Happy Holidays!

Today is our last day of posts before Christmas and so in the spirit of the season I'm totally going to rip off of my bff and post pictures of my dolls with a tree and with very few words!

 It's their tree of course and so they got to decorate it. Kanani and Mia started off with some garland!

Red Hood Action Figure

Today, for the first time ever, I am going to review an action firgure. Cue the dramatic music.

Welcome Home Mia!

My bestie and I tend to gift each other dolls once a year or so. Last Christmas she got me Kohanna for Christmas, this year I got her Matilda for her birthday and this year she got me Mia!

For my birthday. This is what Mia looked like when she got her.

Meet Charlotte (and the Plaid Party Dress)

 Is that a new doll? Why yes it is. Let me tell you all about her!

Matilda's Cloak and Night Dress

Last time I make a promise. Man.


Last year I managed to do five posts leading up to Christmas and this year I'm already one behind but we can do it. Let's finish out the year strong! So today we are going to talk about Matilda's cloak and her night dress!

Thanks to one of you awesome people I was warned of a sale of Matilda things on Zulilly in Novemeber! I got Matilda's cloak and night dress for me and something for my bff's Matilda. Seriously Zulilly has had some amazing doll deals the past couple of months!

How to give a doll a mohawk.

Woohoo a whole month later! Let's just say the last 3 weeks and change have been full of the crazies. Anyway, I've finally finished my special hair project. If you read the title of this post you know it's a mohawk! Seriously this turned out SO good and I'm going to show you how I did it!

First up? The materials:

Jebby and.........

Before we begin I want to put a warning on this post. If you don't want to see disassembled dolls, dolls without eyes, or doll heads all by themselves sitting on my counter? Skip this one. Or don't, but don't say I didn't warn you! Now that we've got that out of the way!


Everyone remember this slightly terrifying sight?

Yup! Today we are going to continue with the saga of my boys.

Addy's Meet Outfits

Well, I've had a couple of very exciting weeks. Two very important things have happened! The most important is that I became an aunt. My sister-in-law had a baby girl and I am thrilled and I can't wait to meet her! The second, slightly less important thing, is that my computer died. It was a slow an painful death that dragged on for about the last three years and finally the old girl just crashed! But my husband is amazing and built me a brand new computer and so I am back in business. Luckily I didn't lose too much.

So today we are going to talk about Addy's meet outfits!!

Samantha's Meet Outfits

At last I'm ready to do this! I just started working full time again so my schedule has been bit nuts and it's totally cutting into my doll time. (Minecraft could be causing a bit of a time crunch too....) But don't worry! We shall preserver and I have lots of fun posts coming up.

Now, as everyone should know, Beforever is here! Which, of course, means that Samantha is back and updated. I've had the pictures for a post about Samantha's original meet outfit for a while now but when I heard she was coming back I decided to hold off and review both together.

Here they are:

Getting started on my boys!

Today was going to be all about Samantha's Meet Outfits at last, but I forgot to take ONE picture and now I have to wait till tomorrow to take it. So instead I'm going to talk about this box:

 Ohhhhh what could be in there?!

Beforever Squee!!

 I got my very first box of Beforever things today!

Doll Family Photos

Okay this isn't a real post LOL. This is a my and my bff were messing around and taking pictures of our strangely related dolls for giggles and grins and then I promised I would post them. Also we took these after dark so yay flash. And now without further ado!

Doll Family Photos:

Oh Sylvia

I'm back!! My vacation was awesome and then I started working full time as soon as I got back home so it has been a busy two weeks but here I am! And today we are going to talk about this little girl right here:

Photo used with permission from Traci

Kirsten's Birthday Outfit

Traci is going to be here tomorrow!!

Continuing with what my dolls were wearing before I changed them into meet outfits in honor of my bff; we're going to talk about Kirsten's birthday outfit!

Cecile's Meet Dress and Accessories

Today we are going to step away from what my dolls WERE wearing and talk about what one is wearing right now. Cecile is in her meet outfit and accessories in honor of my bff's visit in one week!!! Here she is:

Note: Cece is wearing her crinoline and chemise in all of these pictures

Let's take a look at it in a little closer detail:

Samantha's Tea Dress And Party Slippers

Today, in what-my-dolls-were-wearing-before-I-changed-them-into-meet-outfits, we are going to be taking a look at Samantha's Tea Dress and Party Slippers!

Fancy Dress and Fairy Costume Accessories

In a little over two weeks my bff/sister/partner in doll crime is going to come visit! In honor of her arrival all of my girls are changing into their meet outfits. So over the next two weeks I'm going to do variety of clothing posts. Might as well take pictures while I change them right? There might be some meet outfits but then again there might not be. I haven't decided but there will be lots of clothing either way!

