A few pretty pictures of Jezatron’s Yoko. I took her on a tiny adventure while the boys and Machiko were watching Wreck-It Ralph on a hot afteroon ^__^”

She was being coy with me.

- ♥Archangeli

A couple of weeks ago I was back in the UK for the first time since March, and took the chance to meet up with Pink_Blaise and GabrielVH on a lovely Sunday afternoon. We met up in Chinatown for bubble tea and crèpes before walking around in Soho to take a few photos.

Pink_Blaise asked me to bring Micaela (DD Aoko Aozaki) to compare her with the 07 head I had brought along on my previous visit. She brought her beautiful Neris & Kimiko, and I asked Gabe to bring his newest girl, Asuna, out for the day so that I could see her in person! Here are the girls relaxing against a tree.

Photos by: GabrielVH (I didn’t bring my camera >_<” so Gabe did all the hard work!)

Gabe changed Asuna’s eyes so they are more soft and friendly – her default eyes were very cat-like. She has a very fresh peaches and cream face-up and a sweet smile.

Neris is captivating as a redhead with these beautiful green eyes.

Here are Asuna, Micaela and Kimiko hanging out in the garden.

Shortly, Pink_Blaise had to leave us; and unsure what to do, I just followed my feet – which led Gabe and I to the British Museum! The girls were going to have an educational day out! There’s a beautiful library just off the main atrium where the girls went on a learning adventure.

There are curio cases everywhere displaying interesting artifacts. Asuna is pointing something out, and Micaela leans in for a closer look.

Asuna sat down for a moment -

while Micaela was imitating art… ^__~”

There is a life-sized replica of the Rosetta Stone for visitors to feels and get up close to. The girls were fascinated by the Egyptian hieroglyphs!

I didn’t bring my camera with me, so if you want to see more fun pictures from our day out you’ll have to go to GabrielVH’s Flickr page! ^__^”

And because no trip to London is complete without some delicious eats, we went to Abeno Okonomiyaki house for (first) dinner, and then met up with my cousin Michelle for second dinner of delicious Thai food in Soho! LOL

It was wonderful to see Pink_Blaise again, and loads of fun hanging out with Gabe and exploring the British Museum. I hope I didn’t bore you by babbling on about the artifacts. >__<” I’m looking forward to seeing you guys again in a couple of weeks!

- ♥ Archangeli

Omake (Extra):

Dessert at Abeno. I don’t remember what it was but it was basically sake jelly with a strawberry in it!

We spotted a celebrity at the museum too, but to respect her privacy we didn’t take any photos. ^__~”

Hot summer days make for great casual and lazy doll meets outside! Originally we wanted to have another doll picnic down on Ward Island, but we found out a couple of days beforehand that there were a lot of things happening downtown this weekend and on the islands that would have made conditions less than ideal for doll meet, so we picked a midtown location – Edward Gardens – for our gathering.

This was one of the hottest weeks we’ve had this summer, and the heat killed my motivation to take photos, so I apologize for fewer number of photos than usual from this meet >__<”

There was an optional theme for this meet (“A Midsummer’s Night Dream”), so I dressed Aerie up in this dreamy gown.

I brought Annalise, who was looking so cute in her new shiro-neko outfit that I had to bring her out, theme or no theme! ^__~”

A last minute stow-away into my bag was Rin, who is here posing with MrCool’s Sawako.

AlphaZ was very happy to take her out, and took some beautiful photos of Rin in the park.

PlasticFantastic brought her lovely twins Alna and Juno, who are both wearing pretty summer outfit made by puppy52.

Little Maya and Cirno also came along because they heard there was a picnic!

Sorry to disappoint you little girls, but the gardens don’t allow picnicking so we could only hang out, play a fun board game and chit chat!

CenturyStory brought her lovely Primula who is a vision of loveliness in this flowing white gown -

Nkei brought Setsuko and Renne, who are looking very ethereal and beautiful together.

Epic bonus points go to Nurlindae, who took our theme very seriously and made this stunning outfit for Lynari the night before our meet! 0__0″

Photo by: Nurlindae

She also brought one of her tiny little girls with her, who looks like an adorable little woodland nymph.

Speaking of tiny girls – this is PlasticFantastic’s first little resin girl! She’s a PeakWoods doll that PF adopted at Anime North and is named DeeDee (Dum-Dum lol)

Meo brought his Obitsu 50 Black Raven Lillia – she’s so cute. I love seeing Lillia and her litte neko-meido outfit is adorable!

Photo by: Meo

His pretty Lucy also came, wearing a pretty swimsuit. I think no one told her we wouldn’t be going to the beach at the islands!

Aka brought his custom Horo doll, who he has been slowly working on since his first outing with us a few months ago! She’s coming along beautifully! Aka has posted some lovely photos on his blog, so please check them out!

We had several new faces at this month’s meet, which is always nice to see. Kou-chan brought his newly acquired Saber Extra with him and she looks very imposing in her full gear!

MrCool brought along his Oculus Rift device and everyone was really keen to try it out. There’s a headgear that you can wear that immerses the user into a 3D game.

Photo by: MrCool

A few little figures crept in amongst the dolls, belonging to Poiyo and Akuun.

Photo by: MrCool

After hanging out in the park for a few hours, we needed somewhere with air-conditioning so most of us went out to dinner at Jack Astors before heading home. It was a nice meetup, despite the heat, and hopefully next month we can head back to the island for a nice afternoon picnic! I’m looking forward to next time!

- ♥ Archangeli

Last weekend I was in London, England, and made plans with Jezatron, GabrielVH, bethykins and fransgaard for little doll meet. However, my job comes with it’s own set of challenges and things can change in a split second – last Friday there were some very heavy thunderstorms over Toronto, most of Southern Ontario and New York @__@” and as a result I ended up being delayed a few hours. I was super late to meet up with everyone (sorry!!! >__<”) but at least the weather in London cooperated and it was a perfect day. Rather than one of the big central parks in the city, we chose to meet up at the Kyoto Garden inside Holland Park and it was a beautiful place locale.

