L'Atelier de Sitara Party: Part Three

The story of the back-to-school party continues and more guests have arrived!

While Karen and Lira make more snacks in the kitchen, Elinor Dashwood and Felicity Merriman join the festivities. Elinor is time-traveling as a modern girl today. Her L'Atelier de Sitara duds are the green cropped jacket and the dark blue jeans with crystal accents near the pockets. Felicity (soon to be renamed) has accompanied Elinor to the party and her outfit is almost completely by Sitara. Her embellished tank top and pleated green silky skirt are both from the Fall 2010 line.

Elinor's look is completed by a red tank top and silver flats from the Liberty Jane Spring/Summer 2010 Line. We really love the look of the green, red, and blue together in this outfit combined with the soft touches from the pearls and crystals. Awesome! To complement the black beads on Felicity's tank top we added on a pair of Josefina's black flats and a black beaded necklace from Liberty Jane.

Enjoy zee pics!

p.s. There are two more guests who RSVP'd and will arrive at any moment... who do you think will show up in Part Four of "L'Atelier de Sitara Party"???

Hannah's Handwork Green Dress for Elinor

Hello again! Wow, I wrote a lot of stuff for yesterday's post! So I will try and keep this one short...

Today I am showing you a green Regency dress for our Elinor Dashwood, handmade by Etsy seller Hannah's Handwork. That Elinor sure is getting spoiled this spring...heehee. Maybe it is time to get another Regency doll so that she can share Elinor's clothing???

We really liked the deep emerald green color of this dress and how it was contrasted with the white underskirt and trim. It is pretty easy to find Regency dresses in pastels and light colored floral fabrics. So this item really stands out of the crowd. Not many people do the pinner caps, so it was refreshing to get one with this dress. The wired white ribbon ties onto Elinor's head easily and holds really well. Wired ribbon was a good idea for that. The tiny white bows on the cap, sleeves, and waistline add a nice touch. It is all very well made, and we were impressed by the gathering on the bodice, the hand-stitched ribbon accent at the waistline, and the gracefully puffed short sleeves. We added some white tights, white gloves, pearls, and a puppy for a complete look. :)

Thanks for the great dress Hannah!
Enjoy our pics below!

Vintique Designs Custom Order Blue Regency Gown

Hello everyone! This post is particularly exciting because we get to share in-progress and finished pictures of a custom project with you. Woot!

Vintique Designs and Penny have been working on several custom Regency ideas and so far one has been 100% completed and received here in Badger's Wood. It is a stunning blue charmeuse gown with all sorts of beautiful eggshell white trim around the neckline, sleeves, bodice, hemline and running right down the center of the front of the gown.

This is the human-sized, Regency reproduction dress that the dolly version is based on:

Here are the in-progress photos, courtesy of Vintique Designs!

And here is our slideshow of the dress on our Elinor Dashwood. :)

Thank you for the gorgeous dress Vintique Designs!
It is just perfect. :)

Vintique Designs Regency Gown

What have we been up to since Saturday? Mostly spending too much time dressing and undressing ourselves in dolly clothes, but not actually taking enough pics for the blog. Blah. Once we get the outfit, hair, and accessories right we are sometimes too tired to then take the pictures! It takes a lot of effort to go through all of our stuff looking for the right shoes, etc. But we did manage to pull together this nice outfit today, mostly courtesy of Ebay seller Vintiquedesigns. :)

As you can see in the photos below, Elinor Dashwood is modeling a satiny Regency gown for y'all. It is a very nice peach and ivory dress that features a variety of inventive uses for lace: sleeves made of lace, lace over peach fabric at the hemline, lace accents on the waistline and center of the sleeves, and then a lace scarf to tuck underneath the neckline. I am certain there is a technical term for that neckline scarf thingy, but I can't seem to remember the word right now.... uhhhhhhhh..... fichu! Nope I didn't sneeze, that's what it is called- a fichu. ;)

When we saw this Ebay auction we knew right away it would look great on Elinor with her peachy lips and cheeks. To complete the satiny Regency look we added in a satchel purse from Etsy seller Terristouch. You can buy one of three different kinds (or all three)- by visiting this listing here. The choices are: peach and white, blue and white, and black with gold accents. They are pretty cool little drawstring bags and they work well for many different time periods.

Also, don't forget that Ebay seller Vintiquedesigns is also Etsy seller Vintiquedesigns56. Check out their Etsy shop by clicking here - where you can find some newly listed 1970s dresses, as well as other AG-sized doll clothing. :)

Enjoy our pics below!

