Gotz Happy Kidz Emilia...A New Custom!

Last week I bought a Gotz Happy Kidz Emilia because I both liked the sculpt and wanted to do some customising.  I got Emilia because she has an interesting face sculpt, not the prettiest of the Gotz Happy Doll sculpts but a face that I find I'm drawn to.  I liked her on arrival but always like to make my dolls 'my own' and she was no exception.

Emilia before:

I've always liked Gotz dolls as their quality is very good and they're great as play dolls, being made with very safe and well tested materials, and for adult doll collectors too.

Firstly I removed the factory makeup and the acrylic eyes.  The eyes were not bad quality but I prefer them to be more realistic so they had to go, along with the eyelashes.  Here she is with her cleaned face, but eyes and lashes still attached.  I felt these eyes were also a tad too large for her eye sockets too.

The hair on these dolls is rooted so I covered her head with an old shower cap to protect it from the chalk and the sealant.

The hardest part was getting her head off.  I had to soak it in boiled water until the vinyl was soft and then pull it off.  The eyes are seated in little 'pockets' inside her head but the back of these are open so you can easily remove the eyes through the neck hole.  Here she is will her default eyes and lashes now removed.

 

I then gave her a new faceup using watercolour pencils and artist grade chalk pastels.  I wanted her to have glass eyes but I found that the ones I have here (and I have quite a few pairs!!) did not suit her or were the wrong size.  In the end I decided that I would stick with acrylic, so these eyes are by Glastic Realistic, unfortunately I have no idea what the colour is called.   As acrylic eyes go, I think these are a great alternative to glass or resin eyes as they are very detailed and natural looking. 

Between layers of chalk pastels, Emilia is sealed with several coats of Mr Super Clear Flat sealant. 

I hope that I've bought her more 'to life' and less dolly looking.  I enjoyed working on her, customising really is one of my favourite parts of the doll hobby to be honest!

She's wearing an outfit that I made for my Zwergnase dolls, I thought the grey of the outfit went well with the grey of her eyes.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you're all having a very nice weekend.

Big hugs and stay safe!
Sharon xxxx
 

The Girl With Golden Freckles....

I've been having a bit of a sort out in my doll/sewing room and trying to decide on what I want to keep and what I want gone!  Same old same old, I hear you shout....and I know that several of you will relate to this because you've also blogged about it!  However, this didn't immediately have me sorting out things to sell because I came across another Disney Animator doll that I'd bought with the intention of customising, so instead of carrying on with the sorting, I decided to give her a makeover! LOL I'm so easily distracted.  

Anyway, I took this little girl from her box and she had such a cute face I thought maybe I should leave her alone, but then I remembered that either way I wouldn't want to keep her, I really do not want more vinyl dolls, I want to get rid of some, not add to their numbers.  So I decided to work on her.  

Here she is in her default state, she's a cutie but her features are stamped or printed on and I wanted to make her 'different'.  I love her quirky eyebrow, although I'm not sure if it was intentional for her to have that or not!

Firstly I removed all of the factory face paint, you can see that her eyebrows haven't completely come off as the dark paint stained the vinyl, but that's actually quite useful to me for positioning of the new eyebrows.

And here she is with her new look.  I apologise to anyone hoping for 'in progress' photos, I never did them, but maybe will do that with the next Disney Animator doll I customise, if anyone is interested.  Her cute dress and hat set are by a seller on Etsy, her socks are by me and her lovely white sandals are by Marti Sanders. 

Here is a close up of her eyes which I did using several different watercolour pencils, I wanted them to have the same variations in colour that real human eyes have, I hope I've achieved that.
 

You can also see her 'golden' freckles here, they were just an afterthought really, I wanted them to catch the sun and the ones I'd put on first with regular watercolour pencils didn't show up enough for my liking.  They're just tiny dots of golden acrylic paint put on with a cocktail stick!

She also has applied human sized false eyelashes....

I think she looks like she's full of mischief, don't you?!!

