2016 Tonner Convention Day Three Workshop, Formal Dinner Event, and PJ Party

There were seminars and workshops in the afternoons for both Friday and Saturday. The seminars were free, although reservations needed to be made as seating was limited. Friday's seminar was on the Wilde Imagination Company. Saturday's was a talk by Andrew Yang, about his great-grandmother, Mary Astor. Apparently there are going to be some dolls of her produced, and from what I've heard, they'll be wearing some sharp outfits from the 1930s. I didn't attend either seminar.

I chose to take a workshop on Friday which involved making a Tyler sized bag. The story behind the bag is that Marley Wentworth is now a fashion blogger, and she designed a laptop/tablet bag for some sort of competition. My workshop cost $15, which I though was very fair, especially since we got a pattern that we can use to make further bags. Here is a picture of our workshop materials.

Underneath the bag pattern pieces, there was a bag filled with four different kinds of non-fraying fabrics. We could use them however we liked, using one color for everything or two offsetting colors. The large gray rectangle in the bag is supposed to be a tablet. It wasn't until we were into the project that we were told that our instructor, Jay Barrett, had designed his own mold and cast our "tablets" out of resin. The colored pictures are supposed to be computer screens, which will fit inside the tablet. There were also metal pieces to use to attach the straps to the bag, some pins to stick into the bottom of the bag to give the bag feet, and some bits and pieces to decorate the bag if you wished. I'm sorry, but I'm too tired too remember the correct names for some of these pieces, or look them up! I enjoyed the workshop, even though my bag turned out far from perfect! But it was a good starting point for me to try to make a better bag, which is a doll craft that I've never tried. By the way, Jay came all the way from Australia for the convention, which I though was neat.

Apparently, there were serious problems with the shoe making workshop on the previous day. The glue wasn't holding together at all; I believe participants are getting mailed supplies to make another set of shoes. Jay mentioned on Saturday that the glue had been affected by the air pressure changes in the plane when the person who ran the workshop traveled there (I got the impression that wasn't his workshop, but I'm not sure.) I suppose it would be a lot of hassle to run around and buy workshop supplies once you get to an event like this, but it certainly caused problems on Friday. Word got all around the convention about how badly the workshop had gone.

There were two other workshops, a ribbon dress workshop, and a Betsy McCall workshop. I didn't hear anything about those, or see any of the results.

Saturday night was the Big Event, the formal dinner event. Some people were decked out to the nines, some were in between, some were mostly casual. I noticed that while a lot of people like dressing for every event, there were lots of people who didn't, and neither did I. The centerpiece was a Tyler doll preparing one of her designs on a model. Each model was completely different, different mold, different hairstyle, different costume. I actually won the first chance to buy the centerpiece, but I passed, as $400 was too much for me to spend. :( Multiple numbers were drawn for the centerpiece, because there were tables which hadn't had anyone pick the first number that was drawn. So, our table hostess was the second number picked, and she bought it.

In the middle of the room was a catwalk. After dinner, there was a fashion show, featuring about twenty of Tonner's doll fashions created in human size. I only recognized a few of the outfits, and couldn't get good pictures. Some of them are on the Tonner Doll Company's Facebook page. We were also told pictures of each centerpiece would be online, but not where. I don't know. I heard before the convention that there was a Tonner convention Yahoo group, but could never find it.

Robert left the stage and the room with one of the models, who is apparently a good friend of his from his Bill Blass designer days. One of the Tonner people, who'd done most of the announcements for the meal events, told us that it was now time to clear the room so it could be set up for the evening's pajama party. At that point, many of us wondered if there was going to be an event doll, as we all expected. One woman in another part of the room eventually yelled out "Where's our doll?" It honestly seemed like they accidentally passed over that part, although it could have been for show, to get us excited about the doll. Someone ran to get Robert back, and he came back up to the stage, while the table hosts/hostesses got out the dolls, which had been under the tables. We had to wait to open the box until everybody got their dolls out of the shipper, which was a time consuming process. In the dim light, the doll looked gorgeous, although not my style. It wasn't until I took some pictures of her that I noticed an issue.

Someone had rather sloppily put on her eyeshadow on her left eye; not only was it crooked, but it ran up into her eyebrow.