Liberty Jane "Best of Both Worlds"

Welcome to our third "Liberty Jane Clothing Mondays"
featuring the Celebrity Style outfit known as
"Best of Both Worlds."

Today's duds are being modeled by Elinor Dashwood, our English Regency Jane Austen character custom doll. She wanted to time travel and test drive some modern clothing. The first image you see below is the Liberty Jane Clothing outfit as it arrives. Your purchase includes the red sneakers, white socks, plaid pleated skirt, white tank top and red "sliced" tank top. Elinor feels so chic in this outfit. :)

As you can see in the slideshow, the red tank top is studded with little "diamonds" along the cut lines, the white tank top has lace trim, and the white socks have a red fancy stitch along the top section. So many details and so well-made!

For our Mix and Match game we took the red tunic top from the "Summer Camp" outfit you saw last week and paired it with the plaid skirt. Then we added Liberty Jane black laced boots, a black ribbon choker, and our Etsy seller Lavenderlore panda knit hat. To finish the display for our Mix and Match outfit we added a Halloween 2009 Booski plushie from Etsy seller Mint Conspiracy.

Please enjoy our photos and slideshow below!

Mix and Match Outfit

Next Monday we will feature the Liberty Jane Celebrity Style outfit "Classic Rock Star" and showcase another edition of our Mix and Match Game. And remember, next Monday is October 12th- the day our Halloween Elephant Costume Giveaway ends. So we should be announcing the winner of the giveaway that day as well as doing the "Liberty Jane Mondays" post.

This coming Wednesday we will be doing an AGFMB Member Special Feature Surprise! So come back soon everyone!

Donna Cotterman Dress and Intro to Elinor Dashwood

Whoa...sorry for the delay everybody! I thought I'd have time to prepare this post in the morning before school....or maybe after school... but time has flown by and here it is nighttime already!

In this post we show you the Felicity that had an eye swap with our revised #16. So Connie Bonacorsi, our 1950s doll, got green decal eyes and Felicity received the dark brown eyes. She was named Elinor Dashwood after the character from Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility. Hence she mostly wears Regency period clothing (roughly 1795 to 1837 in England). Although she has been asking to try on some modern clothing as well.... maybe she has a split personality or she is a time traveler?

So here is our first up-close photo of Elinor with her brown eyes, in a mystery dress which we will show you in a later post. (Some of you can probably identify the dress....heehee.) This eye swap service was completed by the TLC Doll Hospital in Colorado.


In the pictures below, our Elinor is modeling a dress, hat, and shawl from Etsy seller Donna Cotterman. The outfit also came with the little yellow roses that Elinor is holding. Thank you so much for the fantastic dress and accessories Donna!

Luckily for us, Donna recently started up an Etsy shop so we were able to purchase this lovely ensemble. We are quite happy with everything but Elinor says her favorite part of this outfit is the hat. Not many people create Regency period historical hats and bonnets for AG-sized dolls because, of course, there are not any true Regency AG historical characters. So it is nice to finally have this type of accessory. :)

Please enjoy our plentiful photos below of brown-eyed Elinor and her beautiful new dress.....and keep your eyes peeled for future posts on Elinor's wardrobe (we have many more Regency dresses to show you).

Coming up on this Wednesday we begin something new!

Caroline, over at American Girl Fans Message Board, gave us the idea to feature seamstresses who sew for themselves (or maybe sometimes on commission) and are AGFMB members. Of course these are very talented and creative people with fantastic outfits to share with us, so we thought it would be a great idea!

Every Wednesday we will do a post on some outfits created by one of these members. This is a wonderful opportunity to showcase new doll clothing (not owned by the two authors of this blog) and share with you some very beautiful photographs.

So come back to see what we are up to for yourself. And of course, I'll explain this new idea a little more clearly on Wednesday when we feature three dresses created by AGFMB member Heritage4.

See you soon everybody!

The Nimble Thimble Dark Satin Gown

At the beginning of Jane Austen's first published book- "Sense and Sensibility"- Mr. Dashwood has just died and left his estate to his son John, from his first marriage. Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret are his daughters from his second marriage. Their mother and the girls are left with a slim allowance in the will. Thus begins the tale.

Since Elinor is in mourning for her father, we decided that this dark satin gown would be a proper addition to her wardrobe. It is a well-constructed Regency gown with very lovely lace around the neckline and a bow around the waistline. The back is pleated to generate that Regency "poof" at the waistline. It was purchased from Etsy seller TheNimbleThimble, where a lot of the sewing is done by hand!

