Racing against the clock

Momma and Aunt Heidi* and I took a whirlwind field trip today to the AG store in Scottsdale to see GOTY Blaire Wilson for ourselves. We arrived only to discover they were closing in 15 minutes.

*sigh*

We quickly checked out Blaire's Family Farm Restaurant, which is fabulous and we could see lots of play value in it. However, we were disappointed by all the plastic - especially for $300.

Blaire's Party Décor ($85) did nothing for us. It was pretty, but it was pink and plastic. 

We had to check out Blaire's farm animals so we raced over to see them. Blaire's Silkie chicken, Dandelion, is adorable but you have to buy Blaire's Garden for $50 to get it. Not this trip. 

Aunt Heidi was a wee bit disappointed because she really wanted Dandy, so she comforted herself with Blaire's Piglet instead for $20. That is some pig. 

Momma and I really liked Blaire's Lamb ($25). It's soft and huggable, which is an improvement on Felicity's Posie. We never liked that heavy, hard body of Posie's. The neck ribbon is sewn into the back seam. 

Blaire herself is cute, but Momma always loves dolls with the Josefina face mold. Blaire's clothes were cute and we agreed we liked the color palette of lavender, mauve, and green. 

Overall? Blaire's collection was such a letdown after last year's Luciana and her emphasis on S.T.E.M. We also agreed, who lets a 10-year-old plan a wedding?!

Employees were politely standing around so we headed to the registers, but got sidetracked by the new $100 American Girl® Swimming Pool. It is really cute, but flat and one dimensional. However, I could practice walking on water. 

Finally, we saw the new AG Scottsdale T-shirt which was pretty, but you now have to buy it as a set with a child's matching T-shirt. 

Bummer.

Momma, Aunt Heidi, and I agreed that we prefer the historic dolls. We especially liked the quality and attention to detail in the original Pleasant Company dolls. 

Come on American Girl and Mattel! Why should we pay top dollar for plastic? We can pay much less for plastic toys and accessories at Target and Walmart. 

Our Generation and My Life As are rapidly introducing better face molds and better items for 18" Vinyl Americans such as me. 

They're stepping up. American Girl? Will you?

*fromauntheidi on instagram

The eye of the beholder

Momma and I were extremely interested in a recent Slate article that once again criticized the measurements of Barbie and other modern Vinyl Americans.

Complaints have existed for years, and a 2006 University of Sussex study concluded that dolls like Barbie, "may damage girls’ body image, which would contribute to an increased risk of disordered eating and weight cycling."

Let's take a look, shall we?

Barbie and the other dolls are at 1:6 scale, while American Girl is about 1:3 scale, although the occasional 1:4 and 1:2 items can work, too. (BTW, eBay has an excellent doll scale guide.)

Barbie dolls:
Mattel
Height: 11.5 inches
Bust: 5 inches
Waist: 3.5 inches

If human:
Height: 5'9"
Bust: 30 inches
Waist: 21 inches
 
Monster High dolls:
Mattel
Height: 10.5 inches
Bust: 2.75 inches
Waist: 2 inches

If human:
Height: 5'3"
Bust: 16.5 inches
Waist: 12 inches 

Bratz dolls:
MGA Entertainment
Height: 10 inches
Bust: 3.5 inches 
Waist: 2.5 inches 

If human:
Height: 5'
Bust: 21 inches
Waist: 15 inches
 
American Girl dolls:
Mattel
Height: 18 inches
Bust: 11.25 inches
Waist: 11 inches

Thankfully she liked American Girl proportions:

For the American Girl dolls, which are designed to look like girls and not teenagers or adult women, I multiplied the dimensions by 3.5 to put the girls in the 4-foot range. If American Girl dolls came to life to help their Swedish-immigrant family on the farm or miraculously escape American slavery, they would stand 4'6" tall and have 33.75" busts and 33" waists. Good for them!

While Momma and I both agree to some points of the argument, we still stand by Monster High and its 2011-2013 slogan:  "Be yourself, be unique, be a monster!"

