The best stress relief

Whew, real life has been quite tiring recently - I've been sick, there has been lots of other stress as well and the news are filled with sad things. Let's say I used to work with refugees when I was younger, and I still remember some of their very sad stories :(

But luckily there is always a way to cheer up a doll hobbyist - a big package from Asia :D

She's Alter's 1:7 Minami Kotori, my favourite of the Love Live girls because of her sweet appearance and personality <3 (And she does a heck of a job by sewing ALL their fancy costumes all alone, haha, yeah right...) I immedentially fell in love with this figure when I saw it, the design is just so...so me, I guess xD Frills, bright colours, birds, lolita influence and hey, turquoise and gold! So even though she was tad expensive, I just had to preorder her from Amiami.

She's full of detail, and her expression makes me so happy <3 Go go Kotori!

Blue and cute

I made Kiku a new dress and a hat to match her current colour scheme of blue and turquoise :3 That's why I love tan skin so much - it looks so nice with bright pastel colours. She's such a fun little doll, always ready to inspire no matter what. So happy I bought her <3

Summer's remnants

Back to the normal schedule here - the vacation is over and I'm back working again. I also started my studies in the open university, studying family research and (hopefully) early childhood education. So I have lots to do on weekdays and unfortunately much less doll play time :< But such is the life of an adult, I suppose :P

But I finally managed to resize and upload this small photoshoot I took of Bibi, my Sarang, during the very last days of my vacation. I purchased her a pair of bunny ears just because my other Tinyfairy girls are animals as well - Shua is a fox and Idris is a qilin. She makes rather lovely and sweet rabbit spirit, I think <3

Special feet parts would be so cute on her as well - maybe I'll get lucky and find her Soom's Mylo/Teschen rabbit paws one day! <3

Greetings from Uppsala!

A good time to post some vacation photos as it's the last day of my summer holiday now xD; Well, I am not all too sad as I was getting bit bored. Apparently I get lots more done when I have some structure in my daily life. When I have none, I tend to just surf online and look at stuff and get nothing done at...

Anyway, here are a few photos I took of Tove and surroundings when we were visiting Uppsala in Sweden. Uppsala seemed like a nice town, too bad the weather was HOT. About 30+ degrees and a cloudless sky ^^; Nothing compared to Japan, I'm sure, but still...I'm no big fan of heat and sun. This chilly and rainy Finnish summer is just fine!

Tove in front of Uppsala's Cathedral which seemed like the main tourist attraction of the town.

I didn't really feel like pulling a doll out inside, especially as there was a mass going on ^^; I don't follow any religion but still it was such a beautiful and calm place with superb architecture. I especially loved all stained glass windows <3

The other attraction was Uppsala's Botanical Garden. Not the best place in the crazy heat, but I did take a photo of some water lilies.

And we were so cranky and hungry that it was time to sit down and have some ice coffee and cinnamon rolls xD They were probably the best I've tasted. Victory, yay!

It really wasn't the best day to photograph everything, but luckily at least Tove looks happy ^_^

Vacation + Liduse

Woop, chilly times <3 I'm still on my vacation and right now I have two weeks of glorious...doing nothing xP Okay, I've settled a few dates to meet friends, but otherwise my days are pretty empty - and I actually really like it! The husband is also away on the other side of the world, so it's just me and the mice.

And what do I do? Well, I watch anime and do doll stuff :D This spring was crazy, so I don't mind this at all, really. I've been trying to sew a lot since I have so little time for that when I'm working. Here's one finished project, a dress for my Liduse (Notdoll Ligaya):

I love her but damn her wonky little body...nothing pre-made fits xD; I've actually taken apart and re-sewn some garments just so that they fit her ^^; This dress is made of raw silk and tulle lace. I wanted to keep it girly and cute like she is - well, with a twist :D

Another one with her "new hair". It's actually two wigs cut, piled together and teased to get her a massive hairdo. (I had two spare ones in bad condition so I thought I could just play with them.)

And back to the sewing table! I'm not running out of things to do, definitely :D

Grey cardigan

Another minipost time :) I finished a commission for a grey SD-sized sweater and wanted to take couple of "official" shots before giving this to its rightful owner. It's made for Soom's new SG girl body, but I put it on Amita - it was terribly out of character on Hecate, I just couldn't take it xD; So that's why it looks bit large:

I'm quite happy how these pictures turned out, the soft morning light was really on my side this time ^^ These are taken quite early (around 7:30AM) when the whole neighbourhood was still quiet and peaceful. Hopefully you are not bored of outdoor shots yet :D I find it much easier to just grab a doll and camera and walk 20 metres from the front door into the forest than start cleaning our apartment and set up backgrounds and such...I get to do that enough when it's winter, I guess :P

Twinkle twinkle little eyes

Ah, home sweet home! Our trip went well, but it's so nice to back <3 I really missed my dolls and my computer, hehe. I have photos I took of Tove in Sweden, but editing them takes a little while.

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But here's a small update - I finally remembered to buy proper-sized eyes for Kiku from Fel Eyes. I had previously ordered her a pair of 12mm eyes, but they were too large. Now I got her a pair of 10mm ones, and they fit perfectly <3 These are probably the best-looking eyes you can get for 4 euros xD No, seriously, they may be just acrylic but the colours, patterns and themes are really to my liking. You may have noticed I like pastel colours and sparkly things for my dolls xP

I used TB Sourcing Service as the dealer, and everything went well. I especially liked their reasonable mailing options - everything from a standard bulk airmail to EMS/DHL. Their English is occasionally bit clumsy though, and their website loads forever and acts bit odd, but I'm used to it as I've been shopping Asian BJD shops for so long xD;

Hmm, I wonder if any other of my dolls would need new super sparkly eyes?

Edit: Sigh, fighting with Flickr new photo-sharing HTML...this change sucked. Luckily I got 'em to display without frames, titles and whatnot. But please bring back the old system :(