Wendy's Make-over Part II - After

A week or so ago we sent Wendy in for a make-over from the American Girl Hospital, and she's back already! Here's how Wendy looks now:

 Wendy was returned safe and sound in an American Girl Doll Hospital Box. She came back wearing a super cute doll hospital gown.

 Look at her adorable white socks with little pink hearts on the side. Included in her box was a get well card and a good health certificate.

 Wendy was also wearing a doll hospital bracelet.

 Look how perfect her face and hair look.

Her entire body was cleaned and the majority of the scuff marks are now gone.

Here's a close-up of the cute socks.

My daughter was sure excited about how Wendy looked!

I was pleased with Wendy's hospital stay and I would certainly recommend the American Girl doll hospital. I was so please with the service and the speed at which our doll was returned.

Gray Aboyne

I love making dance costumes for dolls, and for the first time ever I made an outfit for someone as a thank you gift. Last Thanksgiving my cousin gave us all a wonderful surprise, she sent the entire family scarves for gifts. She had crocheted all of the scarves by hand and sent them for around twenty different female relatives who were able to attend Thanksgiving dinner together. I can't imagine all of the work and planning that went into scarves. She even included all of the little girls, and my daughters really loved them. I wanted to send her an equally awesome thank you, and a regular card just didn't seem like enough, so I surprised her with an outfit for her doll (she also collects American Girl dolls).  I wanted to make it special, so I created an aboyne for her like my daughters wear when they are Scottish dancing.

 Here is my doll, Daphne, modeling the outfit I made for her. Normally when I make doll clothes I try to design them so they are easy for my daughters to put on and take off their dolls. But because my cousin is an adult, I was able to make the outfit a bit more authentic. Scottish dancers wear the aboyne for the national dances. The aboyne consists of a gathered tartan skirt, a tartan plaid worn over the shoulder, a white peasant style blouse, white petticoat and a vest that laces up the front.

Normally when I create an aboyne vest I use ribbon stitched to the front to give it the appearance of lacing (this is easier than having to lace up and tie the vest for my daughters every time they want to dress their dolls) but I actually created a real lace-up front on this outfit for my cousin.

I really love the way the vest laces down the front and ties at the bottom. Notice the Scottish broach on the right shoulder. The broach is used to pin the plaid in place (dancers also pin the plaid down in several other places so it doesn't fall off while they are on stage).  One thing that is really fun about working with a plaid material is that you can change the look of the outfit by pulling a different color in to highlight. If you look back at some of my other aboyne posts, you'll see that I've used this same plaid material to create other aboynes, but when it's paired with a blue vest it looks different then it does with the gray.  I really love how sophisticated this outfit looks, and my cousin said it was the best thank you ever, so I was really excited!

Kit's Collection

Here's a peek at Kit Kittredge and her collection at the American Girl Store in Chicago. Kit is a girl growing up in the depression. She faces lots of challenges but manages to keep a positive outlook through it all.

I love Kit's outfit! Her skirt and sweater set are so cute!  She looks adorable in her hat with her short, bobbed hairstyle.  I love brushing Kit's hair; it really holds it's look. She's a great doll for little one who have trouble brushing and maintaining their doll's hair. (Molly is the other doll I recommend for little girls as she also has hair that is easy for little girls to care for.)

Ruthie is Kit's best friend. She lives next door to Kit. Ruthie is lucky because her father still has a job. She a great friend to Kit in many different ways. 

A look at the items in Kit's collection.  I love her all of her dresses, especially her reporter's outfit and Christmas dress with the little Scottie dog pin.

Kit's furniture is really well made. I love her bed (which folds out to fit two dolls) and table and chair set. Both are really worth the investment.

Several of Kit's outfits have been update. Kit's original pajamas looked like a sailor's outfit; now she has a flannel nightgown. Although I like the nightgown, I have to admit that I prefer the sailor outfit.

The matching set for girls.

A peek at the past - outside Kit's house - her wagon is set to take her wares around the neighborhood for sale.



Storage organizer

Do you have tons of doll stuff everywhere? I always looking around the house trying to find this item or that item, so I decided it was time to get organized. We already have several bins that we keep our doll clothes and larger accessories in, but I came across this at the hardware store and realized it would make an wonderful storage item for our doll shoes, purses, jewelry, ribbons, socks and other small accessories.

 What I love about this is the number of drawers it has.  The large drawers on bottom hold boots or several pairs of shoes. I've arranged the smaller drawers on top to hold our other accessories. Everything is organized and easy to find.

This organizer cost around $20 and can either sit on a shelf or you can hang it on the wall.

Wendy's Make-over Part I - Before

Some of our dolls are in desperate need of a make-over. I was really excited to send them in to the American Girl Doll Hospital for a make-over. Here's Wendy's story:

Wendy has been with us for a number of years. My middle daughter received her for her second birthday.  Yes, that is a bit young, but we love our American Girl dolls around here. As you can see, Wendy (named after her favorite character at the time, Wendy from Peter Pan) has been well loved.

 Wendy's hair is certainly a wild, crazy mess. No amount of brushing is going to get out the snarls that Wendy has, and her hair has a "perm-a-part" from constantly being braided and ponytailed.

Although it's a bit difficult to see, her skin is covered in marks, scuff, and scratches.

We're sending Wendy on her way to the American Girl Hospital for a major spa day! Stay tuned to see the results!

