Doll talk...

Never mind me, just talking about doll stuff... (and dumping some photos).

Fall is here, and that means it's time to dress your dolls in warm clothes and arrange them in a cosy, fall-like diorama! I'm lazy, so I just put mine (or as many as can fit) in the IKEA Huset couch and pretend it's facing a fireplace.

In which case construction paper would be a really bad choice of flooring.

The little doll on the right is Evi Love, little sister (or something?) of Steffi Love. I got her from a friend - unlike Steffi she has a great facemold, perfect for a kid doll. There's a new version now that's more bland, but I still look for them in thrift stores to mug for clothes and shoes. The clothes are usually very simple and kind of ugly - I copied the pattern of one dress and made the one she's wearing here. I tend to get stuck on details when I sew doll clothes, so to combat that I try to make something really quick and simple once in a while.

Lottie and Evi

If you squint they almost look like school uniforms - fitting, since it's fall and all!

Also, I decided to give the Super Model Bel body back to DeeDee since it fits her much better than OHC Briana Joy. I'll have to come up with something else for her.

Also, I need to buy a bigger couch.

DeeDee looks a bit cold in that summer dress, but at least she got Momoko's heavy boots.

Speaking of Only Hearts Club - I just discovered that those pink tights from the party dress fashion pack fits my Volks mini guy perfectly!

Left: Volks mini with OHC tights, Right: OHC doll

I forgot to take pic, but the dress fits him really well too. Kind of typical, considering this is my only boy doll and the one doll I thought I'd dress in something other than pink dresses for a change. Oh well, it's good news since I'm planning to rebody the OHC doll next to him on a Volks EB-mini A (if I can ever get my hands on one - they seem to be perpetually out of stock) so it's nice to know some OHC clothes will fit. Most of them are a pretty loose fit on the original body and way too big for the Volks kid. 

Oh, and I finally had a go at Disney Store Rapunzel's hair:

Yes, this is the "after".

Fabric softener, conditioner, hot water... I did manage to get it mostly untangled, but large sections are damaged beyond repair, so I'm not sure recycling it for rerooting would be worth the effort. I also had a closer look at the hip joints and it seem like switching out the legs would be harder than I thought, so maybe I'll just give her a haircut and release her into the wild again. Or I could keep her around as the resident Cousin It.

Sewing for Lottie, OHC sale

What I usually do at the beginning of each month is, a: stock up on toilet paper and rice, and b: go through my dollieh wish list and check if anything's on sale, or about to be discontinued, or if maybe something I've wanted for a long time just happens to be on ebay that week. While my wishlist is practically endless my funds aren't, but having to choose between buying Cool Thing A or Cool Thing B is hardly the worst problem you could have in this world. :)

There's finally a sale on Only Hearts Club at one of the few shops that still carry them. Still not super cheap, but the alternative is paying ridiculous money for shipping, so... I got two clothes sets, the pink party dress and one of the riding outfits. 

Unfortunately the shoes didn't fit the dolls I had in mind: the rubbery pink party slippers do fit obitsu, but they're rather wide and clumsy-looking. The low riding boots (shoes? I'm unfamiliar with the terminology here) look really nice but were really tight even after I'd extended the slit in the back all the way up. 

The most annoying thing is they were sewn to the packaging, so there are two holes in on one side, and of course one had to be placed just where the wider doll feet put extra stress on the material... Since I don't want the plastic to split the Super Model girls and their notoriously wide feet will have to do without riding boots. I might go back and get one of the sets with sneakers, we'll see. 

On the other hand, the pants from the riding set fit Fashionista and Super Model really well (although a bit shorter of course), and the pink party tights were aaaalmost the right size for Howleen (a bit too short, but you can't tell under the skirt). My dolls hardly have any tights, and I haven't had the courage to try and sew any, so that's a plus in my book at least.

There should have been pictures but I got lazy, sorry! Here's what I've been working on instead today: 

Lottie's new clothes!

I found a bunch of fabric samples I forgot I had, and those little strips were just big enough for a skirt for Lottie. Not big enough for a pleated skirt, but I wanted to try something simple (and there's always the big sample bit if I decide to make something more complicated later). 

