Doll year 2014

This year is soon ending, so I wanted to look back and summarize what dolls I've gotten/sold during this year and what kind of thoughts I have about this year. Maybe a boring post full of rambling, but at least this will give me some kind of a memory that'll be fun to look back to in the end of next year!

This post only consist on my doll purchases/plans, I think I will make a separate post for what kind of other plans/goals I have for 2015 than buying dolls XD

• Arrivals:

Soom SO Cuprit bronze (ordered in 2013)
Soom MD Captain Hook (ordered in 2013)
Loongsoul snail NiuNiu (ordered in 2013)
Soom MD Lucky
Iplehouse SID Stella
Iplehouse EID Aurora
Soom FL Nelen (second-hand)
Doll Chateau Faramita
Soom MD Chici
Soom FL Asis (second-hand)
Luts TDF Gretel elf
Iplehouse nYID Mari
Paper Sakura Group Ruby & Sapphire

This was a really good year~ I was able to cross many dolls off my wishlist and also get some of my long-time grails, like bronze Soom Cuprit and Soom Asis ^3^ There were many non-planned surprise dolls (limiteds </3) that killed my wallet, but they all found their place and character in the story and are very much loved, so I don't care X'D I'm happy to say that there are no regrets for this year!

This was also the year that I finally started collecting Azones, after being able to resist them for a couple of years XD I have at least one more coming next year (a pre-order) and one that I'm currently keeping an eye on and hoping to be able to get. After that, I think I have enough Azones for a while and can concentrate on giving them some clothes... Unless there are some irresistible new releases or Kinoko Juice Chiika pops up for a reasonable price XD

• Ordered, will arrive in 2015:

Souldoll Bella with Justitia's armor

Such a great end for this year! Even though I wasn't planning on getting any more dolls during this year after just getting my nYID Mari home in December, Souldoll trolled me biiig time and this girl definitely was a must-have u__u

• Rehomed:

Soom SO R. Onyx
Fairyland LTF Juri'13
Fairyland Puki Pukisha faceplate

I think these are the only dolls I've sold during this year o_o Which is quite little compared to previous years... I think I'm starting to get better at knowing my doll taste so I know exactly what will work for my plans and characters and thus won't end up regretting some purchases or not bonding with them. I'm quite happy about that since my first years in the hobby felt quite stressful and hard since I had no idea of what kind of dolls I actually liked ^^; Now I feel so much more relaxed and happy about the whole hobby, all dolls in my current crew are very dear to me ♥

• Plans for 2015:

I'm planning not to purchase so many new dolls and focus more on the dolls currently at home. I'm starting to feel like my collection is "complete", meaning that I have shelled most of my characters already and unless there are some impulse buys or other surprises, I just have a few basic dolls on my wishlist that I may or may not get in 2015 :) I think I say this for every year, but I hope doll companies won't surprise me with nice must-have limiteds ^^;

I might order Undine (Iplehouse nYID Rexy) and Eemil (Iplehouse SID Felix) sometime next year, but we'll see. I'm not in a hurry with them, especially as I'm still kind of waiting if Iplehouse releases a sculpt that'd work better for Undine than Rexy :3

Merry Christmas~!

Like promised in the previous post, here comes my Christmas post ^^
Me and Sarg took these for our local BJD forum's Christmas calendar project (we had the 24th door) and also submitted them to Soom's  Christmas photo contest.

I couldn't believe my eyes when I went on Soom's website to see the contest results... MY CHICI WON!! ;___; There were so many pretty photos, all of them would've deserved to win... But I'm really happy and thankful that Soom chose my photos~ Sarg's Ophelia got the 3rd place, which was great as well <3

Here you can see the full photostory where Chici teaches how to bake gingerbreads, enjoy!!

First you need to gather all necessary supplies for baking!

Place them on a clean table, flour can be a bit messy oops..

Then you need to evenly roll out the dough, flour is helpful so the dough doesn't stick to the table or the rolling pin :3

When that's done, let's move on to the next step!

Which is cutting shapes of the dough using these pastry cutters~

Done~ You can now separate the shaped dough and bake in oven :)

Little creatures need to be careful with hot oven, so Chici went to do something else at this point...

...But was right there when the gingerbreads could taken out of the oven ♥ Chici seems to have strong wings for such a small chick o_o

Yaaaay, now let's eat!!!

You can also build awesome gingerbread houses out of the dough and what could be better than sharing the self-made treats with your dear friends ^^

***

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone!!

Neemo-full Christmas!!

Me and Sarg met today to exchange our Christmas gifts and I was so curious to see what Sarg will think of her present that I wanted her to open it right away instead of waiting until tomorrow...