Dance Studio

We finished our new American Girl doll dance studio.  Our studio started as an empty plywood box. We've been building our dollhouse as a series of empty boxes so we could stack and connect them as we completed them. Our dance studio started out the same way as all of our other rooms did.

After we finished building the box, we added paint. The outside of the box is painted white as is the ceiling inside the room.  We added a lavender purple to the walls of the dance studio.  Next we put down a wooden dance floor. Our floor is actually vinyl flooring that looks like wood. You can purchase it from home centers like Lowe's or Home Depot. It took three pieces of flooring to cover our floor. The flooring is sold as individual pieces (you can buy large boxes if you're covering the floor of a real room in your home) so it cost around $7 total.

After the paint was dry and the floor was down, we looked online for some dance posters and printed off a few of our favorites. We hung these to our walls with scrapbook squares.  We also added a dance bar to studio. This is a simple wooden dowel that we cut to the length we wanted. I added Scotch Command hooks to our walls to hold the bar up. I love the Scotch Command products because they really hold things up and come off when you want to remodel your dollhouse.

What dance studio would be complete without a mirror. I found a square one that looked like the right size at Joann's. I placed this on the wall of our dollhouse using the Scotch Command strips. I used six of the strips to ensure that it held in place.

Wendy is ready to dance in her new dance studio. There is plenty of room to practice her turns and leaps.

Time to start choreographing this fall's dance show!

Kirsten's Summer Days

Summer days can become lone an hot, especially for a girl who spends most of her time helping out on the family farm, so Kirsten needs a dress that can help keep her cool even on the warmest summer days. Kirsten is wearing a lightweight summer dress made from her patterns collection.

Kirsten's light blue dress is covered with pretty summer flowers and trimmed with white ribbon at the waist and hemline. She wears a matching sunbonnet to keep the sun out of her eyes.



Kirsten is ready for some summer fun!

Josefina's Birthday

Kirsten and Molly are super excited; it's a special day and they are planning a surprise for a good friend. They have everything they need for a surprise party, everything that is, except the guest of honor. It's so hard to wait patiently for their friend to arrive.

As soon as Josefina walks in the door the girls both yell out, "Surprise! Happy Birthday!" They give Josefina a special birthday hat they made for her. They made it last Saturday while Josefina was at her cousin's house. The hat is made from a piece of colored construction paper that the girls rolled into a cone and taped together. they decorated the hat with artwork and glitter. They attached a piece of elastic to the birthday hat so it would stay on Josefina's head.

Josefina is so surprised! "I can't believe you planned all of this for me! What wonderful friends you are!" The girls are both so happy. They love making other people feel special.

"Time to open your gift!" Kirsten says; she can't wait for Josefina to look inside the box and see the special surprise inside. Kirsten and Molly picked this gift out especially for Josefina; before wrapping it they carefully poked little holes in the top of the box. They can't wait for Josefina to see her gift; it is warm and gray and fuzzy. Can you guess what it is?

Road Trip

It's summer vacation and Elizabeth and Daphne are ready to take a little road trip.

The girls have their suitcases packed and are ready to load up their jeeps for a bit of four wheeling fun!

Elizabeth and Daphne are driving a purple Jeep that they purchased from the local Target store. They found everything they need for their trip at Target and Toy-R-Us.  Daphne has a pink suitcase set by My Generation that she purchased from Target. It cam with a suitcase plus several smaller travel cases, a make-up case, neck pillow, tooth brush and tooth paste, ipod, map and other travel accessories.

Elizabeth's blue travel set is from the Journey Girls collection available at Toys-R-Us.  Her set came with a large rolling suitcase, perfect for carrying lots of extra outfits, a make-up case with washcloths, brush, tooth brush, map, sunglasses, passport and lots of other travel essentials.

The girls look super cool as they head out on their adventure.

Their Jeep is ready to handle and terrain, even steep hills.

After a day in the car the girls are ready to unpack and hit the pool!

Bon Voyage!

McKenna look-a-like

My girls always love to match their dolls, but sometimes the outfits are a bit on the pricey side. My youngest daughter loves gymnastics and couldn't wait to get McKenna, and she really wanted to match her. We found this super cute outfit at Target for a third of the cost of the American Girl version.

Although the American Girl version is a dress and leggings, this was perfect for summer. The shirt has the same sort of stripes as the American Girl version and it's nearly the same color. We added a pair of legging shorts to complete the look.

This outfit make me feel like cartwheels!

We picked up the entire ensemble for under twenty dollars! That makes me feel like turning a cartwheel or two!

Dolls of the Years Past

One of the fun displays they have on the second floor of the American Girl store in Chicago is this display of dolls of the years gone by.

Lindsey, 2001 (sorry, this picture is really blurry). I love Lindsey's beautiful blue eyes and short, curly brown hair.

American Girl took a year off after Lindsey, but came out with the next girl of the year in 2003, Kailey.

After Kailey, American Girl took another year off.  Then in 2005, Marisol, a dancer, was the girl of the year.

Jess was girl of the year in 2006.  Her story is one of my favorites.

Nicki was girl of the year in 2007.

Mia, a figure skater, was the girl of the year in 2008.

In 2009, American Girl released Chrissa along with two friends, Gwen and Sonali.  Chrissa and her friends are also featured in a movie about bullying.

Lanie was the doll for 2010.



Kanani was the girl of the year in 2011.

That brings us to 2012...McKenna.  You can see pictures of McKenna and her items in another post on my blog.