Daphne Blake, ready to solve mysteries!

Every year the Australian Costume Guild holds a Cosplay Ball in Adelaide, and this year I attended with a friend for the first time. It was kind of strange, in a way. We didn't know anyone else but we basically just wanted to dress up and see everyone else's costumes (which were all amazing). I wanted to do something a bit more 'fancy' than my other costumes but I ran out of time to do so, and went as Daphne Blake from the Scooby-Doo! franchise, instead.

It was a lot of fun dressing up as Daphne. I didn't take many photos as I just don't seem to know how to pose anymore (or take good photos, to be honest), but I got decent enough shots to show off the costume. The shoes were originally gold and I painted them and added the 'bows' (they're cardboard) as I knew it would be too hard to find purple shoes in the amount of time I had, let alone purple shoes in the right style. They turned out really well. I took Fred along as my date, and even made a mini costume for one of my Blythes (seen below).

Hope you enjoy the pictures and, once again, apologies for blogging so sporadically, lately. (Or, well, the past year or so).

Birthday!

Gosh, it's been a long time, hasn't it? I've been (slowly) working on a post to talk about a couple of things that have been happening with me, but I keep putting it off as it's a bit personal and I'm not really one for sharing that sort of thing. I'll keep chipping away at it and see how I go. One thing that happened, though, is that I turned 29! So, I shall share a little of my birthday experience (OK, my presents, mostly as I totally forgot to take photos of anything else) as seen via my Instagram snaps. Above is the outfit I wore out for my birthday lunch. Below are some of my presents from, in order: my mum; my best friend and her husband; my sister and her partner and last, but definitely not least, the very lovely Jane, who has her own super cute blog. (For anyone wondering the Sandy/Rizzo nightie is from Peter Alexander and the X-Files socks are from Foot Cardigan).

World Doll Day

I'm a little late for World Doll Day (well, it's still World Doll Day here but it's the end of the day) but I wanted to share something for it on my blog. Dolls are one of my biggest passions and I want to share that more often. Life is rarely easy for me but collecting dolls has brought me a lot of joy (and helped me connect with like-minded people, too).

World Doll Day was established in 1986, with the intention of giving a doll to someone else. As I only learnt about the day this past week, I didn't have time to organise giving a doll to anyone, so I just got some of my favourite dolls together and took a group photo. I'd like to do something bigger to celebrate it, next year, though. I'm not sure what, yet, but I do have 12 months to think of something!

So, happy World Doll Day to all the doll lovers out there. And to those who don't collect but support those who do, thank-you. Here's to many dolly adventures in our future!

Library/Doll Room Tour

Hey, everyone! I finally have the room tour video of my library/doll room up. I've been meaning to film this since I posted my bedroom tour, last December, and now it's finally done. Huzzah! I hope you enjoy seeing this glimpse into my second favourite room. I'm hoping to do some more videos soon, if I can think of ideas.

Toy Fair Finds!

Gosh, it's been a whole month since I've posted! I've had things to say, just haven't felt like saying them, I guess. Anyway, I thought I'd post about my toy fair finds as I already had photos of them for Flickr. I finally found a Supersize Barbie (pictured above and below), which I've wanted for ages, so I was very happy with that. I found another case, which is handy, because I keep my doll's clothes in them.  I also found another Sindy (in the photo above), a Tiffany Taylor doll (below left), a bunch of clothes (including some vintage pieces), a Steffie face standard and Golden Dream Barbie, and some Sweet Scents by TNT and a JellyBean by Lanard, all of which were Strawberry Shortcake competitors. You can see more details on what I found over at Flickr.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Cosplay

Well, Oz Comic Con is over again for another year. My first costume for the two day event was Squirrel Girl, from the new series The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. I was going to wait until November (Supanova), because I made the decision to cosplay her fairly close to Oz Comic Con, but I just really wanted to do this costume, now. So, I did! I'm super happy with how it turned out, despite all of the stress and anxiety it caused along the way. I highly recommend the comic, as well - it's great for adults and kids, which is always nice. It's just a lot of fun.

If you want to see more photos or how I put it together, you can check out this post I made on tumblr. And apologies for not having many photos in this post! I wasn't in the best mood when taking these, so only got a couple I could use.

Tammy's such a doll!

I'm super busy this week, finishing off my costume for Oz Comic Con, so I thought I'd do a quick post on my Tammy dolls, as I've just recently shown off my Barbies. I think I have one more Tammy since the group shot above. The bottom photo shows all my Tammy family when the photo was taken. (I have a few others, now, including her brother, Ted.) I'm particularly fond of the blue dress on the right end of the last photo - it's a clone dress but it looks so pretty on Tammy!

Next week, I'm sure I'll have some posts of my costumes from the weekend to put up but, for now, hopefully you enjoy a little peek at my Tammy dolls. You can see more at my Flickr set here.

Hot patootie, bless my soul!

When Eddie said he didn't like his teddy, you knew he was a no-good kid!

On Friday the 13th (the February one) the Capri Theatre held a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. They hold these quite often, but this one was extra special as Nell Campbell (aka Columbia) was a guest! I pretty much squealed when I found out and found a friend to go along with me. Of course, I had to do a costume for the event and it didn't take long for me to pick one because I knew it had to be Eddie! He was Columbia's beau, after all. But I put my own spin on the costume because I knew screen accurate would do my head in. (Anal Retentive Rocky Horror is a great source for screen accurate, though).

I referenced Eddie's saxophone playing with my earring (only just visible), and his greaser hair with my high pony and front roll. I opted for a see-through t-shirt with a leopard print bra underneath (finishing off the leopard theme in the lapels and fish-nets) and changed the green glitter writing to pink. I just used regular glitter paint (not fabric) and regular acrylic to paint on the back of the jacket. It's kind of decimated now, unfortunately, but it lasted the night, which is all that matters. I forgot to take full length photos with the scar on (I have a selfie below), which is annoying!

But I am SO happy with this costume. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is my all-time favourite movie and being able to pay homage to it while meeting basically one of my childhood idols was amazing. (Just as amazing as that time I met Patricia Quinn). Plus singing along, yelling out lines, dodging rice, toast and wayward loo rolls, and seeing everyone else's costumes was so much fun. 

Dolls, dolls, dolls

One of the reasons I stopped blogging so regularly was because, aside from Instagram photos taken with my phone, the only photos I really enjoy taking these days is of my dolls. (And even then, I go through slumps where I can't photograph them, either). I suppose I felt that it may get boring with lots of doll posts but, honestly, I'm getting too old to do things (or not do them) based on whether or not they may please other people. So, without further waffling, here's some photos I took a while back of my vintage Barbie & friends collection(s). The top and second images show all of my vintage era Barbies (just Barbie, not her friends/family) in vintage (and one repro) outfits. The third image is all of my mod era Barbies, the fourth of my Skipper & friends collection and the last of Francie and her friends. I love laying all my dolls out like this on plain, colourful backgrounds. You can see more of my doll photos on Flickr!

Room Tour Video!

Hey all! Long time, no blog, huh? I'm actually not sure if I will continue to blog, or not. It's something I've been taking a while to figure out but the drive isn't really there, lately, and I've run out of interesting things to blog about, anyway. Having said that, I'm still thinking about it. In the meantime, here's a room tour video I did a while back.

And you can still find me elsewhere:

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I'm most active on Instagram and Tumblr, these days!