The World of Deirdre Quinn

I had my big surgery on Tuesday, was in hospital for 3 days and got home Friday afternoon. I am in a bit of pain but taking it easy. Resting a lot but still able to walk around a little bit. It will take a while before I am back to normal. The doctors say 3 months at least. I can't really sit at my computer for long so I am working on my laptop as I sit in my lounge chair. I won't be able to post as much for a little bit but when I am well enough, I will be able to continue with the stories.

Today's quick post is about Deirdre, one of my longest residents here. She is an AOD Qian with a custom face up by Xhanthi. This doll is dear to my heart. As most of you already know, AOD and DOD are companies that initiated my love for these dolls. 

Deirdre has had her name for a while now. She probably had other names before but this one has stuck around for several years, the same goes for her red hair. Her eyes have had several changes until I decided on the ones she wears now (picture below).

Her brief bio says that she is the owner of the Wayward Inn Cafe where she makes very tasty treats that tend to cheer up the consumer even with just a single bite.  

Emerging from the Silence

Has it been a year since I last updated this blog? Time has certainly flown by at the speed of light. I hope everyone is keeping well, if you are still here following my blog, thank you for sticking around. Life with a 5 year old is always busy so free time for my hobbies has been in short supply. Thankfully, things are starting to settle into a nice little routine these days allowing me to dabble in my many hobbies.

Recently, I was able to purchase a bjd secondhand, my first in 2 years I believe and from one of my favourite companies. She is an Impldoll Xiao Wei in their MSD size. I am her second owner. Her first owner took excellent care of her and she is in top condition for being made in 2015. Minimal yellowing, just a lovely mellowing of her pink skin. Sadly, her fox face was sold and did not come with her. But that's okay. I like her human face and still see a bit of the fox in its sculpt. 

I am still experimenting with eyes and wigs to get that perfect combination. And I will have to attach eyelashes to her at some point. She was purchased from a seller in my country - I rarely if ever buy from overseas these days as I am uncertain whether issues still exist with shipping. To be honest, I prefer getting these dolls second hand. Less wait time for starters, and I just love to give new life to an "old" doll. And in true "me" style, I seem to go for the unpopular sculpts yet again that have not got many owner photos. 

Her "working" name is Amalie. That may or may not change. I really do not know who she is yet. She is a blank slate waiting to be filled.

Breaking the Silence

 

Hi Folks! I know it's been a while since I've last posted on the blog. Many of you already know the reason why I've been a bit MIA since last year. I've missed reading everyone's blog and catching up with what you are all doing. 

Life has been very different these days with a 4 year old to look after!! (We recently adopted.) So free time is non existent. I do miss my hobbies but maybe once things are more settled I might be able to squeeze in an hour or two to myself! 

Just wanted to post a quick update and let everyone know I have not abandoned the blog, just trying to find the time to update is going to be a slow process for a while!

Hope everyone is doing well and keeping healthy! 

Reflecting on the 2019 Doll Year

How is it mid January already? I really need to stop starting my posts with this question because every time I blink, a good chunk of the month has come and gone! It makes me feel old!

After reading Xanadu's post on her 2019 doll arrivals, I felt inspired to reflect back on my own doll year and see who arrived in 2019.

Let's start with the Integrity Crew...

Another Year Comes to a Close ....

December 31st, 2019. New Year's Eve.

This is the part where I usually do a round up of the  goals I had set myself at the beginning of the year however, after looking back to my New Year's Eve post from last year, it seems that I never set any goals which is a good thing as I doubt any of them would have been checked off this year.

It's hard to sum up 2019. The most significant thing to happen to me was the loss of my cat of 19 years, one year after the loss of my first cat. The rest of the year honestly is a blur.

Since November, I have made more of an effort to work on not only my art but also putting down my thoughts in a journal. This has really helped me get some perspective on things in my life. 

I had hoped to do a doll photoshoot today for this post but time got away from me. I spent the last day of the year going through and completing every unfinished art in my sketchbook since I started the book on 23.11.19. I have achieved this thankfully but it took me most of the day as a lot of it I decided to complete with gouache or watercolour.

I want to thank everyone for visiting my little blog this year, I appreciate that you stop by and share your thoughts with me. I wish you all a truly wonderful year ahead and  hope that 2020 will see your dreams take flight.