Also I got a new cardboard backdrop so I'm experimenting with that! Hopefully the pictures are looking okay.

And now for today's clothing post! We are going to talk about Cecile and Marie-Grace's Fancy Dress and Fairy Costume Accessories!

Daisy Chain Blog Award, Thrift Store Finds, and My Favorite Kid

I had some visitors this weekend and I found out that the best part of having a doll collection is letting your favorite kid go wild!

I swear her eyes bugged out when I told her she could open ALL THE BOXES!!

Fairies of Cottingley Glenn: Yarthkins

In January I got a new Fairy! And now I've finally gotten around to showing her off. So this is Yarthkins:

Melody (My Twinn 18" Adopt A Friend)

I had a plan. After my boys were all done I was going to go to My Twinn and create a custom doll. I knew exactly what I wanted because I was going to make a Melody Guthrie doll. She is a Marvel Comics character and Sam and Jay Guthrie's little sister. She had no wings but she could fly and then she lost her powers. She's a very minor character but I have some major love for the Guthrie family and since I wanted a My Twinn 18" doll anyway, she was a good excuse to make one. But then My Twinn had a sale on their 18"Adopt a Friend Dolls! (Currently they are on sale again for $49 but I'm not sure how long it will last! Check them out here.)

One thing that anyone who reads this blog should have figured out by now is that I'm a sucker for dolls in need. I have some pristine dolls but I kind of love my imperfect ladies. My Twinn Adopt A Friend dolls hit all my buttons! They come in both the 23" and 18" sizes and, according to My Twinn's FAQ, they are made from the left over parts and the parts they couldn't use on custom dolls. I started looking for fun and then I found a beautiful girl with a sweet little smile and since she was so cheap I pounced!

A few days later she arrived!

 I like that they sent a catalog.

Some Good Boy Stuff

I was waiting to do this post because I was considering buying an outfit for one of my future boys, and I wanted to include it in this. Buuuuuuut then My Twinn had a sale on their 18 in Adopt A Friends (they are having good sales on a lot of things right now if anyone is interested) and so I got a new doll instead! I know. Shame on me!

So we're just going to be talking about the places I bought things for Traci's boys! I got a lot of stuff from eBay. Sam's red shirt and Jay's pants and hoodie are from an old American Girl set. There are quite a few sellers on there that have generic things that will work for boys too. Sam's jacket, hat, and boots as well as Jay's shoes all came from eBay, but I needed some very specific things that I couldn't  find there. Like boxers! I found those at MissyOodlesCreations.

I bought two things from her. A t-shirt and boxers set for Sam and a pair of snake skin, print boxers for Jay.

Sam's shirt front

The Boys

Traci got the boys today!! So now I get to show them off here! If you haven't read anything about these boys check out these three posts: part one, part two, and part three. And now without further ado:

Sam and Jay

Here they are!

Caroline's Birthday Dress

Well the boys are all finished and are going to be leaving for their new home on Tuesday! As soon Traci gets them I'm going to do a big reveal on here. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out and excited to show them off and I'm excited to get to work on my own boys soon! But until I can do that I have some clothing posts that need to go up and today I want to do a post about Caroline's birthday dress.

For anyone new, my Caroline is not AG's version. I think that Caroline is very pretty but I was really hoping for something else so when I found myself with an extra doll on my hands I made what I wanted Caroline to look like. You can read all about that starting here!

On to the post!

Mermaid Doll Making Kit by 4M Industrial Development Limited

Wow that title is a mouthful!

A few months back, while checking out the local Hancock Fabrics, I found a whole shelf of these really cute doll making kits. They had a fairy, a ballerina, a princess and a mermaid, but I didn't end up buying one. I've been thinking about them ever since! Well, last weekend, my husband and I stopped by there again and I decided that this time I wasn't going home without one. After all how can I buy these for the little girls in my family if I don't test one out first? Right?! Right.

It took a while but I finally decided on the mermaid!

 

 She's a red-head! It really wasn't that hard of a choice.

Isabelle's Coral Sweater and Skort (On Kanani)

Well we almost four and a half months into the year of Isabelle! I'm not a huge fan of her. In fact I spell her name wrong like 95% of the time? But when I saw her coral sweater and skort I knew that Kanani had to have them! She is a frequent stealer of other GOTY's collections (she also has Saige's sweater outfit) and I thought that these two items would look amazing on her. I was so right.