Here are the dolls all ready for a nice afternoon picnic!

Left to right are Bethykin’s Freya (DD Moe) and Sa-Chan (DD Sakuno), Jezatron’s Kanu Unchou, GabrielVH’s Sakura Matou, my Serena (DD Yuki Morikawa), Beth’s Yuki (DDH-06) and Jez’s Ryomou.

I wanted to bring Serena back to the UK as a belated birthday trip for her, it’s been just over a year since I adopted her into my doll family. I dressed her up on Thursday afternoon and packed her into my doll carrier so imagine my surprise when Gabe dressed Sakura in a coordinating outfit! This was totally unplanned!

Kanu had heard all about Jez’s food adventures whilst he was in America but he didn’t bring any of it back for her! I treated her to a McDonald’s Big Mac -

Freya was content to just snack on a hotdog bun =

After her long plane ride, Serena had munchies so she went after the gyoza-kebab. Ryomou went for the hotdog on a stick 0_0″

The garden was full of people relaxing on the grass, a few bridal parties taking wedding photos and in order to keep the garden nicely manicured there were bamboo partitions to show where people weren’t allowed to step on the grass or trample the flowers.

Photo by: GabrielVH

There are little stone shrines throughout the garden and artfully placed stones.

We had to ask the security staffer if we could place the girls on this big rock to take photos. I think having the big DSLR throws people off since they assume I’m taking photos for commercial use, but I played the part of eccentric tourist and got permission! Yay!

There was also a beautiful little waterfall, which was a popular photo spot for everyone that came into the garden.

I think you can make out some of the huge koi fish in the pond. There were so many beautiful koi and they were so large!

I tried to capture a photo of the koi but the reflection off the water in the sunlight wasn’t cooperating with me >_<”

There was this little water fountain that amused me a bit. If any of you are playing ‘Animal Crossing: New Leaf’ and have seen the ‘Deer Scare’ item you’ll understand ^__^” (It has absolutely nothing to do with deers!) Oh and if anyone has the Dream Suite in AC:NL and wants to take a dream visit to my town – my code is: 5900-2200-7411!

Sa-chan has such an adorable expression. I’m not usually a fan of pouty-mouth sculpts but she’s really quite cute.

Time passed too quickly while we were relaxing on the grass, but it was getting late so we packed up and headed into Soho-Chinatown for dinner.

Fransgaard took us to a fabulous little place called Tokyo Diner, very close to Leicester Square. We were all really hungry but GabrielVH managed to snap a quick photo of us at dinner -

After dinner we had to hurry to see Bethykins off and make sure she caught her coach home. We made it just in the nick of time with 1 minute to spare! @__@” Left with the guys, our thoughts immediately went to dessert so we went back to Soho for a Snog. Don’t get any funny ideas: Snog is the name of a chain of frozen yogurt bars where you can choose from a huge array of toppings to go on your fro-yo.

I suck at selfies >__<”

To check out the rest of my photos from this meet, pop by this Flickr set.

I had a really great time hanging out with everyone, and this was one of the most relaxed days I’ve had in a long time – truly a perfect day. I’m a bit bummed that I won’t be in town for Hyper Japan next weekend, but I’ll be back soon to visit you!

- ♥ Archangeli

Omake (Extra):

GabrielVH at work -

Fransgaard caught this epic battle between a peacock and a pigeon! 0__0″

A friend of Beth’s found this on Instagram. None of us were offended by it – in fact we thought it was hilarious, so don’t go trolling this poor person. I’ve gotten used to getting creeped at doll meets since people who aren’t in the hobby can think it strange that we take dolls out and photograph them. It doesn’t bother me when people take photos – it’s nice when they ask first, but we live in a society where people just take photos of everything and post them immediately on social media networks, so there’s very little social grace anymore. What’s very rare is to come across a creeper photo later on!

“Snogging is healthy and 100% natural.” ^___~”

There is a beautiful Dollfie Dream visiting me for a couple of weeks for a short summer vacation – the absolutely stunning Kanu Unchou!

This gorgeous girl belongs to Jezatron. He told me that his girls were jealous that Yoko got to go along on his epic trip across the USA (with short detour up to Toronto!), so when Kanu put her feet down and demanded a summer holiday he had to oblige.

Here she is showing off some cute summer clothes – a bikini top and tank from Volks and cropped jeans by puppy52.

This girl is smokin’ hot!

I mean, it has been pretty warm in Toronto the past couple of weeks – here have been ‘Severe Heat’ warnings, paired with crazy thunderstorms @__@” But now with Kanu here, the thermostat is going to go through the roof!

Wowza! I’ve got some awesome photo ideas in store for Kanu over the little while, so check back to see more of this hottie!

- ♥ Archangeli

Did you like my crazy post title? Last March, Volks released two adorable outfits called the Strawberry Milk Heart set, and the Sugar Milk Cookie set; and earlier this year they re-released them with a colour flip (called the Strawberry Milk Cookie and Sugar Milk Heart set)! Are we all utterly confused with the names yet?! I know I am! A few days ago I rounded up Machiko, PlasticFantastic and Sam on short notice to come to my house and celebrate these adorable outfits!

Lily, Yuki, Mashiro, Serena, Nia, Juliette, Maya and Cirno look so sugary sweet and adorable!

In my title I did mention something about desserts, didn’t I? ^__~”
A magical box arrived from Snowfern Clover a few days ago containing some of her stunning miniature desserts. Sid was captivated by the raspberry-rose and lychee Ispahan.

Here are Juliette and Lily showing off both flavours of the Ladurée Ispahans – the purple one is Cassis-Violet.

Would you perhaps prefer the Paris Brest or the Divin?

Oh my goodness these look so tasty! The hazelnut cream, the crushed nuts, the toasted almond slices, the juicy raspberries! These are stunning!

