Merry Christmas!

My photo shoot didn't turn out exactly the way I wanted it, but here it is. And you can say we have a bit of a white Christmas.

I hope all of you are enjoying your day (or enjoyed your day, for my Aussie friends), no matter what your weather looks like!

My Collection Part Eleven: Hallmark Christmas Barbies

One of Coffee and Dolls' posts reminded me that this is the perfect time of year to take pictures of my three Hallmark Christmas Barbie dolls for the My Collection series that I'm doing. Hallmark is a chain of stores in the United States that sells greeting cards, collectibles, and holiday ornaments. They have made Barbie themed Christmas ornaments in the past, and also some Barbie dolls dressed for holidays. All of the dolls that I have also came with, appropriately enough, holiday greeting cards, which you'll see as a group at the end. Every item that a doll is holding is from my own Christmas minis collection.

The first doll is the Holiday Memories Barbie doll from 1995. Her costume is based on a Christmas card, that was included with the doll. She also came with a Happy New Year 1910 card. Barbie's hat, cutaway coat, overskirt and narrow skirt are pretty close to a 1909-1910 style. Her hair is styled with rolls on either side, to approximate a 1910s hairstyle. The rubber band holding her hair disintegrated, so I had to re-band it. I had a hard time getting a good picture of the back of her hair, possibly because of all the blond reflecting in the light.

Yuletide Romance Barbie is from 1996. Her style era is a little bit more nebulous, 1890s, maybe. Unlike my other two dolls here who wear boots, Yuletide Romance only wears green pumps. She came with two Christmas cards.

Holiday Traditions Barbie is also from 1996. She wears an outdoor outfit, maybe suitable for ice skating or a sleigh ride. She came with one card, bearing a picture of two purple-y roses, to match her costume.

Here are all the cards that the dolls came with. I honestly don't know now where the two cards that fold over came from. The only cards I saw in pictures of the dolls for sale, that I looked at to remind me of their names and years, were all the flat ones. I have a Hallmark Valentine's Day Barbie, but I don't think I have any other Christmas dolls that would have come with cards.

I want to get a modern day doll-size living room with a tree set up before Christmas Day. We'll see how that goes!

Total dolls: 44

Let It Snow

Well, we got our first real snow of the season starting last night, into today, and boy, did we get snow. Here on the west side of Cleveland, we got about a foot and a half of snow, which means the east side got even more. If you're interested in weather (like RagingMoon1987) check out "lake effect snow." Cold wet air from Canada comes over Lake Erie, which is currently warmer than the air, and snow then gets dumped on Northeast Ohio. It's natural to me, because I've lived with it all my life, but apparently this phenomenon is only found in a few other places in the world.

I took this picture today, around 2:00 PM local time. The snow today was what we call "wet" snow. It's quite easily packable, which is great if you're a kid making igloos and snowballs, but it's *very* heavy to shovel.

I just took this picture before I started this post. The Dancer just re-shoveled the sidewalk when she got home from work.

Happily for me, I have many projects to work on as the cold weather comes in and the snow piles up this December. Some of it is human related, some of it is doll-related. There is another little girl in my life who likes the LOL Surprise dolls, so I will get to use up some of the fabric that I bought to use in a LOL Surprise little dollhouse that I made for a friend's daughter, back in 2018. Does anyone else in the Northern hemisphere have any fun winter projects planned? Well, I know TheMonsterCrafts does, but I bet she never sees snow like this!

My Collection Part Ten: Keith Haring X Barbie Doll

I picked this doll up fairly recently for a good price, and she gets her own post, because she's relatively new, so this is an informal review as well. Also, I'm selling off her entire outfit, so I took some shots of her redressed. I bought her for her face, which I think is fierce, without coming off as snooty. I have yet to see a Goddess mold face that I don't like. She has decent body articulation, too. And I'm hereby naming her Kelly.

Her knees were covered with cardboard. No idea why.

And redressed. Her hands don't seem to be removable, so I had her drape the faux leather jacket stylishly over her shoulder, since the sleeves are too tight to go over her hands. Girl knows how to werk.

 

So what do you think of her? What do you think of her outfits? She might be losing her black nail polish, too.

Total dolls: 41

My Collection Part Nine: Reading to Alice, Alice in Wonderland and Dorothy by Tonner

And thus we end the overview of my 16" Tonner collection with three dolls who are... not 16" tall. Alice and Dorothy, however, are sized to fit in the 16" range. They have the same bodies as Tyler Wentworth's sister, 12" tall Marley. While I never liked Marley very much, I love Alice, and since The Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite movies, I had to have Dorothy as well.

Reading to Alice is 15" tall, or so. I believe her body has been used for a range of Disney princesses by Tonner as well. It's a bit frustrating that although she was meant to go with the Alice doll, (it's right in the name) she doesn't fit in very well to the 16" line, in my opinion. You can make your own decision with the body comparison shot I'll show below the fold.

I like my Dorothy doll very much, although she does have a few yellow spots on the waist of her jumper. Toto looks a little bit odd, I think. Also, he's resin, and rather heavy for his size, since Dorothy is meant to carry the basket on her arm. I wonder if a stuffed dog would have been better.

