4 weeks left!

Only 28 days left until Maui! Here’s Addy in Ivy’s Rainbow Romper. Gotta go. Bye.

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Isabelle’s Debut!

This went a lot better than last year.  Last year Saige was set up in a corner, and I got stuck and it was crowded and I wasn’t happy.  I wasn’t going to go on the first this year, but then my friend won the American Girl hotel package, and New Years Eve was the only night when she and I could both work out.  So we stayed (for free) at the hotel down the street from American Girl.  Last year we had to drive for 2 hours, and arrived at about 9:40 and were 20th in line or so.  This year I woke up at 8 and was at the store at 9 (while everyone else in our group was still eating breakfast, I walked to the mall), and was about the 6th person in line.  It was awesome, and the complimentary breakfast buffet at the hotel was pretty decent.

Since we had an AG first timer in our group (her doll was a gift from her uncle) we scoped out the store last night before the madness happened.

We got crackers from Target and wore our silly hats to ring in the new year in our hotel.

The prize package (or the hotel package that you can purchase) comes with one doll travel bed.  Additional beds were $35.  We bought them for the little girls, but I passed.

I had some trouble sleeping because I was so excited, but morning finally came and Addy and I headed out to the store.

Then we went to Panera, and Addy tried on the giveaway t-shirt.  I heard it was different at the other stores, but at our store they were giving away t-shirts to the girls doing the crafts.  Last year, they handed t-shirts to all the girls at the door.  Last year, we sent Becky’s daughter back in to get me a shirt.  This year, Valerie’s daughter asked, “can I go do the craft again so Marjorie can have a shirt?”  Awww.  I imagine I could have asked for a shirt, but last year I ended up with 2 Saige shirts because they were still giving them out at the end of the year, and then they sold them on Cyber Monday, so I figured I would find one eventually.  But I couldn’t resist Valerie’s daughter’s offer.  I took the photos outside while I waited for her to do the craft again (I was not interested in going back into the crowded store, especially with my heavy shopping bag).

It was a really fun day.  I bought everything except the barre and the dance bag full of hair accessories.  I skipped the barre because the design studio has a barre on the door, and I skipped the dance bag because I don’t play with my dollies’ hair.  But by skipping on those 2 items, I missed both pairs of ballet slippers.  So my new ballerina doll has only one pair of ballet slippers.  Oh well.

Time to go dress dollies.  Good night.

 

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Dolly A-Z: Addy

Hello! I’m starting a new series today! I’m going to introduce you to all of my dolls, one at a time, starting with Addy and ending with Zoe. Here we go!

Addy is an American Girl doll. You can still get her at store.americangirl.com, or from any of the American Girl stores.  I ordered my Addy in September 2009, she was my 20th American Girl doll.  She has a 6-book series, and also a collection of short stories, and some mystery stories.  in Meet Addy, Addy and her momma escape from slavery to Philadelphia.  The rest of the books are about adjusting to her life in Philadelphia.  Addy’s mother finds a job with a dressmaker, so Addy has really pretty dresses for someone with such limited means.

Here’s my most recent picture of Addy, she’s wearing Julie’s summer dress:

And here are some older pictures, that you may have already seen.

In her meet outfit with some of her dolly friends:

Senior Girl Scout Addy:

Wearing Cecile’s Summer Dress:

And a lovely closeup wearing her winter wear:

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Don’t All American Girl Dolls Look the Same? A Super-size Dolly Comparison Post

When people find out I have 30 American Girl dolls, they sometimes ask, “Don’t they all look the same?” Or, when I get excited about a new doll, my sister has asked, “Don’t you already have a doll that looks like that?” The answer to both of those questions is no, and this post is going to explore that. Please prepare yourself for a page full of dolly mugshots. I also want to say that my comparison will neglect the Girl of Today/My AG/Just Like You dolls, because I don’t collect them. That line offers even more hair/face/eye combinations, none of which I feel need to be added to my collection.

Let’s start with the biggest difference: there are dolls with different faces! American Girl has used multiple face molds through the years. Let’s go through them. I will follow conventional naming, naming the molds after the first doll that had them.

First, the classic mold. Pictured here on Kirsten, Felicity, Kit, Lindsey, Kailey, Emily, Nicki, Mia, Ruthie, Lanie, Caroline, and Saige.