We LOVE how these dolls celebrate differences. As well as having individual face and body molds, many compare Ghoulia to children with autism, klutzes relate to Frankie, short people like Draculaura and Twyla, and Steampunks like Robecca.

Yes, they are skinny but, hey, they are monsters! I certainly don't intend on ripping my fiberfill guts out and replace them with gears.

Feeling wicked

I can't help it, but the more I look at Ghoul's Alive Robecca, the more I want to set her up on a blind date with Barbie's Wizard of Oz Tin Man.

Snigger.

I wonder if Mattel will agree?

Make is sew

Mini Me Dolly Divas

As hinted at the other day, here's a sneak peek of my newest outfit being created for me by Mini Me Dolly Divas - as modeled by My Dear Friend, Samantha.

Momma had a vision while looking at Dacia's items, and Dacia agreed to the Special Order.

Special order I am working on for Steampunk Addie. Samantha gets to model it since she is pre-Mattel also. This is going to be a steampunk, Star Trek outfit... doesn't look like it yet I know but it will. I am very excited about this one.

Ok, this so stinking cute it's crazy! Oh, Samantha doesn't want to give this one up....

If Samantha thinks she's going to keep this, she's got another think coming. 

The dress is a modified version of the Thimbles and Acorn's 1870s Bustle Dress pattern.

The t-shirt and the hat are modified Liberty Jane patterns. You can find LJC patterns at http://www.pixiefaire.com.

and that's when I snapped

Mini Me Dolly Divas

Thanks once again to Char at Doll Diaries, Momma and I have found a new Etsy store to adore: Mini Me Dolly Divas.

See? Even the store's name is perfect!

and that's when I snapped ... this just makes me smile. Perfect for any American girl photographer or a just for fun outfit.

• THE T-SHIRT - Jersey knit t-shirt machine embroidered, closes in the back with velcro.
• THE SKIRT - Mullet knit skirt that is longer in the back than in the front.
• THE HAIRBOW - Grosgrain ribbon on a plastic hair clip that will be safe for your doll's hair 

Some of my favorites?

• I make geek look chic
• and though she be but little, she is FIERCE.
• Step aside Barbie, there's a new doll in town.

I could easily start amassing a t-shirt collection and have made a couple of custom requests.

Mwa ha ha!

Dolly'll never go away again

As previously mentioned, Momma has never cared for blond, blue-eyed dolls.

Maybe it was because she was a brunette, brown-eyed girl.

Or maybe it was because of all of the blond, blue-eyed dolls on the market in the late '60s and early '70s when she was in her formative doll years.

Almost all the dolls she saw of that era were blue-eyed blondes - at least in the town she grew up in. Momma had Ideal's Velvet and Mia (she preferred the brunette Mia) and didn't even know there was an African American Chrissy until she was an adult.

She and her brother both collected Marx's "Best of the West" and her brother collected their "Noble Knights and Vikings" action figures. Momma had Jane, Janice, and Josie West, as well as Princess Wildflower, while her brother collected the males in both lines. (Momma would have liked to collect girls from the "Noble Knights and Vikings" but there was none.)

At the end of her doll-playing days (but not collecting!) she had Mattel's entire Sunshine Family and Happy Family lines - mostly because she liked the multicultural and multi-generational aspect of the dolls. (Mattel did not make a "Black" Barbie until 1980!)

But her biggest regret? Not keeping the two Barbies given to her by her older cousins.

Why? Her cousins are 6 to 12 years older than Momma and gave her two of the earliest Barbies when they outgrew them!

Sadly, Momma did not like what she now thinks was a 1961 Mattel Barbie Titian-Hair Bubble-Cut Barbie, and what was possibly the first 1959 Teenage Fashion Model Blonde Barbie.

Momma disliked them so much she dressed them in white slips (yes, they made dolls wear slips back then) and forced them into domestic servitude for her Mod and Malibu Barbies.

Snigger.

Doing the monster mash-up

Momma loves mash-ups so it's no surprise she loves steampunk.

I mean, Victorian science fiction? What's not to love?

But did you know the first known use of the word "mash-up" was in 1859?

