Cinna and June helped me with the pots.

More of these two girls.

Toffee wanted out as well. She found my Azalea.

Have a lovely first of May. I hope you have nice weather and can enjoy nature somewhere!

And I received a surprise package from my favorite client. She became a dear friend over the years. You have seen the flowers she gave me occasionally, and now you will see some of the contents of her parcel. I know it was meant for Christmas, but I just couldn’t resist opening it.

There’s more, but the little hand crafted box with pokerwork and the lovely bottle with dried flowers and fairy lights make perfect props for doll pictures.

Catkins is fascinated by the flowers in the bottle. They are so pretty. The little star was attached to a card.

Toffee and Jellybean met a ginger bread girl :). It’s made of paper, but it looks so cute with the Monst girls. It’s a gift too, my blogger friend Linda sent it.

I hope you all have a healthy, lovely and warm Christmas – or just a relaxing holiday if you don’t celebrate. A bit of quality time with loved ones and the dollies :).

Catkins wears a festive dress today (not a single patch yet), but since it’s always a bit dirty in the woods she put on one of her aprons to protect it. She has a lot of aprons, and most of her dresses are patchy.

Tree people’s clothes blend in with the colors of nature around them. They are made from natural fibers, leather and fur. Some fabrics are dyed with natural dyes, and most of the clothes are mended and patched up. Tree Folk don’t really need camouflage colors, predators usually leave the tiny people alone. But birds of prey are an exception. Tree Folk children are taught from an early age to watch the sky when they cross open spaces.

That’s why Catkins kept a huge buzzard feather she found, it’s one of the treasures she brought home. It’s hanging on the wall, like keeping a lion’s tooth or a bear claw. Most of her other treasures are small. She found a heart-shaped stone, many pretty snail shells, some small animal skulls and bones. Willow told her that she could hear the waterfall rush when she holds a shell very close to her ear, and Catkins likes to sit and listen to the faint murmur she can hear when she does that.

This is Catkins’ basket, Willow made it for her. She uses it to collect lavender and herbs. Weaving baskets is one of the things they do during winter. Tree people use dried leaves for basket-weaving, this one is made of dried day-lily leaves.

The buttercups had to come out, but Willow saved some petals.

These white flowers are called Cerastium Tomentosum. I believe their common name is snow-in-summer, but I am not sure. They are very pretty, but spread quickly. I just cut them back a little.

After Willow picked a couple of flowers for his mom he couldn’t resist taking a dive into the pink marguerites.

Thanks for the help, Willow :).

I wish you all a sunny and warm rest of the week. We have a public holiday tomorrow, but it’s very cold for this time of year. I hope it will be nice tomorrow.

She is a bit smaller than Willow (MYou Rod), but unfortunately she has the same foot size, which will make it difficult to find shoes for her. Both can wear Taeyang boots- and I think shoes for the male obitsu body, but I have not seen any shoes for them I like. I will probably make some for her. I don’t know yet if she will be Willow’s sister or another Tree folk member.

She came with sparkly pink eyes, her carrier bag and a “hooker”. Rod didn’t, and this is really a nice and useful give-away. Myou girls always come with a bit of underwear, even if you order them blank and nude. She will go back into her little case until I know what I want to do with her.

When I look back at the past two years, I have the feeling I didn’t really live. I put my life on hold, didn’t even do things we still could do. It was somehow as if we were all waiting to get our old lifestyle back, and just killing time until that would happen. Even working at stuff for the dolls was a bit like the manic attempt to distract myself. Maybe I did enjoy it at the time, but I don’t remember enjoying it. That forced withdrawal from other people didn’t make it better. I don’t mind being on my own, but solitude changes self-perception. You don’t need to be self-aware, if you don’t want to. It used to be a nice break from all sorts of demands, but if it becomes a habit it’s probably not that great for your mental health. Hollow and passive, somehow.

So my New Year’s resolution is to try to just accept that there will be no going back, Covid is there, it will be there, and the same goes for other changes, whether they are political or ideological. Thank god people IRL seem to have a bit more common sense than the media wants to suggest, and I will try to create the most active and socially interactive life I can within the restrictions. I am vaccinated, and so are my friends, so it should be safe enough. It’s a plan, at least.

So I hope this year will be better for all of us.

Update: The lovely Morganatron who runs Peppermint Circus on Etsy provided a picture of a Raccoonhead on the old Withdoll girl body next to the Raccoonbody. Looks like a great teenager option.

FID /Raccoon chest part on JID original lower body doesn’t fit (maybe they fit on the new JID body, they seem to be smaller in the chest). FID heads on the JID body don’t work either. You can however put a Raccoon head on a JID girl original body. It makes for a rather thick necked result with broad shoulders. Even more ridiculous is a FID male head on a JID girl body. FID male heads on JID boy bodies on the other hand might work pretty well as teen sons. Both my JID boys are on the muscle body, so I can’t show how it would look on the slimmer model body. The advantage would be a possible purchase of this hybrid over doll choice.

1. Raccoon Emma on slim raccoon body
2. Raccoon Rosie head on Iplehouse old Jid girl original body
3. FID Harace on the classic FID body
4. 27cm MYou doll ROD
5. Kruseling

As you can see in the picture above, a Raccoon head on a classic JID girl body might work as a teenage daughter. No 4 and 5 might be possible Kids aged 4 to 6. Willow looks very tiny, his head is almost too small. The Kruselings are jointed plastic play dolls. This one is a dark skinned doll, there are lighter skin tones as well.