Serena and Mashiro have a couple of slices of cake to share-

Mashiro is visiting me for a little while until she goes to live with InnocentSaké in sunny California! It was fun getting to play dress-up with her!

Personally my favourite Ladurée pastry is the St-Honoré Rose Framboise, and Snowfern’s newest version (on the right) features a subtle pink icing. So pretty!

Juliette enjoyed showing off the beautiful pastries, but sometimes it’s the simple things that are best. Here she is with a few macarons – Salted Caramel is her favourite!

Oooh! Maya and Cirno are captivated by the yummy sweets!

Here’s one more picture of the big girls in their lolita dress sets -

Little Cirno is the odd one out today in her black and white set, but she looks so cute. I love her little hat! I’m going to have to dress my little Médée up in this set sometime soon!

Arrr matey! Pirate King Sora is here to stake his claim on some of the treats!

Oh Sora, you’re such a goof!

- ♥ Archangeli

Omake (Extra):

Juliette says: “Remember to brush your teeth after eating sweets, or else you will get cavities!”

I took a few photos of Kanu last week indoors to try out a couple of wigs, and Kanu hated the first one I chose for her. She said that straight bangs are not her thing and try as she may, she couldn’t get the style to work for her.

So when I opened a package from TheBobness arrived containing some new wigs, I had a feeling Kanu would like this one better -

Ultimately Kanu is an outdoors kind of girl, so we went for a walk today to take some photos outside.

But once the sun came out, she complained that her sweater was too warm!

“You don’t mind if I lay down in the soft grass and take a nap for a bit, right?”

Looks like I need to find something less “warm” for Kanu to wear… ^__~”

- ♥ Archangeli

Earlier in August I attended Atomic Lollipop at the Japanese Cultural Center to help out with a mini version of Café Delish. It was nice to relax at a smaller convention and hang out with friends!

Instead of the full afternoon-tea style service that we have at Anime North, we offered three simple food combos at the convention – a traditional combo featuring tea-ceremony-grade matcha green tea and strawberry-red bean mochi, the Café Delish combo featuring Swiss roll cake and Tea-pop, and a special A-pop combo featuring an awesome rainbow cake and Sunrise Punch. Everything was delicious so it was just a matter of choosing what combo you were in the mood for!

We were also selling some blind-packaged pins that were designed by the maids – with all proceeds from the pin and food sales going to the World Wildlife Foundation.

The maids also learned a fantastic new dance just for this event -

Here is Mamiko whisking up some matcha for a guest -

Some guests take photos of a cute neko-drawing on a piece of roll cake.

Panda-chan is helping out at the food-prep station to cut the rainbow cake.

Bosu took a photo of me while I was cutting up strawberries ^__^”

Here’s a few more photos of the girls being cute:

Mamiko, Yumi. Tenshi and Keiko

Keiko and Panda (with knives!) 0__0″

Chiyou and Nana were playing the Crocodile game with some guests, and Nana got snapped at! T__T”

I had a fun time and I’m sure our guests did too! It’s time for me to hang up my apron – no more maid café related activities for me until next year! ^__^”

- ♥ Archangeli

Omake (Extra):

Mamiko visits Whitefrosty’s table at Artist Alley

I’m totally showing my age when I say that a decade ago I attended Anime Evolution in Vancouver, Canada. It was my first time attending a con outside of my hometown, and my sister and I had awesome time. We actually cosplayed at that convention, entered a cosplay competition and won an awesome award and gift pack! Fast forward 10 years: Anime Evolution doesn’t exist anymore, but this year there was Anime REVOLUTION! I happened to be in Vancouver on a layover last Friday, and woke up bright and early to check out the convention – alas, no room in my tiny carry-on suitcase to pack a cosplay! (… at least not for me! Hehehe! ^__~” )

AlphaZ had wanted to come along with me and meet some of my Vancouver doll collecting friends, but the flights to Vancouver filled up and he wasn’t able to come along T__T” Ah, the risks of traveling on stand-by. . . For this same reason, I didn’t pre=register for my convention pass just in case I ended up somewhere else. Sadly, he had the DSLR camera packed with him, so once we got separated I only had my iPhone to take photos >__<” It turns out that the badge purchase line was shorter than the pre-registration line @__@” I arrived around 9:30 am, and was already in the dealers room shortly after the convention opened at 10am! It was actually very quiet for the first 30 minutes while I was walking around so I was able to shop and look around without hoards of people everywhere! ^__^”

What caught my eye right away were a couple of itasha (cars covered in full decals) decorated with the Anime Revolution character mascot Senkaku-mei on them -

(Spot the guy with the Animal Crossing cosplay in the top right! Haha!)

And a nifty cardboard Zelda display -

The designers of Angelic Pretty were guests at the convention, so there was a small AP boutique in the dealers room. Lots of frilly pink things – but nothing that shouted out to me, thankfully for my wallet!

I made a bee-line to the Artist Alley to check out puppy52 and MaiLittleAlien‘s table since I was on a mission to buy some cute clothes for my girls. Mai brought a few of her dolls with her: Dollfie Dreams Marisa and Saber Lily, and her big Volks boys Shiro Tachibana and Souji Okita (Yamato).

Puppy52 brought her customer girl Paw, as well as Aki (DD Yuki Morikawa) who is cosplaying as Danny Choo’s Mirai character.

I love the beautiful summer picnic scene that they set up for the dolls! Saber even painted a wonderful piece for the occasion -

Rin hung out with their dolls for a little bit while I walked around the convention a bit more. She was dressed in a Puppy52 shirt, and a pair of MLA jeans so she fit right in ^_^”

I discovered that there was a Maid Café at the convention – so of course I had to check it out for… “research and development” purposes! They didn’t allow any photos inside the café space, unless you were buying a $5 Instax photo with a maid of your choice. This is true to how most maid cafés are in Japan, but hard to enforce in the North American market. I was able to ninja a few photos – here the girls are performing Aitakatta! by AKB48. It was quite nice that the girls had a raised stage area to perform on. They performed a dance roughly every 20 minutes, and had a varied repertoire of songs – in fact for $10 you could pick the song that the maids performed!

