I think I won an Ebay auction for an American Girl Doll TM #36!
I have been after this doll for years. She’s a trainwreck and it will cost me the price of a new doll plus some to replace everything at the Doll Hospital–and it’s been so long that I don’t even know if I have a place for her in my collection anymore–but I GOT ONE.
I finally caved and started using Instagram, let’s see if it’s easier to post pictures here now.
Meet my new “CYO” doll Artemis. She’s made from a gray market wig, on a first run Rebecca base.
I LOOOOOVE how these pictures turned out!
My big doll purchase for this holiday season was the Rowena doll by Carpatina.
I used to disregard these dolls in favor of American Girl play-style dolls, but after seeing so many pictures of Girl For All Time dolls, my brain sort of adjusted to see the beauty in a traditional sort of doll face. I didn’t want to start with Girl For All Time though, and then remembered these.
I don’t know what took me so long; she’s beautiful, and I love that I can indulge my love of fairy tales and medival style/Arthurian fantasy!
Here are some photos of a fairy among the geraniums, if I can figure out how to post them. I forgot how frustrating getting pictures on here can be.
Amending my earlier blog post: Not all Slim Carpatina clothes will fit Journey Girls dolls 😦
If it’s a stretchy knit, or laces up rather than snaps you’re good. Otherwise, don’t do it.
I am disappoint.
Oh my, I have discovered Journey Girls dolls at the eleventh hour. I am THRILLED that they fit Carpatina Slim doll clothes, as I’ve always admired the clothes but didn’t care for the Carpatina doll faces.
Kelsey is beautiful. I hope it’s not too late to find an extra one or two of her at a different TRU, I love her face so much I’d like to customize.
I also bought Chavonne, and at the last minute, Dana.
Dana took some work to warm up to, I bought her because I generally like blue eyes brunettes and she was the only doll the local TRU had left. Some of them had really smushed in faces and I still don’t love her as much as Kelsey, but I’m happier. I re-drew her eyebrows with a sepia colored color pencil. I’d also like to shorten her painted on eyelashes eventually but I tried it with nail polish remover and they started to fuzz and I chickened out, maybe I’ll give it a scrub with magic eraser at some point.
If you want to see what all those Dana dolls languishing on the shelves CAN look like though, here’s what a difference it made on mine:
I’m really proud of those eyebrows, lol.
It seems like a very good time to post a doll update, because I bought Gabriela yesterday and it’s been a long time since I posted here!
Gabby remains for now a dreamer asleep in her box up in the top of my closet, because I don’t feel square with my collection right now to properly enjoy a new doll.
Much of the year that I’ve been quiet, I have been sucked in to ever soaring and increasingly expensive customization schemes. My one main, big desire remains elusive: All I want, all-all-all I want, is a long curly wig in a medium-light brown. AG has NEVER made this, and I have ruined up to 3 wigs because I can’t set a curl to save my life. I have also easily spent almost $200 pursuing this, buying multiple expensive Beautifully Custom and comparable luxury wigs, only to be frustrated by the weight and fit of them. Marie-Grace’s wig is the closest I’ve found, but it doesn’t solve the curling problem and I wish AG would just make one already. They have Caroline’s in blond and #69s in dark brown and Saige’s in auburn, I don’t know why they haven’t done light brown in this style! And the CYOs only offer “medium” length curly brown.
Anyway…..Pouring all this money into customs only to remain unhappy with them has really effected by over all satisfaction with AG at this juncture. I haven’t been buying from AG proper, not for any major reason but because my budget has been surpassed on all these wigs and parts.
My biggest plan for my collection right now is to sell off some of the excess and parts and re-upload all my for sale pictures to Flickr after Photobucket punked the world.
I need to get it all under control again so Gabby’s first impression isn’t “hoarder much?”!
It was a hair gluing extravaganza here today. I took the plunge on five, yes, FIVE custom dolls that have just sort of been sitting around wearing their wigs, but too afraid to commit. Well, today was that day.
Part of it is trying to change my way of thinking and enjoying this hobby. So much in the last 2 or 3 years was aquisition and WANTING driven, it’s hard to look at what you have and think: this is it. HARD. And when their hair isn’t attached, it’s really easy to say…yeah, but one more wig. Yeah, but one more eye swap. Yeah, but maybe I’ll try it with freckles….and then next thing you know, you’re never satisfied with what you have precisely because you have it and your doll space starts looking like a doll crime scene with parts strewn about everywhere.
So today I took a step towards commitment, and affixed every last loose wig. And I look forward to introducing my characters.
(And it’s only Tacky glue anyway….*cough-cough*)
The redecoration of my spot on earth is finally moving along, by late April the furniture and fish tanks should all be in and rearranged and at last I shall have a dedicated craft table! A big beautiful dedicated expanse of workspace right in front of a big window that I can leave perpetually cluttered and messy and horendous, all in the name of glorious creativity!
Maybe then I can try to figure out sewing. Or just pile crap up on it and leave the sewing machine out so it LOOKS like I’m learning sewing. Hmm, choices! ;P
I find myself in the post-Pantygate era appreciating what I have already a little more.
I have not finished crafting anything yet, but put the 2017 challenge aside the last couple weeks just to fix up what I do have. Part of this has been learning how to restring my dolls. I use boiling water to do so, and I think it’s not recommended to in case the moisture stays in the limbs, but unfortunately it’s too late for 5 of my doll now, lol. They are all happier for being a little firmer now.
I also tried popping a pair of eyes out and in. I wouldn’t do it again, the ones coming out bent, and the ones going in are terribly crooked and gave me a wicked blister.
I’m also going through my collection and thinning things out due to a changing focus. At one point I’d intended to make a 1930s doll to represent my grandmother, but eventually decided not to. I still have many of the Kit things I purchased at that time, and currently I enjoy fantasy themed things so much more.
I also have several dolls out for eye swaps. I realized that I can use this blog to feature and talk about my O.C.s! I’ve never posted about them anywhere because they don’t really fit the Dossier format used on AGPT, and I’m really looking forward to having a place to show off my pretties!
So all in all, I’m at peace with Pantygate. I’m done with new AG dolls, but I think that was close to happening anyhow once I got handier at fixing used ones.
I hope to use this blog to document my yearly progress on the AGPT “Make 25 Doll Things 2017 Challenge”. Commence!
Hit The Attic Wall 