Still alive...

Yes, despite of my very long silence I am still alive and kicking. I have so much to show and tell but I won´t be sharing it all in this one post. More updates will follow if my computer will cooperate with me (still in the process of getting a new one!). The biggest news is that I sold Nekome. As much as I love the sculpt, I came to the conclusion that the SD-size is not for me. They are way too big and heavy for my hands and for that reason it was off-putting to even look at her. I am more comfortable with the smaller dolls and from now on anything bigger than 40 cm is definitely a no-no.

The next thing is that I have put Mimi - Pipos Baha cat - for sale. If you are interested in her, just send me a message to buttonsandpastel@gmail.com and I will give you further details.

FOR SALE!

I am also considering selling my Blythe Pumpkin. She is nice, but I am not doing much with her after all. Not sure about what to do yet but my main focus and interest at the moment is the greenhouse diorama. My hands are perfectly full with that and after it´s finished, I can start learning how to take pretty pictures of Lyra in her own environment.
However, I do have plans on getting one new doll as a combined Christmas/ birthday present for myself. Again, I will not tell you what it might be but it´s a doll I have loved from the first days of my doll hobby.

Some random updates: I re-did Stella´s faceup and she got an exquisite knitted wool cardigan from Junipa.

Stella´s new faceup

Cardigan made by Junipa

Commission: Aileen Doll Dragon

The same friend who´s other doll´s I´ve been painting and modding earlier had another request for me: to fix her Aileen Doll dragon. The doll was super dirty, had awful old faceup, was desperately in a need of new strings and had a broken string hook in the paw.

First I took the poor thing apart and gave him a good bath. The old faceup was very tightly stuck and it took me several hours to rub until the whole thing was squeaky clean and bright white again.

With a help of a Dremel I removed the stem that had left from the broken hook and drilled a hole for a new metallic hook. This is how the resin hook normally looks like:

...And this is how I repaired the broken one:

After these were done, I started the painting by adding the base coats with Army Painter and from there continued as usual until I was satisfied with the result. Last I restrung him with new cords. The friend wanted him to have purple scales and silver horns, spikes and claws. Here is how he turned out:

Edit. Just to inform you the light really washes all the purple shadings around the scales, inside the wings and face away on the pictures. Irl he is not that white and has more tones on him.

Darling buds of May

Nekome´s looking pretty in her new outfit. Love it!

Dolly friends from abroad + Taobao haul

Hello dolly peeps! Last weekend I had a chance to meet my new friend, Caketown´s Irene, in person when she came to visit Finland. She was not the only new acquaintance to me at that day because also Senja, Spica and Sofia joined the meeting, whom I hadn´t met before. But what a lovely gals they all turned out to be!

At first we went to a nice coffee house to get to know each other and to share the souvenirs. Because Irene lives in China, she has easy access to all the goodies at Taobao, so we all had asked Irene to work as our agent for ordering some doll stuff from there. I must admit I feel a little guilty for asking her to drag all those stuff all the way from China but then again, I would have done exactly the same for her if she asked me to get something from Finland. To thank her for her kindness and for her efforts I bought her three big chocolate bars from a brand Fazer - each one with different flavour. And because I had quite heavy bag and also my little doggy with me, I had no hands to take my camera along, so unfortunately no pictures of the meet itself, sorry. It would be so nice to have a personal photographer with me to do all the job. ;)

But to the Taobao order, I wanted more Blythe size clothes for Pumpkin and some props too. Here is the whole haul in one picture + some extra gifts Irene gave to me. How very sweet of her!

The bike was maybe one of my most expected item from the haul. It´s 1/6 scale and perfect for Blythes. The details are beautiful.

And here´s all the extras Irene generously added to my batch. Thank you dear!

Stickers, 1/6 scale cat overalls, small cat mirror, Hello Kitty pen, tiny doll props etc.

Irene didn´t forget Nekome either! Just look at this pretty dress set:

As if all the previous goodies weren´t enough, I was handed with these awesome small furnitures. They are originally made for Barbie dolls and for that reason a little bit too small for Lyra, but works better for Pumpkin.  However, I have planned to make some modifications to them so that they could be used in Lyra´s greenhouse.

After spending a good while at the coffee house, we decided to stretch our legs and walk to visit two small shops nearby (a Pullip doll and accessories shop Kilala and anime/ manga/ Japan merchandise selling Luca). Then it was time for me to part from the group but oh boy I enjoyed this meeting. I am very grateful I got to know all these wonderful new friends and big thanks to Irene from the bottom of my heart. I hope we can stay in touch also in the future. Friends just are the best aren´t they?