There had been a problem with getting menus printed so the meido that served me tried her best to name off the items. I went with the Tomato, bocconcini and basil sandwich and some water to keep it simple. After it was served to me, one of the maids asked if I would like any sauce, and she drew a neko for me. ♥

It was nice to have a spot to sit and relax, but all the noise from the convention hall took away from the atmosphere a bit. Here’s what the overall café space looked like -

One of the maids was cosplaying as Sen-mei (not in this photo), and some other girls wore wigs and animal-ear headbands.

If you wanted to play a game versus a maid, it was a $5 fee, but you would also “win” a limited poster of the maids, or a fanart of Senmei as a maid ^_^”

After lunch at the maid café and a little bit of shopping I went back to make sure Rin-chan was behaving herself.

She said she was jealous of Aki-chan’s awesome cosplay, and seeing all the other cosplayers at the convention too, so she transformed into an AKB0048 Idol to join in the spirit of things!

Here’s some of the Puppy52 loot that I picked up – most of it I was buying for InnocentSaké’s girls, but I couldn’t resist the adorable t-shirt of Senmei and a pair of Mirai’s orange striped pantsu! Mai was only displaying her works, but if she had made things to sell I would have spent $$$ too!

I took Rin around for some photos. Here she is with one of the Sen-mei itasha – there were so many Miku figures inside!

We found a sakura tree -

Rin went outside for an impromptu concert! Who knew that she could sing? LOL

I ran into LightningSabre and Airs afterwards and we went to Guu Original for dinner. Mmmm just look at that tuna tataki! *___*

Even though I was only able to attend Anime Revolution for one day, I had lots of fun. I was really happy to be able to hang out with puppy52 and LightningSabre and was finally able to meet Mai-san and Airs. ^_^”

Omake (Extra):

Daisy censoring Saber’s… “cleavage” LOL

The view from my hotel room – it’s a treat for me to have a harbour view and the weather co-operated today too!

I braved the rain and heat this summer and met up with some DD owner friends in Hong Kong for a couple of little doll meets! The most recent was the last weekend of August where I met up with Q, Stepswalker, TonyBSD and XOHimitsuOX at the Charlie Brown Café in Tsim Tsa Tsui. The café was a very relaxed place and we were able to hang out without feeling rushed. We sat in a big booth area that had ample space for the dolls to hang out!

Photo by: Stepswalker

The café was fairly quiet when we arrived, but it filled up over the couple of hours we were there. Here’s Chef Charlie Brown to greet the guests:

There are adorable Peanuts figures from all eras of the comic strip in display shelves all around the café.

Photo by: Stepswalker

I liked the informal atmosphere of the café: you placed your order and paid at the cashier and were given a number placard to take to your table, and your food was delivered to you when it was ready. We ordered a variety of dishes and everything was quite tasty! I had the Fusilli Bolognese on the top right, and I would order it again! Omnomnom!

And the desserts were so adorable! You can see the tiramisu I ordered above, and this was the Mango-Yogurt cheesecake that we all shared.

There are also 8″ cakes that you can buy and they are so cute! (There were a couple of little birthday gatherings at the café while we were there).

Photo by: Stepswalker
Princess Lucy van Pelt! OMG *____*

Photo by: Stepswalker

I brought Sidonie with me and she was joined by Stepswalker’s Sakuya, TonyBSD’s Asuna, Q’s and Himitsu’s 06 twins! ^__^” (Sorry, I forgot their names >__<” )

Here’s Sid with Asuna-

Photo by: Stepswalker
Sakuya “nyan”-pose!

Photo by: Stepswalker

After dinner, we hurried over to Harbour City mall (because it was almost closing time!) to check out the giant Totoro and Nekobus that were on display at Donguri Republic in the LCX wing section of the mall. Thank goodness I had the guys with me or I would have been totally lost @__@” However, mission accomplished!

Photo by: Stepswalker

The Nekobus was super soft! ^__^”

Shortly after we all went our seperate ways, but I mentioned at the beginning of this post that we had met up a couple of times in HK, but this post has already gotten very long so I’ll post about our other meeting in another entry! ^__~”

- ♥ Archangeli

It’s been a long time since I posted – but I just got back from vacation and have tons of photos to sift through!

In the meantime, I wanted to wish everyone a very Happy Halloween!

Here are a few photos of Serena and Rin from the Volks Tenshi-no-Sato in Kyoto taking advantage of their spooky photo space!

- ♥ Archangeli

It’s been quite a while since I’ve welcomed a new doll into the family, but I’ve been patiently paying for my newest doll on layaway for the past 6 months. Moe-chan was first to greet the postman so she brought the box into our room, where Micaela, Médée and Serena were also hanging out.

The shipping box looks so small! It was a snug fit but with Micaela’s help, Moe was able to unpack it! Here is the box for Alice Kuonji – one of the standard yellow Dollfie Dream boxes!

This is one of the pretty photos on her box – it reminded me that I need to order some optional hands for her, since she is the new semi-white skin-tone. >__<”

Here she is just out of the box. Angry Bunny is on hand to make sure there’s no naked doll business o_0″

Here is my first look at Alice. She has rosy pink cheeks, a very curious mouth and mysterious, dark eyes.

Here she is out of the box! You can compare her vinyl colour to Moe’s hand to see the subtle difference that the semi-white skin has. She is also a Dollfie Dream Sister, with a small bust – which generally I would swap up to a medium bust but I purchased a lot of Azone 50cm outfits when I was in Japan and the DDS fits into them very well with a small bust!

Here is a better shot of her head sculpt, without the plastic covering. She has lovely pink lips and very simplistic makeup. I love her milky complexion!