According to Merriam-Webster, Inc., the definition of "mash-up" is something created by combining elements from two or more sources: as

a : a piece of music created by digitally overlaying an instrumental track with a vocal track from a different recording
b : a movie or video having characters or situations from other sources
c : a Web service or application that integrates data and functionalities from various online sources

We, of course, are extremely interested that Mattel applied for the trademark "Freaky Fusion" in August, and on Nov. 19, 2013 applied for Dracubecca.

Dracubecca = Draculaura + Robecca

The mind boggles.

Spellebrating the holidays

everafterhigh.com

My Big Sister got a gift certificate for Christmas and decided to use it today to get the Ashlynn Ella and Hunter Huntsman dolls from Ever After High.

Ever After High is a doll line released by Mattel in 2013. It is a spin-off to the popular Monster High dolls, however in this line the characters are based upon fairy tales and fantasy stories. In fact, Monster High's C.A. Cupid transferred to Ever After High! 

The children of famous fairy tale characters attend high school in the village of Book End and are destined to follow in their parents’ footsteps to keep their stories alive, otherwise their stories will cease to exist.

Most Ever After High dolls are similar to the Monster High dolls but have rounder, babyish faces and thicker limbs. However, Maddie Hatter (Momma's favorite) has a thicker version of Howleen and Twyla's shorter body. They are all articulated like the Monster High dolls.

Momma was not too impressed with the dolls until she unboxed my Big Sister's Ashlynn and Hunter. We both like how the dolls look and feel.

I expect more will be joining our Vinyl American family.

Let them steam cake

Lucid Junkie Designs

Happy birthday to me!

Look what Momma ordered for me from Lucid Junkie Designs.

Miniature steampunk inspired cake for Barbie, Monster High, or dolls of similar size. Three layer cake made from polymer clay, real watch parts, and other mix media. Cake measures just over three inches which includes the topper. Item is not recommended for children due to small parts. All pieces are attached to the cake and not removable.

Yum!

(Just a subtle reminder that my birthday is April 9!)

The Philadelphia Eleven

Today is an important date in the history of The Episcopal Church: 11 women were ordained to the Episcopal priesthood on July 29, 1974 in Philadelphia!

These ordinations, performed by retired or resigned bishops, were denounced as “irregular” and the women became known as the “Philadelphia Eleven.”

Charles V. Willie of Harvard University, who gave the sermon, favorably compared the ordinations to African Americans refusing to sit at the back of the bus. 

According to The Episcopal Church:

The 11 women who were ordained priests at the Church of the Advocate, Philadelphia, on the feast of St. Mary and St. Martha, July 29, 1974, two years before General Convention authorized the ordination of women. The women ordained were Merrill Bittner, Alla Bozarth-Campbell, Alison Cheek, Emily Hewitt, Carter Heyward, Suzanne Hiatt, Marie Moorefield, Jeanette Piccard, Betty Schiess, Katrina Swanson, and Nancy Wittig. The bishops who presided at the service were Daniel Corrigan, Robert DeWitt, and Edward Welles II. These ordinations, and the ordinations of four more women in Sept. 1975 in Washington, D.C., were widely criticized as irregular because the Episcopal Church had not yet authorized the ordination of women to the priesthood. In 1976 the House of Bishops affirmed the validity of the ordinations by requiring of the 15 women only "an act of completion" that would be "a liturgical incorporation of what was done on those two occasions" in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. All of the "Philadelphia Eleven" participated in public events of "completion" within the following year, with the exception of Marie Moorefield who left the Episcopal Church to join the United Methodist Church.

Bishops Jefferts Schori (left) and Harris

Barbara Harris, a Philadelphia native who became the first woman bishop in 1989, participated in 1974 as a laywoman and bearer of the cross.

And finally, The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori was elected in 2006 as the first female Presiding Bishop in the history of The Episcopal Church and also the first female primate in the Anglican Communion.

Let's hear it for women breaking the stained-glass ceiling! 

I have newfound respect for Episcopal Priest Barbie, rector of St. Barbara's-by-the-Sea in ... Malibu, Calif., of course.