12 Dolls of Christmas: Mojito

On the seventh day of Christmas...

For the last picture of 2012, it's Miss Mojito Collins!

I was trying to go for a dreamy fashion magazine kind of effect, but I think it's just blurry :s I can't wait for the days to get lighter so I have better light to work with.

All the best for 2013!

12 Dolls of Christmas: SHE-RA!

On the sixth day of Christmas, a blast from the past...my prized boxed action figure of She-Ra, Princess of Power!

Picture of the front and back of the packaging!

She-Ra was an eBay purchase, I get plenty of nostalgia trips because I was brought up on She-Ra, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, so occasionally I go off and search for random things on eBay. I think I bought her in 2006. She had never been opened when she arrived - naturally I had to open the shipper box to see her...and I also took her out of the blister pack once, and then felt bad and put her back. I think of her more as a collector's piece, so I keep her inside the shipper box so she doesn't fade. It would be great to have her on display, but at the moment I just don't have the space.

She was a 2004 convention exclusive available from San Diego Comic Con or Chicago Wizard World comic convension, where you had to enter a lottery to buy one! Such was the popularity of The Most Powerful Woman in the Universe, that Mattel made her available in limited numbers after the convention. My girl didn't come from SDCC, she doesn't have the ident sticker on either box, but since she came with the outer shipper box and wasn't just her blister pack self, I think she came from the Chicago convention.

One fun thing about this edition of She-Ra - she has a longer skirt! I think it's a progressive sign that the Princess of Power doesn't need to wear skimpy clothes to be a super heroine. It's also fun to note that she wears more clothes than He-Man does. She-Ra is an amazing role model for women and girls. She kicks ass, she supports her friends, she fights against oppression and she is too busy saving the world to worry about what other people think of her.

12 Dolls of Christmas: Imogen

On the fifth day of Christmas... a departure from the norm... one of my Asian fashion dolls!

This is Imogen, my Sekiguchi Unoa Light Victorian Princess. She is made of plastic and vinyl compared with the first release of Unoa Light which was made in polyurethane resin and strung just like other BJDs.

12 Dolls of Christmas: Deryn

On the third day of Christmas... it's Deryn, in the amazing hat that all the girls co-own, because it's far too nice to belong to just one of them!

12 Dolls of Christmas: Mojito

On the second day of Christmas... the picture(s) I shall post...

Show Mojito being glam in monochrome!

I did think about colour popping this photo, because her lips, belt and shoes are a brilliant red, but I think the pictures look cool as they are, and also I'm lazy ;)

The dress and belt are her Christmas presents, bought from Sunny's Wonderful World on eBay. They were slow to ship them out, but I was impressed with the quality of the pieces, so I might risk it again with them.

In memoriam, d.ark - I think about you every time I look at Mojito. I miss your tweets and updates, and I still can't believe I won't see you again. I hope you like what I'm doing with your girl, she is incredibly precious to me all because of you.

12 Dolls of Christmas: Gwenllian

On the first day of Christmas, the first picture I shall post is...

Gwenllian Cyffin on the stairs!

It's two pictures really, but oh well! I realised I didn't actually have any pictures of her wearing the outfit B bought me for our anniversary in October, even though she's been wearing it ever since!

It's Volks' Marine Asterisk set, with some Dollmore shoes. The wig isn't Gwenllian's 'stock' wig, it came with the Kun head RREGUI traded with me. I think she looks very like Hermione Granger in this wig!

End of Summer, Beginning of Autumn

 Starting with a BJD picture is always a good thing :)

At the end of last month, I was asked to make a blog header by the awesome Adventure Girl - Llinos Cathryn Thomas for her blog 'Biscuits In, Writing Out'. On the theme of writing and biscuits I got out my great-grandmother's Bavarian tea set, some oatie biscuits, a cotton blend napkin and my swish Parker Pen and snapped away. The top ranked result can be seen here! Her blog is filled with funny, insightful and thoughtful things as she blogs about writing, creativity, awesome women, and lots of other fun things!

