Merry Christmas!

Last post before Christmas.  I had to show you a couple more pics from my themed photo shoot with the Prettie Girls Tween Scenes, because showing you these pictures in January would be a little awkward.  Plus, I had to show off the Santa hats I made.  :)

I hope everyone has a great holiday season.  

Some random doll news

Prettie Girls Tween Scene dolls Dhara and Alexie.

Tonner One World

Collectors have already heard about the Dec. 3 merger between Tonner Doll Company and One World Doll Project, who do the 12-inch Prettie Girl and the 16-inch Prettie Girl Tween Scene dolls. The merged company, Tonner One World, plans to continue their high-end collector's doll lines, but in addition, they'll also be doing play doll lines that will be sold in retail stores. The Tween Scenes are currently in Walmart and H.E.B. stores, but will also be in Toys R Us and Target beginning in 2016, so it looks like this line will be expanded.

Tonner One World also plans to introduce two new doll lines at Toy Fair 2016 in February: an 18" baby doll line called the Prettie Girls Dream Babies, and a fashion doll line called the Prettie Girls NYC. I don't normally cover baby dolls on this blog, but I'm intrigued by the Prettie Girls NYC and can't wait to hear more about them. I don't know what size they'll be yet. 

 

Lammily's new character

I'm sure people remember the Lammily doll, that made waves last year as the love-her-or-hate-her doll with more realistic proportions than most other fashion dolls. Well, the company has introduced its second character in the series. This time she's an African-American photographer.

 

I think her face looks quite nice, and the clothes are so pretty! Her hair in the picture is a bit ... interesting. With some restyling, she'd look great, though, I think. She's not out yet, but available for pre-order.

That's all for now. Love ya!

 

Dolly food!

Handmade doll food by Chef Gina.

I thought I'd show you two different types of doll food today. The first is a handmade dinner for your more refined dollies by Chef Gina, shown here on a table and chairs made by the Tonner Doll Company for their 10" Patsy-sized dolls. 

 

For lunch we have stuffed pierogis with glazed carrots and salad, washed down with iced tea with lemon, with yogurt for dessert. There is a separate large salad bowl, with a helping of fresh greens divided onto each plate. The plate is ceramic, not plastic.  (Remember to click on the photos if you want to see them bigger.)

The tomatoes look amazing. It also looks like there are thin slivers of onion ring in the salad, a slice of egg, and cucumber. I don't know what Chef Gina used to make these with, but they're so much nicer than play food you can buy at Target. But since they're made by hand, they're also more delicate than plastic play food, so these won't work for young children. It's a nice set for older kids and adults, though.

The iced tea is set in a plastic glass, but the ice cubes and lemon slices look great.

The yogurt has a sprig of mint in it. I've been calling this yogurt ever since I first laid eyes on it, but it just occurred to me that it could also be cottage cheese. Whatever you think is the yummiest, I guess.

And now for some play food. ...

Play food from the Our Generation doll line.

The next collection is Our Generation doll food I got at Target. The food is from two different sets: "Love a Luau" and"R.V. Seeing You." My daughter Eva's birthday was four days ago, and she got them as gifts. They were an immediate hit! There are some things that were in the sets I didn't even get a chance to photograph, because she spirited them away to her bedroom. There was a pair of fried eggs in a pan that came with the R.V. set, and they've somehow managed to get lost already. Ah, well. 

The shrimp look SO GREAT! They're from the "Love a Luau" set. Eva loves shrimp, so I had to get her this one. 

 

Some of the food looks good (for play food), but some is hit-or-miss. I liked this make-your-own hamburger. The individual parts of the hamburger are separate so your kid can put them together any way she wants. Whoever painted the bun on the far right apparently skipped the "how to paint hamburger buns" workshop. LOL. The bun on the left looks good, though. The tomatoes are too dark, but the detail is nice. The lettuce looks great!

The fruit. I love that they painted the tiny seeds in the watermelon and the apple halves. I appreciate details like that. It would have been so easy for them to not bother painting those, considering the Our Generation sets are mass-produced items.

The cookies look disgusting. LOL. The sets came with pink plastic plates. It would have been nice to see plates that were a little more ornate, and you know, not pink, but it's a play set made for children. I guess I can't complain much.

I love this tropical drink that came with the luau set! It looks suspiciously like an alcoholic drink. "It's a fruit slushie, Eva. I swear!" Very cute, though.

Later,

(Disclaimer: Chef Gina kindly sent me the pierogi set for review.  I bought the Our Generation sets at Target.)

