Sylvanian World - Washitsu (Japanse Style Room)

If you have seen the Washitsu (Japanese Style Room) photo in my previous post "Re-ment Dogs Happy Life" you may already knew some of the things I used for this Washitsu. The background was the same as the little sewing room in the last post. This background was supposed for making a diorama for my Blythe dolls but it's too small. Now I use it for Sylvanians or other small dolls. I like it now. It's very flexible to use for setting up different scenes and play with. I challenge myself create more interesting scenes these days. I really want to play with my toys. I don't want to see my treasures dead in the storage box. 

So here it is: a smaller version of Japanese Style Room! I hope you enjoy seeing it. 

A new friend in my toy family: BK. (BK stands for "Black Kitty". I wish I could come up with a better name but BK is easy to remember...)

Some of the things I used in this setup:

Sylvanian Families "15th Anniversary Japanese Style Room"
Sylvanin Families "Tuxedo Cat"
Little Stair-like Cabinet: Re-ment My Style Room #5 Japanese Room

Wall picture: handmade

Oil heater: Re-ment Dog's Happy Life #2
Napping dog: Re-ment Dog's Happy Life #4
Mint-color phone: Re-ment Vintage Home Appliances #5
(Vintage Home Appliance set is my favorite RM set. I'd really like to introduce the whole set to you one day.)
Vacuum and red trash bin: Re-ment Office Lady Secret Box 
BK: Mirianata's craft (from Etsy)
Six-Jar spice rack: Re-ment Asian Sundries #4

Have a great week! Thanks for reading.

Sylvanian World - Little Sewing Room

I bought a bag of 4'' square patchwork fabric (100 pieces per bag) on eBay and was intended to use them in a little sewing room scene.



 

Some other things I used are:
Sylvanian Families "Sewing with Mom" Set
Sylvanian Families "Handcraft Shop" Set
The white cupboard and worktable: old collection
The white shelf and pink storage boxes: Re-ment Storage Beauty #10
The red sewing machine: Re-ment French Sundries #3
Blue Bunny: Re-ment Storage Beauty #7
Feel free to ask if you would like know the source of miniature.

Have a good week!

My Hometown Shanghai & (Re-ment Department Store)

Today let’s go shopping together. Let’s suppose that we have arrived at this big department store in Shanghai where my hometown is. Before we start I’d like to introduce a little bit about my hometown.

Shanghai is a huge city in China, and one of the global financial centers. The population there is more than 24 million now. It is a typical modern city (like New York) and it doesn't look like any ancient traditional Chinese-style town at all. It’s one of the richest cities with best educational and medical system, as well as most job opportunities. That's why the population there is overwhelming. If a global corporation has business to do with China, it must set up a branch office in Shanghai. It's a busy and competitive place, but it’s also very fun and beautiful. When I was asked about the downtown in Shanghai, I couldn't answer that question. It’s too big to have only one downtown. It is divided into 14(maybe 15 now) big districts and each district will have one or several ‘downtowns’. You rarely see people living in a single house. People live in apartment in high rise. It has about 16 subway lines that reach most golden lanes in Shanghai. My parents live there. It takes my dad 40 minutes'drive to work if there’s no traffic jam. And it’s considered "home near work" because some people spent 4 hours go to and back from work on the way every day. It’s not easy to move like people do in the States, the house price is very high, and so is the rent. Here are some photos of life in my hometown.

The Bund: The center of the city; one of the famous landscape in Shanghai; Shanghai International Settlement; face HuangPu River

Yu Garden: Another landscape in 'Old City' of Shanghai. 

2010 Shanghai World Expo: The Shanghai World Expo was also the largest World's Fair site ever at 5.28 square km. In the picture it's building of China Pavilion.

 DimSum: People often have them as breakfast or with afternoon tea.  

Hotpot: popular Chinese restaurant style - You dip everything into the soup in the middle and eat them with sauce (there are 50 different sauces to pick). I took this picture 2 years ago when I went back visiting my families and friends. You can see the soup has two styles: Spicy or Non-spicy.  