I believe Tonner later introduced a Dorothy doll with the 15" body, which is actually more suited to Judy Garland's actual body type in the movie. We'll go with Reading to Alice next. She didn't photograph well for me. She's not typical doll "pretty" but she is striking looking. I'm throwing in a picture of her wearing an Ashton Drake Gene outfit that I took years ago.

Alice in Wonderland is one of the gems of my collection. Her face looks a little blank in my photos, but I love how she looks in person. I bought her nude, but she is wearing an outfit from Tonner's Nutcracker Clara collection, Off to the Land of Sweets. I'm disappointed in the slippers from that outfit. They were made with just a hair too little fabric, so that the back of the slippers pulls forward. I tried to put the slippers on Alice while holding the back of the slipper with tweezers, but then the stitches in the back looked like they were starting to come apart. Maybe somebody else can wear those slippers.

My youngest daughter, The Dancer, owns a Nutcracker Ballet Clara doll, that I bought her for Christmas many years ago. As you can see, she and Alice are basically sisters. Apologies for the first picture being blurry.

Last picture below the fold.

Happy Halloween

My daughter wore this costume to work today. I made the dress and the headband for her, and as Rachael pointed out, I also made my daughter. :) I made this dress for her all the way back in 2013 for a homecoming dance. The theme was A Night at Gatsby's, and kids don't normally dress to the theme of a high school dance, but she and my elder daughter did, and they probably were more comfortable than the kids who wore fancy dresses. She wore this dress again her senior year when she helped out a friend who was going to film school, and acted in a short film her friend made that was set in the 1920s.

As far as doll stuff, I was sick last week, not terribly, but enough that I really didn't have much motivation. I know it wasn't Covid, because Mr. BTEG had the same thing, and he got tested, as he has some health issues that would make it more dangerous for him. I got an ear infection when I was almost done with the cold, so that didn't help. My last Tonner 16" post is on my plate within the next few days!

My Collection Part Eight: Charlotte, Cinderella and Fairytale Basic by Tonner

Charlotte's mold was used for the 16" Miss America dolls, not to be confused with the 18" Miss America dolls. She was also produced many times in her own right, going by the name Charlotte. The two Charlotte dolls that are own are the Vintage Basic Miss America, whom I bought nude, and the Basic Black Charlotte. I have since taken Vintage's hair down.

Charlotte also makes a good model for my Madame Alexander Meet Me in St. Louis fashion, originally made for the Alexandra Fairchild Ford 16" doll. The outfit came on a Judy Garland doll with the Alexandra face mold, which MA managed to make a pretty good likeness. I have since sold off the doll, but I love the outfit, even if the white satin has yellowed. The dress doesn't zip up all the way on Charlotte, though. Yes, this dress has a working zipper!

 

Basic Black Charlotte is wearing her original swimsuit and hairband. I was vacillating on keeping her, because her coloring and face paint is so similar to Vintage Charlotte. Also, the top of her head almost looks flat, because of her hairstyle, I think. I decided to keep her for now.

The Cinderella face mold was a runaway favorite. In addition to all of the Cinderella doll variations made, her face was used for dolls like Phantom of the Opera Christine Daae, Juliet from Romeo and Juliet, and Tonner's Re-Imagination line's Vasilisa. Vasilisa is a Russian fairy tale character, and the Re-Imagination line featured fairy tale dolls in new styles. The doll store Cherished Friends even had a store exclusive Cinderella with the coloring of the owner's daughter, called Amy's Cinderella. The mold was also shrunk down slightly and used for Tonner's Cami doll.

I own Cinderella Basic - Strawberry, and Dreams Come True Cinderella, whom I bought nude. Dreams Come True was wearing a blue ball gown and tiara, representing Cinderella going to the ball, which is why she has a very intricate updo. Also pictured here is my last adult Tonner doll, the Re-Imagination Fairytale Basic doll, in her original clothes.

We have reached the end of my adult Tonner collection, but I still have two more girl dolls and a young teen Tonner doll in my collection, who are coming up next time.

Total dolls: 37

My Collection Part Seven: Daphne Dimples by Tonner

As with the Sydney Chase sculpt, the Daphne sculpt turned out to be a very popular one. Daphne was introduced in the Effanbee Brenda Starr line. Brenda Starr was the name of a long-running comic book series that started in the 1940s. Brenda Starr was a newspaper reporter, and Daphne was a rival reporter. The Daphne sculpt was popular enough that a modern Daphne doll was introduced as Daphne's granddaughter. I'm pretty sure that was in the Tonner line.

My black-haired Cannes Opening Daphne wears a Franklin Mint dress, made for the Jacqueline Kennedy doll. The blond doll is Vintage Basic Daphne.

Red-haired Arrival at Port Daphne is wearing a swimsuit from another Basic Tonner doll. The brunette is Ultra Basic Daphne. She came in a basic white swimsuit, which I can't for the life of me find. She's wearing a Tonner top, sold as a separate, and the black skirt from the Signature Style Tyler doll. I got the Adirondack chairs a few months ago at a local store. Miniature Adirondack chairs are currently very stylish for home decor. Even human size chairs are used outside as decoration, and not to sit on (although of course you still can.) Anyway, those chairs are fairly easy to find in different colors and sizes.

Arrival at Cannes

Vintage Basic

Arrival at Port

Ultra Basic

Ultra Basic's face has yellowed, which is disappointing, but I love all four of these dolls. I reviewed Vintage Basic way back in 2014 here.

Total dolls: 32