Here are the other goodies that were in her box: her pamphlet, wig, outfit and boots.

These are the pieces of her default outfit: the dress, cape, scarf, hat, stockings, gloves, boots, panties

The inside of the dress is lined completely in white, however inspect it for leftover navy blue threads from the sewing process before dressing your doll. I found a few stray threads inside the dress 0_o” The sleeves are very tight so the hands need to be removed to put the dress on.

The cape is not lined, but the way that it sits on the shoulders doesn’t touch the face. The scarf with pom-poms is lined in white however I only kept it on for about 15 minutes to take photos.
The hat is not lined, and the inside of the wig has a black wig cap (not shown in photo) and has been reported to stain very easily.
So far I have had a glove and a stocking on spare doll parts to test their colorfastness and after 12 hours there are no signs of staining. I expect they will be safe since the socks feel like the material from Moe’s Bear Suit (which didn’t stain) and the gloves feel like the jersey that Machiko uses for her magic black socks. There is a snap on each glove to help put it on easily.
[Update November 4: Checked on the glove and sock and they left no stains after 48 hours!]

The brown boots are not lined in white, so take proper precaution when dressing up your doll.

Here’s Alice dressed up in her full default outfit. She looks so stoic and mysterious.

She looks too warm all bundled up with her cape and hat so here she is with just her dress.

Time to switch it up a bit! Here’s Alice with a lighter purple wig and an awesome Azone Black Raven outfit.

There are only a handful of dolls that made my heart flutter the first time I saw photos of her, but the moment I saw proper photos of DD Alice Kuonji I fell in love with her face and knew that I had to adopt her into my doll family. I had to patiently put her on layaway in order to afford her, but I’m thrilled that she’s finally home! Hubby surprised me by finding her magical Robin and Diddle Daddle cat charm at the Volks showroom in Akihabara tucked at the very back of a shelf!

I’ll be taking more photos of Alice in the next little while, so look forward to seeing more of her!

- ♥ Archangeli

I managed to get my hands on the Volks Lady Wizard outfit (thanks Innocentsake! ♥) and the Lady Thief outfit earlier this summer, and decided to take a few photos using these awesome clothing sets! The overall look isn’t completely steampunk or medieval maidens but something in the middle – I hope you like!

I’m crazy about Alice’s face! She’s so pretty!

I’m liking Lily as a ginger, the colour is very striking on her.

The outfits and boots are from various Volks sets. Dolls featured are  Lily, Alice, Micaela (Aoko) and Rin.

Thanks for popping by!

- ♥ Archangeli

I just wanted to share a couple of photos of Gabrielle looking adorable in her “Sherlock Holmes” ensemble. She wore it to the doll meet in Toronto in September (which I will post pictures from soon! >__<”) but she got buried in the back of the doll pile!

“Sherlock” could be resting in the parlour of 221b Baker Street here.

“Ah! It’s elementary, my dear Watson! Elementary!”

Oh Gabi, you’re so cute!

- ♥ Archangeli

[This article was originally published by June 10, 2010 by d.ark, who sadly passed away in May 2012. I found this article extremely useful and am republishing it here so that others can benefit from her advice.]

Content of Dolpa for Dummies

Dolpa For Dummies
How to Get Your Dolpa Guide Book
To reserve a Bento Box or not to reserve a Bento Box
Getting to Big Sight
At Big Sight – Getting Into Those Queues
Queuing for Limiteds
Queuing for Sumika items
Doing the Dolpa
Lottery for One Offs and Limiteds
Getting your bingo plates and how to play
Dolpa, Done!
Feedback

Dolpa For Dummies
As I was heading for Tokyo this year for the Dollshow, again, I discovered by pure accident that Dolpa was on as well two days later.

Did I want to go, Hell ya!
(Pardon the swearing but in this instance, it is needed )

So I set out on an endeavour to find information on this in English as I to this point of time does not do Japanese very well. It sort of limits itself to Arigato, Ohayou gozaimasu, Konbanwa, doku desuka, nandemo kekkou desu and nani. Last one picked up from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
This turned out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be.

There would be snippets here and there on blogs and if I were lucky I managed to dig out information from threads on Forums that were as long as “Gone With the Wind” O.o making it impossible to find anything.
PMing selected people who looked like they knew what they were talking about turned out to be the best info I did manage to find but if one is not as cheeky as me and daring to do so, info like this would not be obtainable by pure “search and destroy” tactics.

So, I decided upon my return back to Blighty that a Dummies manual on this was called for.

I by no means can call myself an expert on this subject as I have only attended one Dolpa in my entire life, I do plan on more if all things permit, but so far, that is it!
However, I wish this had been there for me when I first started planning this late winter/ early spring. Might have saved me some headaches and a few slip ups here and there ^^

Note: There are workshops at Dolpa too but as I did not attend any or attempt to attend any, have no idea how these works.
Any input on this please enlighten me ^^

Right, here we go!

How to Get Your Dolpa Guide Book
If you are currently stationed in Japan, just pop into a Volks shop/ showroom anywhere and they will sell you one.
Call a shop and they will reserve you one to pick up.

If you are not so fortunate as to be stationed/ living in Japan and read/ speak no Japanese you can order yours over the international site.
Make sure that your postal service gives you enough time for customs release, ashclouds and what have we.
Should you encounter any postal issues like customs detention/ ashclouds/ postal strikes, contact Volks IMMIDIATELY by mail and explain the situation to them.
Let them know where-abouts you will be staying and they will arrange a copy for you in the nearest store/ showroom that you can pick up once you get there.
You will have to pay for it there but the parcel you have been sent will be returned to sender when you do not pick it up.
Not sure how the US site works in regards to this. Please check for yourself if you are US based ^^

If you got contacts in Japan, friends/ forum contacts/ deputy services, ask them to pick you up a copy and either get them to send it to you, could potentially save you customs fees if they send it marked down and as personal effects. It will pass straight through.
Or meet up with them once you arrive in Japan, any excuse for a meal/ drink/ socialising is good in my book ^^
Or just get your Japanese speaking contact to reserve you a copy in your name to pick up on arrival, this means they wont have to cover any costs at reservation time and you can do the legwork yourself and pick up stuffs at the same time.
If you do speak Japanese you could call a store/ showroom and reserve a copy, sure they would do so for you, but if you do not speak any japanese, this might not be a very sensible solution.

