Easter Gifts: Minibrands Books Series Two and Make It Mini Cinnamoroll Stationery Set

Mr. BTEG went out the Saturday before Palm Sunday to get an Easter basket and fillings for our two-year-old great niece. He also picked up a few small Easter gifts for our daughter and me. Mine included two mini balls, one from the Miniverse Books Series 2, and one from the Make It Mini Hello Kitty collection. I was very thankful that all three of the books that I received were ones that I like. I posed the books with mini American Girl Caroline, as I thought she was the closest to a reasonable scale. She was the easiest mini AG to get to, but then I realized it was perfect for her, as Sense and Sensibility would have been published in her childhood. I also got the candlestick, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and a Hardy Boys book.

 

 

You can't tell which member of the Hello Kitty family you get until you open the ball, but Cinnamoroll is one of the ones that I like. This set seems to work well with the 8" Eden Madeline. You get a notebook to put together with included tabs and pages, a pencil case, a pen and ruler in plastic and cardboard packaging, and a cutting mat. The ball it came in can be used for display if you have the ball open. It's also cute with it closed.

These pictures are so poorly lit because I can't get to my photography table very easily right now, so I took them on my new craft table instead. I've mentioned before that Mr. BTEG and I have been rearranging rooms since our youngest daughter moved out. The master bedroom is becoming my computer/doll/photography/sewing/craft/art room. We finally moved our bed to the much smaller bedroom. Now I have to get the big bedroom organized, and move a few things left in the small bedroom to my craft/doll room. Here's a picture of my new computer and craft table set up, with my new doll display bookcases in between.

I hope you had a nice Easter holiday. We spent Palm Sunday with my in-laws, and Easter Sunday our daughter and her boyfriend came over for the day. It was all very enjoyable; I like spending time with family. We found out that we're going to have a new great-niece or -nephew later this year, which is fantastic!

I'm also announcing that I'm thinking about moving this blog to Substack. I won't charge a subscription; I just want to get off of Blogger. There's someone with an actual Blogger account who is spamming my comments every few days, and I can't figure out to block or report this person, nor can I get the attention of anyone at Blogger. I've tried WordPress in the past and it's not easy for me to figure out how everything works. I'll make an announcement here and post a link if I do make the move.

My Collection Part Seventeen: Tonner Kripplebush Kids, and Ashton Drake Gene Marshall Croquet Set

Kripplebush Kids are 8" dolls that were created by Robert Tonner in the 1990s. They have hard plastic bodies and heads, are strung, and have sleep eyes. Some of the dolls produced wore modern little girl clothes, but the ones in my collection all came wearing antique fashions.

I don't know why that middle picture turned out darker. I tried taking pictures again, and they were still dark. I had problems getting this photo shoot together, so after two tries I just want to get this post up. First I forgot my mini SD card downstairs. Then I had to find my mini SD card somewhere on my desk. Then I realized that I had another Kid tucked away in a drawer (the one with the hat and croquet mallet and ball.) Then I realized that she had accessories, and had to remember where I put them. Fortunately for me, I remembered that all my Kids' accessories and extra clothes were put away neatly in this Ginny wardrobe. I kept dropping things (that's a part of every photo shoot, to be honest.) Argh.

Here is a Kid with some of my similar size dolls for comparison: Eden Madeline, Madame Alexander Travel Friends Ireland, and mini American Girl Samantha.

Speaking of Madame Alexander, I see a resemblance between these dolls and the ubiquitous Madame Alexander 8" dolls. I don't know the story behind the creation of the Kripplebush Kids at all, though. There were some Kids dolls that were pictured in a Tonner catalog and never produced. The Kripplebush Kids body was supposedly later used for the bratty child star Merli Stimple character in the Gowns by Anne Harper 16" doll collection by Tonner. However, Merli appears all vinyl, with a new face mold and painted on eyes.