Rosie is a very elegant and mature looking sculpt, so I guess if you want to go for a combination of a JID girl body and Raccoon, other/younger looking sculpts might be better suited.

This is a combination of a JID muscle body and Claude’s head. The head is still a bit large, but this could work.

Haha. This looks so ODD. Claude’s head is still smaller than the original JID head, but it still looks ridiculous.

And of course you could just go for the curvy FID to create a teenager. They are smaller than the classic body, but about the same height as Raccoon.

And to give you an update on my question to Iplehouse if they would consider downsizing the KID heads: Although their first reaction was promising they told me a couple of months later that they don’t plan to do this any time soon. Maybe I should ask Raccoon instead if he would consider making small heads for the KID body.

His box is probably the most practical doll packaging I ever received. He came in a little zipped carrier bag with a lanyard, complete with undies, eyes, a doll cleaner and facemask. I ordered him in coffee skin and blank.

I knew he would be small, but somehow I didn’t imagine him to be so tiny and graceful at the same time. It’s probably a weird description for a male doll, but he is so well balanced and smooth, light and flexible that graceful is what comes to mind. I already have MYou dolls and I think they are great posers, but this little guy is quite the acrobat.

When I took him out of his fancy box he suffered from the snappy leg disease, though – like many very small and light weight dolls. A thorough hot glue sueding of all his joints was a huge improvement. No more snappy knees.

Speaking of improvements: I knew that Myou released new bodies for the larger dolls since I ordered my larger girls, but those I have are the “generation one” bodies. This is a company that obviously tries to work on issues. Points that might have been issues with older dolls – like the somewhat stiff looking hands or overly long necks – don’t apply to this little guy. He does have a long neck, but it looks natural. They really did a great job engineering this little doll. It’s almost perfect. The only thing I am not really happy about are the hooks- they are so tiny and sharp that I managed to poke my fingers with them when I sueded his ankle joints. But since he doesn’t need heel feet I don’t ever have to touch the hooks again. It’s not an issue, really.

As I mentioned, he feels very smooth and light, and if I had to guess I’d guess he’s printed, not cast. He doesn’t smell of resin, there’s not a single seamline. He doesn’t look sanded (MYou dolls are generally very smooth and fully sanded). He has the seamless look and feel of a high quality printed doll, but I asked MYou, he’s handmade, not printed. He just looks fragile, the make and material seems to be quite sturdy.

The tiny eyes he came with are the blue eyes he wears in the promo pics. I will probably make eyes for him, I want brownish eyes for what I have in mind for his character. The eyes he is wearing in some of the pictures are Ancient Tales eyes I bought for my Rachel. They fit, but they are blue as well.

His promo pics just don’t do this doll credit. He is just 27cm tall, but oh boy can he pose. I think he is probably the best posing doll I own. He can really do a handstand without falling over. I’d call that a well balanced doll. And he certainly is well balanced, head size, weight, foot size, limb length – all together a very harmonious result. Well done, MYou sculptor- who ever you are!

See for yourself. All these poses are possible without any effort, putty or any other tricks other dolls need to hold poses like that. Except for the sueding of course. He can pose without the sueding, he just doesn’t hold poses very well without snapping joints after a few minutes.

Excuse the crappy pictures, winter is not the best time to get good light.

I tried a couple of shoes on him, and even though he can wear YOSD shoes they look odd. But Taeyang shoes are a perfect fit, they look right and are exactly his size. I ordered these a couple of years ago for Rachel. The seller was HelloCoolcat on Etsy. The wig is a size 4-5″ from Fatiao- and no, he is not going to keep this, I just put it on to show that it fits. I guess a size 3-4″ might fit as well, this one is almost too large around the ears. I don’t know how long Taeyang legs are, but I guess they are about the same size.

I will make a basic pattern set for him at some point and share it on the blog as usual. Maybe someone has both, a tiny MYou and a Taeyang and could try what fits.

As you might have guessed already: I am quite fascinated by this little boy. It will take a while until he’ll get his face though – I have so many new doll projects that I don’t know where to start- or rather continue.

I hope this was helpful for those who think about ordering one of the tiny MYous. Just do it, they’re great 🙂

All the boots in this post fit JIDs, Raccoon, FID girls and Myou girls. I ordered most of them from Dollmansion, but I have seen them in a lot of shops. They are MSD size and with under 20$ on the affordable side.

June’s black and white boots are a bit higher and wider than the brown boots Cinna is wearing.
They come in black, white, pink, light blue and lavender, all with a white trim on both sides.

The white and gold version looks a bit too glittery for my taste, I mistook the gold for light brown. I should have read the description before buying them.

Roux loves her jeans colored boots. I use to replace the thick laces with finer ones, or at least cut the shoe laces they come with to a more manageable length.

The boots Judith is wearing are regular unisex Dollzone boots, they are a bit bulky compared to the slim feet size of the boots below, but they work with this outfit.

The jeans+brown version is missing in this picture, but these are some of the color choices.
No visible boots in the last one, I just liked the picture :).

We have a water pipe leak in the house, and since last week I have a huge hole in my bathroom wall. The pipes have been exchanged already, but now the walls need to be dried with a huge dryer. It’s noisy and annoying. The door needs to stay closed, so the cat’s litter box had to be moved elsewhere. All the stuff I usually keep in the bathroom is all over the place. I feel crowded by the mess.

Since I can’t take ‘proper’ pictures of my garden yet, we’ll have to make do with a sneak peek -and rather crappy light.