Introducing Kaori-chan~

So, I managed to pick up Kaori, my Winter Vacation Mia from the post office on Friday, right before it closed for the weekend X'D I was planning to do a box opening, but in the end felt quite tired and wanted to just open her and play with her, without hassling with the camera. I also played some video games and she kept me company x3

I got her from Yahoo Japan for only 8,000yen, which is a great price, especially for a DS version! ;3; She came without the default outfit though, but it's quite simple so I felt like I'm not missing much if I don't have it. And I could always try to make something similar myself too, at least I know how to make socks and turtleneck long sleeve shirts hahah XD This has to be my favorite version of Mia, I really love this brown hair x brown eyes combo for her~ With BJDs, I tend to fall in love with half-closed, / "romantic" eyes and Mia's eyes actually remind me of those, so it was probably only a matter of time when I would have one x3 

From the moment I saw her pictures, I thought that she'd look so adorable with a bob-cut and decided that I'm going to cut her hair shorter~ I didn't remember to take any photos before giving her the new haircut, but in the promo picture above you can see what her hair used to look like :D I really enjoy customizing my dolls and don't want them all to look the same, so it's fun to create different kinds of hair styles!

I took Kaori out for photos, but only managed to take a few shots before it started raining >.<

I'm still working on what kind of clothing style she'll be wearing, but earthy colors like this seem to suit her perfectly, so looks like she's going to be a mori girl *3* Character-wise Kaori is supposed to be 22 years old, one of the oldest Neemos in our crew, so I want her to wear a bit more mature-looking clothes. Actually, she might look pretty cute with glasses as well, hmmm~

I wanted to take more photos, so Sarg helped me build a quick indoor background :3

Kaori actually came with a cute blue dress! *o* Currently none of my girls wear such color though, so the dress went to Sarg's Miyuki ♥ I do think this is perfect for her~ I thought that I'd take only ONE picture of Miyuki, but I always get carried away with her and end up with a bunch of photos ^^;; She's just too cute ♥♥

Looks like Miyuki wanted a piece of the cake that Kaori was eating X''D

The weekend went sooo fast and now there's another week at school ahead! I'm looking forward to all the exciting projects that we're going to have :3 Also, next weekend we'll be going to Tracon (an anime convention in Tampere) where many of our friends are going to as well ♥ Can't wait!

Neemos everywhere!

Yaay it's the weekend! ^w^ I've had quite a busy week with school, but now I can relax for a few days~ I also got home early today and managed to finish editing a bunch of Neemo photos, some of them are even a month old since I just haven't had the time to work on them earlier, due to the move and the start of school ^^;

Azone has birthdays for all of their Pureneemo characters. I still don't know if there's a calendar or something where you can check the dates, but for now I've learned about the birthdays after noticing someone on Twitter or Flickr posting birthday photos :'D The 25th was Maya's birthday and I got just the perfect idea for a photo, so me and Sarg put together this little scene of our three Maya having a birthday party, with a table full of snacks :D In these photos you can also see the Re-ment kitchen table set that I finally got last week (shipping with surface mail took forever...) ♥ If only we had more time to be more careful with the background as well, but unfortunately we had to keep it really simple and quick >3<

The treats are a compilation of some self-made things, dollhouse miniatures and Re-ments :)

The girls even had a proper birthday cake XD

A few weeks ago I took a photo with all the cute animal sets that we had pre-ordered; two black cats, one pink bunny, one white bunny and a bear hamster :3 These sets are just super adorable and I think I need to get one white cat later too...

This is actually one of the first photos that I've taken in this new apartment~

My parents asked us over for dinner a while ago and we saw it as a great chance to take some outdoor Neemo photos at the same time XD So, we took some dolls with us and after eating went to the yard. It was already evening, but still there was a lot of light! Some of the photos are just random poses, but we also had a fun idea that the Neemos collect different things from the yard and put them together in one pile X'D

Everything that Maisy, Reika and Ginny gathered!

Looks like poor Alisa was left out of the collecting and is just posing there all pretty ^^;;

These last two photos I took over a month ago, right before moving. I had gotten my second Chiika home and wanted to take some pictures of the twins together with their cat plushies~ Most of the pictures that I took didn't turn out so well, I had some issues with the lighting since the sun was shining too bright and it was hard to find a shady place. Hopefully I get to take more photos of Nia and Lia later :)

That's all for the pictures, sorry for the spam hahah X'D Hope I can keep up with the future photos shoots and post them one by one , not in a big messy bunch as this...