The Dream Big Friends Kickstarter

I just discovered this new Kickstarter for this super-cute doll.  It looks like the Kickstarter has only just begun recently.  I think she's wonderful!  I love that she looks like she just stepped out of the pages of a comic book.  The doll is 10" tall, and has articulated elbows, wrists and knees as well as hips, so she can sit nicely in a chair with her legs together and hold things in her arms.  She comes with the kitty.  Her clothing is fabric to allow her to move and pose well, and the hair is molded.

The designer has a whole lot of dolls planned, in many ethnicities.  They put this image up in their video (below), and I took a screen-grab of the set.  They mention they want to do boy dolls as well.  I'm dying from the cuteness.  Dying!  How cute are these?!?

Anyway, here's the Kickstarter, if anyone wants to buy one of these girls and get this line made.

 

 

All photos show the prototype dolls, and are the property of Bigshot Toyworks.

Adventures at MakieLab

These Makie dolls by the British company MakieLab have been on my radar for over a year, only I never bought one before now.  These are the dolls you design on their web site with an adorably-cartoony make-a-doll program, and they then custom-make the exact doll for you right there in England.

I just found out they've lowered the price by 35% over what the prices were mere months ago.  They're now $75 in American currency.  Apparently, the Makies now have a new plastic body that's enabled them to reduce prices.  The new body reportedly has even better posing than the old, although I've seen people lament that with the new bodies, people can no longer dye their dolls different colors, possible with the older bodies that were fully 3D printed.  There are some really nice customs out there in shades of blue, green and purple, all done with the older body.  Anyway, I saw MakieLab was offering free shipping this week, so I took the plunge and created a Makie!  Actually, I created two.

Violet and Winsome, otherwise known as pouty and happy.  I would have LOVED to have gotten both and declared them twins, but I could only afford one this time around.  I ended up choosing the smiling version for my first Makie, in the medium skin tone.  Here's the final girl that I ordered:

The sliders on the web site were so fun to play with!   I took screenshots of my messing around with the "Attitude" eyebrow slider.  The "Ferocity" slider changes the thickness, and there are also two other eyebrow types in addition to this one.  (Click on the graphics to see them larger.)

If you choose one of the other eyebrow styles, it's possible to make a really angry face.

I also messed with the eyelid sliders.  These narrow the eye to change the facial expression.  It's really pretty brilliant.  I think the wider eye makes her look sweeter, while the narrower version makes her look slightly condescending.  Between this, the various eye types and an eye tilt feature, there are a lot of options.  You can change her nose and jaw/chin shape as well.

I tried some different hair on her.  The immediate issue I discovered with their newest version of the make-a-doll program is that it's extremely difficult to figure out which hair is supposed to be a natural red.  There's a fire engine red, and there's this.  It's impossible to tell whether this is supposed to be a medium brown or a shade of red, or something in-between.  There are some other shades of brown in there, but no other shades of red other than the unnatural, vivid fire engine red.  I didn't order this wig because I wasn't sure what color the actual wig would be, and I had a suspicion it wouldn't be quite THIS color.

Tried a few more wig choices.  It was pretty fun to mess with.

I loved the white hair as well, and ended up ordering a separate white wig in addition to a black one and the purple.  I also ordered an eyeglasses set that included three pairs of eyeglasses in different colors.

I gave her small elf ears.  On the site, when you click on the "Ear Shape" button, the hair turns transparent so you can see the ears underneath.

The outfits are (with a few exceptions) different than they were a year ago.  I don't have very high hopes that the outfit will be a great quality, but I don't plan to keep her in this for long, anyway.  I know I'll be sewing for her soon.  The parrot top made me smile, and I thought the blue leggings might be useful for other outfits.

So, when it was time to check out.  I got this window, showing the price in American dollars.

Here's the weird thing.  As I was checking out, I decided to add the two extra wigs and the eyeglasses set, and the prices suddenly switched to British pounds.  LOL.  The currency switched back and forth a couple of times before I was done.  I wasn't too concerned about it, since I knew it wouldn't matter when I paid.  I'm just mentioning it in case someone else buys from them before they can fix this.  Don't panic!  It'll work out fine.   Other than that, I had no problems checking out and paying.  Order came to $95.66 total with the three extra items added, still less than the original price for the doll alone, which would have been $115.

I'm so excited!  I've heard it's a two-week wait while the doll is custom-made.  I'll certainly post a million pics of the actual doll when she arrives. 

See ya!

EDIT:  She arrived!  You can see her real-life pics here.