Doll year 2015

It's time for an overview on how this year was for me in the doll hobby~ I wrote about last year here and also wrote a separate blog post about my goals for this year :) Next year's goals will get their own post a bit later as well and in that post I'll also go through this year's goals that I had and whether or not I managed to achieve them! In this post I'll just list which dolls arrived or were rehomed during this year and what kind of plans I have for next year :3

• Arrivals

BJD:
Soom MD Toad
Eve Studio Russian Toy Terrier
Souldoll Bella with Justitia's armor (ordered in 2014)

Iplehouse SID Eva

Iplehouse SID Grace
Soom MD Onyx

Dollfie Dream:
DDS Mariko

The doll year started quite nicely in January when I got Toad that I won from Soom's 2014 Christmas photo contest and in June I found out about the re-release of DDS Mariko, a doll that I never thought I'd be able to get! As a cherry on the cake, I got grey skin Onyx, another doll that I thought would always be out of my reach... She's really special, as she was also a dream come true for Sarg at the same time!

I was supposed not to buy any dolls this year, but again there were some irresistible limited dolls and other temptations that I just couldn't resist getting ^^; Still, I have no regrets and even though my doll family is quite big already, all of my dolls are important and dear to me ♥

Azone Pureneemo:
Cotton Candy Miu
Picconeemo Koron
Secret Garden Chisa
Minami-sensei (DS ver.)
Sweet Punk Girls Koron
Majokko Little Witch of the Heart Chiika
Blue×Pink Maya (DS ver.)
Little Briar Rose Lien
Winter Vacation Mia (DS ver.)
Swan Lake Raili
Risu-san Chiika
Little Maid Chisa

Azone Picconeemo:
Dreamy Girl Chiika
Wicked Style Aika
Lil Fairy Lipu (Lambs of Sheep Year)
Lil Fairy Erunoe (Azone Staff ver.)

This was my second year collecting Azone dolls and the Neemo family grew quite a lot... I managed to find many of the older releases that I had on my wishlist (like Minami-sensei ♥) and didn't want to miss on the pre-orders of the new ones that I liked, as finding dolls second-hand can often be so frustrating >.< Like with BJDs, I have no regrets and love all of these dolls!

• Ordered, will arrive in 2015:

Souldoll Aehael
Souldoll Junia

MSDs are not really my thing, but Souldoll managed to release two irresistible ones in a row... I'm not sure about their characters or even names, which is why I haven't talked about them in my blog yet. I'm quite excited about these two, though also worried that I might not bond with them because of the size ;___; I guess we'll see how things go once they get home~ I've seen some people get their Aehael already and in pictures she does look absolutely gorgeous! ♥

• Rehomed:

Soom MD Lucky

Even though I really liked this birdie, I just couldn't bond with her :/ I had expected her blue skin color to be much lighter and less bright, but it was actually veery different compared to the other dolls previously released in the same skin color. I do love the sculpt a lot though and find myself missing this girl from time to time, but still I think I made the right decision by letting her go. I wonder if there's ever going to be a chance to get Lucky in some other color, like grey or pastel purple *o* Actually, I noticed that Soom just recently released her in WS and NS, but I'm still waiting on a possible Free Choice event or something with more special color options~

• Other thoughts on 2015:

I feel like this was quite a lazy year for me, as I didn't take as many doll pictures as on previous years and didn't sew that much either ;___; There have been lots of changes in RL stuff, like moving together with Sarg, and many things have kept me busy most of the time. I've still had time for doll things, but often we just play around with the dolls - have a few at a time in our living room and pose them or change their outfits etc. without taking any pictures. It's relaxing, but I still wish I had taken more proper photoshoots >3<

This year we also started meeting up with a bunch of doll people that have become our great friends~ ♥ Hopefully next year we manage to arrange to meet-ups as well ^^

• Doll plans for 2016:

Sarg actually ended up buying Souldoll's Tera Zenith Oscal, which will be my character Eemil, so that crosses one doll off of my wishlist and I no longer have need for Iplehouse Felix, thank god!