Christmas Aftermath

Another Christmas, come and gone for another year. The lead up to Christmas Day is always so busy and chaotic (with lots of stress). I likened it to Weddings. A whole lot of fuss for a few hours and then it's gone. I always find myself feeling a little empty after Christmas is over. I'm not sure if this is good or bad yet.

I hope everyone had a beautiful Christmas Day and that you were all able to create some happy memories with loved ones. My lunch went off smoothly, everyone ate their fill and then some and for the first time in a very long time, hubby and I got to spend Christmas night at home by ourselves. The only thing missing were our beautiful cats. We felt their loss quite keenly on this day. Normally because they would be getting into the wrapping paper and chewing on the Christmas tree.

We spent the night watching a few episodes of The Witcher on Netflix. How about you? How did you spend Christmas night?

I do come bearing photos. Hubby got me the much asked for new lens for my DSLR. I'm still getting used to it. So of course, I had to take some photos with it.

My Sony Angel tree that I keep in my craft room. Coraline has also joined the "tree gang". And the origami Christmas tree I made. These Sony Angel babies were gifts from the generous DollsDolour over the years. This wooden tree actually stays out all  year so it doesn't just come out at Christmas time. I just love the design of it. Looks exactly like a tree I saw in a magazine.

Time Marches On

I can't believe it's been a month since I last posted. It's not for a lack of not doing anything. I've recently started getting back into my art again and also journalling so I've been doing a lot of that as well as teaching myself hand lettering. I've discovered being able to reproduce hand lettering quotes enables me to quickly learn how to and what types of lettering there is out there. I've slowly started doing my own designs using everything I've learned over the past few weeks. I've also been doing some tutorials on watercolour and bought myself a cheap Gouache set to experiment with.

I did take some photos of my dolls today. My almost 2 month long order (of only 3 pieces of clothing) finally arrived from Alice Collection. I have to say, I am getting tired of waiting so long for clothes - and they aren't even sets either, just individual pieces.

Hubby recently bought me Paintshop Pro 2020 Ultimate (it was on sale) which also came with a bunch of photography applications as part of the package. I'm slowly learning it but these are my first photos editing with the program so I hope they don't look too bad. I'm very excited about the possibilities of photo manipulation with Paintshop Pro and can't wait to take it for a test drive.

Hubby also bought me an early Christmas present in the form of the HP Sprocket (pocket printer). It's been pretty awesome and useful for my journalling and printing out photos of dishes for my recipe book.

On to the photos ...  Seven models his new jacket.

Being Coraline

Thank you everyone for the kind words of support over my last post. I appreciate every one of them. It has been a hard week with my boy gone but we are taking it one day at a time.

In an effort to get back to routine, hubby and I decided to do our regular Thursday night shopping just to get out of the house and try and be normal for a little while. While we were out, he found the Coraline figure I had been wanting to get for a while now. This figure is incredibly hard to get your hands on as it's sold out at most places and has been for a while. So it was a surprise to find that our local Zing store had her. Hubby bought this for me to cheer me up a little.

For those who aren't aware of who Coraline is, here is a trailer to the official movie, released in 2009.

"I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn't mean anything? What then?"

~ Neil Gaiman, Coraline

The Force of Forward Motion

It's still early days of 2019 and I am hoping the new year is bringing everyone closer towards their dreams and goals.

I finally got a photo of my growing collection of what I call 'Christmas Babies' although there is an official name for them. I just can't remember what they are! The kind Niina sent these to me, two she sent last Christmas and another two she sent to me this Christmas just passed, among other thoughtful goodies.

They always bring such big smiles to my face and I really wanted to showcase these little ones together. They are very addictive. Although I get constantly asked, "Why aren't they wearing pants?" to which I always reply, "You just don't get it."

I debated whether to do any goals in regards to the hobby for this year. Initially I wasn't but then I thought it'd be nice to have a list to look back on at the end of the year to see if I actually set out to do the things I wanted for a change or whether life just got in the way as usually happens. So here goes...

2019 Hobby Goals:

• Take more photos of my figures
• Make dioramas for the figures
• Make more dioramas for the dolls 
• Really, quit procrastinating and learn to sew fantasy clothing (because I can't afford to buy them on my budget!)
• Save for a fantasy bjd (sculpt unknown - let's see what comes out this year)

That's it. I'm keeping it short and sweet for the goals this year. Nothing too complicated and convoluted. I'll end on that note with a snapshot of one of my Barbie dollhouse renovated rooms. I picked up some nifty pallets in doll size at a local hardware store and decided to play around with furniture designs.

