A look back

I had a Flickr page before I was active with this blog, and I was finally able to access my old page earlier today.  Most of the pictures are crap and need deleting, but I did find some oldies of Daniela, my neglected but loved LIV doll.  These are old pictures, taken before I'd had a lot of experience photographing dolls or anything, so some of 'em are of questionable quality.  That said, the fall of 2011 was a magical time.  The weather had finally stabilized after a year of near-constant rain and waves of violent tornadoes.  My family had successfully transitioned to our new house (the one we will ironically be leaving soon), and I learned to love cocker spaniels.  I'd always heard that cocker spaniels were dumber than dirt, and indeed Maggie was dumb, but she was also affectionate and mellow.  We had Maggie three months before she died in sudden, frightening fashion, but that was the only dark part of that autumn.  Since we DID move my expertise was called upon to store and move my already large doll collection, and I fell back into the hobby.  LIV doll Daniela was the first one I bought, and I never looked back.

Truth be told, Katie was aesthetically my favorite LIV doll, because she had dark hair and green eyes.  However, Daniela's music-loving persona led me to choose her over Katie (the prerequisite athlete of the bunch).  Here's the first halfway decent picture I got of her, in a red wig and a pink dress with a fuchsia bolero.  One can see Daniela's painted hair peeping out from under the wig, but Daniela didn't let that bother her.

Next pic...I freaking love this dress, but maybe not with the wig.

I thought maybe the purple accents in the dress would jive with the wig, but it ended up being a little too much for my sensibilities.  As we'll soon see, the dress worked out better with a simpler wig.

The next picture was taken during a rainy day in...anywhere from late fall of 2011 to late spring of 2012.  I know because the pool was covered, as seen in the background.  Daniela's little raincoat came with a working umbrella, so I took her outside to see how she looked with it.  This wig unfortunately shows more of her painted hair than the red one did.

Unfortunately the umbrella proved too small for Daniela to get honest-to-God under it, but I could make her look like she was putting it up.  Overall I wasn't impressed with that rain set; the coat felt stiff and cheap.

Here Daniela is almost all-original, except for yet another new wig, and a chunky necklace that I threw on her.

I called these unnatural wigs "Crayola wigs," because the colors were nice and bright like crayons.  I am not a strict Crayola snob, by the way.  Any crayon will do me, LOL.  Anyway, this next Crayola wig became a favorite of mine, both for its bright red color and for the way it jived with Daniela's new beach getup.

My sister was rocking a red 'do around that time, so that shade is kinda special to me.  My brother-in-law says that the first time he saw Sister her hair was red.  In reality my sister's hair was and still is dark brown (like Daniela's, LOL).

I called this next wig the Hannah Sluttana wig, because it looked like something Miley Cyrus would've worn...and because I thought and still think Miley Cyrus is a cheap little trollop.  Daniela looks okay, though.

That coat was one of the themed coats, by the way.  There were five of 'em, one for each of the LIV girls.  The camo one is...I think that one belonged to blonde, blue-eyed Sophie.  I liked it because it reminded me of a jacket I had and lost during college.  This next coat was usually modelled on Hayden.

It ended up looking nice with the pink purse from the last jacket.  I also have Alexis's coat, and it was my favorite because it had a functioning hood, but for some weird reason I never took a picture of Daniela wearing it.  Go me.  I never found the coats meant for Daniela herself, or for Katie.  Katie's coat was the most like what I myself owned at the time (red and water-repellant).

The last decent picture I got of Daniela was this one, and admittedly it's not great.

Her hair fades into the background, and the business end of my computer cable is visible by her left leg, but at the time I didn't think about crap like that.  All I cared about was whether her face was in focus and whether or not she stood up.  But it's possible to see that a plainer wig looks best with this dress.

I also have Jake and another Daniela in my LIV box, and I got some good pictures of Jake, but those pictures didn't make it onto my Flickr post for some reason.  One picture from that session did make it here, though.

These two are NOT romantically involved, by the way.  Both dolls were from the Making Waves line, and I pretended that Jake and Daniela were good friends who swim and hang out together.  Spin Masters kinda did Jake dirty, I think; I can only name one outfit that they did for him.  Usually my Jake ended up in Fashionistas Ken clothes, which fit him like a glove.  It was early fall of 2012 when I put that picture together, by the way.  I think the LIV dolls had been discontinued by then.  I freaking loved these dolls though, and I still have them carefully stored away, waiting for daylight to come again.  It WILL come again.  Some day daylight will come again for my bunch.

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987