I will make a post where all the clothes are sported by their respectful owners and I promise to make that soon. I´ve been shamefully slow with updating my blog and that is purely because of my nine-years-old ancient computer. I really must get a new one with more power to run all the image programs and such.

Have a lovely day and see you soon!

Trade with FaeryKiss

I had an amazing opportunity to make my first trade with FaeryKiss´s Krista. She made a shirt for my Lyra and I did props for her future-to-be -doll. The character of hers will be a witch and the model Feeple 60 doll from the company CP/ Fairyland.

I wanted to have a nice mori-style shirt for Lyra and I specifically asked if Krista could do the sleeves with straps for two length options and again Krista did amazing job! Let the pictures speak for themselves:

Shirt with the sleeves gathered up.

Detail of the strap that enables the sleeves to be gathered up.

The witch set I did for Krista included four big and two smaller potion bottles, a complete (and fully working!) 24 piece rune stone set with real leather pouch which becomes a divination mat when opened, a corn dolly with box and last a pretty snail shell I found from my backyard.

Closeup of the rune set.

Potion bottles

Corn dolly and the box.

This trade was so much fun to make and I am super grateful to Krista that she wanted to do this with me. I think trades are excellent thing because it enables people to use their creative skills to have something that either can´t or don´t know how to do by themselves, or if they simply don´t have the money to purchase the goods they´d need. Many times I have had this problem: I would love to get something for my dolls but lack the money. But what I usually do have more than money is plenty of time, skills and passion to make props. So if I could have all the things in the world by just making doll props, I´d be dirty rich let me say!
So, in a way by trades you can "make" yourself things that you can´t make by making things you can. Haha, get it? Anyways, I wish trades would become more common in the doll community. Hooray for the creativity!

Lyra´s outfits

I haven´t yet introduced my Lyra properly on pictures mainly because she hasn´t had any clothing to fit her personality and style, and generally I don´t like to take pictures of a doll that´s unfinished. However, this has now changed.

As much as I love and live for crafting, miniature sewing is one of those things that makes me absolutely crazy! Learning new skills is wonderful, but honestly I have given up with that area. The numerous times I have tried to sew something for my dolls the results have always been cursing, broken needles, holes in the fabric and so on. To spear myself from despair, I have liberated myself and outsourced it to the people who can master it better than I ever could. I highly appreciate those who can sew such a tiny pieces of clothes as I know how effing hard it can be!

So I met a talented seamstress at our little Christmas meeting back in December. As I looked the incredibly small and detailed doll clothes she had made, I asked if she could make something for me too. I had planned a mori-style outfit for Lyra and her choices of fabrics and patterns were quite similar to my preferences.
The person I am talking about is Krista Salama, an Etsy seller with a shop named FaeryKiss. Krista sells both ready-made clothes as well as takes commissions. Soon after our meeting we started messaging about the details for the outfit. I found a spot-on picture of a mori girl with a beautiful outfit and asked Krista to use it as a guide for my commission. But differing from the reference picture, I wanted the loose undershirt to be natural white with long sleeves and wanted to leave the green vest off. It seems to be pretty simply constructed, so I may be able to sew it by myself and the belt is easy piece of cake. Also I already had the cute socks which I ordered earlier from the CaramelBJD -shop, so there was no need for new tights or socks.

The making of the clothes took quite a while because there was many little details I wanted to discuss about before making final decisions. Christmas and the holiday season was another reason for slowing the process generally, but I wasn´t in a hurry and didn´t mind that at all. I like to give the artist all the time she needs to make my piece as good as possible without having the feeling of being rushed.
Now when all the pieces are ready, I am very impressed with the result even though it wasn´t a surprise after seeing the other pieces she had made previously. The quality is impeccable with the small but so straight sewing lines and even smaller pleats and buttons. The materials have authentic feel and look.
According to this transaction with Krista I am recommending her creations to anyone who wants to have professionally made doll clothes. She is great to communicate with and because she has graduated as a seamstress and making clothes is her full time job, she really knows all the aspects of the art of tailoring. We are definitely not speaking of an amateur here that´s for sure!