Lastly, since one of the dolls above has that really cute croquet mallet and ball as accessories, I though this was as good a place as any to show a picture of my treasured 1/4 scale Ashton Drake croquet set for the Gene Marshall collection. It featured in a story about Gene playing croquet with some of the Hollywood set and talked about her grandfather Gene teaching her to play croquet (if I remember correctly.) Since croquet was so popular in the mid-1800s into the early 1900s, someday I want to dress some of my 16" dolls in antique gowns (maybe 1860s) and pose them playing a game. Of course, I should get some male dolls to play as well, since part of the popularity of croquet way back when, I have read, was the chance to mingle with the opposite sex. When has that not been popular?

Sydney contemplates how to challenge the handsome young Lord Dawlish. And how to win the croquet game as well.

The BTEG family is going to a restaurant for Thanksgiving. If I don't get any kind of Thanksgiving doll diorama up, I will at least be taking a doll to the restaurant, I think.

Total dolls: 76

Doll Show Buys - Furniture

I picked up three pieces of furniture at the doll show, all at good prices. Let's start with the least interesting. It's an miniature old-fashioned icebox, a predecessor to the refrigerator. I got it for $5, but it's in worse shape than I thought when I first looked at it at the show. I might just use it as a sort of model for making my own icebox. I'd like one that could work with other scales, like 1/6, or mini Samantha's scale. She is in the photo because the icebox is from her era, but I think it's a little on the small size even for Madeline, judging by a real icebox that I saw at an antique store back in June.

Next is a chair. It's a bit large for most of the dolls in my collection, but I bought it because it was only $3! Samantha can sit on it, or it looks okay for posing one of my Pullip dolls.

Lastly, the best find of all, Samantha's Pleasant Company washstand, which I bought for only $25. I discovered that it is missing the drawer pulls for the drawer, but otherwise it is in fine condition. In my Pleasant Company catalogs from the 90s, the washstand would have cost you $38. There was also a "nighttime necessities" set for sale, which included a towel, a mini version of the book The Wizard of Oz, and a washbowl and pitcher. I bought the washbowl and pitcher secondhand years ago. The towel and book would be very easy to make myself. The drawer and doors of the washstand open.

Now I want to get another dust-free storage cabinet, so I can display Samantha with her furniture. I also have her bed new in box, although not original Pleasant Company, and a knock-off version of her school desk. It would be nice to have her out with her bed and washstand.

My Collection Part Fifteen: Doll Show Purchases

I was going to say that I "only" bought three new dolls at the recent doll show, but three new dolls at once is really not that bad, is it?

The first one is Mattel Ever After High Darling Charming. She came nude, and is now wearing Mattel's Darling Charming shoes, and a Shibajuku Girls sailor suit. Her hair has been washed and conditioned. I still have to get all of the glitter off of her face, wherever that came from.

Darling came with a Monster High Operetta doll that I didn't really want, but I think the seller wanted to get Operetta off of her hands. I was ready to just pay for Darling when the seller told me Operetta was included as part of the price. I'll find something to do with her.

Next is a mint mini American Girl Josefina in her meet outfit. She didn't come with her box, or the mini book, but she was a good price. Now I can keep mini Josefina in her Christmas outfit intact, with her veil still sewed to her hair.

Lastly, here is a doll that I bought at what I called the "Tonner table." This woman had mostly Tonner items for sale. There were some Patsy dolls and at least one Amelia Thimble. I came home with a doll  that I have been interested in for a very long time, Jane. Jane was a Tonner Club doll, so you couldn't just buy her on the open market. She's 14" tall, and has the Betsy McCall body. There are a couple of other child Jane dolls made, with bending knees, but none of them were easy to get. I wasn't sure I was going to keep her, because she doesn't really fit in with any of the dolls I own. I was thinking she might work with my 10" Ann Estelle dolls, and Rachael reminded me that Betsy McCall had a 10" younger sister, who I now think probably had the Ann Estelle body first. Here's Jane with her younger "sister," Sophie. What do you think?

Look how alike their hand sculpts are.

