Little Darlings

In November of 2016, I discovered Dianna Effner's 13" Little Darling dolls. Normally, I wouldn't have paid a great deal of time looking at vinyl dolls after being an avid BJD collector and accumulating eighty of them over the past few years. Yet, when I saw them on the internet I felt such a strong attraction to these dolls and continued to Google them.

I soon learned that although Dianna had sculpted the original dolls and hand painted the vinyl dolls faces, there were other artists trained by Dianna, who also painted them. As I continued to search I soon found which dolls I thought I wanted to own, but it was going to take a long time to bring any of them home.

Dianna was not taking orders at the time and from all indications the wait for one of her dolls would drive me to distraction, and should one come up on her website, the price would be way beyond what I would be prepared to pay for a vinyl doll, no matter how good it was or who painted it.

I almost went ahead with this doll (a #1sculpt), but the wait was just far too long, so long in fact I figured I'd probably not be around to enjoy her.

Then I came across Joyce Mathews and ordered one very similar and this doll was really worth waiting for. You may notice her left brow is slightly lower than the her right, but I quite like that she's a little asymmetrical, after all, humans are that way IRL.

Who said a redhead can't wear pink? I knitted the outfit for her while I waited and am pleased it fits her so well.

Not long after bringing Cassandra home, I found this Little Darling who's listing on eBay was just about ready to expire without a bid, so I placed one and won.

I found out that Convention dolls, like Ana (Little Darling #2) which is short for Anastasia, are factory painted and touched up by The Doll Dreamers' Guild Artists. But I was just happy to have another Little Darling and she is so pretty.

I took advantage of the good weather to take a few photos of my Little Darlings in their new clothes.