Sunday, August 8, 2010

Sneek peek of first EXPO baby~Zak


Finally! A baby made JUST for EXPO!


These are not the pics that will go on my website of little Zak as the lighting was bad and they are "quick pics" and quite grainy. But I wanted to share him!


He is Denise Pratt's "Byron" from Bountiful baby...a big 10" long.

He has a custom made, one of a kind outfit from Laurie of Fancy Pants and Flounces. It's so adorable and JUST what I wanted for him. Thanks Laurie!!

He is sure to steal somebody's heart!


**********In other news***********

I will be "gallery sitting" today and usually when I have my shift at the Gallery, I comb mohair, but I won't be doing that today. I really, REALLY need to finish Prototype Fussy so I will be taking his head and rooting today. Here are a few pictures from last week~I've done a lot on him since these were taken. And I am going to add more color to his face when I am done with his hair.







Yep, lot's of hair on that big boy! I am calling him Fussy Ryan.

you can order his kit here:

~Fussy Pre-Order~

I entered two babies in the 2010 Colliii Awards over the weekend. I can't wait to see all the magnificent babies! Here is the general site for Colliii:

~Colliii Online~

And I've got one prototype on the way here now (Fawn by Cathy Rowland) and two lined up for my return from EXPO (And yes Becky, one VERY special custom reborn for you!)

~Link to Fawn~

She is so adorable. I'll tell you more about the other prototypes later....

I picked up all the babies from the fair last night. Everyone was just fine. Whew!

Okay, off to work I go!



Saturday, August 7, 2010

eBay came through and removed NEG feedback!!!

OH what a delight to wake up this morning and find an email from eBay responding to my complaint against porkchopsandapplesauce2010 actually NOT paying for Noah via her fake e-check that did not clear her bank! eBay has removed the NEG feedback she left!!!

Now I am back to 100%~see:

~TNGUN feedback~

YIPPPEEEEE! There IS justice in the world!

The only downer is that now there is NO transaction showing between us (which is accurate) so other sellers can't see her ID and contact me about her. BUT...I think we've posted this situation all over the world and people know of her and of the situation between she and I so it will be fine. :)

Whhoooooooo-Hooooooooo!

Friday, August 6, 2010

Hmmm...who am I sharing today? Tika!


This is Tika. She is a prototype Tika reborn from Secrist Dolls and reborn by Valencia Lacey.
I bought her at IDEX 2008. I KNOW I have more pictures of her but I just can't find them.
I just ADORE this little angel. She is rooted with my mohair (I helped teach Valencia to reborn after she bought my first Bi-Racial baby that I sold on ebay~Valencia told me that she had bought the mohair for this prototype~I just had no idea the doll would be at IDEX and I fell in love with her!) and had added human hair piggies.


She is a 1/4 limbed doll which makes her challenging to dress but fun as well. Bring on the tights!


Poor Tika. I am sorry I could not find more pics.
Hugs!

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Ribbons at the County Fair!


My collection of my two reborns (Jena and Matthew) and my three little Sharon Robinson OOAKs won CHAMPION at the fair :)


These next two pictures were the other dolls entered in the collections division:


And sweet Jason was all on his own in his division and got a 1st place ribbon :)

Just so exciting!

Had to post tonight as I'll be busy tomorrow.
Hugs!

Babies at the County Fair



I am so excited to go and check on them tonight but anxious as well.

Here is my little section of my collection. As you can see, Matthew is really, REALLY in reach of the sweet little cotton candied fingers of children...


And he is nearly irresistible so I am a bit worried about him.


Chance and Brennan are a bit more protected in their playpen:

And Mind? Well she is just cute!

Jena will be fine in on the back of the table:

And slumbering Jason is WAY up on the top shelf so he will be fine too. :)


Does he look like he might ignore the "DO NOT TOUCH" signs?? LOL


**********In Other News**********

It is time once again to enter the Colliii awards! I am excited about Colliii 2010 and have selected the babies I will enter and have their pictures all ready. I just need a payday to pay the entry fees and I have until the end of the month to enter so I'm not worried :)

Last night I just could NOT root any more. My shoulders and neck hurt so bad~so I ended up in the nursery until Midnight "piddling". I put together the little 10" baby boy, Zak who is the first baby ready for Expo. He is so cute. I'll take pics as soon as I can.

I put Prototype "Fussy's" limbs on his body and popped on his partly rooted head. Hmmmm...I'm going to add some color to his face/head. His limbs are just right but he needs a bit more tone on his face. I am really liking him though! (No pics either~sorry)

The other day I received a baby sent back for a small repair. I made her in Sept of 2007. I LOVE when my babies get to come back and visit because I get to see how they are holding up and she is just beautiful! She is an "Emily" by Linda Webb and Ashton Drake. I remember this sculpt well as I had purchased it from another artist who had started to reborn it and had given it big ucky lashes in it's sleeping eyes. This is where the problem lies with the doll. The holes were so big where she rooted that I applied extra gloss to one eye to fill in the gaps. The gloss, over time, became separated from the vinyl and needed to be removed and replaced. So last night I took a wet make up wedge and kept wetting the gloss and removing it little by little. I was worried that even though her lashes were sealed on the inside, they might come out which would cause a big problem as you can only root something so much before there just is no longer any vinyl to root into~and with the big gaps there already I would have to use strip lashes and replace BOTH sets of lashes. To my delight, the rooted lashes did not come out...not one little bit! And I had to pull that gloss right through those lashes. Yep...the lashes are sealed for life :)

So Baby Emily is resting quietly in the nursery with new and lighter gloss on that one eye. She is such a beautiful baby~I am thrilled to have her here again. Oh and she needed just a bit more stuffing in her chest/neck area. No big deal.

