Dr Seuss Fun!

We recently bought two new dolls-- Oh, the Places You'll Go and Tip of His Hat from the Tonner Dolls Dr. Seuss collection (http://www.tonnerdoll.com/dr-seuss).  These are very fun 10" dolls with the Ann Estelle body and a new Baby Lou head sculpt.  Kairi has Tip of His Hat, which has blue rooted hair, and Janet has Oh, the Places You'll Go, which is wigged (and of course Janet's changed the wig!).  A recent issue of Dolls magazine (http://www.dollsmagazine.com/) had a pattern for a Horton (from Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who) costume for Tonner's Patsy doll (which is the same size as the Dr. Seuss dolls).  One of Kairi's favorite stuffed animals happens to be Horton, so of course we had to make the costumes!  They turned out very cute, and the dolls were happy to model them for us!

-- Janet and Kairi

Double vision: two Hortons!

World Doll Day!

The second Saturday in June is World Doll Day, started by famous doll collector, Mildred Seeley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Seeley).  We celebrated by doing a little sewing for our dolls, and a kit we had preordered from Doll Project (https://www.etsy.com/shop/DollProject) had arrived just in time!  Doll Project has many great kits for smaller dolls and tutorials for sale on her Etsy site, and she also has a newsletter with free tutorials.  This was the first time we had tried her kits, and we will definitely buy again.  The dress designs are very cute, and the instructions were nice and clear.  Each kit comes with two dresses, a pair of socks and a matching soft toy to make.  Janet made the dresses and socks, and Kairi tried her hand at making a doll from one of the kits, and did a great job!  She liked it so much she took some of the extra fabric and made a few pillows for her dolls.  Below are pictures of our handiwork.

-- Janet & Kairi

Kairi's Winx Club doll cuddling the doll Kairi made (she also made the pillows on the right)

Lulubelle modeling a dress and socks from the Doll Project kit

Hankie Dress

I love doll dresses made out of handkerchiefs, and am often on the lookout for vintage or new hankies.  I bought a pack of men's hankies, and one of them reminded me of the dress Dorothy wears in the Wizard of Oz.  I hunted around, and found an Ann Estelle pattern for a dress in my Doll Reader pattern book (http://shop.dollsmagazine.com/books/doll-reader-pattern-book.html).  I used the hem on the hankie as the hems on the bottom and back of the skirt and for the hem on the sleeve.  Otherwise it was like making a dress from regular fabric.  I used a second, white hankie to make an underskirt and the sleeves.  The dress fits Bleuette quite nicely.

-- Janet

Girl Scout meeting

We are both Girl Scouts, so I made Brownie uniforms for several of the dolls.  I designed all of the patterns-- the skort pattern wasn't too hard, but I had trouble with the blouse (I was trying to cheat and have a single piece, which was not working).  For the sash, I took a picture of Kairi's sash, resized it and printed it on iron-on paper, then ironed that onto brown fabric.  It was a fun challenge!

Below is a picture of our troop!

-- Janet

Time for the Brownie circle!

Cinco de Mayo Celebration

Sunday, May 5th is Cinco de Mayo, a holiday that celebrates Mexican heritage and pride (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinco_de_mayo), and several of the dolls are celebrating!  Libby is wearing a Mexican style dress and skirt, and has a Pinata for the other girls to enjoy later.  She is also serving cake and other sweets.  The girls have all dressed up for Libby's party, although they all opted to wear their comfortable frog shoes so they can run and play games.

-- Janet

Yumm!

New Girl in Town

Heidi Plusczok's 2013 line of dolls is titled "Celebration" and has some very darling dolls and new sculpts.  I pre-ordered "Linette" in January, and she arrived last week!  She is a very cute doll, here's her official picture:

She is celebrating the first day of school, and has her backpack and a paper cone filled with candy from her parents.  Pretty cute, eh?  Well, I love this sculpt, but I already have a doll with the exact same wig (Heidi) so I decided to play around.  I undid the buns and brushed out her hair and put it into a single ponytail.  When I pre-ordered her from Let's Play Dolls (http://letsplaydolls.com/cart/index.php) there was a great offer of a free Boneka dress with my order.  I picked out a cute smocked dress, and decided to redress Linette in it.  Then, off to the backyard for pictures!

-- Janet

Water Babies

My mom made a mermaid costume for my American Dolls, so I put it on Christine to try out.  At the doll show in March, I got a Felicity doll, and she wanted to dress up, too, so she is wearing the new swimsuit I got at the American Girl store.  The girls are ready for the water-- and so is their dog!

-- Kairi