Yep, I finally have a Samedi Marche in my fold! Yay for another doll off the wish list! My grail doll is still there on the list though, and the good thing about this is, it keeps the hobby exciting! It gets boring when there are no goals to work towards. XD

( More about Sam and Zoe )

"V" is for "Valentine"
"I" is for "Indulgence"
"P" is for "Pamper"

( I have been teaching my darling his ABCs, and I definitely havn't snapped out of it yet! ^____^ )



( or just Very Indulgent Present )

( This is exactly a month late, but better late than never right? )

As awesome as the Blythe display was, they couldn't steal the thunder from the the real stars that day - the beaming newlyweds! Theirs were smiles of genuine bliss and happiness. Congratulations Potato and Lynn!!!

What happens when an avid Blythe collector gets married? Her husband does up a secret Blythe display at their wedding bash of course! ( More sordid details... Not! )

Taking a break from my Tokyo trip photos to post this series of shots, because it's Mid Autumn Festival tomorrow!


( More yummy goodness )

I came across Anita Tedaldi's story by coincidence, and it touched something really raw inside me. I join many others in applauding her courage to share her story of failure. May it help create a deeper sense of revelation about parenthood and adoption for everyone who reads it. For, I believe, this was Anita's objective in coming forward with her cautionary tale.

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/terminating-an-adoption/

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love."
- Mother Teresa

Yep, the finalists are out! And I'm pretty excited about many of the entries!
http://www.blythedoll.com/eng/special/photocon2009/vote.html

This year's theme was "Blythe Photo Obsession". And here are my whimisical favourites:


#03


#06


#27

Some of the other entries are not bad too, like #31 which pays homage to "Breakfast At Tiffany's". And I've come to accept that there will be a few blah entries just to make up the numbers. Well, anyway, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Perhaps there are more who find the very entries I perceive as flat, pretty interesting? But what rather baffled me was how a few of the over-exposed entries managed to sneak into the final cut. Hmmm...

Nevertheless, to end this entry on a positive note, let me just post one more pic as a special mention, just because I think the Neo Blythe here is adorable!

#21

Day 1 was supposed to be reserved for our trip to Ghibli musuem, but we only managed to get tickets for the last day. So we trooped up to Gotemba instead. Why Gotemba? Well, going up to Mount Fuji would take more than a day. And Hubby didn't like what he saw of Hakone on the web ("Nice meh??!"). Plus Gotemba actually has a lovely view of Mount Fuji, something Hakone doesn't have. Indeed we had a spectacular view of it when we got down from the bus, but we forgot to take a picture! Then we turned the wrong direction and made it to the bridge linking the 2 sections of the Gotemba Premium Factory Outlet only in mid day. By then, the sun was in the wrong direction and the fog was up. *Sigh!*

********
( Getting to Gotemba )

If you havn't seen this, you should!

I'd definitely bring a Blythe with me whenever I travel, but I do try to be fair and let them take turns. Morgan, my LL and my oldest girl, is the only one who has gone on 2 trips with me! This time, I was deciding between a couple of girls and Asia edged out all competition to be my hubby's choice. He said she looked "the most Japanese" of all my Blythes. I have absolutely no idea why though. And I don't think it's common among Japanese to have blue hair?!

We had already extended our package by 3 nights, and we thought that was sufficient. Ditto. Turns out we had underestimated our lousy flight timings. Our first and last days were totally useless and reserved purely for flying. We only had 4 worthy tour days, which meant the original package only allowed one useful day for touring?! That was pretty much our main gripe though. Otherwise, we had an awesome Tokyo adventure of sights & sounds, dolls, museums & yummy food all crammed in 4 days! And it didn't come cheap.

*******

( DAY 0 )

Another long overdue post.



( CG Love <3 )

Before I get into my Tokyo trip, there are 2 long overdue blog entries I have to get out of my system first. I uploaded the pics on flickr waaaaaay back but didn't quite have the time to organise my thoughts into proper blog entries about them.

First up, Gilian finally has her last set of chippies in, at long last!