Fortunately, they had some extra dolls, and I was able to swap her out at the doll show today. However, it left me a little disappointed in what had happened. For one thing, when I showed the doll to a woman behind the table, who was Tonner's executive assistant, she said, "That's eyeshadow." I said, "It runs over her eyebrow." The light was not great in the room, although better than last night, but it made me a bit uncomfortable that I had to explain why the doll was defective. This was a limited edition doll, the climactic doll of a 25th anniversary celebration convention. She has a face mold that was made especially for this convention. I feel a flaw like this should have been checked before the dolls were handed out. Also, one of my tablemates got a doll where the inside box, not the shipper, was already pretty banged up. She got a fresh doll that night, but again, it just felt disappointing.

I would also like to point out, that although I said in a previous comment that the two dolls were "free," they were of course included in the price of our convention package.

The pajama party started pretty quickly after the dinner was cleared out. I missed quite a bit, because I wasn't staying in the hotel the convention was held in, and I had to go back and change into pajamas. Also, I forgot to bring back the little piece of paper that got people into the pajama party (there was nobody at the doors by the time I got back.) Because of those things, I missed out on getting this doll case in a silver stripe pattern. Yeah, I could have tried to get one afterwards, and yeah, it retailed for a lot of money, but I don't have room for it and don't know how often I'd use it, and I was super tired by that time. At previous conventions, the PJ party has apparently been pretty fun, involving dancing. Last night, there were snacks, but the only things that happened were the drawings for the raffles. I totally missed the raffle room, so I wasn't involved in that at all. Several people won more than one item, so according to my table hostess, they must have put in a lot of money for raffle tickets. The last drawing was for a OOAK resin Ellowyne in a hand beaded and hand sewn dress. Robert did some of the work, but I think I heard he had help? This drawing was a reverse raffle. Twenty five people were called up onto the catwalk which was still there from dinner. As each number was called, that person had to leave; the last person standing won. On the giant screen during the party was a slide show of the contest winners. Robert didn't seem like he was feeling it last night. He was probably as tired of the rest of us; he might also have a really dry personality, which how he came off in general, from what *I personally* saw of him at the public events.

Some people had great nightwear for the party. One man was wearing a striped nightshirt and cap. My Hello Kitty loving tablemate was dressed in pajamas that made her look like a giant Hello Kitty.

And that's it for the convention! Wow, was I exhausted by last night, and so were a lot of others. Overall, I'm glad I went. I think I'd always regret missing this opportunity of going when it happened so close to where I live. It was also good for introverted me to get out, and meet some doll people. But there were some letdowns, although that's probably normal. This was the first convention of any sort that I've ever been to! I'll put up at least one more post about the other things I either bought or was given, and my experience at the doll show today, which included meeting Tam of Planet of the Dolls!

Thoughts on 2016 Toy Fair

First, let me say that this Toy Fair brought home to me how bad the economy is now. I think that's a big reason why some of my favorite doll manufacturers had very weak offerings. It may also explain why toy lines are focusing on old, proven stuff like Marvel, DC, Disney and Star Wars.

I'm also wondering why I got the best, and fastest, coverage of Jakks Pacific, Mattel, Hasbro and Tonner, from sites that generally focus on comic books and action figures the rest of the year. I definitely appreciated their coverage.

So, Ever After High was apparently not represented at Toy Fair at all. I've seen some pictures elsewhere of new dolls that are supposed to come out in 2016, including some with a new, "friendlier" face mold like Monster High is getting. But if the dolls weren't in the Mattel booth at Toy Fair, there's no guarantees. I can be happy with the Ever After High dolls I have, although there are a few more dolls I want to get, that have already been produced. I'm just sad that the line is not doing well. I don't really like monsters.

Tonner is driving me crazy. I'm interested in a new doll named Miette. There is even an exclusive Miette doll for sale on the Tonner/Wilde Imagination website. But I can't find out any information about her, like how tall she is, or what body type she has. What little I've found out came from eBay auctions selling off the exclusive doll after the Wilde Imagination event in January where she debuted. And I don't trust an eBay auction to be accurate. I feel like her size and body type should at least be included on the page where the one Miette doll is for sale. And it's not. See for yourself. Also, since Miette is in the Wilde Imagination line, I'm thinking the doll won't be at the Tonner convention. Maybe I'll be wrong.

I guess the Madame Alexander Travel Friend doll line is officially dead. I wish MA could have tried to deal with some of the issues, like the strange elbow joint, but that might not have been worth it in the long run.