Rachael doesn't think Jane's jumper/pinafore makes her look her best, and I tend to agree. Fortunately, I have a couple of Betsy McCall patterns that I bought during a 99 cent sale or something. Jane also came with a Tonner Club pin, and I love the bracelet that Jane came with. It looks like jewelry a girl would cherish.

Tonner also made an adult Jane, but she uses the Tyler 16" body, so she's not in scale with child Jane at all. He also did the same thing at the last Tonner Convention, where he introduced a 10" Ann Estelle, and a 16" grown-up Ann.

Total dolls: 69

American Girl Kirsten

I decided I wanted to buy American Girl Kirsten too, as well as American Girl Felicity. Unlike Felicity, Kirsten was available now, and so she has already come home. There isn't too much to say about American Girls that everyone doesn't know already. The 35th anniversary re-releases have ties at the back of their neck like the older dolls. I guess new dolls don't have these? If I remember right, the ties are to allow for getting inside the doll's body and adjusting her stuffing. The 35th anniversary dolls come with their accessories automatically (at a higher price,) which the original dolls didn't do. Each 35th anniversary doll also comes with a paperback version of her "meet" book. Original Pleasant Company historical dolls came with a hardcover version, but I'm grateful that the paperback is an exact copy of the original books.

Kirsten is the daughter of a Swedish family that immigrates to Minnesota for better farming opportunities. Her year is 1854. Kirsten's accessories are her sunbonnet, an amber heart necklace that was a going-away gift from her grandmother, and what Pleasant Company called a "spoon sack," holding a handkerchief and a wooden spoon. Pleasant Company wrote that since Swedish pioneers didn't have whole sets of eating utensils, people would bring their own forks, spoons and knives when they went visiting. Pockets worn at the waist, like Kirsten's, were common in Sweden, and other parts of Europe. In Sweden, Kirsten's pocket would have been known as a kjolsäck. Extant examples from Sweden are far more detailed, but some do include the year made, and the initials of the maker.

Kirsten's sunbonnet doesn't sit well on her braids.

I had to include a picture of Kirsten with mini Kirsten.

As soon as I got back from vacation, I was on jury duty. In the US, if you are a registered voter, you can be ordered to be available for a two-week period to be able to serve on a jury trial. In this instance, I was called to serve on a jury, and although the case only took six days or so, they were spread out over three weeks, for various reasons that normally would not happen. It messed up my sleep schedule and life schedule, and being bipolar, trying to keep a very routine schedule is important to my overall health. Therefore, my doll blogging and a lot of other things went to the wayside temporarily. Fortunately, each twelve member jury has a thirteenth member as an alternate. This particular judge doesn't choose the alternate until after closing arguments and jury instruction, and I was chosen as the alternate, so I got to leave early on the next to last day, and didn't have to come in the next morning for deliberation. (The alternate choice was completely random.)

Something Simple

There has not been much going on here lately. I haven't had the energy to do much beyond the basics in the past month. I spent an afternoon putting together 8.5"x11" sized pattern pieces for a sewing pattern to make scrubs pants for my daughter. I cut out the pieces for a doll sofa from one of those kits where the pieces come pre-cut; you just have to finish cutting them free, and then glue them together. Hopefully I will have that set up soon. It shouldn't be too hard, now that all the pieces are loose. But just so you know that I'm still here, I'm putting up a very basic picture that I took to mark having 100 followers on my Instagram account. I decided to group together just about every different type of doll that I own into the photo, and I'm glad that I did. I discovered at least one new Instagrammer who collects Madeline dolls for example. I'll probably find more people outside of the Barbie/Monster High/Ever After High groove that I've been in. Some of these dolls you have seen. Some haven't been on my blog at all before today, but you'll see them eventually!

My Collection Part Two: American Girls

I plan to intersperse collection photos with other blog posts, but these photos were easy to take, so I decided they would come next. I have a human-sized photography light on order, but it's being held up due to current virus issues.

