A real mixed bunch.....

Yesterday I took quite a few photos in the garden so thought I'd put some on here.....some are dogs, some dolls and some plants....just random shots really, that I thought I'd share.....

Millie and Devon taking a stroll in the garden.  Millie is wearing one of the dresses that I made in anticipation of her arrival.  The sleeves are far too long so I need to get around to shortening those soon.  She is wearing matching knickers, but they can't be seen in the photos.  I made  'tap' pants from the same fabric and added some pretty cotton lace to the edges of the legs.  Devon is wearing a pair of cords that I quickly made for him a couple of days ago.  He needed something else other than shorts as his legs were getting cold!  ;)
Please excuse Devon's awful jumper....I really should stick with sewing!

We have a real 'glut' of lemons again this year, and I've not even used up all the lemon juice that I squeezed from the excess lemons we had in the summer......!  I think the fruits are getting bigger too!

This is the orange tree, although it wasn't until we'd been here a few years that we started to get lemons on it too....it has obviously had a lemon tree grafted on to it at some point....these oranges won't be ready until about Christmas....they are still quite hard and unripe.

Sadly, the Mandarin tree is flowering now!  So we doubt that we'll get any fruit from it this year, as it is totally the wrong time to be flowering.  The smell is wonderful though, I wish I could share that as well as the photo.  It's such a shame that there won't be any fruit as when we have had some, they have been absolutely delicious....definitely the best I've ever tasted!

This little bee is happy with the flowers, obviously!

This cactus just gets bigger and bigger!  It reminds me of a coral reef with all those curves.

A bunch of tiny peachy/red flowers on one of the succulents.....you can see it's little fuzzy petals and leaves here:

I took some photos of the dogs too, but will make that a separate post.......

Sasha arrives!

Yesterday was a great dolly day for me but I was too busy to really enjoy it! 
My postman brought me two nice parcels, one was the book that I'd bought from Dorisanne Osborn, Sasha Dolls Through the Years, and what a lovely book it is too.  I spent a pleasant couple of hours reading it last night and looking at the lovely photos of Sasha dolls.  I learned quite a lot too, and never realised that the little Sasha toddlers weren't actually released ..... I must speak to my friend Ronny about hers, maybe she can give me more information on that as she has toddlers.

My second, bigger parcel, was my Sasha!  She was sent from the UK, I got her from Shelly of Sasha Doll UK.  She is a lovely blond girl and I think her name will be Millie, although that could change as I'm not 100% on it yet.  I couldn't do much with her yesterday as I was working on my custom (previous post today) but now that I've finished that, I've been trying the two dresses that I made for her in anticipation of her arrival.  One of them fits perfectly, and the second needs the sleeves taken up a little .... I think I must have been sewing for an orang utan!!! 

Also today I gave the bottom half of her hair a conditioning treatment.  Shelly had told me that her hair was dry and frizzy on the bottom but it's not too bad really, just needs some curlers in it or something.  It's still quite damp at the moment so I can't really tell if the treatment worked or not, but regardless, she is a lovely doll.  She has a tiny black dot near her eye which I'd planned on removing but it looks like a little beauty spot so it is staying for the time being....it makes her 'unique'!!

Anyway, without further ado, here is her photo, she is an English Trendon girl from 1971:

 

And here she is with her twin brother Devon:

Custom finished!

I'm very happy to say that yesterday I finished all the work on the custom Blythe that I've been doing for a lady in the US.  I gave her her hair treatment last night and then cut about 2 inches from the length of the hair as the client wanted the hair to be more managable.  I must admit that I was a bit nervous of cutting too much off because if I'd taken off too much, well, it's not like it's going to grow again, :) but I hope this will be just the right length.  This particular Blythe, Manuheali'i Paradise Girl, comes with very long hair, right down to her ankles and it is very thick and has a tendancy to be dry at the ends, so now it is a bit shorter but still long enough to be  styled in different ways.  It is now also lovely and soft and silky, with a great shine.

This morning I added the final touches which are the charms on the pull strings.  Unfortunately between adding them and taking her outside for photographs, the sleep pull cord has twisted and looks 'odd' so that will have to be replaced this afternoon before I can package her up for sending home.  That is of course if her 'mum' is happy with the finished result.

She has four sets of beautifully handpainted eyechips by Liquiriziadolly in the UK.....I love how they look and am tempted to get some for my own girls....although having said that, I really would like to have a another go at painting some more myself, it is just a matter of taking the time to get the paint and other supplies needed to do them.

Here are the final photos of her:

Sanding sanding sanding.....

Today I finished the colour-work on my Blythe custom!  I was really pleased to finish her faceup because I've had to sand off the sealant twice now, but hopefully that will be it.  Unless of course, the owner of the doll, once she's seen the photo, decides that she doesn't like it and wants me to start over!  Arrrggh I hope not! 

So tomorrow I will add a semi gloss varnish to the lips and then start on the rest of the work.  The eyechips are really lovely, the lady supplied them herself and they are handpainted chips from an artist in England, so with these in mind, I have to decide on the colour of the eyelids.  I'm thinking something bronze/gold/brown-ish.....I'll have to see tomorrow.  Then it'll be eyelashes, boggling and gaze correcting.  New pull ring charms and then on to her hair treatments.  It's quite a lot of work but I do enjoy it.