Her lips and blush are done using artist chalk pastels, I grind them down and apply with soft brushes of various sizes, then seal several times with a clear matt sealant.

 These dolls have the cutest profile, they are so sweet with their little ski lift noses!

You can see that I also cut her hair before washing and conditioning it.  It was very long hair, right down to her ankles almost at the back, and full of some sort of sticky white styling product.  Now she has a shorter, more manageable bobbed style.  Much better suited for playing in the garden in the sunshine ;)  

I hope you've enjoyed seeing this little Elena of Avalor.  She is now going to live in the UK with the 2 year old granddaughter of a special friend of mine, as I would rather gift her to someone who might enjoy her than have her collecting dust here :)  Hopefully little Sally will have fun with her new 'one of a kind' dolly!! 

Have a good 'rest of the week' and thank you for visiting!

Big Hugs Sharon in Spain xxx

Latest Kidz n Cats customisation....

I thought I'd share some photos of my latest custom work on a 2016 Kidz n Cats Lena.  I will probably be putting this girl up for adoption very soon.  Lena is brand new, I bought her just to customise, so she's never been played with. She's had the 'full works' including new glass eyes, full makeup, new eyelashes and I've also hot glue sueded her legs and neck to make her hold poses better.  She is from 2016 and her body is nice, her legs do not snap back straight like some of the earlier bodies did.  Her wig is her original as I thought it suited her well, it's not glued down and she still has the ribbons that she came with, I just forgot to put them back in her hair!.  She is wearing her default outfit:

Thank you for visiting, I hope you all have a lovely weekend.  My son Brendan is arriving tomorrow night from the UK, to visit with us for a week!!!  I'm very excited!!!

Big hugs, Sharon xx

Feliz Año Nuevo ~ Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everybody, and I hope you've all had a lovely Christmas if you celebrate it, or if not, that you have had a peaceful and enjoyable holiday season!

I had a nice but quiet Christmas here in Malaga with Brian, my mum and my brother John, who were both over here for two weeks from the 18th December.  They came a bit earlier this year so it seemed that Christmas started early, which of course meant that I wasn't prepared for it!!  Anyway, it was lovely to have them here with us.

I ended 2017 a lot lighter than I started it, and a lot fitter too.  I have now lost 50 pounds or 23 kilos, since the end of June and 17.5 centimetres off the circumference of my waist.  I'm feeling so much better about myself and my confidence has started to return.  I continue with my morning walks with Lucy, our Miniature Pinscher, and still enjoy my aquagym classes at the local municipal pool, although we are currently on holiday from classes until after The Three Kings (5th January), which means we all start back next Tuesday.  I admit that I've missed the classes because as well as being good exercise, they are also a fun time spent with a nice bunch of ladies!

On the dolly front, I have been busy customising a Kidz n Cats doll called Alice who arrived here just before Christmas.  I bought her with the sole intention of giving her a new look as I really enjoy that part of the doll hobby.  I finished her yesterday and am pleased with how she has turned out.  Here are a few photos of her:

It is very windy today as you can see from the first photo below!

The only problem is now that I've finished working on her, I want to do more!!! 

As well as the above custom, I'm itching to get back to sewing.  At the large local craft show at the beginning of December I bought some really nice fat quarters and also I had a gift of a bunch of great fabric from a dear friend of mine in Australia, so I'm really keen to make something for my girls.  So hopefully I will get started very soon.

Apart from that, I have decided that although I don't usually 'do' New Year's Resolutions, as I always fall by the wayside before the end of January, this year I'm going to try to keep more up to date with my blog!!!  Yes, I've been terrible about keeping up with posting for months now, so wish me luck with that!  And also, I am going to try to keep up with the blogs I follow too, I'm so sorry that I don't always comment on blog posts these days, I just don't know where the time goes to....sometimes I don't switch my laptop on for days on end, so I'm hoping to remedy that too :)

Finally, I just wanted to thank you all for continuing to look out for my blog posts despite them being so scarce these days, I very much appreciate your continued interest and your kind comments.  I promise to do my best to post more this year!

