Hanami 2014

Roihuvuori's annual Hanami party was held the last Sunday, and I attended with some dolly friends and Asia nerds. It was quite the success - the weather was nice and sunny, and the trees still had some blossoms in them. In fact the weather was a bit too good to my liking, I left early because it was so hot and I'm allergic to birches. It was quite crowded too, and I spotted many cute yukatas and lolitas <3

Cute doll jewelry made by my friend Gwen! Of course I had to snatch some, because I'm a sucker for this stuff :D

And her equally cute and adorable dolls. There was a time when I really wanted to own Minoruworld's Leila (these days she's a Bluefairy girl!), and looking at this picture...but oh no. I don't really need to own all possible BJDs, right? She's still so very to my liking, so be still, my heart.

My little participants. They don't have proper obis or getas since I ran out of time and just couldn't find reasonably-priced little getas for them - I just found Azone's stuff. It's very good quality and I try not be a cheapskate, but 32 euros for a pair of tiny shoes...ehm. Anyone have tips where to get bit cheaper Blythe-sized geta shoes?

I have no excuse for the lack of nice cotton obis though. Darn, an obi is basically just a long rectangle of fabric, how it was so hard to make them? xP I guess I was just lazy this time.

The yukatas are some cheap Japanese fashion doll stuff that I shortened and tidied. There were threads everywhere, some stitches just came loose and they had the lousiest obis with cheap velcro ever. Oh well, they were cheap and the print is nice anyway.

Overall it was a fun day, and it's always nice to meet fellow dolly people <3

A Japanese feeling

Some time ago me, Xaya and another friend joined forces and went together to shoot dolls in Roihuvuori's Japanese-style garden. I've visited the cherry park before to celebrate Hanami and will likely attend this year as well if the weather is nice. The garden was very nice, even if the weather wasn't really our friend - it was quite chilly and rainy :/ Luckily we did manage to get some photos before it started to rain:

That lovely troll boy is a friend's Bluefairy boy who made friends with Idris. They are two shy forest creatures after all.

Afterwards we were so cold and thirsty that we drove to a nearby shopping centre for refreshments:

Hot coffee and this delicious thing - a white chocolate cake filled with raspberries and sour cream. I'm not a big fan of overly sweet treats, but I'm a sucker for sour things mixed with sweetness. This tasted just as good as it looked.

And on my way home I spotted such nice cherry blossoms in our neighbourhood. The trees back in Roihuvuori were still blossoming, but this tree was blooming already really prettily. Too bad that it was behind a fence, so I didn't dare to try and put a doll up there. Oh well, it's not likely that the branches would have held a MSD anyway....

It was a good day and definitely inspired me to try to have more photography adventures in the future. I live in an area where we have lots of different cool places anyway <3

Hopefully the next post will be about the actual Hanami party!

Almost seven years old

I had a little outdoor shooting couple of weeks ago. I didn't get many good photos because I was silly and shot in dire sunlight, so hello to the massive over-exposure :< Luckily I did get some, so here's my Aegis and how he currently looks:

It's funny to think that he's turning seven this summer. He's my first BJD which I got back in 2006, when Angelregion was still a separate company. They were selling "unfinished kits" which went quite cheap - back in the day, 250 dollars for a MSD was cheap. I had no previous BJD experience before I got him, I had just briefly held a friend's doll before and that's that. So it was quite an adventure to string him. Luckily Angelregion was friendly and provided the doll with a manual / guide to help. He's been through many changes since, changing hair color, style and makeup. Something has always remained, and that's his character's silly hyper personality.

As I've switched to SDs as my main adult characters, he has also turned into a kid instead a teenager his character once was.

I dug out the oldest photo I have of him in Flickr (summer 2007). Yep, ummm, well, he's colourful at least. I still have that shirt for him though! You can also see the quality of my own face ups. Well, it's not THAT bad but I seem to have trouble getting eyebrows where they belong...

Hope you see improvement xP

A deer owl, I guess?

I managed to photograph Pio's winter gear when we still have some snow, yay <3 She's a doll that I always photograph outdoors, because indoor shots just don't suit her:

Her headwear is made by my friend Illves who sells them in Etsy as well :3 Pio's character is a sparrow owl, but I guess magical forest spirits can wear almost whatever they like. She's (he's? it's?) such a fun little doll, one of my favourites.

Let's go outside for a while

I've been trying to be more active in shooting dolls outdoors. We have fine nature all around us despite living in Finland's biggest city anyway! Today I got jesmo as as company and went shooting her dolls and my Tuike in eastern Helsinki. We found a pretty spot, and the weather was perfect <3











I have an old wide angle lense (Mir-1B) that I used for these shots. It produces nice photos but it's frigging hard to use. Focusing and getting the right aperture / shutter speed is very much trial and error for me, so lots of photos went straight to the computer's trash can >_> But I think that those that came out okay are quite pretty, no?

The dolls:

- Elsi, Bluefairy Strawberry Didi (jesmo)
- Fairyland MNF Marcia Dreaming (jesmo)
- Pivot, Pipos Dreaming Mari (jesmo)
- Tuike, Cocoondolls Hilla (mine)

It was a fun trip, we need to make more!

The misty forest

We got the most perfect misty weather today, so pretty that I just had to pack up a doll and go outside despite having a flu still. Unfortunately of course the mist didn't look as cool in the forest with all the trees, but I think I managed to snatch a couple of good shots ->

Owl amongst the anemones

These are the results of my walk today. I didn't end up going to the spot I originally planned because we already took a long walk with my spouse and a friend this morning. But I did find a pretty anemone field nearby, so I got some photos. There are white anemones everywhere, a sure sign of summer approaching <3

It is here!

A proper Finnish winter it is! There's a ton of snow (my commute trips have been long and interesting) and it's also fairly cold even here. I had great plans to go outside today, but then I looked at the thermometer and decided that actually our balcony is just fine :B





Aegis is the one with most winter gear so he got the honour to be my photography victim today. I think his new dorky hat from Angell-studio fits him very well <3 We've come a long way together, haven't we? It's funny to think that I've owned him since 2006 and never even thought of selling him. I don't think I could be without him, the other two key BJDs are Meital and Uncle K.

--



I purchased some knitting patterns from Myfairydolly on Etsy, and here's one almost ready for Enne. It wasn't very hard to make, the only problems I had were with reading knitting abbravations in English xD The next project shall be a similar dress for Unni, luckily I got some nifty sock yarns from my mom this X-mas. Whee!

In the wildwoods

I dragged (almost literally, EIDs are heavy!) Adriel outside for a small photoshoot today. Grahhh, EIDs and forest photography...luckily he's much stiffer these days as I've changed his rubberbands and tightened them too. But I still didn't enjoy it :P

Ironically I think he looks best without a shirt and his hair loose. Sorry, sweetcheeks ;3 He has some new bodywork done by my mate Illves, scarring, blushing and one supercool "tattoo" of an elk skull. That girls knows her scars!