I left Samantha and Molly out of this picture because my Samantha and Molly were made before the Mattel takeover, and I think they look different. Here are the first three American Girls: a pre-Mattel Molly, a Mattel Kirsten, and a pre-Mattel Samantha.

Felicity was the next doll released, and she shared the classic face mold. The next doll is Addy, who was released in the mid-90’s (after I got my first catalog, but before I picked my first doll). Addy is African-American, and thankfully she gets a new face mold.

A few years later, but still before the Mattel takeover, we get Josefina. She gets her own face mold, and since then many dolls have shared it. Some argue that it’s more popular than the classic mold (Chrissa and McKenna both sold very well), but I like the classic mold better.

Here are dolls with the Josefina mold: Josefina, Elizabeth, Nellie, Rebecca, Julie, Marisol, Chrissa, McKenna

To really see the difference, here are Julie and Kailey. They both have blond hair and brown eyes, but you can see how different they look:

In 2006, we meet Jess, who is half-Japanese. While at this point there was an Asian Girl of Today, Jess got her own mold. The same mold is used for Ivy and Kanani.

Even though these three dolls have the same face, there’s no denying how different they look from each other. In fact, for years I thought Jess and Ivy had different faces because Jess’s eyes looked more round than Ivy’s. As it turns out, Ivy’s face is painted to make her eyes look pointier.

Slightly creepy close-up of Ivy’s eye:

And Jess’s eye:

And I’ll through in a round eye (Josefina’s) for good measure:

Kaya gets her own face mold. She is the only doll who doesn’t show her teeth, because showing teeth is rude in Nez Perce culture.

Sonali is of South Asian descent, so she got a new face mold when she came out:

But now Cecile has the same face:

Here are my three Black dollies:

And finally, Marie-Grace has her own face mold.

Compare it to the Josefina mold (Chrissa) and the classic mold (Ruthie)

Marie-Grace has a pointier chin than Chrissa and fuller lips than Ruthie.

So that covers all the different face molds. Let’s look at some other differences. Look at these 3 dolls with blond hair and blue eyes:

Different hairstyles and different faces make for three distinct dolls. I think even their eye color is different:

Kirsten

Kit

and Elizabeth

Next let’s compare the redheads:

A beautiful rainbow, from strawberry to auburn. Let’s get closer.

Felicity (left) and Saige (right)

Emily (left) and Felicity (right)

Nellie (left) and Mia (right)

There’s so much variation in each of these wigs, that I wonder if you’ll even find differences among each Saige doll, each Felicity, etc. Each wig has multiple hues, and that’s what I love most about these redheaded dollies.

Here are all the dolls with freckles:

Nellie is the only doll with freckles who’s not a classic mold. I noticed right away that Kit and Lindsey have identical faces:

That was most noticeable because Kit was my second American Girl, released in 2000, and Lindsey was my third, released in 2001. Nicki and Saige have the same freckle pattern as Kit and Lindsey (here’s a closeup of Saige):

But Mia’s freckles are significantly lighter:

We’ve covered blondes and redheads, how about caramel? What is caramel-colored hair? I’d never heard hair color described as caramel until American Girl, but here it is. Nicki and McKenna have caramel-colored hair. It’s not red, it’s not blond, it’s not brown.

Let’s finish off with some buddy shots of dolls that are similar, but different.

Caroline and Lanie. Both have curly blond hair and green eyes, but Caroline’s eyes and hair are both much lighter.

Samantha has darker hair than Molly, but after 20 years or so, the frizziness looks pretty much the same color:

Brunette variation is easier to see on newer dolls Lindsey and Ruthie:

Of my 30, I think Chrissa and McKenna are the most similar looking. They both have blue eyes on a Josefina face mold, with straight hair and no bangs.

I hope you’ve enjoyed exploring the similarities and differences among my American Girl dolls. I wish the photos had more consistent lighting (I took them all today, indoors, with no artificial lighting. All color correction was done automatically by the camera. I did no editing.) so that the details were more clear. As of right now, I have decided I will stop collecting when they come out with a doll that looks like one I already have. But as you can see, that probably won’t happen soon. The possibilities for American Girl appear to be endless!

Oh, and here’s what one’s living room looks like after a 30-doll photo shoot:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Girl Scout Uniforms!

My dollies got Girl Scout Uniforms today!

