Long time no post!

So since I posted last, I went to grad school, graduated, and started work full time.  I haven't done anything doll related in forever, unfortunately.  I am going through my excess stuff, and have 5 headless LIV bodies that are in great shape up for grabs.  They're all either the palest skin tone or the slightly tan one.  I have a few other headless Barbie bodies, but they  may have cracked necks.  Free to a good home!

Awesome fold-up DIY Barbie house

Check out this brilliant idea for a fold-up Barbie house AND furniture.  LOVE THIS.

http://southerndisposition.blogspot.com/2011/12/diy-three-ring-binder-barbie-dollhouse.html

Making a 1/6 grill

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297585/Wild-squirrels-pose-charming-pictures-photographer-hides-nuts-miniature-props.html

While this whole picture set is adorable, when looking at it I was immediately struck by the mini bbq in the 4th photo.  Seems like that would be pretty easy to re-create for dolls:D

Disney store $10 sale

This week (week of 3-10) the Disney Store (online at least) has their classic 11.5" dolls on sale for $10.  The sale includes villains, men, and wedding versions of dolls I haven't seen for $10 before.  Go look!
http://www.disneystore.com/tinks-treasure/mn/1001232/

She's a brick house

Always on the search for variety in body types for fashion dolls, I have made my next frankendolly, but I'm not sure about her.  I will post her picture without comment, and then post an in-depth of how I made her when I get a chance.  I want honest feedback, but I don't want to put any thoughts in your heads so I won't give my reservations about her yet.

New, different Barbies in 2013

Have you seen the pics from Toy Fair? 
http://idlehands1.blogspot.com/2013/02/toy-fair-2013-barbie-in-2013-malibu.html
Scroll down to the "Barbie™ Life in the Dreamhouse Friend Core Assortment"
They look awesome!  I have to have Raquelle.  And I'll probably end up with all of them, who am I kidding.  

Doll profile: Barbie collector Diwali (Festivals of the world)

I am very bad about wanting MOAR MOAR MOAR dolls, and I realized I need to spend a little time appreciating the ones I have.  So I'm going to post pictures of some of my favorites, starting with the doll that started it all, Festivals of the World: Diwali. 

I didn't start collecting Barbies until my daughters started to like them. I didn't realize that I liked them to until my oldest daughter traded one of her dolls with a neighbor and I realized that I didn't want that doll to go (it was princess of Portugal).  Around the same time, I saw a bag of Barbies at a local thrift store which included the Festivals of the World Diwali Barbie.  It was $6.99 for the bag and at first I didn't want to spend the money, so I left it there.  But I thought about that doll all weekend.  First thing Monday morning, I went back to the thrift store and the bag was still there!  This is the doll that had been on my mind all weekend.

She had a few hair chops, but not a bunch, and I eventually put her on an articulated body, but her face is magnificent and she came with all of her original jewelry.

I really don't know how they expected her to do any Diwali dancing on that stiff body, but she could dance up a storm on her new Fashionista body.  Her skin tone was a perfect match for the generic Fashionista and this is a first-run fashionista body.

Interestingly enough, she actually uses a more "ethnic" sculpt than actual "Barbie in India" dolls sold in India (my sister has sent me two).  

 

Above is Diwali Barbie, sold for an American market.

Here is Barbie in India, sold for the Indian market. Uses a standard "Barbie" mold, just with jet black hair.

I personally prefer the Diwali sculpt but of course love the actual Indian clothes on the BiA doll.  Will post pictures of her another time. 

This is the doll that launched a thousand purchases.  She is still one of my favorites!

Just whittling down some joints.

After seeing Smidge House's Liv joint surgery, I was inspired to try it for myself.  I've only done one arm on this doll, but much like Smidge says, just a little bit of carving away of the joints makes gives them a better range of motion.
I just carved a way a little bit of her inner elbow here.

And a bit of her inner wrist here.

And here you can see that the arm closest to the camera, the one that has been cut away at the elbow and wrist, can get her hand much closer to her face than the untouched arm further from the camera.  I'm about to have a go at the legs. 

Introducing Kenya!

Happy New Year everyone! 
I was thrilled to find that the $20 Kenya dolls were on sale for $10 at Family Dollar, so I picked up one on New year's eve, and one on New Year's day.  I have a South African Barbie who was still on an old TNT body, and one of the basic black Model Muse dolls with very dark skin who was still on the stiff MM body, so I was hoping for a match. 
I bought two Kenyas, Beverly Hills and Riviera. I didn't get pictures before, but here they are: 
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=13076470
http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=13076471&prodFindSrc=search
I actually really like these clothes and accessories.  I like the faces too, but they have the ridiculously large head syndrome.  So there may be shrinking in their future.


Skin comparison: Left to right, Riviera Kenya, Model muse 1.0 Goddess (#4), Beverly Hills Kenya, and Princess of South Africa.

As you can see, even these super-dark Kenyas are not an exact match for the other two dolls, but they are as close as I will ever get for Goddess, so I put her on Beverly Hills, and then put South Africa on Goddess's body.  The MM body is no more posable than the TNT body, but I do prefer it. 

But here's the problem.  These heads are VERY hard to remove.  The heads themselves are very hard, and then they have weak neck pegs and very thick hooks holding the head on.  

It's hard to see because it's so blurry, but there is no knob to speak of--just hooks. I heated both heads with a hairdryer, but they were still very hard to remove.  One of the head joints popped completely off (i replaced it with a spare) and the other almost did, until I got a small screwdriver and shoved it in her neck hole to stretch it.  If you buy these dolls for body swaps, be very careful removing the heads!  If you don't mind sacrificing the heads, I would just cut them off with an exacto knife rather than try to pry them off.  If I had it to do over again, that's what I would have done.  