Before I give you all an up close and personal look I have a small confession. I dropped my old phone (which I took all my pictures with) in the toilet. I got a fancy new one! But in the next few clothing posts you might notice a quality difference in my pictures since I took half the pictures for these posts before the toilet incident and am finishing them with my new one! My life. Moving on!

Jayhouse Rock

As I mentioned in my last post I bought the doll to make Sam's brother! He arrived this week and I got to immediately got to work on him. But before we talk about the doll I kind of want to talk about the character.

This is my favorite picture of Jay Guthrie (aka Icarus)

He is the third Guthrie kid and his older siblings are Sam Guthrie (aka Cannonball) and Paige Guthrie (aka Husk) X-Men staples. At least three more of his siblings did/will/could have (if M-day hadn't happened) develop powers. Jay has a pretty big place in my heart because he was an awesome character that got seriously short changed by Marvel and is currently dead. Probably never to return. Actually I have a big soft spot for all the Guthries. Anyway the doll I'm making will be a little kid version of that guy up there and let's talk about that doll now!

Doll!Sam and the Traveling Brother

Hey everyone! I just wanted to give you all a quick update on my boy doll project. Sam has had a lot going on the past week or so. He's gone from a slightly beat up brunette to a gorgeous blond boy!

First off he got a good cleaning. Luckily most of the marks came right off with the help of a magic eraser but (if you remember from my first post about him) there were three particularly bad ones. The magic eraser didn't even make a dent on these but a few days with some benzoyl peroxide did the trick!

We'll start with the least bothersome:

Sam had a pink mark on his hip! I'm not sure what caused it but it appeared to be pink marker maybe? Above you can see what it looked like the day I got him and after being treated with benzoyl peroxide for about five days.

Addy's Blue Dress

 Happy birthday Addy!!

Doll!Sam and the Bad Tattoo

I'm so excited for this!!

Some of you might remember Laura, the doll I made for my bff last summer. What some of you might not know is that she is based off of a comic book character. We are totally Marvel Comics junkies. So a few months back I decided I wanted to make some boy dolls and we figured why not make them after comic book characters too?! I'm planning on making four; two for my bff and two for me.

Since I'm a super cool friend I'm making her's first (plus mine are going to require an eye swap and I'm putting that off :P ) and last week I found a good doll at a decent price. I snatched it up and yesterday he arrived!

Marta's New Wardrobe

My bestie just so happens to enjoy making doll dresses! So when I decided to make Marta I asked her to make one dress for me. And boy did she deliver! She made Marta four dresses! I got them a couple of weeks ago and today I'm going to show them off.

In honor of her new wardrobe Marta also got a bit of a make-over. I repainted her lips since they were a bit faded and gave her some temporary freckles. I added the freckles because I'm not sure that Marta is visually different enough from Kirsten, but  I'm still deciding if I like them enough to make them permanent.

And now I'll stop yapping and show you the pictures!

First up is Marta's "Meet" Dress:

oooooh freckles

Doll DIY: SHOES! Part 3 Construction

First off I would like to say thank you to all the kind comments and messages I've gotten. I'm doing okay :)

Anyway! Welcome to Part 3 of my shoe tutorial! Finally LOL! Also my husband cleaned off our "craft table" so I actually got good pictures this time around. If you haven't read part one or two you and do that here and here. Let's get started!

For this part you will need:

1. Your shoe pieces
2. Appropriate colored thread
3. Pins
4. Needles
5. Thimble or something to protect your finger. 
6. Craft foam
7. Glue
8. Small clamps (I use clothespins) 

First we have to get the upper ready!

An explination

When I first started this blog I decided that I wanted to focus on my dolls and my doll collection. Basically I don't want to use this space to whine about my life! But this blog is occasionally going to have to take a backseat to life.

I was going to just tack this onto my next post which is almost done and ready but honestly I don't want to have to see this every time I look back at that post. I also thought about not saying anything at all but I'm a woman of my word and I don't like to say I'm going to do something and not do it. I especially don't like to do that with no explanation. So I'm just writing this quick post to let you guys know what is going on and also to let you know I didn't drop off the face of the planet!

Long story short. My grandpa was very sick last week and we had to make the trip from Tennessee to Kansas and back last weekend. The good news is I did get to see him and say goodbye but he passed away early Monday morning.

I'm dealing and I'll be okay. This wasn't sudden so we were kind of prepared. I do appreciate any sympathy but I hope you all understand that I probably wont look at this post again. At least not for a long time.