This was my present for her, Azone Pure Neemo Miu ♥ Sarg loves the Miu face (especially my little Picco Neemo Miu XD) and had wanted one, so I decided to buy this little cutie for her after seeing it for Christmas sale x3 This is probably the cutest version of her too, that super cute hairstyle and the gothic lolita look awww ♥♥ Sarg was really happy about little Miu, named Miyuki, so I'm really happy too~ I'll be getting a big Miu sometime next spring too (once the pre-order is released), we already agreed that she's going to be Miyuki's big sister x3

Aaaand just as I was leaving home to meet Sarg, a mailman delivered another doll... She is Nia, Azone Chiika, my Christmas present for myself lol XD I've been dreaming of the Kinoko Juice version, but I haven't managed to find one without a ridiculously high price... But one day I did come across this Majokko Little Witch of the Heart version which was surprisingly cheap (it was missing the coat from the outfit) and I just had to save her and bring her home ;___; I do not regret my decision, she's absolutely adorable and I don't mind having an "incomplete" fullset. I wouldn't mind having an army of Chiikas lol, definitely one of my Azone face favorites >:3 

I didn't have time to take a box opening since I was in a hurry to make it to the bus, I just took the doll out of the box and put her in my bag XD I wanted to show her to Sarg and also take a few quick snapshots with Miu.

So here the girls are together, Miyuki and Nia x3 I love it how their outfits/styles match so nicely and they look like best friends~ These are no quality photos since we were in a shopping center and had just cell phones with us XD Just wanted to have a little memory of their arrival~

Selfie!! XD

And here are Sarg's Azone girls together~

Tomorrow I'll be posting a little photoshoot that I took for Christmas, so I won't wish you a Merry Christmas just yet! ;3 I entered a few photos of the same shoot to Soom's Christmas photo contest, the results will be released tomorrow...

Review: Knitted goods from GOdolls

I bring another review for you guys, this time of an Etsy shop GOdolls~

GOdolls is located in Madrid, Spain. They make knitted hats and scarves, and also some sewed clothes. They have many different style, color and size options available (from 3-4inch Pukipuki to 10-11inch Blythe, though this may depend on the style you want) and you can also ask for custom orders if you have something special in mind :)

Besides general styles, they also have a variety of adorable character hats, including Kyubi from Naruto, Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon, Minion from Despicable Me, Olaf from Frozen, Moogle from Final Fantasy and Totoro. Do check out their shop for more designs and don't be afraid to ask for a custom design if there's a particular character you'd like a hat of!!

• My experiences

This was my second time ordering from them and both experiences have been very pleasant! The customer service was extremely friendly all the time and I received photos of the finished products when they were ready to be shipped, which I found great :) They've never had any problems with my custom order requests either, all the products I've received have been perfect size and quality!

I first contacted Alexandra on October 22nd and asked if she could make a scarf and a custom size hat to fit my Soom Chici, whose head is a little bit smaller than Pukipuki's. It took a couple of days for us to discuss all the details and for her to find the yarn for the scarf, then on October 29th I sent the payment. Despite having a medical surgery and needing to rest, she tried to work really hard on her orders and finished mine in around 5 weeks. There may have been a little delay, but it didn't bother me at all and I completely understand due to her situation!

On December 5th she showed me a picture of the finished order and said that she'd be able to ship them on the following Tuesday. I received the package exactly one week later. Since the shop is in the EU, shipping was really cheap, fast and there was no need to fear the package being caught by the customs :3

This time my order included a 3-color striped hat and a matching scarf. I was really surprised when I received another hat as a free gift!! Alexandra did tell me that she'll include a little present for the delay, but I definitely wasn't expecting another hat ;___; (See how nice the owner of this shop is!)

On left you can see little Chici being all happy about her new hat and scarf, both fit perfectly and I'm especially surprised about how perfectly sized Alexandra managed to get the hat ♥ My faeries are still fighting over who gets to keep the gift hat, but here it's modeled by Sienna XD I really like it on her, so I guess it's hers now...

My dolls are really happy with their hats and I hope to order more in the future as well~
I highly recommend this shop, their products are awesome and the communication is so friendly! ^^

• More pictures of their products

Here are some pictures of GOdolls hats that I have previously ordered ^^

Custom order striped hat with top and earmuff pom poms & Hello Kitty decorations

Fluffy teddy bear hat

Striped hat with top and earmuff pom poms (decorations added by me)

♥ Visit GOdolls ♥
Website
Etsy shop
Facebook

Trolled by Souldoll

Guess what just happened... A huuuge doll order happened o_o

You might've already read from Sarg's DeviantArt journal that we were both considering getting Souldoll's newest Tarot series release, Justitia, which has the most awesome SD sized armor and huge movable feather wings. And in the end we DID order, though my plans changed a little bit along the way and I ended up getting another sculpt with the armor XD

Photos © Souldoll

I ordered Bella with the armor+wings and Sarg ordered Justitia with the outfit, armor+wings, shield and lance. Both dolls are white skin with no make up or any blushing/painting :3

We both really fell for the gorgeous armor and Sarg loved the head sculpt as well, but for me she was lacking something and felt more like Sarg's doll than mine, which is why I was a bit unsure if I should pass on the armor as well... Then they released Bella and well, it was instant love XD That was the moment when we both realized that we MUST order these girls!!

