Silver dress, did not win anything but my own personal favourite

Gold dress won 3rd place in the costume competition ^^ Yay me! Thanks to all who voted for this one!

On a grey November Sunday morning I ventured out with my packed suitcases, camera bag and my ticket for the London doll event of the year: Midwinter Masked Ball.

Arrived at the pub before everyone else and started to be a bit worried that I had either gotten the address wrong or the dates mixed up…

Everyone finally started showing up about 15 minutes late and setting up could finally commence.

It was an epic day with lots of socialising, putting faces on user names, meeting up with new and old peeps, taking lots of photos, having a really good pub buffet, competitions and general sillyness.

A few of us ended up in Wong Kei for dinner which was equally epic although I am not a huge fan of their food, the company was brilliant!

Huge thanks to Madame Mau Mau of the Nacht Zircus for arranging this and hope that we can all help bring this back for next year if all goes well!

Not sure if we beat the Russians this time but we sure made a bloody good effort!!!

These are the finished results of a weeks hard work ^^

As any creative person will know: Doing things well in advance is what we all set out to do but in reality we mostly end up doing it the night before we have to hand in the project.

I had known about this event for months but had been pushing the outfits aside for other things like commissions and general life.

My initial idea was to make a double act in the form of two identical dresses, one black and one white worn by my Unon twins.

Only obstacle was the fact that I actually did not have my Unon twins yet as no2 was on her way with expected delivery September but with Hobby Japan’s notorious record of being late, the risk of her not turning up in time was pretty big. Therefore, did not want to start before I knew she was home safe and sound.

She arrived mid October but was busy finishing of the Misaka Mikoto commission so had no time to put her together when she finally arrived after months of waiting for her.

Then, a week before the event I finally started up the machinery to get the Unon twins dressed up.

Started up a moodboard on Pinterest.com to get some inspiration for the ball gowns.

As time all of a sudden was tight I decided on doing the dresses with fabrics I already had in stock as well as accessories and trims. Only had to go get some minor parts such as tulle and some silver fabric for one of the dresses as I didn’t have anything like that already.

So the black and white idea was scrapped in favour of a silver and gold theme and two different styles as the fabrics did not agree to being the same style.

Sasara had the honour of being my model for the mock ups – here, the first steps towards the silver dress.


…And the gold dress

Also had to make some masks as the event was a masked ball and you cannot really attend a masked ball without a mask

Decided on papier mache as wanted something slim and delicate and from forums had noticed that other fellow crafters had issues with Fimo being too heavy and not able to hold its shape when cooking.
So, wrapped up the extra faceplates in clingfilm and covered them in a layer of tin foil in order to get the face features to stand out.
Cut out small pieces of newspaper and got myself some wallpaper glue stuff and covered up the faceplates in several layers.

Left to dry for a couple of days and then drew the shapes on the full casts and cut them out. The eyeholes were a bit tricky and could possibly have used a bit of sanding but just cleaned them out with a scalpel.


Gave the masks a couple of layers of white paint to make sure that the newspaper wasn’t shining through.
Then, gilded them with fake gold and silver leaf, never tried that before so result was a bit wrinkled in places but all in all, personally happy with the finished result.

Finally got around to doing this the other day.

Got the wig and eyes from Dollmore a while back and had a green eyeshadow/dark red lips in my head for a faceup to match.

Some minor flaws to it, just cannot get that brush to do exactly what I want it to do! Hard when there is no ‘apple z’ – one gets too used to being able to just erase things by a click. Bad habit.

The lower lip got a little bit too big so it is a bit out of proportion.

However, really like this – now I gotta get the Marion faceplate redone as it is no good at all compared to this one.

Found her name to be Pepper and got 50′s pin up clothes theme in mind for her.

Again, one more that I never had time to put up when I did it.

Made a dress out of a above knee length sock for my Unon to sport at the London August meet. I wanted to make some fancy underwear for her as well but did not have time. That will have to be for later…

Really funny that the toe made a ‘perfect’ little hat and the heel a bag. So basically the whole sock is here, no wastage.

Had some nice lace lying around that matched so made shawl and embellished the dress with some beads from the box.

Her boobs are seriously making a statement!

I am going through my old pics at the mo and finding loads I have not had time to upload.

This is my Unon with her first faceup – this was done last minute before last months London meet. At 2am in the morning ><.

Did not turn out quite right but will do for now, at least she is not without a face. Still without a name but think it has something to do with me knowing this will not be her actual face…

I found the lashes in Superdrugs and thought they were stunning – there is a bit of purple in them. Got some purple eyes to come in from a Dollmore Group order that should work better with them than her default ones.

Wig is also not quite right… Wig itself is ok but just not her and got another one coming in from the same Dollmore Group order.

Gave her lips a bit of sparkle by adding metallic glitter to the coating – not working with her dark lips.

Just claimed the Mac! Mwahahahahaha!!!

Had a fab day with like minded people here in London today from the DOA board.

Plan was to do Kensington Gardens and claim the Peter Pan statue as ours for the day – but the weather decided against that.

Sticky and damp we headed for the South Bank Centre, which was not the South Bank Centre… And an annoyed red tape security guard threw us out. Even stickier we then headed to the Actual South Bank Centre where we were welcome and set up camp on the 4th floor.

All was well until a very annoyed man came and told us we were very loud and that we were being annoying, reason he was annoyed, and could we please not have fun. Well he did not say that but guess that was what he meant. Luckily we were not that loud and not annoying anyone else than him and the bartender actually asked him to stop harassing us ^^ Go bartender!!!

Impressed a lot of little girls during the interval of Wizard of Oz and Cinnamon are now in some family’s camera ^^

After lots of photos and doll talk it was of to Wong Kei for dinner and more photos and doll talk.

Cannot wait for next months meet!

All the pics here.

/No more pictures please!

Cool tattoo

Rock on!

*SIGH*!!!

/To cake or not to cake – now that is the question!

More *SIGH*!!!

B-el striking a pose

So sweet on top…

… letting his true colours shine through at the bottom!

Cuteness!

Slightly surreal

4 Blondes

Yaaaaay for yellow brollys!

Cinnamon and the City!

Nice package!

/Kneel!

Singing in the Rain ^^

/If I just was not on a diet …

OT but just had to take this one – all who were there know what I mean.

Strike a pose

Wong Kei pose

Utter cuteness (I need one of these!!!)

Note quite sure what happened here…

I have finally pulled myself together and ordered some wigs and some boots…

There was a notice of summer sale on DOA from jpopdolls so I thought, hey why not – I got no money but I will buy a bagload of wigs >< Most of them are for the Unoas but a couple will be for the Unon - but then again she is only one lol. There are lots of the others.

And I did this without much hesitation... Funny that I last night went late night shopping at Joy, tried on a couple of things which I thought were really nice - but that was it. Left without buying anything after debating for a while (with a shop assistant glaring at me to see if I was a potential thief) because I was like: I do not really need any new clothes.

Boots were ordered on the tails of a dealer order so hopefully there will be room for them - hoping - they are really really cool and will be for my Unon - Pretty sexy ^^

Can’t wait ’til it all gets here so my Unoas can get out of their fur wigs and my Unon actually get some hair lol.