Ann Estelle fashion show

I was trying "A Bit Younger" Ann Estelle in some Patsy outfits, since she shares the same body as the 10" Tonner Patsy dolls. I got Cuteness Overload from all this stuff! So, welcome to the fashion show.  I'll keep the pictures small so they'll load easily, but you can click on them to see them larger.

First up, the picture above shows Ann in the outfit from "Easy Breezy" Patsy from 2014. I have a soft spot in my heart for little girl's sailor dresses, since my dad was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, so literally a sailor. <3 Her doll is a mini Lalaloopsy. 

 

This is the outfit from "Pink Peppermint" Patsy, also from 2014. I always thought that with those pastel colors and the flowers, it would be perfect for Easter. It doesn't quite go with the black hair bow, though. 

The plaid schoolgirl dress is from 2013's "Smart As A Whip" Patsy. This was a dressed doll, but I was able to get the outfit separately from eBay. Yay eBay! I've always loved this type of old-fashioned dress style.

Ann is modeling the Alice dress from an event doll called "Patsy In Wonderland," from the 2014 Tonner Convention. The doll was a limited edition of 150. Ann is SO CUTE in this! I think this was the point where I passed out from Cuteness Overload and had to be revived. 

Now for a summer dress. This was sold as a separate fashion (no doll) in 2014 as "Cotton Casual Outfit." It came with green sandals, but no panties. O_0 Beware of strong winds, Ann! Beware of strong winds.

This red set was also an outfit only, called "Dots My Dress." I'm not sure the hat suits Ann Estelle all that much. The set came with white socks and red shoes. The outfit is from 2013. 

 

Here is the "Patsy Loves To Read" outfit from 2015. This was also a separate fashion. When the Tonner Doll Company put this outfit on sale, I snatched it up so fast! The floral pinafore is a separate piece and can be removed. It came with the (unopenable) book "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." I love this set.

And the last outfit is from a Tonner Half Pint doll. I was never crazy about the faces of the Half Pints, but they used the same body as the Patsy dolls, and some had cute outfits. This is from a 2014 dressed doll called "Grins & Giggles." It came with a green jacket and brown shoes.

See ya!

Tonner brings back the Ann Estelle line

Guests at the 2016 Tonner Doll Company convention were treated to the return of the Ann Estelle doll line, based on the art of Mary Engelbreit.

Two new dolls were available: a 10" (26cm) child Ann Estelle called "A Bit Younger," shown here, and a 16" (41cm) older version called "Breit Nights" that was on the Ellowyne Wilde body. Although I wasn't at the convention, I was able to snag these two girls afterward. Today, I'll show you "A Bit Younger." She's so cute!

"Younger" is on the super-articulated newer Patsy body. It's a wonderfully-engineered body that has excellent posing, so I was really happy to see this. I'll post a couple of pictures that show her arms in different positions. Like other Tonner dolls, the joints are smooth and tight, and stay in position when you move them. No floppy joints, here.

 

She can sit nicely, and her legs can cross at the ankles, which looks really cute. She cannot completely cross one leg over the other, though, like most of Tonner's 16" dolls can.  

I didn't cross her ankles in the below photo, but wanted to post it anyway because she looks so stinkin' adorable sitting up on the stump.

 

"A Bit Younger" is wigged, and the wig is removable. It attaches to the head with velcro. I don't want to change her wig, but it's nice to know I could if I wanted to. I didn't want to tear off her hair, but I measured her head with her hair on, and it looks like the head takes a 7-8" wig, with her head size being closer to 8" than 7".

 

Her inset eyes look brown from a distance, but when you see them up close, you can see they aren't really a true brown, but a mix of colors. The Tonner web site had described them as "hazel." I thought I'd give you a close-up, since the eye color is so interesting.  You can see the feathering detail on the eyebrows in this picture, too.  (And a couple of very minor painting flaws.  Barely noticeable on the doll, but when you look at this extreme close-up, you can't help but see it.)

