new doll coming soonl!

My goodness it's been a month and a half since I've last posted here! Season's greetings to all of you even though it's already almost the new year =3=

Good news: after doing all those faceups, I finally gathered enough money to order my next doll! Everyone who's supported me along the way, thank you so much for helping me achieve my goals ^^

The order page says it's currently in item processing and Little Monica has already posted a notice saying that items ordered during the winter event period probably won't be delivered until sometime in February. It's going to be a pretty long wait...

Bad news: awhile back I paid for an order from what I thought was a neat little shop called Promise of the World. They have such adorable clothes! I even made a post about them here. All the images are gone because I think they changed their address to promiseoftheworld.com awhile ago. Unfortunately, even though my order status was changed to "delivered" on November 18, I still haven't received my package and the seller/admin isn't responding to my messages. I'm not the only one facing these problems, either. Some other folks on DoA made a huge group order and they haven't received any of the items or any correspondence from the seller. We're all hoping that they're just backed up on orders and are slowly working their way through them but with no communication this is very hard to confirm. I'm hoping for the best...

❤ mura

finalizing doll plans~

Long time no blog, everyone! College barely gives me enough time to do the things I enjoy, but I'll make do for now. Anyway... I've been reaching new goals with my faceup shop and I might finally have enough money to order my next doll this Christmas! I've been waiting for well over a year and switching back and forth between several dolls, but I've finally made up my mind to do this.
The doll I'm getting is a LittleMonica Sophia and after this round of commissions, I'll have roughly $500 out of the $624 I need to pay for her and ridiculous EMS shipping to the US.

I haven't quite figured out a good style for her yet (I'm kind of stuck between posh girl and Harajuku "neo gal") so it's going to be a while before I can get her a decent closet. As for wigs, I know I want to get her something in a mint green color, but her hairstyle really depends on what kind of things she's going to wear. I'm not sure which of these two Leekeworld wigs I like more, but there's plenty of time before the DoA group order ends, so... (if you have opinions you'd like to share, I'd love to hear them, though).

❤ mura

faceup progress

Ever wondered how faceups are done? I took a bunch of progress shots for the faceup I did on my friend's SDMB Minoru Kamimura, so here goes nothing! The lighting changes with each shot and that bothers me a little, but I'm too lazy to go back and fix the colors...

The pastels and basic paint is already laid down here.

Painting finished and ready for final seal!

And here's the finished product with gloss and lashes!

I'll be taking better photos for my Flickr and faceup blog when it's actually light outside and I can get some nice natural lighting. See you next time!

❤ mura

ennui

I'm bored, Lenny's bored, everybody's bored. And you know what that means? Photoshoots!
These first three pictures were my attempt to recreate "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" to go along with a somewhat Halloween-y theme. Lenny just makes it cute, though.

And here's adorable shy Lenny not wanting to pose for pictures.

What a photo dump. 

❤ mura

halloweenies

It's a boring Saturday evening and I had some free time so I decided to try a makeup/costume test for Halloween... and I totally dragged Lenny into it. I have more pictures on my Tumblr and Flickr, but I'll be sharing some highlights here. This is the first time I've shown my face on this blog, and also the first time I've done a photoshoot with my doll. I'm still learning the quirks of my DSLR (including the self-timer I'm still having trouble with lol) so please bear with my blurry and overexposed photos!

And here's some more serious pictures...

And some not so serious photos.

It was time consuming to get the makeup and lighting right, but I'm glad I got some good shots! Much thanks to my roomie for handling half the camera work. It's been the most amount of fun I've had in awhile. Can't wait to do it again on ACTUAL Halloween!

❤ mura

Doll Chateau Ada for caffeinated-cake

I'm happy that I'm finally making progress with my faceup skills and business! I need more practice and examples for my portfolio, so I offered two free BJD faceups this month as a promotion. Someone was kind enough to let me use their DC Ada as a practicing tool, and here are the results!

I still need to work on my confidence with brushstrokes, but hopefully I'll get it eventually...

❤ mura

sugar fairy goodies!

I'm actually making this post as a semi-reminder to myself to get cute pastel items for my Dollpamm girl when I decide to save up and get her! I have a lot of things planned out, but I don't intend for her to be my second doll, so this giant wishlist is just going to have to wait for awhile!

All items are from Sunflower Doll on Taobao and for 1/6 Yo-SD dolls! Happy shopping!

❤ mura

new shop: promise of the world

I followed this store a while back on Etsy, but I'd forgotten about them until they posted their moving notice on Den of Angels. It's a really cute store with tons of adorable clothes at good prices (if you don't mind $20 EMS shipping)!