Grocery Shopping: Places like Walmart. In the picture it shows how Chinese people buy rice. lol. 

Boba Milk Tea: You will see the Boba-Tea vendors everywhere in Shanghai. It's popular. Imagine the Starbucks in Seattle, get it?

Traffic: That's why it needs so many subway lines. I took this picture on a platform bridge near my mom's office years ago. It wasn't the peak time.

Park: The parks in Shanghai are so different from what people know in the States. It's more than a piece of grass. They all look like exhibitions to me...It's well-designed and organized. Some of them have the same scale as Disneyland. They have different themes in different seasons. They are very beautiful. You need pay for tickets most of the time but it's not expensive. 

The Department Store: We have Outlets too but they are located in suburban district. Most shopping areas people go to look like those tall buildings in the picture. Actually the left building in the photo was one of my favorite shopping malls in my hometown.

IKEA: Well, I guess IKEA looks the same all over the world? Smile...

Do I love Shanghai? Of course. 

Do I miss it? Very much. I don't know why but it suddenly reminded me so much when I was playing with this Re-ment set. When I saw this I smelled a sense of city life. But I am definitely not a shopaholic. I do spend most of my pocket money on food and toy collection though.

Will I move back? No. If one day I move back China I’ll live in a small city along the coast. I enjoy a peaceful and quiet life style instead of making more money and being a city girl. Even Orlando is too big and crowd for me. I love those small towns in Oregon. But I still love Shanghai where I grew up and met my husband.

Ok. Now Re-ment Time! This Department Store has 8 floors and 1 basement. Let's walk from top to down. 

8F: Gift. 

7F: Western Kitchenware.

6F: Asian Kitchenware

5F: Men's Floor.

4F: Ladies' Floor.

3F: Ladies' Floor.

2F: Ladies' Floor. (3 floors for woman and only 1 floor for man...TeeHee!)

1F: Cosmetics.

B1: Gourmet.

I took this photo to show the details. It has 2 flavors, can open and the little fruit can take out. They are just toy smaller than my fingernail!!  

Happy Shopping Day!!

Dear readers, I really hope this post is not too verbose. And since English is not my first language, I really appreciate your pardon my grammar mistakes. Hope you have a great week. 

Eye Up Gaze Correction

Hello dear blogger friends! How's this weekend for you? On these Saturdays we would get up a little bit early and go out finishing all needed business so we could back home before the rain. Yes, it rains every afternoon. Anyway, I enjoy my time at home studying about my Blythe dolls.

I always saw amazing photos of Blythe dolls on Flickr. One of the reasons that they look amazing to me is because their eyes are really sparkling and piercing so the expressions on their faces look like 'real' innocent kids. I compared the difference between my girls and theirs and finally got the secret! Their eyes look up! New Blythe dolls without any eye customization have glassyeyed look so they seem sleepy all the time. Some people prefer sleepy look and create very unique characters for their dolls. I adore those dolls who look up, who look like looking at me and talking to me when I saw the photo. I googled the eye up gaze correction and found a really neat video clip teaching how to do it so I decided to give it a try.

Here is the link of the tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZK2USNrZHs

So I gave Snow a brain surgery. I opened her head and followed the tutorial, unscrewed the T-bar, sanded it shorter, and screwed it back.  Yes, it's that simple. And it makes a big difference.

Here is the position of T-bar when you open the head:

Eye comparison between Snow (left) and Rachel (head never opened, no custom work done):

Did you feel the difference? Which style do you like more? I also give Snow a Licca body. I really like Licca body and even think that I might replace my two other girls' Azone body to Licca.

Thanks for reading my blog and leaving comments friends! I wish I could share some other Re-ment sets but it's too dark indoor in rainy days and I couldn't take any nice photos. Here are some other pictures that I took this week to share:

Spencer and Aria now have Azone S bodies. Shall I give them Licca bodies?