Character-wise my girl is called Lanarwen and Sarg's is Sandrian, or just Lana and Sandra like we shorten their names in RP~ They are elf-like creatures and sisters, who are deeply in love with each other... Sandrian is the stronger sister, trained to be a warrior, while Lana is more lady-like, sweet and innocent "daddy's little girl". Sarg has made some sketches of them both and we're really excited to see how our plans will end up working for their doll shells~

Photos © Souldoll

We got a really nice 15% discount due to Souldoll's ongoing winter event, it definitely made the order less hurtful for our wallets hahah XD We'll be paying with layaway as well, which means that it might take a bit longer time for these girls to be manufactured, but we don't mind since we need some time to gather everything ready for them anyway.

These will be our first Zenith girls and among everything else, I'm very excited about the gorgeous body too~ I already have some clothing ideas in mind and can't wait to get to work on them >:3

Cruise and Victoria's Secret shop!!

Me and Sarg went on a Stockholm cruise with Sarg's father, it was sort of a Christmas present from him to us :3 We had great time! This is not exactly doll/figure related, but I hope you won't mind if I also make these "life-style" kind of posts once in a while? ^^;

(Some of the photos are taken with my iPhone, thus the bad quality...)

First I need to say that there is this beautiful sea-themed painting made by Sarg on the ship!! If you ever get a chance to visit Viking Grace, make sure to check it out ;3

This is where the painting is located~

And second... For the thing we both were probably the most excited about in the cruise, the Victoria's Secret shop!! ♥ We've never visited one before, so it was an awesome experience. All the stuff was super pretty and even though the shop was really small, we spent a lot of time walking around in there trying to decide what to buy XD I wish I would've taken a photo of the shop, it was so gorgeous~ Here's hoping they will someday open a Victoria's Secret shop in Finland!

Back in the cabin with our haul... I loooove the shopping bag design ♥ I asked if I could get their smallest version of the bag as well (my purchases are in the big one) and luckily the salesperson was very kind and let me have that extra bag XD I hope it's not too big to use for dolls... o3o

I was hoping to find a new makeup bag and I did! ^^ There were a couple of choices that I was torn between, but in the end I went with this striped one that reminded me of the shopping bag design that I love so much~ I also really liked the shape of this one and it also included that smaller bag where I can put some essential stuff and take it along in my purse :3

I also fell in love with one of their fragrance mists (Pure Seduction, scent with red plum and freesia) and was going to purchase one when I noticed that they were just putting these gift sets of the same scent into the shelf! The price was almost the same, but it included fragrance mist, shower gel and body lotion, so I picked this one ♥

I've been using the body lotion a lot already, as a hand cream XD My hands get dry very easily, especially during the winter, but I often find the "real" hand creams hard to use during the day since they're so creamy/oily and take a lot of time to absord into the skin :/ I prefer using body lotions~

And then, here's Sarg's haul XD She first fell in love with that black bag with pink sequins, which was offered as a free gift for purchases over €75. We combined our purchases so that we'd qualify for the bag, Sarg also got that leopard one to reach the required amount XD

What did you think of this post, did you enjoy reading it?

Would you like to see more posts like this or should I stick with the doll stuff? XD

I have so many other posts (this time doll related hahah) that I need to make, so prepare for spam during the next few days ^^;

Iplehouse box opening~!

FINALLY we got our Iplehouse order home!
The postal system was being such a pain for once, since the tracking claimed they'd tried to deliver the package, even though there were two people stalking at home for the whole morning and no signs of the mailman X'D Well, the second time they tried to deliver it, Sarg had already left to work and when they called her she just said to take the package to the post office, even though she knew it would be a big and heavy one to carry (over 7 kilos)... But at least that way we managed to get the box out of their hands u_u

So, me and Sarg made this order in October and received the shipping notice exactly 2 months later :) Sarg ordered nYID Vampire Chris on EID woman body (in grey skin) and I ordered SID Mari on nYID body (in peach gold skin). These two are a couple (though there's also a "third wheel" in their relationship...), so it was great to be able to order them together ♥

Now let's go on to the pictures~

WARNING FOR DOLL NUDITY!