So how many dolls have I had returned? Well, not long ago I had a little Berenguer named Emily returned. Not because of anything wrong with her, her mommy just wanted her 1/4 limbs replaced with full limbs. Her oil paints were still beautiful, her body intact and she still smelled good. She was made in 2006.

Another baby came back that I did not do the artwork on, I just re-rooted him and gave him new lashes. His Mommy's complaint was that his hair seemed to be falling out~so I rooted him for her. Since he had the problem of falling out hair, I applied a thin layer of fiber fill inside his head, right up against the vinyl. My purpose was that the rooted hair would grab and have a better chance of staying rooted. Some vinyls simply sometimes have issues and this baby's vinyl had issues. So, I did my work and sent him home. A while later, his mommy told me that his hair had turned GREEN! So back to me he came. I still do not have any idea why his hair turned green but it was green indeed! I CAREFULLY recolored his hair using human hair dye and sent him home. Well he is coming back to me again as it seems his hair is all but gone. I am perplexed but think that maybe the fiber fill in his head shifted down taking the hair with it??? This mommy loves her babies HEAVY and he had a lot of weight in his head. I am anxious to answer the mystery.

And way back in 2006 I sold a baby on a BIN auction so she went home really fast...faster than I had expected. She had not had time in the nursery to "air out" from her powerful glues and even though *I* did not notice it, her new mommy was/is sensitive to smells of this nature. So she came back. I took her apart and let her limbs and head air out more (sealed glue in limbs~glue in head for paci and eyes). I bought a new body for her too just in case the smell had leached into the cloth. Days later I placed her limbs and head inside a plastic bag and put that bag inside a paper bag. I left it set in the warm nursery for days then did the "smell test". After receiving a smell free report from me, she got her new body and headed home. All is well :)

A baby from 2007 came back that was just too pink. ARG...it was that dang RDK pink vinyl~that stuff was AWFUL! I swear is seeps through any and all paint! I am not sure I did a bang up job toning him down but I tried. I basically repainted him. Poor baby.

I think that is all that has returned to me. But I get to see many of my babies a couple times a year as I meet with dear friends who adopted them. I am always so pleased.

Okay, I am done for today. Happy Kate??? :)


Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Wow! I totally spaced blogging on Monday!

I'll blame it on Facebook! LOL
Seriously, I crawled into bed, early (11pm) last night and realized that I had not blogged for Monday! How funny is that? I suppose I was concentrating on getting mohair processed and getting babies ready to enter into our fair.

I took 8 babies to the fair to find out that I could only enter one of each TYPE of doll, ie: cloth, vinyl, porcelain etc. Well since all of mine were reborns I had the difficult task of choosing just one.

But then again I realized that I was also entering three of my little Sharon Robinson OOAK's into the Collection division and two of the reborns are ones I made for my own collection and since I could enter 5 items in the "collection" I entered them (Matthew and Jena) in with the little OOAK's. :)

I need to take some DO NOT TOUCH signs to the fair grounds today. I don't know about in your city but oh my goodness the folks around here have lost their manners! I volunteer at our little art gallery where a lot of local artworks are displayed/for sale. I am AMAZED at how people let their children RUN around in that gallery and touch EVERYTHING with filthy hands. I am more amazed at the behaviors of the adults...doing almost the same things. I mean...it's an ART GALLERY for heaven's sakes! What ever happened to acting certain ways in certain settings? I taught my children those things and it didn't kill them. Shoot, I am an artist and I don't DARE touch the artwork without asking and then being so so careful. Sheesh!

Am still working away on Fussy's hair. He has a forehead that goes on forever so I have to keep bringing his hair line down more~LOL. I will work on him much of the day today and into the night.

I am contemplating have a super special blog offer on Tuesdays. I've got kits that need to go and a house cleaner I need to pay once a week...I might call this sale "Pay the house cleaner" sale! LOL I'll give it some more thought. Have to be a bit more creative in these downed financial times. What??? "just give up the house cleaner" you say??? NEVER! LOL

Have a great Tuesday!

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Oh my goodness~I joined Facebook!



I avoided it for as long as I could...Facebook that is. I just did not want another "thing" to demand my time. After many requests to join and much prodding from loving friends, I finally did it. I am glad that I did as it will be a great avenue to promote my dolls and, it's really not taking much of my time.

So...what's on the agenda for this week? Well....I MUST get hair rooted onto Prototype Fussy. I had hoped to start him on Friday night but my day to the city took longer than I expected. But I had a lovely lunch with Dusty Lee's new Mommy and her sister. The new Mommy absolutely LOVES Dusty Lee :)

So I will start Fussy's hair tonight and work on it tomorrow too.

I did finish a little 10" baby for EXPO. I have to assemble him yet but there is no hurry.

So this week:
Mohair processing starting today while Gallery sitting.
Finish Fussy. My goal is to list him by Sunday. Wish me luck!
Work on custom JaLily if there is time.
Enter a bunch of babies in the County Fair.

That should keep me busy!

Hugs for Sunday!