In 2016 my number one thing would be to finally find the perfect sculpt for my mermaid girl Undine and get her home. Other than that, I don't really have any BJD plans as my crew is starting to feel quite complete! We're planning for a Japan trip, which will require saving some money too, so hopefully I'll be able to stick with getting just Undine and there won't be tempting limited releases etc. I hope there won't be many new Azone releases that I'd like to get either >.< The beginning of the year doesn't seem too promising though, as there'll be two (or maybe three...) cuties that I have my eyes on...

Overall, I'm looking forward to 2016 and hope it'll be another good year in the hobby ^3^

Christmas aftermath

So, Christmas came and went, I hope that all of you had a great time :) I definitely enjoyed spending time with my family - we ate traditional Christmas food, visited the graves of my grandma and granddad, watched TV and chatted a lot. Presents are not such a big part of our Christmas these days, it's more about just being together. My brother and I used to gets many presents when we were kids, but nowadays our parents don't really know what they could buy us if we don't wish for anything specific... And I rarely have anything to wish for and I couldn't really ask them to buy me any doll/figure related stuff XD Buuut I got a pair of nice warm socks that my mom had knitted and two pieces for my Nomination bracelet, as well as some movie tickets from other relatives :) Also, our friends Janina and Patrick gave us some chocolate, candy and necklaces, mine's a cute Hello Kitty ;3; Awesome presents! ♥

I also had Susumi with me and took a few quick pictures ^3^ I had made a Christmas outfit for her and Sarg made cute hair bows and a necklace to match with everything. I also changed Susu's wig for Christmas, this one's a limited color from Leekeworld~

It would've been nice to spend more time photographing her with all the Christmas decorations my folks had put up, but the camera battery ran out :/ The charger broke just before Christmas, so I couldn't load the battery either... Tomorrow I'll go get a new charger, it has guarantee for 3 years and broke within a year, so I'll get a new one for free. I feel like all technology gets broken so easily nowadays u_u

Took a few photos of my dog as well, her name is Tea ^^ She lives with my parents, but I try to go visit her whenever I can~ I would love to have her home with me all the time, but I thought the environment at my parents' place would be better for her. She has gotten used to the big house and own backyard where she can run free - our apartment is much smaller and I wouldn't be able to let her out of the leash here. Even though she's really obedient and well-behaved, she might not obey  me since her hearing is not so good anymore ^^; She'll be 11 years old in March! My dear~ ♥

Only a few days of this year left! Am I the only one who feels like the time has gone way too fast? I really need to get started on writing those doll year and plans posts if I plan to post them during this month :D

Merry Christmas~! ♥

Before I leave to spend this day with my parents, I wanted to share a few Christmas-themed photos with you guys~ ♥ These were taken and edited on yesterday already, since I'm leaving right in the morning and wouldn't have had time for that today :3

First of all, I took a photo with all of my Picconeemos~  Here you can also see my newest Picco girl that just arrived on Tuesday, but I didn't have the time for taking box opening photos. She's an Aika named Aimi, the one in the middle of the photo~ Now I have one of each Picconeemo face, except for Himeno which will be getting a new release next year and she'll definitely join the crew then!

Me and Sarg also took some pictures for the annual Christmas calendar project of Finnish BJD forum, our day was the 24th - just like last year ^^ Since the weather outside is far from the "white Christmas", we decided to create a small Christmas set-up with some fake snow. Hopefully these photos bring at least some Christmas atmosphere to those people who don't have any snow~

Sarg posed the dolls, while I was taking the photos :3 It's fun to do things together~ Sarg has said that she enjoys posing the dolls more than photographing herself, while it's often the opposite to me XD I guess we make a good team, hahah...

Lulu and Neffie are ready to open some presents!

I wonder what's in this big one...

Whaaat, it's Olga?! D:

"Where are my cakes? >:I"

Grumpy little Olga still got some hugs since it's Christmas ♥

Even though she doesn't seem to like it that much X'DD

A few random shots:

Our smallest resin dolls~

On behalf of all tooth fairies, Lili wants to remind us that we need to remember to brush our teeth extremely well on Christmas, since we often eat many sweet things, like gingerbreads XD (I feel bad how little attention this girl has gotten from me... I've even thought about selling her a few times, but every time I look at her, I just can't do it ;___;)

I won Tony from Soom in their last year's Christmas photo contest and wanted to take a photo that I could send them to wish them merry Christmas ^^

Of course I had to snap a few photos of Chici as well, since she has her own winter hat and scarf! ♥ This was Chici's first time in the snow, so she got a bit too excited...