They are from Harmony Club Dolls (http://shop.harmonyclubdolls.com).  They were $24.99 each and came with everything you see in the photo: hats, socks, shoes.  I decided to snatch them up now because I don’t think the Harmony Club is going to make it as a company (too much competition in the 18 inch doll world, and I don’t see anything particularly special about these dolls).  Plus, I’m pretty sure they’re using all the Girl Scout insignia without permission, and I have a feeling these will be discontinued once the Girl Scouts find out.

I actually considered buying the Official Girl Scout Dolls just for the uniforms (I’m not in love with the Adora doll faces–check out http://www.girlscoutshop.com/s.nl/sc.25/category.122/.f) but picked these to spend less money and to get the Senior Girl Scout Uniform.

I am underwhelmed.  I like that the badges and such are embroidered, but they have accuracy issues.  For example, the embroidery that is meant to be the Daisy membership pin looks more like a gold award.  That’s an amazing achievement for a kindergartner!  But then I looked at the official dolls and theirs aren’t much better.  The American Girl version from 1996 (link to my Throwback Thursday post about it) was much better.  I’m also not impressed with the sewing quality–there were loose threads all over the place and only some of the edges are overcast (acceptable for handmade doll items, but these came in baggies with big fat “Made in China” stickers on them).  I also don’t like the big fat hair-snaggy Velcro used throughout.  The piece on the shoulder of the Daisy smock is just waiting to pull all of Jess’s braid out; though it was nice not to have to put the smock on over her head.  Oh, and the Daisy uniform is too dark of a blue.  And the Daisy and Brownie hats are pretty chintzy, and I think they should be beanies instead.

I think that’s enough negativity.  I do like the texture of the fabric, and the shoes are cute.  Fit is fine (the hats are really loose and the vests do weird things at the shoulders, which is noticeable in the photo on Addy’s khaki vest).  And I like the socks a lot.  But overall I don’t recommend these outfits.  Collectors like me should demand more authenticity (which the current Official Girl Scout dolls also fail to offer) and less serious and/or younger collectors should demand more durable quality to stand up to harder play and less hair-snaggy Velcro and hats that stay on.

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Throwback Thursday–Sports!

The theme for this week’s Throwback Thursday on dolldiaries.com is retired sports outfits.  As it turns out, I have about a billion retired sports outfits.  Here are a few of them.  I think you’ll see these same photos on dolldiaries later today.

Ivy-Soccer 2009

Marisol-Cheerleader 1996

Caroline-Volleyball 2008

Kit–Chrissa’s Swimsuit 2009

The 4 of them are standing on Julie’s Bleachers.  The foam finger, pennant, streamers, and hot dog are from the Cheer Section Set (2008)

Gymnasts!

From McKenna’s collection (girl of the year 2012): beam, bar, Josefina and Saige’s outfits

On Addy-rhythmic gymnast 2006

On Ruthie-go USA! 2004

On Emily-go USA! 2008

2 bowling outfits: 2003 and 2009

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Throwback Thursday

I didn’t throw back very far this Thursday–these are the limited edition summer outfits for Cecile and Marie-Grace.  They came out last year, and they’re already retired.  So here are Josefina in Marie-Grace’s Summer Outfit and Addy in Cecile’s Summer Outfit

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Happy Dollidays

Put my tree up today. Stockings are hung by the TV with care. Dollies are in their Christmas dresses. Season’s greetings!

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Maplelea Monday #1

Welcome to the first Maplelea Monday. Mondays will be dedicated to a Maplelea girl and/or facts about Canada. We’ll kick things off with a picture of the first day I got Alexi and some Canadian basics: Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories. I know all the capitals!

Victoria, British Columbia
Edmonton, Alberta
Regina, Saskatchewan
Winnipeg, Manitoba
Toronto, Ontario
Quebec, Quebec
Fredericton, New Brunswick
Halifax, Nova Scotia
St. John’s, Newfoundland
Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island
Whitehorse, Yukon Territory
Yellowknife, Northwest Territories
Iqaluit, Nunavut

I’m going to Canada tomorrow. I was thinking of bringing Taryn with me, but changed my mind because rain is so likely. Dollies don’t like rain.

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The best 2 years…

…not really.  I just didn’t have an urge to blog.  Until today!

I’ve decided to give this blog to the dolls.  The inspiration was Throwback Thursday on dolldiaries.com.  I will post my own Throwback Thursdays.  But since today is Sunday, you get a family portrait

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