Sunday 17 January 2010

February Cover Competition - The Entries

There are 33 beautiful photos to view in the current Cover Competition. The theme for the competition is Winter Warmers and it's so nice to see how much effort has gone into interpreting the theme.

To vote please choose your favourite 3 pictures and email the numbers to Lisa@hellodollymagazine.co.uk titling your email Competition Vote.


































Tuesday 12 January 2010

Brighton Belle - Prototype Competition

The Joy of Reborn Dolls Show and Hello Dolly Magazine are very proud to present
The Brighton Belle Prototype competition.

This competition is open to all Reborn Artists. We are offering you the chance to reborn a mystery prototype baby doll sculpted by the very talented Menna Hartog.

This new baby kit will make its debut at the Joy of Reborn Dolls Show, Brighton, April 2010.

To enter the competition:

Submit no more than 4 photographs each of your best 3 reborns (12 photos total) along with your name and nursery name to Lisa@hellodollymagazine.co.uk.

Pictures should be very clear and of high quality showing close ups of rooting, face, limbs, hands or feet and one overall shot of naked baby, no nappy or vest.

The winner will be chosen by the Hello Dolly Magazine and the Joy of Reborn Dolls Show team, based on skill, level of realism, skin tone and rooting.

Deadline for submission: January 30th 2010

The rules and terms of entry are available at Brighton Doll Festival and Hello Dolly Magazine.

Please read in FULL before entering the competition.

We look forward to seeing your best babies and to chosing a winner!

Friday 8 January 2010

Template Talk

One of the most popular and successful methods of selling a reborn baby idoll is via the Internet on auction sites such as Ebay, Dollpile, Etsy etc. In order to showcase a reborn to it maximum potention most reborn artists use auction templates when listing a reborn.

Templates come in the form of HTML and although they may look complicatedl there is no real need to actually have any knowledge of HTML to get them to work, templates prepared by good template designers will come with instructions on how to use them and offer technical support should users run into problems. It is always wise to ask your template seller upfront what kind of technical support they offer but in the main, if you can cut and paste, you can use a template.

Once purchased an auction template is yours to use time and time again. Should you decide to use a template you will also need an image host in order to store and show the photographs of your reborn. There are a number of image hosts that are free to use and one of the most popular and easiest to use is Photobucket.


As well as being an effective way to present a reborn doll to potential buyers an auction template helps to create branding for a nursery especially when combinded with a matching website, business cards and birth certificates.


By doing this customers will be able to instantly recognise a particular nursery from their template and logo.

Auction templates also serve another function, that of reducing listing costs, Ebay for instance charges per photo in a listing where Ebay are hosting the photos and this can really add up, with an auction template you can add as many extra photos as you like at no extra expense.

Quite often templates are sold in multiples so it is worth investing in an exclusive template, it may cost a little more but it will give your nursery a unique look then your nursery can't be confused with others out there just because they have the same template that you do.

Another thing to consider is whether or not to get flashing backgrounds, cursors and floating images, whilst these might look great on your computer, they will often slow down other people's and are very distracting.

Images of Sample templates by: Natalie Milne - Baby-Bits-n-Bobs


Read more about Templates in April's Hello Dolly Magazine