Samantha is an original Pleasant Company doll, but she wasn't made in Germany, like the very earliest AG dolls were. Caroline is a Mattel doll. I have taken some detailed comparison pictures for people like Farrah, who were interested in the little differences between the Pleasant Company and Mattel dolls, but I'll put those at the end. If you're not interested in the minutiae, you don't need to read that far.

Quick historical note, Pleasant Company was started to help girls learn American history. I remember reading that the books were actually supposed to be the focus of the collection, and the dolls and accessories were additions, to help girls "act out" the scenes from the books. There were even girl-sized outfits that matched Pleasant Company doll clothes, for further immersion.

Samantha was released in the 80s, but I think I received Samantha for Christmas from Mr. BTEG in 1997. Eldest got her Bitty Baby (by Pleasant Company) for Christmas that year, though, so it's possible that I might have gotten mine the year before and started getting Pleasant Company catalogs then. I bought Caroline in 2015 when it was announced that she and her collection were going to be retired. Something about her had appealed to me ever since she was released, but her being retired made me finally buy her. Most of you are probably pretty familiar with this type of 18" doll, since there are so many other similar dolls that have been produced. American Girls have stuffed, cloth bodies, as you can see by looking at Caroline's neckline. In general, Pleasant Company dolls have more stuffing than more current releases.

A closeup of Samantha. I wish that if she had to have bangs, they wouldn't have been so long and thick. I've included a shot of her with her bangs somewhat pushed aside, so you can see part of her eyebrows.

And Caroline. She has slightly less of the whites of her eyes visible, which I think makes the biggest difference in their expressions?

I had to take a few pictures of the girls with their mini-versions, especially since I just featured the minis in my last post. Originally, Samantha did have a matching hair ribbon in her hair, but it was sewn in, and at one time I dressed Samantha in a different dress, so I had to remove the original ribbon. If I sewed the ribbon onto a bobby pin or narrow hair clip, Samantha could wear it again. Just one more thing on a long list. :)

As you can see, the two doll sizes are *very* similar in their outfits. My 18" Samantha came wearing drawers like I show on mini Samantha, but the elastic is shot in those, so 18" Samantha just wears her tights. Of course, the real Samantha wouldn't have been wearing tights, but I forgive Pleasant Company this, as knee stockings might have gotten loose at the top pretty quickly. Period garters would have added a lot of expense, and difficulty dressing the doll. Not to mention, the garters would have been attached to a stiffened sort of sleeveless undershirt with shoulder straps, like a corset, but unboned. That would make for more expense, plus American Girl dolls did not give completely accurate attention to undergarments, which is acceptable for me. The American Girl doll Felicity doll did have ribbon garters to tie her stockings around her knees, but those are far more simple.

I love having both of these dolls in my collection. I have some of Samantha's accessories and furniture, but nothing of Caroline's. Someday I would like to find Caroline's accessories second-hand. Her straw bonnet is the only thing I think that I would have a hard time making myself.

Now let's get to where these two dolls are the most different: their eyes and eyelashes. Honestly, they aren't even that different here, at least on my pair. People enjoy comparing dolls from different eras, though, so here are some pics.

Samantha's eyelashes are obviously sparser and rougher looking. Neither doll has ever been played with by a child, so I think that makes for a pretty even comparison. I'm not aware of my Samantha ever losing any eyelashes. The iris decal looks about the same for both girls, which was probably a wise choice by Mattel. No point in differentiating these dolls from earlier ones in more ways than necessary.

As you can see, Caroline's eyelashes curve up more at the ends. Samantha's look more realistic to me, though. As far as touch, however, neither doll's eyelashes feel softer than the others. Caroline's *eyebrows* are brush strokes, whereas Samantha's are a straight line. Caroline's are more realistic, but I don't think Samantha's are bad.

One last very small difference, and that is in their teeth.

Samantha's teeth are painted further up underneath her lip. Her eyes and teeth are not as white as Caroline's, but that could be partially due to aging. Samantha is over twenty years old!

Total dolls: 11