Our Felicity/Elinor was so eager to try on a piece of clothing from her Regency wardrobe that we didn't even have time to style her hair before taking the pictures! Of course, this situation was not helped by the fact that once we attempted to brush out her Felicity ponytail we discovered that there were bits of paint and glue on the ends of some of her hairs. What in the world? I honestly have never seen a doll come to our house before with paint and glue in her hair. It wasn't really noticeable until you tried to brush her hair. Penny was able to cut away all the bad parts without ruining her hair. I wonder what kind of trouble that Miss Felicity was getting into in order to get paint and glue in her hair?

By the time that whole "surgery" was complete, Felicity/Elinor was ready to just get her picture taken already. And then she wanted to put on the Fourth of July outfit that we showed you on July 3rd. Since then she has been digging through the closets trying to find the rest of her hidden wardrobe. ;)

The next post from Marvelous Me, Nora Demington, will feature ME! Yippee! And Woooot! Finally I get to have my own picture in my own blog again! What will I be wearing? A certain fantastic rabbit costume from Etsy seller gomunkcreations! Yes! Penny actually got me that costume! Thank goodness and praise Go Munk Creations for making a rabbit costume! Please: Go here to see their shop.

Introduction to Two of the New Dolls!

Wow, June is quickly coming to an end and Friday is my last day of school! Yippee! Well, my last day of school until the fall comes... but let's not dwell on such dark thoughts. For now, let's enjoy the summer months and get ready to relax!

For this post I will introduce you to two of the three dolls which Penny picked out at American Girl Place New York. The first thing Penny did when she walked in the door at AGPNY was go to the concierge desk to the right of the doors and ask how a customer gets stuff shipped to themselves. All that is taken care of at check-out! Good to know. You fill out your address on a form, you get charged extra for shipping and it is delivered by UPS.

Seven to ten business days for delivery was the estimate from the cashier. But it actually arrived in Badger's Wood in two days. TWO DAYS! Can you believe it? Derek was opening the box (and reading the receipt) before we were even half-way through our vacation!

Anyway, the second thing Penny did was hand her camera to her sister so she could take photos of the store while Penny looked at the dolls. She started her quest in the "Just Like You" areas on the first floor, positioned to the left and right of the doors. (Penny's sidenote: The store's floor plan was not designed for easy-traffic-flow. So it can be a little daunting, especially when people are lined up at the concierge desk to check-in for special events and they block the doorway. Eek! AG, are you reading this?)

The first doll Penny picked out was the mystery girl which will be revealed on Wednesday June 24th. Those of you who consider yourselves to be Sherlock-Holmes-reincarnated have probably already figured out which doll was purchased. Those of you who are more like the Dr. Watsons of the world and are usually asking Holmes "Who? What? When? and How?", check back on Wednesday for the "big" reveal!

The second doll Penny chose was the #16 destined to be customized into our 1950s girl. She looked at every single #16 doll on the floor trying to find one with eyes that were the same size. Or as close to being the same size as she could find. The AG face molds do not always provide the perfect symmetry of parts that Penny finds so comforting in her dolls. By the time she was looking at her 20th #16 doll, Penny's sister was ready to throttle her with her own camera...

Eventually a doll was chosen, and she moved up to the historical floor to find a Felicity doll (with eyes that were generally the same size) to be made into Elinor Dashwood once she gets her brown eyes in place. This search was accomplished relatively quickly in comparison to the #16 quest. With 3 dolls, some accessories, and a pair of doll clogs in tow Penny dragged her bag of goodies up the check-out. (Penny's sidenote: They really need carts, not just big bags. They get way too heavy to lug around- even with just one doll in them. But the store aisles are too narrow for carts and they should be wider for more movement. Again, AG, are you reading this?)

After all the checking-out occured and the goodies were handed off to the cashier to be shipped, Penny remembered she wanted to get a Statue of Liberty costume for Muddiford (fka Coconut), and one of the little carry-all bags for dolls that are store-exclusives. Back to the check-out...

So for now I will show you the #16 and Felicity dolls. In the pictures below you will first see the #16 (yet to be named via our poll, which will probably close after we reveal her with her green eyes), then Felicity, and finally the two dolls side-by-side so you can pretend to envision an eye-swap between the two. (Which will eventually occur.)

Sorry for the long post! (Gee, my little vinyl fingers are tired.) Enjoy our pictures below and I'll return on Wednesday with further AGPNY adventures!