Now let´s see how the outfit came out:

The socks are from CaramelBJD and the shoes from eBay

The main outfit includes four pieces: bloomers, petticoat, dress and a shirt.
To make the outfit more versatile, a separate T-shirt was made as well. This is just basic piece, but works nicely under the dress for warmer summer days:

And when the chilly autumn breeze is blowing, what would be more nicer than to add a hand knitted cardigan with matching legwarmers to the ensemble:

The knitted pieces are commissioned from another talented Finnish artist from Etsy called Junipa aka JuniDoll. The other craft I totally suck is - surprise, surprise - knitting. I have a soft spot for knits maybe just for that reason!
I contacted Junipa and she happily made the cardigan and the legwarmers according to my instructions. To the same batch I asked her to make a pair of cool Bumpy -leggings, of which I had seen a picture earlier while gazing her earlier creations in her shop. I have to figure out some nice outfit to go with the woolen leggings so I have no pictures of Lyra wearing them yet, but hopefully I´ll have something to show you sometime soon. When I got my order after a few weeks, I was happily surprised with a small gift of a chain with keys. So adorable! The yarn of the cardigan and leggings is mainly very soft alpaca and the leggings are thin sheep wool. The tiny stitches are just the right scale for dolls. Gotta love into bits!

I can warmly recommend Junipa´s knitted wonders to you all! The ones who are just as inept in knitting as I am, Junipa´s small wonders are pure joy to look and touch. Or even if you can knit, the scale is so small that even the most enthusiastic knitters might give up in front of the challenge, but not Junipa. I love how many super talented crafters we have within this doll hobby and it warms my heart that I can support them by purchasing things they have made or commissioning them.

Big thanks to both FaeryKiss and Junipa!

I could say that this was Lyra´s first proper debut as a complete character. I am very happy how she has bloomed to be just like I always imagined her to be right from the beginning. Now I have to get the diorama ready so that I can start taking proper photos of her in the environment she belongs.

See you next time!

March haul from eBay!

One eBay shop had amazing flash sale in the end of February. I couldn´t resist the opportunity and ordered a bunch of things:

From left: a pen/ paintbrush/ tool storing roll case, 1/6 sized couch (really a jewelry box!), set of paintbrushes, YoSD khaki-green skirt, YoSD polka dot capri leggings, 1/6 doll stand, Blythe eyeglasses (gold and black frames), Blythe sunglasses (Ray Ban style) and 1/6 sized carrying bag.

I purchased the clothes mainly for Lyra, but they look very small and will probably fit better on Pumpkin. Haven´t tried them on yet, though.

The sales pictures of this couch showed it only two-tone grey, but afterwards I discovered it to be actually glittery grey! Not a big deal but I´d preferred it without glitter. Luckily the sparkle doesn´t jump in to your eyes too much (even though it does exactly just that in this picture!):

Because I couldn´t decide which colour to choose for the eye glasses, I took both gold and black ones:

For the summer Pumpkin must have her own sunglasses. Ray Ban -style does the charm!

No more Miss No-Name

My Blythe had been Miss No-Name for a while, but one day she was ready to tell it to me. The nameless little doll became:

Pumpkin

Here you can see a little closer the blue eye chips I painted.
I wasn´t satisfied on her lips so I re-painted them.

A close-up of the green chips too!

The hair was crazy long and very difficult to keep untangled, so I gathered my courage and shorten it a bit for starters. I have actually talked to my local hairdresser to cut it to the final length and she was willing to help me. It turned out that she likes dolls very much too, and she has her own small collection of antique ones. What a coincidence! Naturally I´ll give you a full report about our trip to beauty salon when the time comes. ;)

New hair length

Oh, I totally forgot to show you the sleepy eyes charm that I added during the custom process. She got a blue string and a cloudberry!

The cloudberry is made of polymer clay

Project Diorama: the walls are up!

Today I finally got the diorama walls up! I have been waiting for this day for so long. Of course I could´ve got it done sooner but then again, what´s the rush anyway. I like to concentrate on small details and making things as pretty as possible.

Notice here the table on which it is placed. I have been doing some furniture changes in my flat and the oak cupboard was moved to the other side of the room. This little table is more suitable for the diorama because it is much lower than the cupboard and thus easier to display and above all - to see and more closely to look the set.

Here is Lyra and her desk to give you the idea of the proportions and scale:

...and some details:

The corner supporters will be painted to blend in the outside wall and all the raw edges will be getting moldings to finish the look, but boy I am happy. That´s it for now. I have plenty of things to show you guys, so stay tuned for updates.

I have been infected

Sorry guys for my long silence. I have been much more active on Instagram mainly because it´s so much easier to post quick pics there than on Blogger. If you are keen to see things quicker than what I post here on Blogger, I suggest you to head on to the IG.