I really like this time of year. The weather is usually very nice in early September, just in time for kids to go back to school, and I tend to enjoy early autumn far more than summer. Summer for me usually means uncomfortable heat, lots of overtime at work and lots of tourists on their holidays, but by this time of year everyone's gone home, the heat has cooled down and my shifts get less crazy too.

This time last year I was stressing over my impending dissertation, so it's very nice to have a September I can actually enjoy!

B and I have been on a bit of a health kick for the past week, we've been eating really good, healthy food and this week we've started throwing in some exercise. My word. I am aching!

Monday we walked up the Jubilee Path on the mountain Moel Lus (ouch!), and yesterday we walked to Llandudno and back. Today we had a much shorter walk, from Deganwy to Conwy ;) I don't think my poor legs could have managed much more!

This afternoon I came back and took advantage of the sunny afternoon to take some pictures of Morideryn in the garden. The sun hits a lovely spot at the top of the garden and lights up the crocosmia and the old shed at the back, so I thought it would make a nice backdrop for doll pictures.

Here you can see her full outfit, she's wearing a summer dress by Kalcia, white slip by Nine9Style, stockings by Plume Blanche Creations, and the brown version of Dollheart LS000186 boots.

I do dress my dolls in a style that I tend to wear myself - B describes it as 'verging on twee' ;)

 The browns and oranges are really making me feel autumnal :D

Hopefully by the next update I'll be able to show off Gwenllian! Her body is on the way from Thailand and her face-up is almost finished in Scotland. It'd be so awesome if they arrived together and I could put her together straight away.

Spring Evening

I had a small photoshoot with Deryn this evening while the light was still pretty.

She has a new wig! She's always going to be a redhead, but this time her wig is from Little Monica. The style is called 'Simply Bob' and the colour is 'Carrot'. It's a perfect match for the Limited Edition Leeke wigs I got for her at Christmas in 'Real Carrot'. It's going to be great if Little Monica bring out more styles of wigs in this colour because this is her hair colour and anything else would look a bit weird on her now. I'd love to have more wigs in this colour so she can have more hairstyle options.


I really recommend Little Monica wigs - I recommend Crobidoll wigs too. I used to rely on Leekeworld because all the wigs I received from them were in great condition and the number of styles and colours available is huge, but I don't like that dark wigs have black wig caps because the risk of staining is really high. I was so impressed when I recieved Melangell's dark wig from Crobidoll because it had a flesh-tone wig cap, not a dark one. The overall quality of the wig is great anyway, but extra thumbs up for the light wig cap! Likewise, this Little Monica wig has a light wig cap too.

She's sat in the cherry tree in my garden - it's formed a brilliant natural seat where the trunk splits into three main branches. I can sit dolls in the fork of the tree really securely. (I wish the bungalow behind her was a bit more obscured but oh well!)

The outfit she's wearing is Dollheart's Pure Maid outfit, her stockings are by Plume Blanche Creations and her shoes are by Releaserain. The Pure Maid outfit is great for Christmas or Valentine-themed pictures and is pretty much the only lolita outfit I have in SD-size. I am interested in more loli-outfits because they're just so pretty!

Meet Morideryn

This is the first embodied, clothed, bewigged and eyed picture of my Volks School B, Morideryn! She's back from her visit with Caroline, dodging snow and storms on the way, and she looks gorgeous with her new face-up!

 

I've put her on a Dollfie Dream II body for now because the SD10 body she was going to share with Mafonwen was a bit too chunky for her slimmer face and smaller features. It's definitely convinced me that she needs an Ariadoll 14 Years Elegance body, I don't mind resin/vinyl hybrids in the short term, but I prefer all resin or all vinyl dolls to hybrids of the two. I don't really like the difference in texture between the resin and vinyl. Plus Momoko, my Dollfie Dream, is going to want her body back.