You can also rely on it still being in stock in store when you arrive.
I visited a couple of stores before Dolpa and they both had the guidebook at the tills, so in my experience, it might be worth it, especially if you are in a country where they do charge you customs for everything and you got no contacts who can help you out in Japan.

You could also wait until you get to the Dolpa show and buy it at the door.
Note, this WILL mean you lose out on the lottery draw for a place in the line for limiteds and Sumika items as they start the queues for this an hour earlier than actual show and ticket sales starts!
So if you are there for the limited items this IS a bad choice.
However, if you are just coming to soak up the atmosphere and browse the stalls without looking for anything in particular, this could be the option to go for.

To reserve a Bento Box or not to reserve a Bento Box
To save on the cash for your dollie expenditures on the day it might be a good idea to buy the Guidebook with the pre-orderable Bento Box. Then you only have to pick it up and tuck in. This is what we opted for.

(There are no cash machines that I noticed at Big Sight and no dealers accepts cards. Only Volks will take your plastic money).

However, at Dolpa 23 the available-on-the-day Bento Box was a cuuuute Hello Kitty plastic bento box that would have been so cool to have for bringing my lunch to work in.
The pre-ordered was a huge heavy clay pot that weighed half a kilo >.< No way that was going into the suitcase!

But of course, there is no knowing if this will be different for the next Dolpa so go with what you find most convenient.
Or bring your own lunch! A lot cheaper but less convenient.

Also, if you are picky or have special food requirements being allergies, religious requirements or you simply choose not to eat certain things like meat, then the Bento Box should be opted out.

Think there are food places around Big Sight but this will make you lose time in the sense you have to find them, buy stuff, bring back etc.

Getting to Big Sight
This takes FOREVER!

Note, this place is in the middle of nowhere!
You have to take several train/metro lines depending on where you are staying.
Of course, if you are staying at a nearby hotel this is not an issue but if you as me decide to stay in say Nakano/ Shinjuku/ Shibuya area, prepare for an hour to an hour and a half on public transport.
There are two routes to Big sight.
I took the scenic overground, for London people DLR like train line, to it and landed at Kokusai-Tenjijo Station.
Not sure if the other one is under or overground but according to Mitsuki_Moon on DOA it is less scenic and slightly more cunfusing in terms of finding your way to Big Sight. However, depending on where you are staying this might be more convenient for you!
Check out your travel plans before you head out, will save you a lot of pain at early hours in the morning.

Once you get there, just follow the crowds, I am sure you will spot a lot of trolleys and doll carriers and lolita clad peeps that will be going to exactly the same thing as you ^^

At Big Sight – Getting Into Those Queues
Again, follow the crowds if you already got your guidebook.

If you do not have a guidebook then start joining the queues outside as these are for the folks who have not bought one, they are NOT the queues for limited items as i first thought.
Queues for limited items only start INSIDE the actual Dolpa venue area and you have to show your guidebook to even get into the area where they are.

Queuing for Limiteds
In my perception: You do not have to be there at 7am to get a good number. You can as easily draw number 5000 as you can number 1 at 7am in the morning.
Of course, if you want to be part of the buzz and the eternal wait for 9am when they start forming the lines then do get there early, if not, then just make sure you get there before 9am.

It is a lottery draw. You get to the entrance, there will be tables with big lottery drum thingys, you show them your guidebook, they will cut of a corner of your guidebook and you draw a lottery ticket.
This is your number in the line.

Best chance of getting a good number is to buy more guidebooks.
And even then, you are not guaranteed a good one.
Luck of the draw!

Me and hubby got there at around 8am and got equally crap numbers but some who had gotten their way earlier was not far of being having one just as crap as ours.

When you have your lottery ticket with your number that hopefully is within the first 500, you are let into the venue.
If not within the first 500-1000, then chose if you want to stay for the leftovers as you are likely not to get your first choice or join the line for the Sumika items.

I got a number somewhere near 3000 and Hubby got close to 5000.
I swapped my ticket with another attendee who was from the US who I unfortunately did not get the contact details of as I would like to thank her!!!
Did not think I would get anything at all but there was one doll left when my number was finally called: Chika the Dolpa 23 Yo-SD so went for her and I absolutely adore her. Her name is Pino btw ^^

Within the venue you will notice areas marked with big signs stating number sequences like 1-500, 501-600, 2000-3000 etc.
You go to the area where your number belong and do not have to stand in any particular order.
Just take a seat on the floor where there is room ^^ Bring your breakfast and have a picnic

They will start calling numbers around 9am, dont worry if you do not understand japanese, they will have nice big understandable signs.
They will be calling numbers in groups from 1-100, 101-200 so on and so forth.
When your number sequence is called, walk up to the speaker who is calling the numbers and Volks staff will guide you up to the numbered from 1-100 line that is printed on the floor at the top of the waiting area.
You then walk over and stand at your number. So say you are number 220 you walk over to number 20.
When they have filled up the line you have offically joined the que and it will start moving towards the doll selection point.

Once you get to the selection point you state what doll you want by pointing at the corresponding picture on the board they have at the selection point.
You will then receive two tickets. One is for payment, one is for pickup.
You proceed to the tillpoint.
After you pay you can either pick up your doll purchases or you can decide to leave the heavy box/es for later pickup – dont leave it too late, think the deadline was around 2-3pm.