I should have my second-hand Winter Vacation Mia waiting for me in the post office later today, hopefully before the post office closes for the day (it's not open during weekends). Turns out that EMS packages are useless from now on, since the delivery guys can't get through the building's front door (which is locked 24/7) and there isn't any way for them to call us to open the door, so they just take the packages to the post office... It's really weird since the guys delivering the advertisements and regular mail CAN get through the door u_u It's not a big deal really since the post office is very nearby and we're often not home during the delivery time anyway, but it just bothers me why some of the mailmen have the code to the front door and some don't... (EDIT. Hahah, just after writing this blog post the tracking status updated and states that Mia is now available for pick-up XD I'll be making a box opening for her during the weekend then~)

Hope you guys have a great weekend~ :3

A dream come true~

If you follow me on Instagram, you might've seen me hype about this, but I wanted to make a blog post for it too :D

In late June I was just randomly browsing Twitter when I noticed the news of the re-release of Volks Dollfie Dream Mariko!!!

At first I couldn't believe my eyes!! *O* I had already pretty much given up the thought that I'd ever own a Mariko, since she's so rare and the second-hand prices are just too much for me... But then I got a chance to at least try my luck at the lottery! ♥ (In case you're not familiar with Volks' lottery system, basically you enter for a chance to buy the doll. Sadly they're not giving them to the winners for free, hahah XD)

On a funny note, the news of this release were posted on the next day after my birthday :D It might seem like a coincidence, but as a silly person I like to believe in fate and somehow I just can't help thinking that this was meant to be ; . ; They even used my favorite colors for the outfit and cat plushie...

Photo © Volks_dd

Photo © Tensinokizuna

I entered the lottery right away when it started, on July 11th. I think earlier the entry period for Volks' lotteries has only been a few days, but now there was time to enter until August 3rd and they wouldn't notify the winners until today, August 21st... So mean to have to wait for the results for so long >////<

This is me while I was waiting for the results lol... X'D Especially the last day was so painful!

Never in million years would I have expected it, but... I WON HER!!!

I'm so thrilled about this, I'm finally getting my own Mariko ;___; ♥ Besides being a grail doll, she's also going to be my first Dollfie Dream! Can't wait to shop for different eyes, wigs and clothes for her, and I'm super excited about sewing clothes for her too!

Sarg drew me this cute chibi Mariko, uguu ;____;

My natural hair and eye color are actually the same as Mariko's default, so she's like a (prettified) version of me, hahah ♥ I'd really love to get a matching outfit with her and take a cute little doll & owner photoshoot >3< We'll see later whether that's with Mariko's default look or with a custom wig and stuff~

Volks should send the dolls out in beginning of September, so I need to wait a bit more before getting my girl home, but at least I'll have time to figure out the perfect name for her! I didn't want to plan anything beforehand since I was so sure I'd not win her and just end up being disappointed... ^^; But now that she's paid and everything, I can finally breathe!

*victory dance*

Miu & the needlessly large box

Today little Miu received a package that she's been waiting for! ♥ I wasn't expecting it to be so huge, but apparently Hobby Search uses boxes for shipping even the tiniest items that'd easily fit in a letter ^^; Oh well, at least it arrived safely!

Now, Miu will show you what she got :) (Not the best quality photos...)

Oh wow! It's a school uniform ♥

Miu seems to like the uniform~

I'd been looking for that uniform for ages, it was long sold out everywhere and the second-hand prices were ridiculous... I was hoping that maybe I'd be lucky enough and one day find the outfit for a reasonable price from Yahoo Japan, but then I saw that Hobby Search had re-stocked the school uniforms in Picconeemo size! Ordered one right away XD

Now Miu and her best friend Yui both have school uniforms, they look so happy~ ♥ Yui's outfit was a lucky find from Yahoo Japan :) My third Picconeemo Kokoro has a school uniform too, but she's currently waiting for a M sized body from Amiami so I didn't include her in the photo!

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Oh and we saw a cute hedgehog in our trash shed last night XD I was able to get so close to it that I could've touched it, the little one didn't seem to mind me at all! The sound of the camera shutter made it flinch a bit, but it still just kept eating the watermelon piece and staring at me~

Tag: Sisterhood of the World Blog

I was tagged by Alasse and Musume to answer the questions of this meme :) I've seen many people answer these already, so I was having a bit hard time while trying to figure out who to tag hahah...