I realise that I've grown to appreciate the charm of the stock EBL pink chips, especially when they're with an upward gaze correction. But I still can't quite stomach the stock orange ones. Fav stock chip colour: green. Least fav stock chip colour: orange. And amazingly cute as Goldie is, even she can't convince me about the orange chips the last time she was here for a visit. I debated for a while about giving Gilian some gray chips instead, but I really wanted to retain as much of that Goldie flavour for her as possible. I was thus really torn about her last set of eye chips.

Hat: Simpy kir
Dress: La Boutique de Lupi
Shoes: Handpainted Licca mjs



I thought darkened stock orange chips might be a good compromise. I'm still a bit iffy about them, but many of my flickr friends like these chips on her.

Generally, I don't quite like hand painting eye chips. It's important to make sure the paint is thin and even and there are no bubbles. Waaaaay back, my intial efforts were a bit of a hit and miss, with the worse ones looking like they are dark blobs with no iris line definitions. I was a lot more careful this time and I'm glad they turned out quite lovely!

Side note: I guess by now, it's pretty obvious that Gilian is an animal lover. She's often found with one pet or another. How many you ask? Let's just say it's a mini zoo here! XD



I'm too lazy to photograph my hand painted mary janes all at one shot. I'll just photograph a pair at a time whenever my girls wear them. I also have a black version of the scallped mary janes.

The past weeks have been crazy! There were so many things happening at the same time, while I had to do extensive Tokyo research and do a crash course in Basic Japanese in just erm, four days. Hai! Sumimasen! But it was all totally worth it. Despite using 'Wakarimasen' (literally 'I don't understand') a couple of times, Hubby and I navigated through the confusing train & subway networks, and around the language barriers pretty ok, and we wallked till our legs almost gave way, everyday. The Japanese we encountered were wonderfully tolerant and helpful inspite of our total lack of linguistic confidence. I was told though that most Japanese actually have at least an elementary grasp of the English language, but having that bare basic Japanese vocabulary definitely helped! The wonderful holiday was all too short for my liking, but I seriously had a blast! It pays to do your homework AND have Daddy God's blessings. =D Domo arigato!

My family and I were strolling through a shopping mall with freezing temperatures just over the weekend, when my lil' sis demanded to carry baby J. Snuggling him close, she say he felt like a really cuddly plushie and was so nice and warm, just the thing she needed to warm her up a bit. Of course, 1 min later, his weight got to her and she happily handed him back to Gong Gong.

Today was just like any other day, full of hugs and smothering baby J with kisses. But, it really just occurred to me what an awesome privilege it is to be able to hug him and smother him with kisses. He's tucked into bed now, but I can still smell his baby smell lingering from all those times my face was buried in his neck, his tummy and his hair. No wonder my teddy bear has been feeling a tad neglected! =D

I love my little boy so so so so so much!

Thanks to a myriad of distractions and total lack of focus during my personal time (aka darling son's nap time), I actually took a couple of days to pen this entry. As much as this is some sort of event report, this has also become a vehicle of my thoughts and memories of this wonderful event, so bear with me as I meander through my personal monologues below.

( Dolls at the Blythe Tea Party )

Two words to summarise STCC2009 for me: Blythe ROCKS! I just *might* be a little biased here, but I seriously thought Blythe was the most impressive booth there. Dollzinc has done a tremendous job this year with the Blythe booth! But I seriously need to improve my events photography more. I was so caught up with the giddiness of all the excitement that I only took pictures of dolls, and little of anything else. So yep, I didn't take any pics of the impressive Blythe booth. Lots of dolly pics though!



( Yummy dolly pics! )

Zahara and I are so deeply honoured and thrilled! One of Zahara's shots has been picked to be Blythe in Asia's group icon this month!





Will be blogging about the Singapore Toy and Comic Convention 2009 soon. So many pics to upload!

I got a new dolly - a Anti-Social Girl Misaki! Yipee!!! She's one of my grail Misakis, and I'm so thrilled to have adopted her! Who can resist that jet black hair with red streaks, blu-gray eyes, pale lips and rooted lashes? Yep, I love everything about her!

( Read more... )