Holiday Daily: Trends to Sew 2

Yep, it's that time of the year. 

Keep your stores stocked -- The Countdown to Christmas is happening!

Today's Trends to Sew, ripped out of Seventeen magazine...

____ Sheer and pleated black combo top, totally posh, especially with the ribbon waist-tie

_____ Animal print sweater with contrast collar, cuffs and hem

____ Furry bags/purses with metallic tie-on accents

____ Embellished headphones

That last one seems like an awesome craft for us to try, but we haven't found any affordable doll headphones yet. 

Any suggestions???

Stay tuned for more Holiday Dailies!

Holiday Daily: Trends to Sew

Sup peoples!

Sorry for the long bloggy absence -- it's that time of the year when we travel in circles over and over again for the holidays.

First off, we are working on uploading the FDC Second Outfit entries. But it will take us about a week to do them all. Hopefully less, but that is our estimate.

If you are scrambling to get us some last-minute pics -- know that you have about a week left to send them to us. Email them to nora.demington@gmail.com.

For 2013 we plan on doing the FDC in the summer months.

Does that sound good to you guys?

So getting to the title of today's post -- Holiday Daily: Trends to Sew...

We decided we need to be more efficient this holiday season with our hints about designing, sewing, and styling for your dolls and customers.

We grabbed some magazines from the stands on our whirlwind tour of airports and now we will share some dailies on trends that you can use as inspiration.

Today, ripped directly from Seventeen magazine:

A nice holiday look

____ Furry scarf/collar ; Warm, mid-length cardigan with woven belt over it ; Pleated shimmery skirt ; black tank or tee underneath

____ Simple, elegant color scheme

____ Pieces can be mixed and matched for further outfit awesomeness

Stay tuned for more Holiday Dailies: Trends to Sew!

FDC Notice

REMINDER ALL FDC Entrants -- Your Second Outfit Final Product Shots were due Friday, November 16th. 

However, we will be flexible with this. We won't be able to load all of the second outfits until after (US) Thanksgiving. So we are asking for your patience on that. It will take us a week to load everyone's work and we want to group the launch all together so no one has extra time to get more votes than anyone else. All second outfits should be on view the first week of December for voting.

But be sure to send in your second outfit final shots when you have them ready. 

You can't win unless we have those shots.

Meet Joanie! Part Two!

Hola! 

Sorry for the delay with this and the 10,000 other things we planned on posting about this week/this month. Holidays require planning, planning, planning and working, working, working. Aren't they fun?

Housekeeping: Many of the FDC Entrants have already sent in all of their materials.... but..... for everyone else....

REMINDER ALL FDC Entrants -- Your Second Outfit Final Product Shots are due this Friday, November 16th. 

However, we will be flexible with this. We won't be able to load all of the second outfits until after (US) Thanksgiving. So we are asking for your patience on that. It will take us a week to load everyone's work and we want to group the launch all together so no one has extra time to get more votes than anyone else. All second outfits should be on view the first week of December for voting.

But be sure to send in your second outfit final shots when you have them ready. 

You can't win unless we have those shots.

_______________________

Back to Joanie!

Here she is in a blonde Blythe wig that we can't even remember buying. 

Yes, we are that senile.

Joanie calls this wig her "Pageant Hair."

Here is it pulled up in pigtails.

We said this on Facebook, but we will say it here again:

Joanie, the #3 option from the AG Doll Hospital Dolls Without Hair program, is the most perfect Sonali mold doll we have. We aren't talking about the skin tone, so don't jump to that conclusion.

It is her eyes. Doll eyes are the one thing we obsess about obsessively.

(Yes we repeated that on porpoise.)

We are that person who looks at every # ___ MyAG in an AG store until we find the one with the most perfect eyes. If we can't find one, we don't buy that # MyAG.

For the Sonali mold, it tends to have a wide-eyed look with a lot of visible white (sclera) around the iris. So she looks surprised or shocked.

Our Sonali looks this way. Our Cecile (CeCe) has this issue slightly. Our #47 (Needa) is kinda like this as well -- but less so.

Joanie doesn't have that wide-eyed "OMG!" expression.

Her eyes are even. One isn't bigger than the other. One doesn't look in one direction while the other looks away. Her eyelashes are straight. She doesn't look down at the ground.

If you think we are crazy, we probably are. But we really did look at every Cecile doll at the Chicago store to find the perfect one. Every single one we looked at except for one had issues with her eyes or eyelashes. Maybe a normal consumer wouldn't notice, but we did.

So yes, we were that person who annoyed the AG floor personnel by opening every Cecile box and looking at her eyes like a psycho. But they should be used to this by now.

And we did the same thing for Needa in Los Angeles.

Those people love us in that store.
We consistently ask them to look in the back for more dolls so we can examine their eyes.
The AGPLA personnel will probably all hide when they see us walk into the store next time. ;-)

Needless to say, after that long rant above......

If every #3 looks as good as Joanie, we highly recommend her and are telling you to order her if you want her. She is flawless and I think the Doll Hospital People/Designers really did this one right. 

Applause. Applause. Applause.

This was one of the very few, and very wonderful, times when we opened a doll box shipped direct from AG and said aloud, "She is perfect!"

