Redressing in Franklin Mint

Tonner's Wonder Woman 52 wearing a Franklin Mint Marilyn Monroe outfit.

Years ago, I discovered a couple of stores that were getting rid of their Franklin Mint dolls and clothing.  Just giving them away for practically nothing on eBay.  I decided the time was right to get a Marilyn Monroe and a bunch of her clothes.  I got a dressed doll and eight of her outfits for a fraction of their original costs.  The outfits were around $15 apiece at the time!  I was looking at prices on eBay recently, and they're now going for between $50 and $100 per outfit!  Mine are all deboxed and played with now, of course.  In fact, I discovered I had to make repairs on two of them because a rhinestone brooch was falling off of one, and the sleeves were coming apart on this white gown, pictured below.

I also got an FM Princess Diana dress at the same time. ... I wish I hadn't.  I'd left Marilyn in a doll trunk with all those clothes, and for years she sat in my closet untouched in the trunk.  When I opened her up, I discovered stains all over her from the dark blue velvet Princess Diana dress, and from one of her own dresses.  Yes, I was stupid enough to leave her in her famous gold lame dress all that time.  (Sorry, I don't know how to do accent symbols over the "e" for the word "lame" in this program.)  Ack! 

Franklin Mint clothes stain like crazy.  She wasn't even WEARING the blue Diana dress.   It had merely pressed up against her shoulder while she was stuck in the trunk, and now her shoulder is blue.  Sigh.  Her gold lame dress left marks ALL OVER her, even on her shoulders and around her neck.  I'm attempting to treat Marilyn with Twin Pines of Maine's "Remove-Zit" now.  I saved an Antoinette with blue feet with it once, so hopefully it'll work on Mary.

Above is the dark blue velvet Princess Diana gown.  It's too bad it stains so badly, because it's an absolutely beautiful dress. Ya better believe I stripped it off Mera right after I took this picture!  (And don't you love Franklin Mint jewelry?  That necklace is amazing!)

I'm so glad I kept these clothes all these years, though, because I just discovered they are a PERFECT fit for the 16" Tonner Heroic body.  Seriously perfect.  I wanted to show you pictures of my Mera and Wonder Woman wearing them, because they're absolutely fabulous.  I just won't ever trap them in a trunk with the clothes like I did to poor Marilyn.  And they aren't allowed to wear any of the dark clothes for more than three seconds at a time.  LOL!  The evil blue velvet Diana dress is now sealed in a plastic bag so it can't hurt anyone ever again.

The outfit with the red jacket over the white blouse, and black skirt (above) is not Franklin Mint.  That's actually a Tonner outfit made for HIS version of Marilyn Monroe, called "The Problem With Rose."  It fits the Heroic body nicely, although I did have to tug a bit to get that jacket snapped over those giant bosums.  Tonner's Marilyn has a slightly smaller bust than the FM version, but apparently a similar waist and hip size.

Here's "The Problem With Rose" on Wonder Woman 52.  It looks like it was made for her!  The shoes don't quite fit right, though.  Mera here is dressed in a Tyler outfit. I've found a lot of Tyler skirts fit the Heroic body, but the skirt from this outfit was too tight and won't snap in the back.  Regular Tyler pants won't fit over the bodacious Heroic butt. 

Liz Taylor and Ann-Margret?

Some more Franklin Mint Marilyn outfits:

I just realized I have a LOT of red doll clothes.

My poor, stained Marilyn seemed happy about getting some face time after being stuck inside a trunk for the past 10 years.  I couldn't leave this post without showing at least ONE picture of her, after those other bitches stole all her clothes.   LOL!

"Why do you not love me any more?"

Mera 52 by Tonner

I love Tonner factory sales!  They had one recently, and I saw they'd reduced the price of this red-haired bombshell I'd been eyeing all year long.  She was less than half price!  I figured I'd never see her that cheap again, so I grabbed her. 

She is the DC Comics character Mera, Queen of Atlantis.  Now, I'm not really a comic book fan.  I like them, but they aren't really my thing.  I grew up in the '70s on TV versions of DC Comics characters.  I watched the Super Friends cartoon, and was a huge fan of the Wonder Woman TV series with Linda Carter.  I've read some Wonder Woman comics, but never kept up with them.

But Mera Queen of Atlantis was never on my radar, even though I was pretty well-versed in the other DC characters.  I think if the doll had been in an elaborate gown I would have bought her sooner, but of course, the green skin-tight bodysuit is accurate to the current comic books.