The first photo shows how she looked a couple of days ago before sanding and carving, and the second shows how she looks at the moment, minus her hair and eye mechanism, she looks a bit orangey but that is because the photo was taken inside with flash and my desk lamp has a very 'warm' tone bulb in it.  I don't usually use that lamp but the room felt cold today and it made me feel better to have this 'yellowy' glow!

Before:

After:

I will take more photos once she is complete. 

Apart from that, I also did some on line shopping ... dolly shopping again ... so my vinyl kids have some new shoes and new trousers on their way!  Talk about spoilt!!!

Nothing much else to report on the dolly front, but we did have our roof done today.  The guy came at 9am as promised (this is very good for a Spanish workman, to actually arrive when they say they will!) and sprayed our whole roof with a very quick drying foam, he then sprayed it with white paint stuff (technical term) and now it looks rather like a snow covered ski slope!  We really hope it does the job that it's intended for......to stop our internal water features when it pours with rain!!!

I don't think we'll have long to wait before it rains again....so watch this space!!! 

No play day....

Not much time today for dolly play as I am customising a tanned Blythe for a lady in Chicago and want to get it done and sent off to her before the Christmas postal 'rush'.....Unfortunately though, I made the stupid mistake of spraying the blank faceplate whilst the MSC sealant was still cold and so the faceplate ended up all mottled with white dots....more haste less speed....so the faceplate had to be sanded again, which was blooming hard work!  The one good thing though was that I hadn't started on the faceup, so at least nothing was ruined.  So tomorrow, all being well, if the weather is good and dry, I will start on the colour work.

In the meantime, I found Devon searching through the dolly clothing boxes and he came up with this tee shirt that he feels is perfect for him!  It is a bit loose around the neck but he didn't mind that because apparently 'loose is cool', so we snapped a quick photo of him for our blog....Isn't he the handsome one!!

I thought that having got Devon and his blond sister, Sasha, who is on her way home to us from Shelly, that I would be content to have just the two Sasha kids.  Not so.  Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy with Devon and I'm sure I'll be just as happy with his sister, but I find myself looking at other peoples blogs, ebay and Shelly's site, and thinking "Oh I'd love one like that too.....".....

Why am I never content with what I have?  Why can't I be one of those people who has one or two dolls and is happy with that?  One of lifes great mysteries, I guess!!

My first Sasha....a Gregor!

My first Sasha doll arrived today, he is a blond boy Gregor and his name is Devon! 
It is amazing to think that he was made in 1969, he is in great condition and has lovely thick hair and nice face painting without any rubs. 

As soon as he arrived he was in a bad mood because he thought his 'sister' would be here but she is yet to arrive from the UK, but I'm sure she will get here soon. 

In the meantime, he got himself changed out of his travel clothes and into a long sleeved tee shirt that I made for him yesterday, in anticipation of his arrival.  I knew that he would be arriving in a short sleeve top and it's a bit chilly for that now, so long sleeves were in order.  However, he is still wearing shorts until I make a pattern for some trousers for him, and we found him some socks and a different pair of trainers.  He also decided that he was going to wear this giraffe hat that he found in the clothing box.....it belongs to one of my Blythe girls but he wasn't worried, because apparently, he tells me that he loves animals, so this hat was just right for him!!

After changing his clothes he decided to take a look around the garden.  He was amazed at the lemon tree which is packed with almost ripe lemons....he said he thought you had to buy lemons at the supermarket...bless him!!
 

He did a bit of climbing, as boys do,

...and afterwards made friends with a little English Bulldog who lives here, his name is Arthur and it seems that Devon and Arthur are already firm friends!!!
 

We snapped a quick Polariod photo so that he could remember the day when he arrived here to live in Spain...

Bobbie....my Blythe Ebony

I made a dioama thingy the other night, it's not very good but I thought it might be useful for taking some photos when the weather's not too good outside, or even use it outside too, so that the background isn't always the white stone wall.  I used an oval shaped box that was just about to be put in the rubbish bag...it's from a coffee machine that we bought.  So I just added some 1/6th scale brick patterned paper that I got from a printable minis website, and then some cobbled paper for the floor.  I'm going to look for some posters to add to the wall to break up the boredom!!!

Bobbie is modelling her new leggings and cable knitted legwarmers that we received recently from a seller on Etsy, she teamed them with her lovely cream knitted dress from Maisiedoats, our friend May in Australia, and little brown leatherette boots, and her satchel made by me!  And off she goes..........

In other news, I think my Sasha boy, Gregor, might be here tomorrow or Tuesday as since Friday he is shown as being 'in transit' , on the Spanish postal website, and usually that means that a parcel isn't too far from delivery!  I will keep looking tomorrow morning in the hope that the tracking will change to 'in the delivery system' , then I know that he'll arrive later in the day!!!!

I've been sewing for both Sasha and Gregor, Sasha has a couple of new dresses and Gregor has a long sleeved tee shirt but I'm not sure it will fit him properly.....we shall see when he arrives.