Enjoy the weekend! Now back to Sims 4 ...

Just Around The Corner - 2019

As 2018 slowly wraps up and we prepare to welcome in 2019, I find myself strangely sad despite all the upheavals that happened during the year. Every year that ends, is another year older and I can't help but feel time slipping through my fingers. It's hard to imagine this feeling when I was a teenager. Back then, time moved so slowly and all I wanted was for it to speed up. Now that I'm older, all I want is for time to slow down and let me catch my breath.

Going through my post at the beginning of the year, I realised that I did not bother with a goals list this time around so I have nothing to check off. Did I achieve all the things that I set myself privately? Yes and No. I grew up a little more, I experienced the greatest of all sadness in losing a dearly beloved, I learned my body is not as flexible as it used to be and fails me often, I welcomed a nephew into the family and I adore him, I found happiness where I could in those small moments that I will cherish forever.

I don't really know what's in store for the New Year. I'll just take it one day at a time.

And because today was a good day, I decided to take some last 2018 snaps of a few dolls and figures.

The Post-Christmas Post

First, I would like to thank everyone for their good wishes for Christmas in my previous post. I hope you all had a wonderful day with those you were able to spend it with. Mine was busy as always with lunch at the in-laws and dinner at my Dad's. I felt like all I was doing was eating all day!

I wanted to share some Christmas photos I took that I never got a chance to post about. The lead up to the big day was pretty crazy here.

I did get an early Christmas present from my husband in the form of Gigi Hadid. He kindly let me open it up before Christmas day so I was at least able to 'play' with her a bit.

Sidenote: I have no idea who this Barbie's inspiration is at all. I just really liked her face sculpt and the fact that she is the petite size so she's smaller than my other girls.

This is what she came in originally. Even though she was covered in plastic, when I did remove that sweater, the plastic had not reached far enough to cover her hands so unfortunately, there were some dark stains on her hands. I don't know why her hands weren't also covered as the sweater sleeves end well pass her hand length.

Have A Good Ole Jolly Christmas

The next few days are going to be pretty busy here (and I have to work Christmas Eve) so I won't get much online time between now and Christmas Day so firstly I want to thank everyone who reads the blog or stops by to visit. It's always nice to chat with you all. And ...

I hope everyone has a really wonderful Christmas from everyone here at The Wayward Inn!

The 2018 BJD Crew

Welcome to December everyone! I hope the beginning of the festive month has been kind to you all. I still can't believe Christmas is only three weeks away. For the first time in a long time, I am not organised.

To mark the drawing closer of the end of the year, I decided to update the BJD crew as of this point in time. Technically, there are twenty full dolls and a floating head that shares a body.

...AND I've officially run out of space in the doll cabinet so unless I can figure out a way to shift the smaller bjds over to the vinyl cabinet (although I kind of prefer all my bjds in the one cabinet), I'm not sure I will be able to fit any more dolls into this crew. I may consider selling the Tiny girls in the New Year (the Pukifee and AquariusDoll girls). Everyone else I'm pretty okay with to stay. I will most likely not add anymore bjds to this collection. I won't say never but as of right now, there's really nothing that turns my head enough.

In the New Year, I am also going to work on splitting my crew into two solid groups, one set purely in the world of fantasy and the other in the world of urban-fantasy and neither of the groups or stories will ever cross over. This is primarily because those are my two favourite genres and I've discovered in the past that when I try to make my entire crew from a single world/genre, I become restless and uninspired.

My plans for the New Year, let's try and stop buying more dolls. Seriously. I will also have to look into what I want to do (to cull or not to cull) with the other doll lines. Can anyone recommend second hand marketplaces for doll sales?

That's all for today. Have a fantastic week!

Cold as Ice

Alden got his new wig. The original description of its colour was "Mocha". It's a nice blonde colour which goes so well with his pale face up. I have changed out his eyes since I took this photo though. I gave him smaller and darker eyes which now stands out a lot better in all that paleness he has going on.

Transmutation

Ever had one of those sculpts, you know the kind, the ones where it's impossible to find the right look, the right wig, the right eyes, the right body for? You've dwindled the slush fund buying wigs/clothes/eyes that just never work and you're left with a pile of stuff that makes you grimace.  I have not only one, not even two but three of those sculpts. They are Popodoll Bomu, Dollzone Cosmo and Dollzone Hid. What is it with me and Dollzones and not being able to pin them down? DZ Hid I will talk about in a separate post as I have a lot of photos to go into that post. For today's post, we'll concentrate on the two SD sculpts that are giving me no end of trouble.