 

Morideryn's eyes were a big surprise too - I bought her some expensive Hand Glass Craft eyes in turquoise and when I tried them they didn't look right. These cheaper unbranded sparkly glass eyes actually suit her much better! It's making me a little bit nervous about her incoming red wigs - this baby brown wig suits her so well that I don't know whether a vibrant red will suit her :s Nervous!

Anniversary!

Today B and I celebrated a whole year together!


Last night I cooked us lamb shanks, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, redcurrant & mint gravy and peas. We ate out of bowls whilst sat on the floor of his room watching Fry's Planet Word and drinking red wine out of whiskey glasses! Our main meal was followed by B's favourite - tiramisu!


This morning we woke up at 4:30 - B is a warden in university halls and he had to do some fire drills in different blocks on the site. I stayed all toasty warm in bed while he was out in the early morning cold setting off fire alarms and timing students to see how quickly they could get out in an emergency. When B got back at 7:30 we were supposed to open our presents, but he was so tired that we decided to put the presents back a bit and have some more sleep!


I got B a vintage military medal from 1945, given for the Soviet capture of Berlin, and B gave me a new eyepiece for my vintage Ihagee Exa camera. Vintage presents this year!


It was a lovely low-key anniversary, I'm not really a big 'going out' person and B doesn't seem to be much of one either, so it was a good way of celebrating and keeping it just between us. We could have done without the fire alarm interruptions though!

Creation

Although I've kept an intermittent LiveJournal before (Deccaboo), I've never really kept a blog and my LJ updates are sporadic - I don't think I've updated once this year, bad me!

I don't really know what I intend this blog to be - I have lots of seemingly disparate interests and not much time to pursue them - but I will make a concerted effort to update!

I'm currently writing my MA dissertation - In September 2010 I started my one year course in Information and Library Management at LJMU, by this September I will have handed in my dissertation and should really be looking for a proper job in the world of librarianism ... I should be anyway! At the moment the library job market isn't particularly huge in the UK because of the recession, but *fingerscrossed* it will start to pick up soon.

Some of my favourite things are books (I'm including my Kindle, Ziyal, in this), dolls, photography, shoes, tea dresses, pearls, lace and polka dots. Above all those things though, I love frogs! Frogs are above and away my favourite animal.

I have a large collection of dresses and shoes, but I really can't help it! I started an unsuccessful shopping ban on January 1st 2011 - I did alright for a few months and then university deadlines suddenly got very stressful and my resolve really crashed! 


I have a collection of cameras, some point and shoot, some SLRs. I don't always have the opportunity to go out and play with my cameras as much as I'd like. My main cameras are my Nikon D-40 DSLR, my Nikon Coolpix S220 and my Ihagee Exa mini SLR.

I collect Asian Ball-Jointed Dolls (ABJD or just BJD most of the time) and some Asian fashion dolls - at the moment I have five BJDs, a floating head, one Dollfie Dream, a cat BJD, a Dal, a Momoko and a Unoa Sekiguchi Fluorite. I've always like dolls, action figures and miniatures, so it should be no surprise to anyone who knows me that as soon as I found out about BJDs I would want one of my own! Some of my dolls can be seen on my Flickr. 

My current dolls are;
BJDs
Volks Megu - Mafonwen Enku
Volks FCS F05 head - Mefyswen Enku
Volks SDC Kurt - Klemens-Ruprecht von Klessel
Volks SDC Kurenai - Melangell Shigeta
Volks YoSD Yuh - Mari-chan
Seed Dolls Inkling - Fflur
Camellia Dynasty Wong cat - Arthur

Volks Dollfie Dream
DD OpH01 - Momoko Jones

Dal
Magical Pink Chan - Bella

Momoko
Day Off Delight - Nicola

Unoa Light Fluorite
Victorian Lady - Imogen