest!

Anyway, I thought I'd share some of what I've been up to.  There's a lot of talk in the BJD (ball jointed doll) world about recasts, I don't want to get into that subject on here because it's a very emotive subject and I'm going to bed soon and it plays on my mind, but my lovely friend Sue in the UK and I, were talking back last summer about how it is possible to get a cute BJD for a really reasonable price, without resorting to buying recasts. 
 
Soooo we both bought a head each from a company called Alice's Collections in China, the head in question is a Little Peach 1/6 scale head from the company Doll Family and at the time we bought ours, it was $18 plus $5 postage.  I see the price has now gone up slightly to $22 but still very reasonable for a bjd head.  The head comes in five resin colours, normal pink, white, normal yellow, tanned and grey and we both chose the tanned version.  The head comes blank without any body, eyes or wig.  The heads shipped approx two months after we purchased them, so I received mine about November.  We were then going to send Sue's head cap to a company called Resin Soul, also in China, as they have a resin matching service and will make a body to match the head cap from the head.  We chose the 1/6 scale girl body.  We decided to wait until after Christmas to order the bodies.  The bodies would cost $80 each plus postage.

After Christmas, unfortunately, I had a bit of a financial crisis and was unable to go ahead with my ordering of a body, so Sue went ahead and ordered hers.  Unbeknown to me, my lovely friend ordered a body for me too as a gift and she surprised me with this generous present in February!!!  I'm so very blessed.  💖

Sue sent my body and her dolls head to me, so that I could do the faceup on her doll as well as my own doll.

This is Sue's blank doll.....
 

 
We wanted the two girls to be twins, so I worked on them at the same time in order to achieve some sort of uniformity.  

I tried to make both girls as similar as possible but despite all my efforts at keeping them dust free, I managed to get some tiny pieces of lint under the sealant!  I was not a happy bunny and decided to start Sue's doll again.... but for the life of me I cannot find the photos of the finished head second time round, so here, below, is the first one.....

Finally the two heads were finished and I was happy with them.  And today my husband, who is currently in the UK, was able to hand Sue her finished head.  

Here is Sue's lovely girl, who is now known as Ida.....she has a lot of attitude!!!

I made this outfit as a gift for Sue.....

And here is my girl, who is called Sarah....

Sarah also has to wear glasses but she left them off for the above photos!

And here is Sarah in a different outfit:

 

I will take some better close up  photos of Sarah soon, I just need to replace her eyelashes as I'm not happy with the ones she currently has, as I used the wrong glue.

I'm very happy with how both girls turned out.  I'm not a professional faceup artist, but I did my best to bring the girls to life and hopefully I have achieved that!

Thank you for visiting, I will be back soon with the other things that I've been up to recently.

Have a lovely week ahead!

Big hugs Sharon xx
 
 

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

Dylan Invites Her Family!

Today Dylan's (Robin) big sister, Bastian arrived from Little Cosmos Dolls in Barcelona.  You'll probably remember that I said she was expected about now and sure enough she landed on my doorstep this afternoon.

I'm smitten!

I've already said how happy I felt to receive Robin having met her sculpture Sandra Locre in Barcelona back in June, and I'm doubly happy with Bastian.

Bastian is 35cm tall with a skinny frame, she was painted by Sandra and arrived with lighter brown eyes which I decided to change.  She now has dark brown glass eyes and she is wearing the untidy wavy dark brown/black wig that Robin tried on last week.  I really like how it looks on her but it is a bit scraggly, I'm going to see how it 'settles' on Bastian but might try some more wigs on her tomorrow.  I would like her to have dark hair because she has a very Asian look and the majority of Asians I believe have naturally dark hair.  I'd like to emphasise that with her hair.  

Just a few photos of her at the moment, I will take more soon.  I made her this dress and bag in anticipation of her arrival and fortunately the fit of the bodice is spot on :)  

Sorry that the photos are a little repetitive!

 

Bastian hasn't got a name yes, I thought I might keep her as Bastian but not sure yet.  I will give it some thought.

In the meantime, poor Dylan is trying to get out of going back to school!!!  

Oh my goodness, look at that stubborn face!!

No Dylan, a scraped knee is NOT a reason to get out of going to school!!

 

I'm sure she'll be fine when she gets there!! ;)

Thanks very much for visiting, enjoy the rest of your week :)

Big hugs Sharon xx