A huuuuge box XD 

nYID and EID boxes separately. We just discussed how pretty design that green box has compared to the brown one, but the cute design would look a lot better if it was another color, like pink...

The Iplehouse logo ♥

*w*

This is my Jade ♥♥♥ She looks so adorable even blank, I'm in love already~

Jade knows she didn't arrive alone... Time to move on to the second box :3

Terraaaaa ♥ It's fun that when you're sharing the hobby with someone, there are some dolls you could never imagine owning yourself, but still love deeply and see as a part of the family ; w ;

Her handsss

And hand comparison~

The girls side by side x3 They have a really nice height difference, Terra will always be taller even if Jade wears some high heels fufu~

Love is in the aiiiiiir~~ /shot

Comparison of the plates on their headcaps

Terra now has both Chris heads, the human and fantasy/vampire version >:3

Certificates and stuff

Here's Jade with her own eyes~ I was originally planning green, but I'm glad that I switched over to this color since it looks so pretty on her ♥ I didn't have her wig with me when I went to pick her up from Sarg's, but I'll introduce her officially later when she has a faceup and some clothes (I've only finished a skirt and panties...)

And here's Terra with her eyes and wig ♥ Jade and I both love her hahah XD

That's it for the box opening and photo spam XD Now we just need to get them both styled, do faceups and tattoos, etc. It's going to be a lot of work for both of us, but we'll be sharing some photos once they're done. I might post some WIP pictures as well, we'll see~

Welcome home both girls!! ♥♥♥

Doll wishlist meme

I've seen this "Doll Wishlist" meme on a couple of blogs already and thought it might be fun to do :3 Although my wishlist situation is not that interesting at the moment, as I've managed to buy most that I've wanted during the past few years...

Oh and this is only about my BJDs, I have so many Azone favorites that I've never even thought of making an actual wishlist of them ^^;

Anyways, here we go!

1. How many dolls are on your wish list currently? 
Only four! And actually some of them aren't even must-haves, more like dolls/characters that I'm considering getting, but in the end might not...

2. How many Larger (65cm+) dolls are on your list?
All the dolls on my current wishlist are under 65cm, so none.

3. What about 1/3 sized dolls?
Four XD

4. And 1/4?
None. I only have one 1/4 sized doll at home and although I love her very much, I'd say that this is my least favorite size (if I had to pick). I might get a second 1/4 doll someday, but for now I'm happy with this one that I have :)

5. 1/6 and smaller?
None... I have so many tinies already that I'm trying hard to not get any more... Which feels like quite a challenge at times, since there are so many cute tinies out there and companies release even more all the time ;___; But I'm trying so hard to resist all temptations! XD

6. What is your grail doll?
Actually, I don't think I have a grail doll at the moment... I've been able to bring home many dolls that I considered as grails, like my bronze Soom Cuprit, so I feel really, really happy ;3; I'd love to add a grey Cuprit to my collection though, if Soom ever releases one... Grey Cuprit with romantic eyes, that'd be so pretty o3o

7. What is the most expensive doll on your wishlist?
All of them are around the same price, but I guess if I decide to get EID Yur then she'd be the most expensive.

8. What about the most inexpensive doll?
An nYID girl.

9. Which doll do you most look forward to getting in the future?
Maybe Undine (Iplehouse nYID girl), since she'll be so different compared to my other dolls and styling her will be so much fun. I'm still not 100% settled on her sculpt, so I might not purchase her in the near future, but I sure do look forward to getting my little mermaid home someday <3<3

10. Lastly, can you list all the dolls on your wish list?
All from Iplehouse ^^;
SID Carina*, SID Felix, EID Yur*, nYID Rexy*
(Sculpts marked with * could still change if the companies release something better for my plans)

Tag some people to keep it moving!
I'm usually really bad with tagging people, but this time I tried XD

Fantasywoods
Spica
Jessykkä/Ameebaporo
Chuiga
Shara
Elina

I'm not forcing anyone to do this meme if you don't want to, but feel free to do it! ^^

Dragondance

Look what a charming little fella arrived yesterday!
This is Zhimor (or Simo, which is his silly Finnish nickname...), Sarg's polyamide 3D print dragon from Eve Studio~ I can't believe how well this little guy poses and he seems so full of personality o3o Hopefully I'll get to see him in person on the weekend and see what the material he's made of is like. I'm waiting for a pet doll from Eve Studio as well and since I've never handled a polyamide 3D doll, only resin ones, I'm quite excited!

Go see a box opening and more pictures of Zhim here on Sarg's DeviantArt journal ♥