A Little Darling cometh.....

Some of you may remember me mentioning a Dianna Effner Little Darling, that I've had on order for some time from the artist Lana Dobbs.  I ordered this little girlie back in March 2014 and was beginning to think she would never come home to me.  But lo and behold, some 26 (and a half!) months after I placed my order,  she has finally arrived and she is lovely.  Although I have to say that my photos were taken very quickly a couple of days ago in the middle of the evening, and I rushed to get them taken before I lost the light.....I was so keen to record her arrival on 'film'!

She is a tanned number 1 sculpt and I do believe that Lana is the only one of the artists who still tans the Little Darlings....and I'm not even sure if she still takes orders for tanned ones either.  But I had particularly wanted a tanned girl as I thought she would make the perfect little Spanish child, and I think you'll agree that she does.  Her colour is quite dark but my photos do not show this, even at 9pm at night, the light is bright enough that she looks paler than she actually is.  She has the most beautiful brown handpainted eyes, they have so much depth...I love how Lana creates her eyes, making them look so realistic and as if they are made of glass.  The eyelashes look so full and soft that you'd swear you could touch them with your finger and sweep them across....and yet they too are painted onto the vinyl doll.  Amazing!

Like the cobblers children lacking shoes, my poor girl hasn't a thing to wear as I didn't have time to make something....yes you read that right, 26 months waiting and I didn't get to make her anything in advance of her arrival!  Oh well, she arrived wearing knickers and it's so hot here now that I'm sure she's delighted not to have to wear anything :)

Apologies that the photos are a bit repetitive but I wanted to share how she looks in different light.

Here you can see just how real her eyelashes look, you'd swear they were applied rather than painted on!

 This last photo, taken inside, shows her colour more like it actually is.

The end of a very busy week!

My son Brendan and his fiance Virginia came over from the UK last Sunday to spend a weeks 'holiday' here in Spain, but mostly to get some of the plans for their September wedding sorted out.  It has been a very busy week, particularly for the two of them but also for us as we've been running here and there, trying to help as much as we can with their plans!

They now have their invitations, menu cards, and place cards ordered.  The venue has been booked for a while but on Tuesday we went, along with Virginia's parents, to look at all the options available and the menu choices.  I hope the weather on the day will be better than it was as we traipsed around the gardens, it was really cold and pouring with rain!   But we did get a good idea of what will go where, and it's a gorgeous location so I'm sure it'll make the perfect wedding venue.  These are just a few photos I found on the internet, so not my own.....

This photo below shows a of part of their dining room but Brendan and Virginia's wedding dinner will be held outside in the gardens, as will their ceremony.

The wedding rings are chosen, some of the complicated Spanish paperwork has been completed which will allow Brendan to marry here in Spain, and other papers are with the translator to be officially translated into Spanish!  What a palaver that all is!!

Now for my outfit.  Oh boy, where to start!  I now at least have some ideas but still no clue as to what colour I will go for.  I will seriously start looking after Easter.

Apart from wedding plans, I have also been busy with dolly related things.  This week I've made a wig for a lady in the US, almost finished making a pair of Barbie jeans for a local lady, finished and mailed two Sasha outfits to a lady in the UK and finally customised a Kidz n Cats doll for a lady in France.  So here are some photos:

Firstly the Sasha outfits: (all photos were taken inside with flash this week as the weather hasn't been good.....plus our garden is still a mess as I've not yet got to working on it since coming back from the coast!)

Extra socks were requested with these two outfits: (Shoes by Marti Sanders Murphy)

Next the Kidz n Cats custom.   The Kidz n Cats vinyl from last year was very grey toned and had an almost greasy/waxy look to it.  The lady who owns this little girlie wanted her to look more natural.   I removed all her existing makeup, wig and eyes, and repositioned the eyes (which I notice are a little 'off' here so will fix that today), gave her new eyelashes, a complete new facial makeup, and added freckles.  We kept the original wig and eyes as they are really quite pretty.   I hope you like the before and after photos below:

Now as we head into a new week, I'm still ploughing my way through my lengthy commissions list.  My son goes back to the UK on Tuesday and I will get back into my routine after that.

I hope you all have a lovely week ahead, thanks so much for visiting :)

A bit of a tragedy....

....well for me anyway. :(

On Sunday I was in a happy mood, wrapping Christmas presents and looking forward to going out for our anniversary supper in the evening....I also was enjoying a little bit of dolly time before having to leave them all to their own devices whilst I prepare for Christmas and the arrival from the UK of my mum and brother John. 