I picked all of these items from EasyID's side of the store! There's a lot of sailor-inspired items and I'm really liking the aesthetic. Hopefully I can pick up a few of these for Lenny and her future friends :x But then again I should probably watch what I spend so I can start saving up for my next doll... ヽ( ´¬`)ノ

❤ mura

goodies from hong kong

I'm back, everyone! Hong Kong was pretty fun aside from the hot, humid weather. I managed to take a day trip to Mongkok to buy some dolly goods! If you want to find doll stores in Hong Kong, you're probably going to have to look in specific areas and know exactly where you're going before you'll find something (unless you're attending Dollism Plus or something). I only managed to nab three items from shops I found in the basement of a shopping center called Ginza. I got a cute knit bear hat and a pair of earmuffs from JR Toys - they're a Volks dealer and have legit outfits, shoes, and dolls straight from Japan! You won't find any cheap things there though. The other shop I visited was e-toys, which was a few stalls away. The lady who works the shop is a Blythe and Pullip customizer, but she also sells handmade outfits for all doll sizes. There was one more store in the basement called Milky Way, which I presume is another handmade Blythe/Pullip and BJD clothes shop, but it wasn't open when I went.

 

Lenny's wearing a new wig from Kaleido's Sweet Series in ToffeeLatte. Braids make everything cute, don't they? Lenny's also turning one year old in 11 days, so be sure to wish her a happy birthday!   （*＾ワ＾*）

❤ mura

corin faceup #2

I had a little bit of spare time yesterday so I decided to give my Corin practice head a new faceup (with freckles and eyelashes this time!) (●´∀｀●) I know the eyebrows are a little bit uneven, and I still need to work on defining the lower lashes a little more, but I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Critique is encouraged! In other news, I finally set up my faceup shop's Facebook page with a new banner and pictures. Feel free to check it out~

My flight leaves in 4 hours...

❤ mura

monster highs

I've been surprisingly busy this summer practicing my faceup skills ヾ(´A｀)ノﾟ But I have to say I'm glad I've improved! I've been mostly working on Monster Highs since I bought a ton of them from Target right before I came back home, but I'm hoping to get some BJD heads to practice on so I can continue to work on my brushwork skills. Here's a few pictures of what I've been occupying my time with:

They're all available on my Storenvy (which kind of serves as my gallery ehe). Additional pictures can be found on my faceup shop tumblr! In other news, I'll be in Hong Kong until the 6th of September so I'll be seeing you guys then! Hopefully I get to buy some stuff for Lenny from the doll stores in Mongkok (｀・ω・´)”

❤ mura

first commissioned faceup!

Hey everyone! In case you didn't know, I actually run a very small Monster High repaint and BJD faceup shop called Darjeeling Aesthetics. Today I just completed my very first commissioned faceup on a Resinsoul Xu for a dear friend of mine. I've been practicing a lot on my Corin head and I'm glad I can finally put my skills to use for something other than my own practice heads  :ﾟ｡+━ヾ((○*´∀｀*))ﾉﾞ━+｡ﾟ:

Here's my pic spam:

Critique is heavily encouraged! Please let me know what I can do to improve my skills and grow as a faceup artist! Also, I still have a few slots open for July so please send me a message at darjeeling.shop@gmail.com if you're interested! This is probably the last month that I'll be offering $15 faceups so hurry hurry (｡･ω･｡)ﾉ

❤ mura

kaleido!

Be very careful when helping other people with their doll plans. Be very, very careful. Otherwise you might end up wanting everything you're recommending to them...

Yesterday my friend was doing some casual planning with Oasisdoll's Naomi and I decided to chip in with some shops for wigs, clothes, etc. and stumbled upon Kaleido, the Taobao store I bought Lenny's wig from. Let's see what they have in stock!



I think I'm probably going to end up buying the wig on the right for Lenny. She does need a new one after all, and her birthday's in September...

These dresses are so cute! I think I'm going to have to add either one of them into my order. Gosh I don't know... Kaleido has such excellent styling with their products, it's so difficult to say no to anything they have in store. It doesn't help that they seem to follow a gyaru/aomoji style with their wigs and clothes (one of their BJD dresses is modeled after the one spo cat dress!) which makes things even harder for me! I hope my cousin gets her Taobao order set up soon so I save a little on shipping costs... (ﾉ)´∀｀(ヾ)


❤ mura

summer doll crushes

It's nice that I don't have school or work this summer but one bad thing about it is that I get all this extra time on the internet to fawn over dolls that I can't quite afford yet. I'm wondering if you can spot a common trend among the kinds of girls I like...

Top row: Darakbang Remy (1/4), Xagadoll Yan (1/3)
Bottom row: Dikadoll AAAAA (1/4), Souldoll Monique (1/3)

❤ mura

new licht releases!

Happy July, everyone! The days are getting hotter and hotter. I'm not even in SoCal right now, I probably shouldn't be complaining about the heat. While I could go on about how awful it gets each day I do have some good news! Licht has a few new wigs up in the shop and they are absolutely beautiful! I just missed the last Licht GO and hopefully the next one will run around before they sell out of these wigs :(

The pink "vanilla" color is my absolute favorite. I have no idea what I'd do with it, but I am definitely going to try and get it... somehow.

❤ mura