A Flower Garden of Dolls for May

 

A flower garden of dolls for May, with some little bees of course for pollination. 

I had a lot of fun this month joining in on a doll collaboration/challenge of which was 'Flowers'.  It was a lot of fun seeing what everyone else had done.

I made flowery dresses for a selection of my dolls including a doll I found in a disheveled state in a charity shop (the Disney doll with the bee dress on)

Molly was pleased to receive a new dress.  I had actually made this for Peggy Sue but then realized I  had used the wrong pattern, but not to worry, there is always a doll it would fit, so a happy ending.

This is Peggy Sue's dress.  It is made with a vintage fabric.

I made this dress for my smiley blonde Paola Reina doll.  I should have made her a headband to match as her stock one doesn't really.

This is a fake Blythe from Aliexpress.  I am not really sure if I am going to keep her.  I quite like just having the one, Helen that I found in a CS in NZ in 2019.    This doll is lovely though and has amazing hair!  She is wearing pansies on purple gingham to match her hair.

My CS Disney doll find who cleaned up beautifully is wearing a bee dress I made.  We have been having a lot of drama with bees in and near our garden this month, with our neighbours having problems with bee swarms.  They had six or seven I think it was in total, one of which came down to our place.  The bees were very aggressive, and over the course of a few weeks made going into the garden almost impossible without being stung.  I was stung three times!  Fortunately they have had the bees and hives removed as it was just making life to difficult for them and their neighbours.  Never before have I seen such aggressive bees.  Normally you can work in the garden quite happily alongside them.

I made a dress out of some beautiful liberty fabric for Rose, my Smart Doll.

I made a love blue and yellow sunflower dress for Everlee Rose Morgan 

Wren was thrilled to get a pansy dress.

Helen Blythe loves vibrant colours on black.

Kiwi Sindy wanted insects and butterflies on flowers.

I love the fabric her skirt is made from.  I made a dress using this fabric almost ten years ago for a Sasha doll which went to a Sasha collector in NZ.  

I only had scraps of the fabric left, so Madeline got a little bodice made from it with a gingham skirt.

This is similar to Kiwi Sindy's dress bit a different style with some added lace on the sleeves and skirt hem.

So that is the end of the 'Flowers for May' challenge and my take on it.  Sewing these dresses gave me some much needed distraction for one to two hours a day which I so badly needed.

An Unboxing - Santoro London Gorjuss Doll

For a few years, I have been debating whether to get a particular type of doll with just one main thing putting me off. I look at them on and off but often the price puts me off and then the other day the price really dropped on one of them, and one I had been keeping an eye on.  I checked the price on camel camel camel and it was the lowest it had been at under £35 so I decided to take the chance and order her figuring if I really didn't like her I could always return her, or sell her on later.  She has since dropped in price even further!  So without further ado, let's do a box opening.

Said box waiting to be opened.

Opening up the box and inside is...

A Paola Reina Santoro London Gorjuss doll.

Her box was inside a plastic bag.

The box is lovely

A lovely sentiment written on the back.

Beautiful shoe box type packaging.  No ridiculous hard plastic that you have to cut into and risk injury getting into her.

She comes attached in the box nice and simply with two little elastic bands and a hair net over her head.  So beautifully presented.  Just how doll packaging should be.

This is the type of fixing.  There was one round her neck and one round a foot.

Removed from box, I am immediately struck by her scent of Rose and Honeysuckle.  The smell is quite strong initially so anyone who has a sensitivity to scents should beware of this, although several days later the scent has lessened significantly.

She is very cute, and I love her outfit and little pigeon toes.

Her hat is held on by one of the dreaded plastic ties that go into their head, and whilst I really dislike these immensely I can understand why they have attached it, and fortunately there is only one, unlike a doll I unboxed the other week which had FOUR!

Comparing her to Madeline who also has simple features.  

It is the lack of mouth that has made me hesitant to purchase her...perhaps too much watching of Sapphire and Steele when young and a particular episode which was a little 'scary'.   I figure I could always add a mouth if it becomes a problem, I have seen others do this.  But in reality it is not as 'bad' as I thought it would be.  There is actually something quite appealing about the very simplistic features.

Comparing her in size to my Paola Reina doll Dasha.

I believe they can share the same size shoes.

I just adore her little outfit, it is so beautifully made, although it does have the dreaded velcro on the back so care needs to be taken when taking the clothes off so it doesn't catch on the knitwear or netting underskirt.

Her little feet!

I forgot to photograph her fingers and toes, but she has four fingers and four toes on each hand and foot.

She photographs beautifully.

I just adore her outfit.

I am pleased with her, especially considering she was £20 less than most of the other Gorjuss dolls and is one I would have wanted to choose anyway.   I am very impressed with the quality of dolls that come out of the Paola Reina factory.  They are all so well made with beautiful clothing. 

Her name is Little Violet and I am keeping that name. 

 

We Won a Giveaway!

In April I entered a fun giveaway on Instagram never expecting to win as my track record of ever winning anything is well pretty bad...but my luck was to change and I won.  I was so thrilled.

A lovely package of goodies arrived.

A beautiful card

All gifts were wrapped so prettily. 

Rose was excited as the giveaway was geared towards Smart Dolls and MSD 

Lovely hand written card.

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First package contained something for Rose to wear.

Love this little school uniform type outfit, complete with headband.

A shirt for a male smart doll...I have an excuse to get one now if they ever produce them again!

What a fun little drawers.

Shall we see what is inside them.

Some very fancy shoes!

These shoes were also handmade by the talented Mimi who sent them.

These are MSD size, so I guess one day I will have to get a doll to fit them ;-)  but in the meantime they look great as display items.

Also included was a bag from the Mirai Store in Tokyo.

What a lovely lot of goodies.

Rose looks good in her little outfit.

A big huge thanks to the generosity of Mimi who can be found on Instagram @moomoo_mt

I love these gifts so very much and feel so lucky to have won them.