Cherry blossoms!

On Tuesday I visited a cherry blossom park in Helsinki with Xaya! We spent around 3 hours there, just taking pictures :D The time sure went fast and we had fun. Got pretty nice pictures as well! There were over 200 of them in my camera, so going through them and picking the best ones took quite a while XD

We've been planning a little picnic meet-up with friends for Saturday, but the weather forecasts are promising rain so we might need to move our picnic to another date :/ We specifically tried to have the picnic meet-up when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom and after the upcoming weekend all the flowers might be gone already... But now that I got some pictures taken in advance, I don't mind if the weekend turns up to be all rainy - we can have our picnic whenever the weather seems better, without having to worry about the cherry blossoms. There is still one day before Saturday though, so let's keep our fingers crossed for the weather forecasts being wrong! >3<

Back to Tuesday and the photos~ Be warned, this entry is going to be picture heavy :D Check out Xaya's photos from the day as well!

Last year's cherry blossom photos:
Hanami meetup with friends (meet-up & flower photos)
A thousand cherry blossoms! (photos of the dolls I had with me)

You could notice the beautiful cherry trees in full bloom even from farther away! It was a beautiful day, so there were many people having a picnic, sunbathing, walking and taking pictures of the flowers or themselves/someone else with the flowers :D

When we got closer to the trees, I took many photos of the flowers at first and even forgot about my dolls for a bit X'D The cherry blossoms looked so gorgeous! ♥ I wish I could have my own garden full of them, though I generally don't like gardening at all...

It was hard to take close-up shots of the cherry blossoms, since it was quite windy XD

There were mostly just petals on the ground, but I managed to find one full flower too! :D

We also saw a pretty butterfly! ♥ Thanks to my macro lens, I managed to get a pretty close photo x3

There were also some cute squirrels around the park ;3; Or maybe it was just one squirrel, not sure. Anyway, managed to snag a picture of this cutie as well~ I tried to get a bit closer after this photo, but the squirrel decided that I'm getting too close and ran away ;___;

We walked around the park a bit and saw this little building - the walls were painted with familiar characters from Studio Ghibli movies (Spirited Away and Kiki's Delivery Service).

Then, finally some doll photos! :D

First up is Miu! ♥ She's wearing a yukata that I made :3

Hikari and Mimi, the two Pureneemos that I brought along~ They have these matching kimonos with frill hakamas, so I wanted to get a nice photo of them together x3

Maru-chan~ Her yukata is made by me :) I'm also waiting for a blue Azone kimono set that I won from Yahoo Japan recently, shame that it didn't arrive in time for these photos since the light blue color is more Maru... Everything I touch tends to turn pink, hahah X''D

Last but not least, I had Kasumi with me~ She's wearing a gorgeous dress that I got as a gift from Irene ;3; This is maybe a bit too sweet for Kasumi, as she prefers a bit more mature clothing (as mature as hime gyaru can be), but she works as a model so it's not completely OOC for her to be photographed in clothes like this! Anyway, I'm absolutely in love with this dress, it's one of the most beautiful pieces of doll clothing that I own~ ♥

Here's a group photo of the smaller dolls we had with us. Xaya's lovely Emmi and Mimmi, my Mimi, Hikari and Miu ^^

Xaya also had these two cute Tinyfairies with her!

And that's all! Hope you enjoyed the photos :3 It's really sad that the blooming of the cherry blossoms doesn't last for long, I'd love to take photos in those scenery every day XD Already looking forward to next year~

Maru-chan's arrival

My first (and hopefully the only...) big Azone girl arrived yesterday! ♥ I've had my eye on the bigger Azone dolls as long as I've been into their smaller dolls, but there hadn't been "the one" for me until this new version of Happiness Clover Mocha :) The earlier version of Mocha was cute too, but I still thought that I'd wait if there'll be another doll that I like even more. It was the right decision for sure, this Mocha looks like it was made for me, hahah XD

I decided to name her Maru, which means "round" in Japanese~ I thought that the name is perfect for this round-faced cutie x3

Box wrapped inside a layer of bubble wrap! 

The box design is absolutely beautiful~

There was a plain white box inside the pretty box

And this girl was inside! ♥ I believe that some of the bigger Azone girls have rooted hair like Pureneemos, but Mocha is one of those that use wigs :) I forgot to take a photo, but there's a small area on top of her head that resembles the material of silicone caps and helps to keep the wig in place.

Maru with all the stuff she came with~

There are actually little magnets under her feet, so that she can stand on her metal stand base without any support!

Leaflet~

Some promo photos and an overview of her outfit and accessories

The backside shows some of the outfits that were available for separate purchase around the time her pre-orders started. The outfit on right actually looks like a bigger version of Sahra's a la Mode outfit ;3; It looks so cute and I would've loved to get it for Maru, but the price makes me cringe... I might try to sew something similar myself ^^;

Instructions on how the head and hands are attached. Useful information especially for people like me who have never handled nor seen this type of a doll in person XD

There are also some hair care instructions. I've never used Azone's doll oil mist before, since I don't really like the flat and wet-looking feeling the hair seems to get from it... But maybe if I used just a tiny bit, the end result would be good? I might give it a go at some point :)

Instructions on how to put on the clothes, there are quite many snap fasteners in this outfit ^^;

She also came with the same leaflet as smaller Azone dolls

Here's a comparison with Aya, one of my DD girls. She's on DDS body, which makes her about 58cm tall, DD base body is a few centimeters taller. I love the height difference, Maru looks like the perfect little sister ;3;

I love this girl a lot, she's even more cute in person than I expected and fits in with my DDs really nicely~! It was nice to receive a doll with some clothes for once, so I don't have to sew something in a hurry XD I like her fullset outfit a lot too, so I definitely don't mind having her around dressed in that ♥