Let's start with Popodoll Bomu.

I've lost count of the number of wigs I have bought for this doll and discarded because they did not work. This is the latest wig and I just do not like it on him. Maybe it's because his face up (by the fabulous Fabuula Rasa) just outshines practically everything I try on him. His character has also given me a ton of grief because I just never know who he is and I think it's because I've never found the right wig for him.

2017: At a glance

Back in December 2016 on the last day of the year, I made some "plans" for 2017. I thought it'd be a good time to see how those panned out.

* More customisation, practice, practice practice

Well, I actually did do some of this, painted a few faces, am experimenting with using airdry clay to sculpt on hair and markings/engravings on MH dolls. I want to make a Dryad. I've wanted one for a while and gave up waiting for one to be released. Although my Dryad isn't your friendly garden variety. I'm planning on something a bit more scary and force of nature-ish. That's the plan anyway. And I'll be trying out some tattoos soon when I do my version of Harley Quinn from Suicide Squad. More on that in a later post.

Poppy Update

I have three Poppy Parker dolls on order. I'm not sure of their release dates yet but probably some time this year.

The first I already posted about, Popster Poppy Parker who was one of the 2017 membership upgrade dolls for W Club. The theme for Poppy this year was the Swinging London Collection where Poppy heads to 60s London.

**All photos are promotional photos by Integrity Toys.

The second doll was from the first wave of Poppy Parker dolls for this year. This particular one was an exclusive for W Club members. She is the Welcome to Misty Hollows Poppy Parker. The story being that Poppy was asked to star in the production of a TV show called Misty Hollows. I love the very Victorian-esque feel to her.

The Friend Zone

I was lucky enough to win an E-bay auction for my second Poppy Parker 16" Teen Fashion Model. This time, I managed to get Poppy Parker herself in the Winter Wowzers edition however she was being sold nude without any of her clothes or accessories. I'm not complaining as it was a really good price. I think she will go very well with the redhead girl I have. I debated going for another Poppy with a more subtle face screening but because Mallory has such a bold face screening, it might have overshadowed a subtler Poppy so I went with this one.

Promo Photo by Integrity

She will be Mallory's best friend. Now if they release a 16" male for this line, I would most likely add him to this collection but three is more than enough for me in this size.

Taking a step up

I joined the W Club this year. I know I had previously said I wouldn't again and I didn't join in 2016 however, it was hard to get any of the dolls at retail price (most were triple that if not more on the secondhand market). Plus, one of the upgrade dolls was a really neat looking Poppy Parker.

Promotional Photo by Integrity Toys

She is the 12" Popster Poppy Parker doll from the Swinging London Collection. I really love the face screening on her and it looks like the fashion theme for this year might be the 60s era which I love. Mod style fashion. Bright, fun colours and designs.

I'm also stepping it up this year and plunging into the world of 16" fashion dolls. I purchased my very first today, second hand, at a great bargain.

Promotional Photo by Integrity Toys

She is the Silver Shine Mallory Martin from the Poppy Parker Fashion Teen Collection line. She uses the old Tullabelle sculpt (Poppy Parker's granddaughter) but in this reincarnation, I believe she is Poppy Parker's best friend.

I purchased her nude so she doesn't come with any clothes or accessories which is okay as I wasn't too fussed on her dress anyway. I think she is quite a stunner and she has my favourite hair and eye colour combination which is a bonus. I am pretty excited about delving into this new size of fashion dolls. I'm hoping to get a 16" Poppy Parker doll at some stage. I am hoping Integrity release some this year.

In other news, I have discarded the wishlist. They never seem to work for me. I decided to not get anymore bjds. I really feel that I've moved on from the acquisition of those dolls. I'm happy with how many I have currently and don't really want to add anymore. I may even decide to downsize at some point. Although who is to go will be a hard one.

Wishing everyone a great weekend!

Running on Air + Box Opening

I've finally got a chance to sit down and do some things today after a very hellish two weeks, more on that later.

First, some box opening photos back from the 11th January. This one was from Amiami.

She is the Merry Go Round Momokodoll. I ended up purchasing her with part of the Christmas gift money I received from my dad. This makes her the fourth Momokodoll to join my collection. I was particularly drawn not only to her outfit but to her hair and eye colour combination. She also looked like a girl who liked to have fun.