After you pick up the box you can send it to yourself within Japan, not sure if they do overseas shipments.
If you do want to ship it abroad and they do not provide this service at Dolpa, do pick up a transport carton tough.
They were 300 yen, so worth it or you will have a bit of trouble trying to find one at the post office, they do not do dolliebox size cartons there.
And I do suggest you courier them home by EMS unless you fly business or premium economy your weight limit is somewhat limited to the early 20kg limit.
Considering the resin ones weigh between 2-3kg each then you can easily be paying overweight charges at around £60 per kg or something just as ridicoulous as that.
Much cheaper to ship EMS. Just make sure you get a Japanese address to put on the parcel just for show!

As far as I know, it is one of each doll per person so you could potentially buy them all should you get a good number.
I believe this is why they disappear so fast as all the scalpers of course buy one of each where us mere mortals only buy the ones we actually want and can afford.

If I am wrong about the one of each doll per person, please let me know!

Queuing for Sumika items
For this, you HAVE to get there early! It is worked on a first come first serve basis and it is one of each item per person only.
If you are in a group it might be worth splitting up so one half do the Sumika items and the other half do the Limiteds if you get good numbers for the Limited’s line.

Quite simple actually compared to the whole Limiteds business, just get there early and join the line!

To me it looked slightly disorganised but it might not have been. Maybe people were just eager to get in ^^

Doing the Dolpa
When you finished standing in line and have paid for your Volks purchases you enter the actual Dolpa dealers area or if you ditched the lines, then you enter once they open at 10am.

Some people run when the doors open, you are welcome to follow but you don’t have too ^^
They know what dealers to attack and what limited goods are on sale, if you are into all this you might know and will be running too, if you don’t, no need to run, unless of course you want to and follow one of the runners just to see what is so interesting. You might just pick up something awesome ^^

Know I missed lot of fab goods but hey, there is always YHJ! for that later lol.

If you know who and what you are looking for it might be an idea to queue up to get into the dealers area instead of queuing for Limiteds and Sumika items, especially if you get a really lousy number.

Most of the things on sale is frilly and fluffy as this is what the Japanese seems to like most: Kawaii!
There is some fetish gear and goth stuff around and some wicked weaponry but mostly it is lolita or casual things on display. Few crafty stalls around too.

I was of the perception that no other dolls than Volks’ own were permitted but I did spot a couple of Mama Chapps and Azone girls in and around the various stalls.

Also, good idea to do a bit of price comparison as some of the dealers will have the same things for sale, same goes for the Dollshow actually. So keep your eyes peeled. Getting a bargain will be kinda hard unless you speak Japanese

But, you might acquire lots of strange freebies.
I ended up with a strange handmade fan from Little Wonder Wardrobe and lots of clip art card board cut outs of doll sized cereal packs?

Make sure you pick up business cards from the stalls you like!
Same applies to Dollshow.
This will enable you first of all to remember who you saw and what you liked but also gives you the web address for later browsing and shopping purposes.
A lot of the dealers will be private and most likely not ship abroad but then at least you have a link to give to your shopping service of choice.

Lottery for One Offs and Limiteds
There are forms within the Dolpa Guidebook that lets you enter into a lottery draw for the one offs that are on display as well as the Limiteds.
I did not go for any of these as don’t really like Volks SD boys and girls :/ so I have not tried and tested this myself. This is how it was explained to me by Cassie ^^

So, if you after having a look at the display fancy a chance of getting your hands on one of these, fill in the form and put it in the box that corresponds to the doll that you want to try for.

Winners are announced from the stage at a set time of the day and name will be called three times. If you do not respond within the three calls it will go to the next person.

If you do not do Japanese, hit the information desk and ask for an English speaking helper to help you fill in the form and give you a time table.

We were really luck that there were an American girl working for Volks at this Dolpa who’s name was Cassie. We ran to her every time we had a thing we needed to sort out. So a big thank you to her for all her help!

The Japanese staff might say they can’t speak English but in most cases that is not entirely true.
They might not speak it very well but they often do understand you and will help point you in the right direction.
There is no harm in trying!
This goes for general out-and-about as well!

Getting your bingo plates and how to play
There is a booth somewhere that will stamp your guidebook and give you a bingo plate in exchange.
If you cannot figure out which one, just hit the info desk, or show your guidebook to random people and ask for the way there
Also, ask them when it is if you do not read the japanese time table.

When calling out the numbers someone will write the numbers on a big board at the same time so you can play even if you do not understand Japanese.
If you get bingo, wave your hands wildly in the air and shout bingo and enter the stage area.
Someone will check your bingo plate and if you are the only one that waved your hands wildly in the air and shouted bingo, you get to pull a string and the price at the end of it is yours. Aything from gift vouchers by the looks of it to full-set dolls.

If more than one did the above, you get to play paper/rock/scissors for your place in the line to pull a string, but ehm, they do it very fast and not really sure if they got the same rules as here in this part of the world. So… Good luck!

Dolpa, Done!
That’s it!

Time to head back to base and go through all the goodies acquired, blogging, tweeting and taking pics and posting them where-ever you see fit ^^

Feedback
If you feel any of the stuff I have entered is incorrect, please drop me a line/ comment and I will update asap. Especially if you have done this a lot of times input will be highly appreciated as again, this is my very first time doing this!

If this Dolpa for Dummies guide helped you in any way, also please let me know too^^

On a lovely summer afternoon I met up with some DD owner friends in Vancouver for lunch. Puppy52, LightningSabre and Danielle met me at Marutama Ramen in downtown Vancouver to try their popular chicken-based broth.

This is one of the rare occasions that I didn’t bring one of my own Dollfie Dream girls with me, but instead I had Jezatron’s gorgeous Kanu with me on a little cross-Canada adventure! Here she is with Puppy52′s Ebi-chu, and LightningSabre’s army of MISAKA’s!

OMG they are so naughty!

Ebi-chu is so tiny she fits in Kanu’s hand!

I had the Marutama Tamago Cha Shu Ramen – Mmmm lots of meat!