I thought I'd make something similar to those Licca clone clothing sets by Daiso I've seen. Out of curiosity I ordered a couple from a place that sells them at a reasonable price (www.foundinjapan.com) but they haven't arrived yet and Lottie was getting cold, so I decided to make my own school uniform inspired outfit.

(Dollar store doll clothes are actually great for sewing inspiration: they can be low quality, lopsided with wonky seams, but still look pretty good as a whole. For someone prone to perfectionism it's a much needed reminder not to get too caught up in details.)

Not so sure about that snap, but I didn't have anything smaller. 

I didn't have any plain white cotton fabric that was thin enough for a shirt, so Lottie gets some kind of t-shirt/blouse thing instead (made from a human sized dollar store t-shirt). Something I'm really proud of here is how the sleeves came out, even though it took a couple of tries to get them to cooperate. 

To make it more school uniform-like I thought of adding a collar and some kind of decoration (bowtie?) but I'm not sure if the fabric is too bulky for that. We'll see. 

What I'm not so proud of is the skirt, partiularly the waistline. That's what happens when you just wing it. But hey, I have fabric to make a different skirt for each day of the week, sooner or later I'll get it right. In the meantime, the top covers the mistakes. :)

Lottie's only shoes are the beige and pink gumboots she came with, but I found that these Obitsu mary janes will work in a pinch. 

Rebody WIN: Hadley and Isla on Simba Super Model

Well, less of a fail at least.

As I mentioned I've been looking for bettee articulated bodies for Hadley and Isla from 12 Dancing Princesses for som time. They're not only short (25cm/10") but also have those slim neckposts, so I thought it might be hard to find a match. So far I've been considering EAH Ashlynn Ella (seems to match skin tone but neck knob requires modification), Fairytale High (slim neck but tall, weird bodies, skintone might not match) and Disney Fairies Pixie Party by Jakks (slim neck, skin tone unsure, one blog review found the articulation lacking). 

Anyway, since Roxanne of Roxanne's Dolls mentioned she had her Hadley and Isla on Liv bodies, I decided to try using the Super Model bodies I had at hand. Since they have about the same neck circumference as Liv and Barbie I had ruled them out, but... 

Simba Super Model strikes again! 

Also, I think OHC Briana Joy might look better on Bel's body.

A bunch of comparison pics under the cut!

L: Isla(?) on Sarah's body, R: Hadley(?) on Juls' body, original body in the middle. 

I think this might work!

I used different bodies since those were the ones I had at hand. Sarah is slightly darker and Juls slightly lighter than the original body (which doesn't match the heads perfectly either), so it's a matter of taste really. I don't have the AA Hadley and Isla so I'm not sure whether Bel would match them, but Liv Alexis' skin tone seems closer. 

L: Hadley #1 on Juls, showing off weird top of the neck, compared to Hadley #2 on original body (R)

She can turn and tilt her head even if it's a bit tight. The neck looks a bit odd when she looks down, but not too bad. The vinyl does get a bit stretched over the bigger neck post, and I'm not sure how that will work out over time. I really really hope it won't split. 

A smaller neck post would have been ideal, but the vinyl around the neck hole doesn't bulge that much. (This is the thrift store Hadley with a damaged nose, btw. I files it down a bit but it's still a bit rough.) 

The Super Model body isn't quite as elegant as the original, but it's pretty close in proportions. As long as the neck hole doesn't split or anything this will probably be their bodies for now. 

Since I was playing musical heads already, I did what I should have tried before ordering a Sarah and put OHC Briana's head on Bel's body instead. It's still not perfect - her head still looks a bit green in comparison and she's still too tall - but a better match overall. Poor DeeDee will have to be a floating head for a while until I can find an articulated Bratz or another Bel (although now that I've got one each of the super model girls I'd like to concentrate on other types of dolls for a bit). 

Palm Beach Juls lost her body too, of course, but to be honest I never really bonded with her.

Briana on Bel. As usual it all depends on the lighting. 

3x Simba Super Model bodies

L-R: OHC Briana Joy on Bel, Isla(?) on Sarah, Hadley (?) on Juls 

Same as above in different light.

All four Super Model skin tones, just for reference. L-R: Miri (with original head), Juls, Sarah, Bel  

L-R: Juls, fashionista Barbie, Isla/Hadley original body, Sarah, fashionista Nikki 

...and again in different light