Joanie really is quite perfect.

This doll is a winner ladies and gentlemen and we can't wait to show her off more on the blog (when we finally have free time to take mo' pics.)

Thanks for visiting us today!!!

Let us know if you have any questions. :-)

Meet Joanie! Part One

We finally processed our pictures of Joanie!!

YAAAAAYYYY!!!

Here she is out of her box.

Our fav part of the new meet outfit! Booooooots!

Joanie with a different set of earrings.

In a purple hat from Etsy seller Yarn Twisted: http://www.etsy.com/shop/yarntwisted.

We haven't figured out which family she should be in yet or from a new family maybe. TBD. Haha.

Part Two is her in a blonde Blythe wig we dug out of the closet. 

Stay tuned!

Quick Post: Doll Closet Heirlooms Has Opened!

Our friend Christine over on Pinterest has finally opened an Etsy Shop!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/DollClosetHeirlooms

Her Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/chrissiepj/

Please support her by checking out her outfits and favoriting her shop!

Thank you peoples!

Doll Without Hair Order!

Hola! We placed an order with the Doll Hospital last week --- For one of the Dolls Without Hair -- #3, the medium skin Sonali mold doll, with light brown eyes, and pierced ears.

Her name will be Joanie when she gets here. 

We are very excited. She should come this week or next week.

We ordered three Ruby Red Galleria wigs for her to use.

But they won't be here for about 10-25 days since they ship from Hong Kong.

These are the RRG wigs we ordered:

We also have a collection of Blythe Wigs already here.

Their quality is not super-good, but they are fun.

They are sometimes a little loose on the AGs, but overall they fit okay.

Sometimes we use a tiny binder clip at the back of the wig at the hairline to tighten it to their heads while wearing.

These are the stock images of the Blythe wigs we own.

Most are buried in a box in the doll closet. 

So we will have to put some effort into finding them, haha. ;-)

Is everyone as excited as we are to meet Joanie and see what she looks like???

Thanks for visiting us today!!!

MyAG Sugar and Spice Baking Set Review!

Hola! We finally get around to the MyAG Sugar and Spice Baking Set -- 

a new item in the 2012 Holiday Line. 

We just noticed this puppy is backordered to November 23rd. Thank goodness we ordered this first back at the end of August. Phew.

Today our Lottie is modeling the Santa hat and apron that come with the set. It also comes with the gingerbread house, cake stand, bowl of gumdrops, plate of sugar-powdered chocolates, a stuffed tube of icing, three jars/bottles of sprinkles, and a box of candy canes.

Lottie's white top is from Etsy seller Cutie Pie and Me. The gray tank top underneath was made by Liberty Jane Clothing. The white skirt was handcrafted by Etsy seller Sitara at L'Atelier de Sitara.

Her red boots are Caroline's Traveling Outfit boots that we have added chains onto for a modern look. The chains can be added or removed whenever we feel like it. Her socks are baby socks from a dollar store. Her necklace is one we made ourselves.

The hat is awesome, sits wonderfully on the doll's head, and is a darker red than the canvas-like material of the apron. The red of the hat matches the velveteen trim of the apron. The apron also has white fur trim like the hat, as well as snowflake embroidery.

The apron swoops up in the back. It closes in two spots with velcro -- at the neck, like a non-tying halter-top would, and at the waistline.

Here are all four sides of the gingerbread house.

It is very plasticky. Can't avoid that one.

But it is okay. At least they didn't paint it in shades of pink.

And it has sparkly accents.

It does seem a bit small in scale.

The house and cake stand are two separate pieces, fyi.

The cake stand is white plastic. Very plasticky as well.

The gumdrops do not come out of the bowl.

The icing tube is stuffed with stuffing, so it is fun to squish.

The chocolates are stuck to the plate. Ain't coming off.

They kinda look like have semi-melted into one solid chocolate mass.

The bottles of sprinkles do not open. But they do have the shiny stuff inside them. So that is nice.

The box of candy canes has a lid that comes off and on. But the candy canes do not come out of the box. They are in there for life.

Review Thoughts Round-Up: I know everyone is curious as to what we think of this set. There are a lot of pieces to it for $58, and everything is well-made in our opinion.

 If you are obsessed with doll kitchens or doll baking -- this is a set for you. We have a dolly kitchen that we would have loved to set up for this photo shoot. But time was not on our side.

The hat and apron set are super-cute and we love them. But we can't sew. Perhaps someone who can sew can do them justice. But I am not sure how many people would be running out to sew that slippery--almost liquid--velveteen of the hat. And no one wants to sew with white fur. If you do -- more power to ya.

The food items and accessories might be things you could find elsewhere, make or commission yourself. And still do a great job with them. And then maybe you could have treats that are not stuck in their containers.

Overall, we bought this set because we love Christmas and anything having to do with Christmas. We have wanted a doll Santa hat for awhile, but again, the fabrics involved are daunting. I am glad AG finally offered another one with a perfect look and fit. And the Santa apron is a perfect add-on for holiday baking/cooking time.

But for $58 I think most people should really consider how much play time or collector's bliss they will get out of this set before purchasing it.

Thank you for visiting us today!