Afterwards we walked along Robson Street to a small dessert café called Chicco and ordered some Japanese-style parfaits.

When you’re having trouble deciding if you want ice cream, gelato, cheesecake or a macaron – why not just indulge and have them all?! Ebi-chu approves of this decision!

Alas, it was another of my short (but sweet!) visits to Vancouver and I had to head home shortly afterwards. I had a lovely time hanging out with everyone and I hope to be back in Vancouver again soon!

- ♥ Archangeli

Omake (Extra):

Kanu went home shortly after this little meet. Here’s a parting photo of her with Sakura.

September was a very busy month! First of all special love ♥ and congratulations to PVCFantastic and DioptricStraw on their wedding day! We had some special guests in town to celebrate with them, and after the wedding festivities were over we had a doll meet so that TheBobness could hang out with some of our Toronto Dollfie Dream community. For this meet we tried a new venue: a lovely tea lounge in mid-town called T-Buds. I had heard lovely things about this place and they were able to accommodate our large group in their tea room, even if it was a bit cramped for all the dolls @__@”

The casual theme of the meetup was “Lolita” and it was wonderful to see everyone all dressed up!

Here is AkaTG’s Horo with juu-yuki’s Rina. Little Dot is hitching a ride on Horo ^__^” So adorable!! ♥

My little Médée made friends with xsnrge’s Saber.

Photo by: TheBobness

Gabi was going for a non-traditional kind of lolita look. Rather than frills and lace, she dressed up as Sherlock Holmes – how very dapper! Snuggling up close to her is Tallenvyaere’s little Soom Appini called Marius.

Photo by: TheBobness

TheBobness’s Jubei (DD Beatrice) is getting cozy with juu-yuki’s Mariko.

CenturyStory brought Primula out, and Nkei brought a very special girl. The doll hiding behind Primula is Nocte, a Dollfie Dream Marya. This is an older DD (released in 2008) and I’ve never seen one in person before. On the right is TheBobness’ Rise Kujikawa.

Photo by: TheBobness

This little angel belongs to Nurlindae, her name is Daisy and she’s so tiny she fits in a teacup! Daisy is a Lati Yellow Sophie (limited Wizard of Oz version).

The tea list at T-Buds is very impressive – if you are a tea aficionado I definitely recommend this place.

They serve a classic afternoon tea with scones and sandwiches -

Or just some scones with a bit of fruit.

Their dessert crèpes are not to be missed, and they also have a very delicious selection of sandwiches and wraps for lunch/ brunch!

After the meet, a few of us went out to a nearby park to take a few more photos. It was quite a challenge since we were losing daylight very quickly and there was hoards of mosquitos!

Here’s Sakura and some beautiful autumn leaves -

TheBobness’ Rise looks so sweet -

It was wonderful to see everyone, especially to welcome a couple back some friends that we haven’t seen in a while!

- ♥ Archangeli

Omake (Extra):

Behind the scenes as CenturyStory begins her monumental task of setting up all the dolls! We commandeered a baby high chair, and made use of 2 tripod-mounted doll stands to fit all of the dolls!

I’m finally getting around to sharing a few photos that AlphaZ and I took on our trip to Japan in October. It was a wonderful vacation, even if it got off to a bit of a rough start @__@” Cin & I had some difficulties with trying to travel on a stand-by pass and in the end decided it wasn’t worth wasting our vacation days traveling back and forth to and from the airport and bought full-fare tickets on United Airlines to get us to Tokyo. For me, it was an interesting peek at how another airline functions, and since we had confirmed tickets it was rather stress-free. In the 2.5 day head start that AlphaZ, Squall18 (aka Bosu) and Sarcasm-Hime had, they tackled a lot of touristy things and shopping!

AlphaZ took Rin and Serena to the Volks showroom in Akihabara and took a few photos. He accidentally mixed up their wigs, but it’s interesting to see Rin-chan as a blonde! ^__~”

There was a very regal photospace set up in the showroom. The girls look like they are doing a special news report for AKB0048! Haha!

Rin looks rather cute as a blonde – it’s very different from how she usually looks.

AlphaZ also took some lovely night time shots in Asakusa that I wanted to share. These are shrines around Senso-ji Temple -

The last time we were here, Tokyo Skytree was still under construction. I think we missed the grand opening by a few weeks, which is for the best since I heard that the lines to go up to the observation deck were insanely long. We did visit Skytree on this trip, but here is a gorgeous shot of the tower lit up at nighttime -

More to come soon!

- ♥ Archangeli

Happy New Year Friends! I have some catching up to do on my blog, which I hope to do in the next few days ^__^” My first little doll meet this year was in sunny Hong Kong! The weather was such a nice change from the harsh winter that I’ve been experiencing this year in Toronto. I met up with XOHimitsuOX and we went to a beautiful park in Sha Tin to take pictures of a couple of our girls. I didn’t bring my DSLR with me as it’s too heavy to bring for such a short trip overseas, so I only had my iPhone. I’m rather surprised how well some of these photos turned out!

As you can see, I dressed Alice for the arctic weather – haha! She’s so overdressed, but by Hong Kong standards it was a nice “autumn” day.

Saber onee-chan is so tall!

The afternoon sun created a beautiful golden glow.

Photo by: XOHimitsuOX

We climbed a tall hill later in the afternoon and it got a bit chillier, so Alice bundled up a bit.

It was wonderful to be able to get out during daylight hours and take some pretty pictures! Thanks for hanging out XOHimitsuOX!

Photo by: XOHimitsuOX

- ♥ Archangeli

Omake (Extra):

Alice looking out from my hotel room over Mong Kok.

I seldom post about our figure collection, but this is a landmark occasion! AlphaZ has been slowly collecting this B-Club cold-cast Gundam SEED set over the past few years. It’s been very challenging to find all of the figures since it was originally released circa 2006.

After many years of searching, we finally welcomed Flay Allster into the collection and the B-Club set is finally complete!

- ♥ Archangeli