Maeve's debut: Dolls & Party, Dolliverse!!

Hello everyone!

It has been a really hectic time. I had not a single momento to properly update the blog with all the things that happened, but now is the time! First of all: Let's talk about Maeve.

Yes, she. It took quite a while to see her complete, but she finally came home. Just in time! The prototypes arrived, and I was happy to be able to show them at the Dolliverse. Everything went smoothly and as planned, we made a wonderful debut and unicorns and flowers happened.

Unicorns!! :^DD

Well. NOT.

That would have happened in a perfect world XD. But reality strikes hard, and this has been one of the most stressful and demanding periods of my life. I do not recall to have a single moment of peace or sleeping more than 5 hours in the last weeks. I knew I was short in time when I sent Maeve to the casting company back there in April, but never imagined that I was THAT short. A single day of delay could meant that she wouldn't be ready in time. But I had faith. Sadly, faith alone does not work when is about postal services Europe/China and all the things that can go wrong.

To make a long story short: I went to Galicia in north Spain with my friends Alen Ros and Lyris from Misty Valley to prepare a huge load of angora wool wigs, dresses for Maeve and diverse items for the two European doll shows. The Glendalough Fairies for the fair arrived while I was away, so when I went back, I found 10 little fairies waiting for customization... bodyblushing, faceup, dressing. Photos. All had to happen QUICK. And the Maeves were delaying. When the package with the prototypes arrived, it was only 4 days before departure to Amsterdam.

Imagine my dismay when I opened a box with flawed dolls. Not only I had to prepare them, but first, I had to fix the prototypes, dremmel them, re-string, re-shape some joints and then proceed to customization. And don't make a mess out of it, if I wanted a proper debut of my long-time-awaited doll. So, I started working against the clock.

And it happened. And I still do not know how I did it, but I have something very clear in my mind: it was due the amazing help of my friends that I could remain sane in this whole process. Pandora, from Bunny Heart, who prorized the outfits for my dolls even before the ones for her own booth at Dolls & Party. Lyris, who sacrificed her holidays and spent them brushing dirty goat's fur, Rosalen trying to understand my directions for outfits owning only a torso, Mauro printing the matherial for the booth when everything else failed, Avalon who had to contact people she didn't knew to print me some business cards, Moises enduring my whinning and crisis moment when the first Maeve arrived... and of course, my great friend Carlos, who traveled with me all over this European Ordeal and had to stand my changing moods, my stress crisis and my constant demands.

But thanks to them all, my booth looked like this in Nijmegen:

Yea, I know it does not look too impressive, but I think the dolls did, and I can say it was a great and succesful experience. I won't bore you with all the things that happened in Amsterdam, the surroundings and the odyssey that was to reach Nijmegen; I will just say that it happened, and many of my dolls were adopted there. I've found a beautiful Flickr album about the Dolliverse by Evie Ex Machina. I recommend you to take a look, it will give you a great vibe of how the convention was, and you will find several cute pics of my dolls in there. We then had two days to visit Amsterdam, and we did thanks to the kindness of Monika and her baby girl Alice, who showed us the interesting city spots to Carlos, DD Anne and I. A great time, meeting great people, walking around an enjoying the nice weather and views of the city. Hope to be back next year!!

This duck has quite an interesting bike. Decora-bike?

And with that, we were ready for Barcelona, only six days after that. Enjoying the hospitality of Carlos friends Tony and Eva, who were really kind and gentle and gave us a place to sleep, and then moving ahead to set another booth and do more doll display, talks and friends. I really enjoyed it, but after so many days roaming, the experience was quite nerve-wrecking. And yet, we managed, and some people in Barcelona decided that it was a good time to adopt Irish fairies. Meet several new and old friends, got emotional when the girl that won my Bronze Saoirse giveaway doll in the raffle started crying, got sad to see some people that used to be really close friends not even saying hi, had a not-so-surprise visit (I knew you were coming, Sixto ;_P ) and in the end, I packed back and retreated to fall dead in a small bed at a bed and breakfast.

Absolutely lovely pictures of my booth taken by Sairon!

I still can't believe I did it. Well, we did it, and I am grateful to everyone who supported me during this days. I needed them to get momentum, in any case, and my bag is so full of news and announcements that I almost do not know where to start. But all will happen in time! By now, I will have a very little rest, will finish my pending comissions and will start dealing with the massive box of Ingenues and Ingenieuses that is in my dining room. And of course, I need to prepare a proper introduction post of Maeve. Do not worry, my clone and I will manage to do everything in time.

What? nobody else but I sees her???!!!