Big hugs and a really great 2018!!!!
Sharon xxx

Dolly makeovers!

This week I've been busy with my Blythe dolls.  I think the renewed interest in them is because I'm going to the Blythe Con Europe in May as it is being held here in Malaga, at a venue just 25 minutes drive from here.  I'm really looking forward to it and as I'll be taking one or two Blythes with me, I decided that a couple of them could do with a bit of freshening up.

I decided to give Heather, my Heather Sky, a full makeover, so she has had a bit of extra carving and new face makeup as well as new eyelashes and eyelids.

Heather's eyelids were originally painted but after rubbing the paint off I decided to cover them with thin self adhesive fabric.  I had to sand the eyelids down quite well so that the fabric didn't catch on the eyelids when opening and closing her eyes.

She also got some pretty new blue grey eye chips.  I'd intended to always have her with different shades of brown chips but thought these blues would make a nice change.

Next up was my Vainilladolly custom Blythe, she got a different scalp to wear.  I rooted this scalp several years ago and finally someone can make use of it.  I think this style and colour suits her quite well.  (Apologies for the loose and flyaway hairs, it was quite a windy evening!)

After working on the Blythes, I decided it was time to work on my Tonner My Imagination doll as I've been saying for a while now that she needed different eyes.  I cut a hole in the top of her head under her wig and then cut into the vinyl at the back of her eyes.  I removed the vinyl and then, pushing from the front, removed her default acrylic eyes.  However, having tried her with several other pairs of eyes, I decided to go back to her original eyes again as they suited her, it was just the placement of them that was all wrong.  I also attached more natural upper eyelashes.

Here you can see that just the tiniest adjustment to the placement of the eyes can take a doll from having that weird "deer caught in headlights" look, to a more natural non staring gaze.  I hope you'll agree that it looks much better this way.

This is the 'before' photo, you can see that her eyes look very 'round' and staring, as if she is in shock:

 And now you can see that she looks far more natural, the eyes have just been lifted up slightly to show a tiny area of white underneath the irises, this softens her whole look:

Finally today I made a new dress for my Fairyland Mini Fee tanned Chloe.  I used a pattern I'd not used before and found the bodice was rather big on her so I took it in down the front then created this 'frill' using a strip of the fine knit fabric of the dress to cover the seam.  All I need to do now is remember to make adjustments to my pattern before I forget!!!

Well I hope you've liked seeing what I've been up to over the last week!  Thanks so much for visiting and I hope you all enjoy the rest of your week :)

Big hugs, Sharon xx

A family visit and another Disney custom....

On Tuesday we had a great day with my husband's granddaughters who were on holiday here in Spain with their parents for three days.  We gave them dolly presents, the two younger girls who are 5 and  7 years old, were each given a boxed Disney Animator doll and the oldest girl, who is 9, I decided might like my recently customised Pocahontas.  She was delighted with her and wanted to know everything about 'customising' the doll.  I explained to her how the doll was now a little bit more 'delicate' than her sisters dolls, but that she could play with her as normal.  I was just the slightest bit concerned five minutes later when I saw her swinging her around by her ponytail....LOL...oh well!!!

We had a great day, as did the girls I think, running in and out of the swimming pool, even though the water was quite cold!!

On Wednesday I decided to customise the other Animator doll that I had here, Mulan.  I did her just like the last one, removing the default printed face paint and redoing her with pastels and watercolour pencils.  I am still not completely happy with the whites of her eyes but I think I'm getting there!!!  I didn't do the whites until after I'd finished the irises but I still feel that's not quite the right way to go....and although I used the finest paintbrush I own, I think even that wasn't fine enough! 

So here she is before I started on her:

And here she is with all her face completed....except I forgot to attach her eyelashes before taking these photos!!!!  She now has applied top eyelashes.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing what we've been up to this week.  Thanks so much for visiting, I hope you'll have a great weekend ahead!

Big hugs Sharon xxx