Hopefully things will return to normal around here very shortly! I have several exciting things to show you guys including the last part of my shoe tutorial and a whole new wardrobe for Marta! I'll see you soon.

Dolly DIY: SHOES! Part 2 Fabric, Uppers, and Decoration

Hello and welcome back to Dolly DIY: Shoes! Today we are going to be talking about your fabric and decoration choices and how to make your upper. If you haven't already you can check out Part One here!

For this part you will need:

1. Craftfoam 
2. Fabric of your choice for upper
3. Glue
4. Marker
5. Scissors
6. Straight pins (optional)
7. Pencil
8. Fabric of your choice for insole (optional)
9. Paint brush (optional)
10. Decoration of your choice and what ever you need to apply that decoration

Doll DIY: SHOES! Part 1 Making Your Template

I'm back and recovered from my vacation! It's amazing how much work there is to do after you get back from a trip. Anyway, before we finish up my Bratzillaz collection we're going to take a small detour. And here is why:

I'm sure everyone remembers this dress!

Ivy's Rainbow Romper

By the time you guys are reading this (if I got this whole scheduling thing right) I'll be in Colorado and hopefully on my way to the Denver AG store in the next couple of days! I still have birthday money to spend I know exactly what I'm getting! That means lots of new things for you guys to see later, but before that we have to finish up a few things.

For Christmas I got Ivy's Rainbow Romper from my hubby. He really knows how to keep a lady happy! Because I'm a dork I couldn't put this on Ivy right away (It was too cold! She'd freeze her dolly buns off!) so I had to wait for a sunny day and finally last week I got one!

Victoria Antique

I lied! There is going to be one more Bratzillaz post after this one. Mostly because I took way too many pictures but also because I might only ever have one more Sashabella and I want to give her a good post. With that said: today we are going to talk about Victoria Antique!

Molly's Skating Outfit

One thing I got for Christmas from my sister/bff is the now archived Molly's Skating Outfit and her skating accessories! Yay thank you friend! So that is what we are going to talk about today!

Just a few notes before we start: 1. It is really muddy here so unfortunately there are only a few pictures of Molly in this outfit because we couldn't go outside and 2. please ignore how much I need to vacuum! My belt broke and I haven't gone to get a new one yet. Okay! On to Molly's Skating Outfit:

Bratzillaz Blood-Red Charm Outfit

Now that I've confessed my nasty little secret we can get on with stuff I got in December! Like I said a couple of posts back, I got a lot of Amazon gifts cards for my birthday/Christmas. I decided to finish up my Sashabella collection and the Blood-Red Charm outfit was on my list!

Here it is in the box:

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I really dig the box art for this line! I don't know why but I love that it's spooky and yet all very bright colors!

Bratzillaz Addiction

Like I said in my last post, I have a confession to make....I have been cheating on my big dolls.

Carpatina's Tudor Dress

WOW I can't believe it's already February! Well I didn't get much accomplished in January, but hopefully February will be a lot more active. Let's start off today by talking about Carpatina's catalog.

If you remember from my last post I ordered two outfits from Carpatina with a gift card I got for Christmas. Included in my package was their catalog and I have to say it's really nice!

I'm trying bigger pictures for this post. If you like them let me know!

The cover features Rowena. I love the dress she comes in.

Kohanna's Sun Kimono

WOW! I've been gone a long time. Sorry about that guys! The flu hit my house like a hammer and we're just now really getting over it all! But everyone is doing well and I finally had the time and energy to take some pictures. I have a ton of stuff to show you guys from Christmas and my birthday and I planned to take the whole of January to do that but I think it's going to spill over into February a bit. I'm sure you all won't mind. Let's jump right in shall we?

Carpatina actually sells some of their products through Amazon. Lucky for me I got plenty of Amazon gift cards this year! So I purchased two outfits; the Sun Kimono for Kohanna and the Tudor dress for Matilda.

They both came in a slightly battered, white envelope.

Extra Special Grace

If you are a frequent visitor of the AG Facebook page, you will remember that back around February/March 2013 there was a huge amount of spam (I'm sorry but when it gets to that level of annoying it's spam) about people wanting AG to create a doll with Down Syndrome. I didn't really want them to but that's because I'm 99% sure they would mess it up, but through that whole mess I found Connie Feda and this website. Connie has a daughter with Downs, you can read all about their story here but to recap for you; when her daughter was about nine she (the daughter)  noticed that there were no dolls that looked like her. So Connie set out to make one, and that is how you make a difference in the world people!

By the time I found out about Connie and her mission she already had a doll artist on the case and she had a few pictures. I saw this one:

totally stolen from google!

And I fell in love.