Lastly, and this is not directly related to Toy Fair, I'm wondering when I'm going to get my Petite Barbie from Mattel. The ordering website still says the doll is slated to be released on 02/01/16. Obviously that hasn't happened, so could I have a more accurate date, Mattel?

J-Dolls Maroseica Street

This is probably the first time I have been majorly disappointed in a doll. I recently bought J-Doll Maroseica Street, although I hadn't played with her much. At last, I'm able to review her, renamed as Mari.

So, I read a review of Mari at the Doll Grotto. From that I expected that her shoes might be an issue, even though Heather said shoe problems were unusual. But sure enough, Mari's shoes were falling apart before I took them out of the bag.

This does not bode well.

 And the shoes fell to even more bits after I took them out of the bag. They're useless.

From Heather's review, I also learned that Mari's black underwear might stain. It did, but this is the best picture that I could get of the stained part. Basically it's right along the seam between Mari's bum and her hip joint. Not bad, but just another problem.

Mari herself is beautiful, and the reason I bought her was because her red hair and green eyes are unusual, maybe even unique, in the J-Doll line.

Mari's body came wrapped in plastic, and the foam pieces holding her arms up from the box were stained, so I did have warning that her outfit might stain. She hasn't worn it since I took her out of the box; I dressed her for this review. She has a black net petticoat trimmed with silver lace, but it doesn't do anything for the dress, and I never got around to taking pictures, for reasons you'll see soon.

The dress itself is unusual but not unattractive. It's made out of a green suede-type material, with sewn on lace, beads, small metallic looking decorations and narrow chains.

Heather's review warned that the trim around her doll's sleeve frayed, and mine did as well. The other sleeve didn't have a problem only because that hand popped off easily, so the sleeve fit right over the arm. I had thought that the left hand didn't pop off, or at least not easily.

Another problem was that this dress kept wanting to fall right off of Mari. And the Velcro closure in back did not fasten for the entire piece when I tried to shift this so it was covering her chest more. Like they hadn't measured in her chest when they put the Velcro on. If it wasn't for the fact that the otherwise detached sleeves are sewn by a small seam to the side of the bodice, the dress might very well just slide off.

At this point, I was going to put on Mari's headpiece and take some pictures of her in the dress and headpiece. But then I discovered that after wearing the dress for about only ten minutes, the dress was already staining the doll, so I pulled it off quickly.

Below is the damage done to the arm; when I took Mari into the bathroom to try to get the stains off with a Magic Eraser, I discovered that her left hand was also slightly stained as well. But when I went to scrub that, I discovered that it did indeed pop off, and it went right down the drain! :O I'm hoping Mr. BTEG can rescue it out of the trap when he gets home.

Here's Mari wearing the headpiece. I didn't get any more pictures because the headpiece fell off when I tried to rearrange her for another picture, and I was pretty tired of the whole thing at this point.

Heather tied the headpiece's ribbon in front, under the doll's chin. That might be more stable, but since this doll was named after a Russian street, I thought perhaps they were going more for a look like these headpieces worn by Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana Nicholaievena. As you can see, there is a veil in the back and you can also make out a ribbon bow. Without the matching dress, Mari's headpiece is not very exciting however you arrange it.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olga_%C3%A9s_Tatj%C3%A1na_in_court_gown_1913.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Olga_%C3%A9s_Tatj%C3%A1na_in_court_gown_1913.jpg

Heather said her J-Doll had three looped-up braids; mine has four, two on the sides and two in the back. I might redo this style if I get inspired with another idea, but it's fine the way it is.

So this is the first doll I am going to have to give a overall bad review for. Mari's shoes disintegrated, her underwear stained, and her dress stained. What can she wear that headpiece with, besides the dress it came with? Her stockings, like other J-Doll stockings, don't have any memory stretch to them, so they'll very likely start sagging after a few times of being taken on and off. So what you get is a doll, and a pretty uninspiring black net petticoat which I had to use a seam ripper to get off because the petticoat doesn't come with any fastenings. So basically, you get a doll. Even after knowing ahead of time that there might be issues, my doll ended up with more problems than Heather's did, since mine can't even wear her dress for pictures. I'm glad I paid less than Heather paid for hers, and if you're interested in one because you like Mari's face, I wouldn't pay more than $20 for one.

Update: Mr. BTEG succeeded in retrieving Mari's hand.