DeGaray Dolls

" krrrrsshh ...Hello London?...Come in London...Hujoo Berry on a mission to save Big Ben from the dastardly Cog-Thief of Old Kentish Town... Over.. krrrrsshh ." Top hat with its eyepiece and straps. On the ends are small magnet fastenings I got from a bead shop and sewed on the ends for easy fixing. They're quite strong so hold very well. At the moment she still has a factory face-up, I only added a little extra colour to the lips. Not having done a face-up before I wanted to get some practise in first on other dolls. My super-duper hubby made this awesome piece - "The Winston Biofragmentation Rifle" here showing the back. With adorable Biofrag refills (the green rods) "The Winston Biofragmentation Rifle" from the front This fine contraption is "Dr. Schicksal's Wrist-mounted Ruffian Repudiator", in other words it repels and erases any trouble-...

These are the steps I followed for making an adorable leather-covered mini top-hat!  Firstly, I cut a loo roll* down to size for the tube part (I know, so 'Blue Peter') and cut a circle out of stiff card. Out of this I cut the centre circle for the top of the hat, using a sharp cutting knife. This circle has to be equal to the internal size of the tube, even a few millimetres smaller depending on the thickness of the fabric covering it.  (*If making a full-size hat, this would of course be too small, and the circumference of the doll's head would have to be used as the correct circumference) Then I cut a piece of leather long enough to cover the circumference of the loo roll tube plus an extra 1-2cms to make a neat fold-over at the join. I also gave it 1cm extra width at each side, so that it could be folded over and glued to the inside of the tube. Again for this I used UHU glue because it dries fas...

Finally Hujoo Berry has a nice pair of leather boots! And I'm pretty sure she loves them just as much as I do ;) I basically followed the instructions from the Ryo Yoshida book (in so far as my non-existant understanding of the Japanese language would allow!). First I carefully drew around her feet in pencil on some thin card, adding a bit extra for the shape of the front of the boot. In the book it shows the feet removed, but I didn't do this (because I was feeling too lazy to!). Although it probably would have been slightly less fiddly if I had, it didn't really make too much of a difference. This is what it looked like:    Then I wrapped the feet in clingfilm to protect them, because  the next part was to create a moulded toe-cap using a small quantity of air-dry clay. I used La Doll Premix,which I'd heard a lot about as being a commonly used clay for BJD making. This is a premixed version of two types of...

Hujoo Berry has a new Hair-do!   I've done a little bit of work on her right-hand gauntlet, but I haven't quite finalised that yet... so for now I've been working on a new wig. I'd been looking into getting some natural fibres such as Mohair in a lovely auburn colour to give her a more vintage, romantic look. Inspired by BJD Magazine's  super tutorial about how to make a  no-sew wig with wig cap *, I realised it didn't have to be as difficult and time-consuming as I had initially thought! *All available at BJD Magazine: http://bjdmagazine.com/2011/01/11/tutorial-create-a-no-sew-wig-with-wig-cap-for-your-bjd/ So, I needed to get hold of some soft wool fibres, and lots of them, since Hujoo Berry has such a big head! I had initially planned to use Mohair and to buy this from ebay, but by chance I was chatting to my mum about it and she mentioned she could acquire some Alpaca wool for me to try. There is a local Alpaca fa...