Merry Christmas everyone~ ♥

Hope you all have a great time with your families and friends ^^

After Christmas I need to make my doll year 2015 post and also talk about my plans for next year~

Meet-up before Christmas

We hadn't had a proper meet-up with friends since Tracon in September and not everyone was there, so it had been a looong long time since we last saw some of them! Luckily we managed to pick a date that was okay for everyone, though Janina got sick on the last minute and couldn't come ;___; This time our meet-up crew consisted of me, Sarg, Tiinyan, Spica, Elina and Jaya ♥

Since it's the last weekend before Christmas, I thought that there would be tons of people shopping for presents and that all cafés would be crowded... But when we went to check a café on the top floor of the shopping center, it was almost empty! Which was of course only a good thing for us XD We managed to get a nice table in the corner and besides a few kids that were curious about the dolls we had on the table, it was quite a nice place for the meet-up.

Once again we had a great variety of different dolls: Azones, BJDs, cats and even a Bratz boy! :D This time no one brought bigger dolls though. I had thought about bringing Susumi, but since I didn't know how crowded the café would be, I decided to leave her home just to be safe. She can accompany me at the anime conventions next year :)

Elina's sweet Siru (Little Princess Nina) and Spica's Ayato (modded Soom Romantic Ai)

A close-up of Siru~ She's such a cutie pie ♥ Hope I won't start regretting not getting this release >.<;

Jaya's lovely Jeeli (Pipos Derek) ♥ Pipos has such a beatiful shade of grey resin~

More cute Pipos cats, Tiinyan's Vilho (caramel Ringo) and Elina's Malva (mint Ringo) :3

And meanwhile, my girls were derping XDD

Spica's Remy (Soom Necy) wondering if Chici can be eaten or not? D:

Spica's Ren and Tiinyan's Frej, which are both Soom Han/Asronn! It's always fun to see how different the same sculpt can look with different faceup and styling ^^

Spica's Antti K was clearly on a Christmas mood XD

Jeeli and Sarg's Elmo

Tiinyan's Aoto, the only boy Azone in the meet-up this time :/

Elmo left his own tail at home, so he wanted to play with someone else's...

Chici got to meet her crush, Tiinyan's Kaspian!!! o3o ♥ She was feeling a bit shy at first...

Kaspian is the cutest!! ♥

Like a true gentleman, Kaspian offered his hood to Chici XD

♥♥

Jaya's Kiseki and Sarg's Mayuna, looks like the two became friends!

Elmooo

I ate a piece of delicious chocolate cheesecake, Elmo would've wanted some too... u_u

Here's a group picture of the dolls~ It just occurred to me that we took this after Elina had already left, so her dolls are not here :/

Tiinyan's Koron

The birdies, again ^^;;

Sarg bought some salad with chicken and feta cheese! It was yummy ^3^

Spica surprised us all by giving us little Christmas presents ;__; We didn't have the patience to wait until Christmas to open them, so we opened them as soon as we got home. She had bought a Littlest Pet Shop figure for all of us! ♥

Here are the ones that me and Sarg got, mine's the yellowish one on right :)

Thanks for the great meet-up guys~! ♥ Next month there's an anime convention where some of us are going, so we'll get to meet again quite soon ^3^

Photo story: Chici's secret crush

Here comes a new photo story, this time starring the little yellow bird, Chici! She's been having a little online crush on a handsome, little blue bird, who she's hoping to meet in person soon... The Christmas season made me come up with this funny idea for a photo story :D I pondered whether or not I should add text to the photos or below them, but in the end I thought I'd post them without any text and Sarg helped me by adding the effects :) I hope that you don't find the story line confusing to follow without text!

Even though Chici is usually very outgoing and brave, she might be quite embarrassed and insecure if this blue bird actually found out about Chici's silliness ^^;

The "mysterious" blue bird doesn't belong to me and the photo isn't mine either, it was used with the doll owner's permission! :3

***

Thanks for reading, hope you all enjoyed this little story ^3^

In case you were wondering, the blue bird (named Kaspian) belongs to Tiinyan~