Wanted to show you a pic of her without her trademark eyeglasses. She looks bright-eyed and lively, like she's having fun. The glasses fit nicely and don't fall off. (Unless you shook her really hard, I suppose. ...)

She can wear clothes made for the 10" Tonner Patsy and Trixie dolls. Here she is in the outfit from "Autumn Days" Trixie, which I adore because of its vintage look.

 

Anyway, I can't wait to see the Ann Estelle main line, now that the Tonner Doll Company has the license back. I'm guessing we'll see the main line in the Fall, but I'll have to check.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Review of Autumn Days Trixie

Reviewing another child doll today. 

This is Autumn Days Trixie from 2015, from Effanbee/The Tonner Doll Company.  She's one of the two new dolls in the Patsy line, along with Lacy Summer Day Patsy, which I don't have.  She's the third Trixie offering ever, since Trixie debuted as a character last year.  She has a wonderful face, and the new super-articulated body with bending elbows, wrists and knees.

Both Autumn Days and Lacy Summer Day Patsy have a period look to them, like they come from an earlier time.  I love the clothes on both.  This hat is so cute!  It actually comes with a clear elastic band that you could loop under the doll's chin if you wanted, but I don't find it necessary.  The hat stays on just fine without it.

The dress is made from a very soft fabric, and has snaps in the back.  It would be easy for a child to get the clothes on and off, which I can't say about every Patsy outfit.  The sewing and fabrics are both nice quality, and all the inside seams are finished.  She comes with matching bloomers underneath.  The socks are knee-high; they aren't tights.  The brown Mary Jane shoes fasten at the sides with a single bead as a button.  A lot of the Patsy dolls have this same style of shoe, so if you have a lot of Tonner Patsy outfits, you'll pretty much have a million of these in different colors.  They're nicely-made and fit the doll well, though, and they don't fall off when you lift the doll.  Hey, that's important!  It means no lost doll shoes.  Yay!

I really truly love the face on this doll.  So sweet and serene.  She makes for a perfect compliment to the Patsy dolls.  I do hope the Tonner Doll Company offers a Trixie in a darker skin tone as well some day.  This skin tone is lovely, but darker skin would be lovely, too.

 
As always, click on the pictures to make them bigger.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! 

These are two custom, OOAK Patsy dolls I did this week when I was in a creative mood.  I gave them both glass eyes and new hair.  When I was in the middle of creating one of them, my husband walked into the room just in time to witness me digging into a bald doll scalp with my exacto knife.  Didn't phase him at all.  LOL!  He's so used to my doing strange doll projects, he doesn't even usually ask questions about them any more.  I just shouted out "Braiiiiinnnssss!!!" and kept on cutting.  He walked out without saying a word. 

The outfits are Tonner Patsy clothes from the 2014 collection.

I absolutely love the newer, super-articulated Patsy bodies!  I can't praise them enough.  They may be one of the best doll bodies Tonner has ever done, along with the Ellowyne and Antoinette bodies.   Just my personal opinion, of course. 

I'm actually planning on putting the blue-eyed one up for sale here on the blog in another week or so, along with three other customs.  The brown-eyed one isn't for sale, although I'm sure I'll do another brown-eyed Patsy some time in the future when my next order of brown glass eyes comes in.  (I ran out.) 

Hugs.

My customized Tonner Patsy

I know this customization looks difficult, but it was SO EASY.  The only change I made to this Effanbee/Tonner "Pretty Party" Patsy was to change the eyes.  That's it.  But wow, what a difference!

I knew this pretty sculpt would look better with different eyes, so I took the plunge and switched them out.  I got out an exacto knife and some full-round glass eyes, and basically did this tutorial. 

It involved peeling off Patsy's glued-on wig, then cutting a round hole in the back of her head with the exacto so I could access her eyes.  Wrap the head in a heating pad for a little while to soften the wig glue.  It makes it easy to peel the wig off.