Ellie, my lovely Little Darling, painted by Dianna Effner, was in need of a change of clothes.  She's been modelling for me but was just in her undies :)  I picked her up and thought her wig felt a little dry, so I went through my wig box trying different wigs on her.  As I did this, I noticed that her eyes were a little dusty, so I picked up a piece of knit fabric that was to hand and gave her eyes a wipe over.  Something looked a bit 'amiss' I thought, so I grabbed my 'reading' glasses to take a closer look.  I noticed that one of her eyes looked 'cloudy', I touched it and it felt sort of 'rough', the only word I can think of to describe it really...so thinking something had got on it, I wiped again with a tissue....I didn't do it hard but it didn't make any difference, it looked like Ellie was getting a 'cataract'!  I was horrified.

To cut a long story short, one of her eyes is damaged.  I was so upset, I admit that despite her just being a doll, I cried.  Basically, one eye looks fine and from the side is still shiny and domed, but the 'effected' eye is flat and lifeless, no dome, no shine, nothing.

I decided the only thing to do was email Dianna Effner herself and see if she could help.  I also posted about it on the Little Darlings Forum in the hope that someone could help.  A lovely Moderator on there emailed me with Dianna's email address and I sent her a message.  I didn't expect to hear back from Dianna quickly, I appreciate she is very busy and gets lots of emails, never mind the fact that it was a Sunday.  However, when we got back from our meal on Sunday night, there was a reply from Dianna, she asked me to send Ellie to her and she'll redo her eye(s) and will do so as quickly as possible so that I'm not without her for too long!!!!!!  How wonderful is that?

I will be getting Ellie packaged up and shipped off to the US very soon....I'm currently debating on whether to send her this week or wait a couple of weeks until after Christmas....I don't think I could bare it if she went missing on top of this.

In the meantime, here are a few of my favourite closeups of my lovely girl.....I decided against sharing photos of her current state on here, I'd rather look at her how she was and hope you all will too.

A new arrival.....

I want to apologise in advance for all the photos!!!  I have been looking at these dolls for ages....they are 13 inch vinyl Little Darlings sculpted by the American artist Dianna Effner.  When I first started looking for one, the waiting list was about 6 months and me being very impatient, I didn't think I could wait that long for a doll to be painted and sent to me.  However, my interest in them didn't wane, in fact it got stronger and finally last month I ordered not one, but two of them, from different artists in the US.  Each artist is trained by Dianna in her beautiful eye painting techniques.  The eyes are amazing, they're like glass eyes but are actually created completely with paint techniques.  So I ordered a #1 sculpt from a newish artist called Pat Green and a second #1 sculpt from Lana Dobbs.  Pats waiting list is about 4 months so we're looking at about July.  However, Lana's wait time is 11 months so it'll be quite a long time before that little doll comes home.  I've since tentatively changed my order with Pat to a #2 sculpt, I'm just waiting to see examples of her work on the #2.  The good thing about these dolls is you only pay a deposit on ordering and the rest on completion of the doll, so my two 'balances' will be spread far apart.

In the meantime, I tried to be good but I couldn't!  I kept looking and looking at photos of these dolls on the internet and when I saw this particular cutie up for sale, I just couldn't resist.  I had to adopt her!  She is a #1 sculpt handpainted by Dianna Effner herself.  Her given name is Elena so I'm going to call her Ellie.  She has the most beautifully painted brown eyes and a little bunch of freckles across her nose.  She was being offered for sale on a BJD forum, otherwise I think she'd have been snapped up sooner than she was, I was really lucky to be able to bring her home.  And the seller was fantastic, sending her quickly and as a gift.  She only left the USA on Saturday and arrived here this morning. AND I didn't get caught for any customs charges!!!
I had made her this little knit dress last weekend as I know these girls only come in their underwear. The first wig is her default one, I might trim the curls a bit, but I really like it on her.

I love how she looks in this fur wig by Spite & Malice, soooo cute looking....this might be my second choice wig for her!

This is a Monique Gold wig, can't recall which one though.....cut shorter by me, she's cute as a blond but I think I prefer her as a brunette.

This is a mixed blond wig, made by Leeke World:

Another Leeke World wig, this time the same style but in brunette:

Right, I'm off to play some more!!!!  Have a lovely weekend everyone!