1. Do you collect anything other than dolls?
Besides dolls I also collect anime figures. My collection has grown bigger than I had planned even though I've been collecting them for just a few years... ^^; I also have many fabrics, crafting/jewelry making stuff, plushies and other cute things, though they probably don't count as collecting XD

2. Why did you start a doll blog?
First I started writing a blog together with Sarg, since we wanted to have some place were we could store our photos and stories in one place, as well as write about our doll plans. Sarg lost her interest in writing the blog (she doesn't like writing so much) and for a while I didn't write either, but then I started to miss it and decided to start over with the blog :3 I never expected that people would be interested in reading my ramblings and I'd be just writing for myself, but now that I do have some readers I also try to post some stuff that could useful to others as well, like reviews and comparisons. I've always liked writing and having this blog about things that interest me feels quite natural to me now ^^

3. Do you have one particular doll that is the favorite in your collection?
This changes a lot... I do have some all-time favorites (like Ceci, my Iplehouse nYID Emilia), but mostly I get phases when I like some doll more than the others, want to sew something for it, take photos, cuddle it, etc. I have a variety of differently styled dolls with different kinds of characters, so there's always something to fit my mood :)

I do have to mention that Sarg's Miyuki will forever be my favorite Azone, even though she doesn't belong to my collection XD She's really special as she was a present to Sarg and got her all excited about Azones. Just looking at Miyuki makes us smile ♥

4. Your favorite doll accessory?
Has to be the wings of my Soom fairies, especially the ones that Sarg has painted :) I'm always so proud of her faceups and blushing work, even if she's mostly not happy with her own work. Having wings so beautifully painted by my dearest person makes my faeries even more special and precious to me~

5. Do you know exactly how many dolls you have in your collection (you don't have to tell the number of course :-) )?
To be honest, I wouldn't know exactly unless I count them, I have such a horrible memory :'D Around 30 BJDs and 15 Azones, I think? I never really think of their quantity, since it doesn't really matter as long as they fit in the house lol X'D They're all dear characters and dolls to me, no matter how many of them there are!

6. Do you play any instruments and if so, what?
Well, I can play the piano a little bit, but I've never taken any lessons. My brother has taken piano lessons for many years so we had a piano at our house and I played it time to time. At some point I was interested in playing the guitar, but I lost interest in that pretty quickly. I do like singing though (if we count voice as an instrument XD) and I'd love to be able to sing better ;___;

7. Where is your most favorite place you've ever been?
I haven't traveled that much and so far haven't been to any specific place that I could consider a favorite... I like being home? :'D

8. What is your most favorite thing about yourself?
I've always hated this question, since all my life I'd had very low self-esteem and pretty much hated everything about myself, so what could I possibly answer... Little by little I've started to accept myself as who I am, tried not to compare myself to others and think of how I could be a better person or look better. There's still a long way to go, but compared to how shy, anxious and depressed I was a few years ago, I'm quite proud of the progress I've made so far >////< Maybe that's what I like about myself?

9. Favorite book or movie?
I love Cecelia Ahern's books! ♥ I've read PS I Love You, Where Rainbows End, If You Could See Me Now and A Place Called Here, loved them all. Her writing style and ideas for books are just mind-blowing, if you haven't read the books I really recommend checking them out~ There are also movie versions of the two first ones I listed and a few others in the process. She has written many other books after the ones I've read, but unfortunately I haven't really had time or inspiration to read for many years ^^; I hope I can catch up at some point and read the rest of her books.

As for movies, I can't really name just one favorite, I have so many... One of my long-time favorites is The Butterfly Effect, I've seen it a dozen of times yet it never ceases to amaze me. I do like many Disney, Marvel and Tim Burton movies as well :) I like watching movies from many categories, hahah.

10. If you could design your own doll, how would it look like?
I'd design a fantasy doll that'd fit into our story, probably the perfect SD sized mermaid girl to be Undine ♥ There are some mermaid BJDs out there, but so far none of them has been exactly what I'd like in terms of the mermaid tail and face sculpt. If I had some talent for doll making I'd certainly love to make Undine, but for now I'll just leave it to the professionals and keep wishing that someday some company will release the perfect Undine :) (If not, I'll just make a fabric tail...)

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I tag the following people:

Tiinyan of Pureneemo Diaries
Elina of Fairchildren
Spica of Spicasmagoria
Jaya of Pala Hartsia (you can do this in Finnish too :3)

If you don't feel like doing this, it's okay! I'd love to read your answers though~ And if I didn't tag you, feel free to do this if you'd like and haven't done it already ^^