First of all, I have a new doll!
I have been infected by the Blythe fever that´s going on amongst the doll people. It´s funny that a few while ago I absolutely disliked Blythes because of their super disproportionate body. The head is humongous and at first the dolls seemed grotesque to me. They have this eye mechanism which allows them to change gaze when pulled from a string from the back of their heads. The mechanism was intimidating as I watched some customizing videos from Youtube where the head was opened and the whole thing was revealed. But you know, when I started to see videos, photos and other postings of them, I slowly started to like them, especially the customized ones. And there I was, ordering my first!
The things that really appeals to me with these dolls are first of all the price. You can find a factory Blythe (no clothes, just plain doll with hair and make up) as low price as 40 $, so way much cheaper than BJD´s. They are more durable than resin dolls because Blythes were originally made as children´s toys so they had to be made to last also a bit rougher plays. You can customize them in a million ways just like BJD´s from changing eye chips, making or buying wigs, rooting hair by your self, carving and painting face, etc. They are small enough to carry where ever you please for photo shoots, and if you happen to brake something, you can buy replacement parts cheaply and easily from many various web shops.

As much as I love my resin BJD´s, they are fragile, heavy and expensive and therefore not something I want to ruin by carrying here and there in public. I wanted to have a small, cheap doll which I could take with me for example on a weekend trip and take funny snap shots of it doing everyday things. The big head and eyes also allows them to have lots of character regardless the small size (a bit like a caricature drawings have).

So I went and chose my first Blythe girl with long golden brown hair. I originally wanted to have short haired doll, but since there wasn´t the colour I wished, I decided to go with long and cut it to short afterwards (there was no differences in the prices regardless of the hair lenght).

The box with the always-so-funny text!

Here she is wrapped in plastic.
I also purchased a pair of little bloomers to go with her.

As soosn as I took her out from the plastics, I noticed the legs had been bended during the shipping so badly that she was not able to stand straight at all. This picture does not show how wonky they actually were, but you still get some idea of the issue:

But alas she had a shipping injury: bended legs!

I contacted the seller and she kindly promised to send me a new body to replace the broken one.

After couple of weeks the new body arrived in a perfect condition.

Then started the customizing. First was the most difficult part, aka "destruction", which means taking the whole doll apart. Blythe´s have many small different parts inside their heads because of the eye mechanism. I honestly was super nervous to start this phase! After watching numerous Youtube videos and reading tutorials about the process I had gained enough courage to begin. After all everything went well and I didn´t brake anything. Here you can see pictures of the process (sorry for the quality in some of the pictures! They were taken with my phone for Instagram):

Both Sides of the head and the eyelids got sanded matt. I carved her lips, philtrum and nose just a bit to enhance her sweet features:

I wanted to paint my own eye chips so the plastic ones had to be taken off:

I ordered the new chips from a wonderful Cool Cat web shop. I chose the glass ones because I love the crystal clear look and the quality of them. Only the best for my girl! ;)

I tried several methods, colours and paints on the glass chips to get the idea what works the best. From top to bottom: first-, second- and the third pair painted with the same method. The bottom pair was the fourth and those have been painted using different method (the pupils are still unpainted):

After many trial and error, these were the first pair which I was happy with both colour and texture wise:

When the right method and colours were decided, it was time to paint the other two sets:

Waiting for the paint to dry.

I painted the fourth eye pair in mint green colour:

Newly painted eye chips glued on the eyeballs and the whole mechanism has been inserted back inside the head. The scalp is partly attached too:

And finally, here she is put back together again:

What came to the faceup, I wanted her to look natural and simple. For some reason Blythe´s usually don´t have any eyebrows, which I found a bit weird, and for that reason I gave my girl a pair. I like how she turned out, but I must say that this will be the first and the last Blythe I´m going to own. I absolutely love her but for me there is too much little nibs and nobs to deal with and too many parts to brake or loose. I enjoy the result I managed to achieve but to be honest, I did not enjoy the process at all. I was simply too afraid to brake something or generally do something wrong! Compared to Blythe´s, resin BJD´s are so easy to handle and above all, change eyes. And because I find myself to be less is more -kind of a person, owning too many dolls is the deal braker to me. I want to have just a small collection.

My Blythe still needs some hair styling and cutting, and I haven´t even decided her name yet but all that will come sooner or later. Right now I will enjoy her like this while spending time with her to get to know who she really is.

Posing in her new outfit.