The default eyes are not glued in.  In fact, you could probably just take the old eyes out and put new eyes in without ever having to cut her head open (although cutting open her head makes it easier).  I suspect you could just heat up her head with a heating pad and pop the old eyes out, then pop the new eyes in again from the outside of the head like I did in this Bratzillaz tutorial.  However, you'd be risking scratching her face paint near her eyes if you did that, which is why I chose to open her head and attack the problem from the inside.

The lady who did the Patsy tutorial uses 16mm eyes, but I like 14mms better.  The 14s are also easier to put in, because the 16s are overall larger in addition to having a larger iris, which makes them really difficult to shove into those eyewells.  (I tried. ... Boy, how I tried!)  The tutorial lady had used half-round eyes, but with the 14mms I was able to use full rounds and they still worked nicely. 

Right now, Patsy's new eyes are being held in quite well without any glue or putty or any extra effort on my part.  They're stuck pretty firmly in the eyewells and won't budge unless I make them.  Technically, I could just leave them unglued so I could change her eyes out again for another color any time I want.  I'm undecided about gluing them, because the idea of being able to change her eyes any time I want to is just too tempting.  I LOVE them like this!  The new eyes have really brought this doll to life. 

Omigosh, I love her! 

By the way, the whole process of changing out her eyes was really quick and easy.  My only tools were the exacto knife and a heating pad (or hair dryer) to warm up the vinyl.  I didn't alter her face paint at all ... the face paint you see in the pics is all her original factory paint.  Nice, isn't it?  She's really beautifully painted.  The only other thing I did was to get rid of her spidery-looking default applied eyelashes, as you can see in the comparison photos.  The eyelashes just didn't work on her, and she already had nicely-painted eyelashes on the corners of each eye.   

Really, her original eyes probably would look fine if only the factory had positioned them up a bit higher so you could see a little white under them.  The quality of the factory eyes was good; I just wasn't crazy about how the factory workers had set the eyes.

In these pics I was playing with her eye position.  I'm not sure whether I prefer side-glancing or forward-facing, but so long as the eyes stay unglued, I'll be able to change them at whim.

Please click on the pictures to see them larger.

My find from the Huntsville, Alabama doll show

There is only one doll show within a 3 hour drive from my house, and it's only held once a year.  It just happens to be held in the same city my mother lives in, so I conveniently get to stay at my mom's house overnight whenever I attend the show.  Yay!  Mom's awesome cooking, and a doll show all in the same weekend. 

Anyway, I went this past weekend and saw that Brookes Dolls And More had a roomy display there with Ellowyne Wildes, Patsy dolls and ... OK, I didn't really notice what else their tables had, because I was too enchanted by the Ellowynes and Patsys.  I was never sold on buying Patsy before from just looking at pictures, but in person she was very charming!  They had a neat display of five different Patsys and (I think) five separate outfits for sale.  I was drawn to this girlie in purple, but hesitated about buying her.  I went back to their table THREE TIMES during the show trying to make up my mind to spend the money, and finally bought her on my third go-round.

This version is called "Pretty Party" Patsy.  Tonner really missed an opportunity to name her "Violets" Patsy or something.  (Vivacious Violets Patsy?  Very Violet Patsy?)  I love the outfit on this one!  It's a perfectly lovely dress that snaps in back and is really beautifully put together.    She didn't come with a stand, but doesn't need one because she can stand on her own unsupported. 

My one gripe with these dolls is that every time I see one, I think their eyes could be positioned better.  I really want to make this one a custom and give her new eyes that are either side-glancing, or positioned with a sliver of white underneath them like this amazing custom Patsy. 

Their default eyes can sometimes come across as a bit stare-y, like a school kid at the exact moment she realizes she forgot to do her homework.  Their faces are already lovely: Their eyes just need a slight nudge to evoke more expression. 

In fact, I am now 100% sure I am going to give her custom eyes.  I'll be back in my next post with her new look.