I have to say, they did a fantastic job on the crown and arm guards!  They aren't faux leather like the arm guards on my Wonder Woman 52.  They're high-quality, hard plastic and have a shine to them.  I love the crown!  There is a thin string of clear elastic that you loop under her chin to keep the crown on, but it doesn't look bad. 

Her hair is amazing.  I get such an Ann-Margret vibe from her, between the hair color and her va-va-voom body.  She has the "Heroic" Tonner body like Wonder Woman 52, which I'm thrilled about. 

She's now sold out on the Tonner site, but still available from some of their dealers.

Redressed, she's pretty amazing (click on the pics to make them bigger):

And her original costume is fun.  (Please note:  Wonder Woman and Mera are NOT friends!)

Her face paint is really lovely.

I'd like to come back later and talk about the clothes that will fit this body, so I'll be doing another post about them soon.

*Hugs*

New Poppy Parkers!

So guess what came yesterday????

Two more spy girls!  These are "Spy-a-Go-Go" and "Agent Lotta Danger" Poppy Parkers (posing with "The Girl From I.N.T.E.G.R.I.T.Y." from my last post).  They're from this year's spy show-themed Poppy Parker line.  The three of them together make me think of that old TV show "Charlie's Angels."

It's been about a hundred years since I got new Poppy Parkers.  I was starting to forget how much I love these girls.  I managed to miss all the convention dolls from last year's Integrity Toys convention (and refused to pay double for them on the secondary market).  So as a result, it seems like forever since I was last able to break open a brand new Poppy box. I think these spy girls have renewed my love for this doll line. 

Being spies, of course, they all come with guns.  Well, all of them except for the W Club upgrade doll, "The Girl From I.N.T.E.G.R.I.T.Y."

Agent Lotta Danger (left) not only comes with a gun, she comes with an entire gun holster slung at her hip.  She also comes with four pairs of hands.  Two are black hands (to represent thin black gloves) and two pairs are normal-toned, non-gloved sets. 

"Spy-a-Go-Go's" outfit is gold.  Really, really gold.  She comes with a lot of extra accessories, which is really nice.  She has two bracelets (gold), a gold gun, sunglasses (gold), gold boots, a gold beret, a purse (gold), and earrings and a ring that are gold with turquoise stones in them to match the rather sparkly dress she has on underneath.

I'm not a fan of the gold-and-turquoise mod party dress, but I LOVE the gold coat.  The coat coupled with those boots equals a win.  Integrity did a very cool thing with the gold coat ... they enlarged the pattern to fit the 16" Tulabelle dolls, and gave one of their 2014 Tulabelles the exact same coat made in the same material.  Their back story for such a deed was that Tulabelle had inherited the gold coat from her grandmother, Poppy!

I thought that was pretty stinkin' clever.  The doll who inherited the coat is called "Front Row" Tulabelle.

Here's the dress.  Meh.  It's very '60s, and the colors are pretty.  That's about all I can say about it.  I noticed it has a belt with it, which was NOT shown in the original promo pictures.

Her hair doesn't *quite* look like the promo pics, either.  The original photographs show her hair as being a little fluffier on the sides.  Mine almost looks like it's in a ponytail in the back, but it's just rolled up and hair-sprayed to death.

Dang it.  I forgot to put on her bracelets before I took this picture.  

Boots!  I'm sure you can tell which is which based on the color of their legs.

Can you tell who the gold boots belong to?

LOL.

And now for some random pictures, because these girls are fun to photograph.

 Close-ups!

The black hands are supposed to be gloves, but they still have fingernails!  Ack!  The fingernails aren't quite as apparent in person, but boy, they sure show up in this photo.  I promise you they're harder to see in person.  But as I mentioned, she does come with regular hands, so you can switch out the black hands for regular, normal hands if you want to.

 Later.

The Girl From I.N.T.E.G.R.I.T.Y

It's been a long time since I showed Poppy Parkers on this blog!  It's been a long time since I've gotten a new one.  This is the W Club upgrade doll "The Girl From I.N.T.E.G.R.I.T.Y," by Integrity Toys.  She's kind of fabulous.  I'm so happy with her!  Her eyes are gray, and her hair reminds me so much of the beautiful actress Isabella Rossellini in the movie "Death Becomes Her."  I LOVE the hair.  It's different from all the other Poppy Parkers, and gorgeous.

I won't do a full review, but instead just show you my pictures.  Fabulousness squared.  Click on them to make them bigger.

 

I love her bag!

And you can't go wrong with a mini skirt and boots.

I thought I wasn't going to like this vest, but it kind of works.