Although there is a definite difference in tone, it's not as noticeable with clothes on.  Here's Goddess on her new flexible body!

 Here are a few obligatory "how they stack up" photos: 

 Here you can see Swappin Style barbie, Kenya, and Liv sitting.  That is as close together as Kenyas legs will get.  She has hinged knees like the old Fashionistas.

 No abdominal joint and hinged knees mean she leans as far back as a SS Fashionista. 

 Very graceful profile.  You can see that her breasts are larger than Barbie's (and rounder, less pointy) and her butt is smaller. 

And here she is, all dressed and ready to go.  All in all, I do like these bodies, but the difficulty of removing the original head is definitely worth noting.  And as I stated, they were as recently as 2 days ago on sale for $10 at Family Dollar.  I do hope they will sell the TJ doll locally.

Monster High High?

Has anyone bought one?  I'm looking for a friend.  She is wanting to find a good price on it, but if it's popular, she may just need to buy it when she sees it.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/20968683?adid=22222222227015487046&wmlspartner=wlpa&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=&wl3=18148968790&wl4=&wl5=pla&veh=sem

Tiny Tim Gunn, part 2

 When last we saw Tiny Tim Gunn, he was still quite casual.  Fine for a weekend, but Tiny Tim Gunn has work to do!
 Following a link from another blogger (and if it was YOU please comment--I'm trying to find the original post but no luck yet), I ordered TTG a suit from Nancy's Doll Things on Ebay (http://stores.ebay.com/Nancys-Doll-Things/Jacket-Pants-Shirt-Tie-/_i.html?_fsub=4973847018&_sid=45091268&_trksid=p4634.c0.m322).  Her prices are great and clearly this is a woman who has worked out the kinks of sewing in such a tiny scale. 

 JUST LOOK AT THIS SUAVE TINY MAN!!!

 I bought the suit, which came with a white shirt, and bought an extra shirt to give him a little more flair.  I did make a couple of alterations to the suit because TTG is on a "teen" body--I took the shirt in some in the back (just hand tacked it to take up slack) and also tacked the ends of the short sleeves so they wouldn't bunch up.  Tiny Tim Gunn won't be taking off his jacket much.  I also put little cardboard "shoulder pads" since the teen body has very slopey shoulders.  I don't think any of these adaptions would be necessary for a standard Ken doll, but possibly for a skinny Model Muse Man. 

I have to say I'm very happy with Tiny Tim Gunn.  He now sits in my living room where he silently critiques the family's clothes.  I swear my kids have become much more fashion aware since he's been sitting there...he just has that power. 

Now all I need is the Tim Gunn Barbies and I'll have my own little Project Runway on a Shelf.  I can't wait!
  And neither can Tiny Tim Gunn.

Tiny Tim Gunn

Mattel came out with a line of Barbies styled by Tim Gunn of Project Runway fame.  While I do intend to buy the mattel dolls as money permits, I couldn't imagine having Barbies styled by Tim but no Tim!  So I decided to make one. 
First I looked through EVERY listing for an action figure head on Ebay to find one that would be suitable.  I think I really lucked out when I found this guy:

 

It's hard to find an action figure head that isn't scowling (because wars and action and stuff are serious business) so this guy's almost near half smile was a great find.

Next, Tiny Tim Gunn needed a body.  Luckily, I have a lot of headless bodies around.  This one was, I believe, a Hannah Montana character, long ago beheaded. 


 
The existing neck on the body was actually too long for the action head, and I didn't want to take a blade to the head since it was new, so I used my dremel to shave the body's neck down to shoulder level.  Very quick and easy.

 I needed a way to attach the two, so I formed a neck post out of some Billy Mays' power putty (it's a two part putty that you blend and then shape and it hardens.  I cut off a glob, blended it, crammed half of it in the neck hole and shaped the top part into a shaft.  I put the action head on top of it to mold it into the correct shape then removed the head and let the new post dry).

While waiting for the new post to dry, I painted the action head's hair greyish-white.  I may need to go slightly darker, but will see at the end. 

Next I added some glasses I had made previously,

And suddenly he's starting to take on a real Tim Gunn feel! 

Now he had to borrow some ill-fitting Ken clothes, but I'm going to do some shopping for him as soon as I can, so for now he's just going to Make It Work. 

I already feel like he's judging what I'm wearing. 

So how do I follow people now?

I can't find the follow button on the new blogger interface.  Someone help me, I'm e-tarded.

Great Thrift Store find

Sometimes in thrifting you find objects that make you wonder, "What on earth were these people thinking".  Other times you find objects that make you exclaim, "I know what they were thinking and what they were thinking was AWESOME".  This is one such find. 
Meet the Debby Doll  Clothes Knitter.

When I first saw the box I thought it was a neat idea--I love anything that encourages craftiness at a young age and hey, I wouldn't mind learning to knit on a spool.  So I dropped the 1.98 and opened her as soon as I got to the car. 

 Well hey, Debby!  Now clearly the previous owner never quite got the hang of spool knitting.  But they were kind enough to leave both spools in the package and leave Deb in her super sweet lemon jumpsuit AND go-go boots.  She had kind of the typical hollow barbie knock off feel to her, until I stripped her. 

 Check out that articulation!!!  Articulation at the shoulders, neck, waist, hips, knees, ankles, wrists, elbows, upper arms AND lower arms.  DAMN!  And I guarantee this was a cheap doll when it was made (the hand mold is very cheesy and badly done), why can't they make cheapo dolls like this now? 

 Now her pupils are not even.  But that is easily fixed.  Debby has earned a spot in my collection just for being such a surprise.  Now I have to scour ebay to see if I can find any more little Debbys. 

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I love thrift stores. 

Amazon.com is clearing out LIV dolls and accessories

While looking for a play set that my 7 year old wants, I came across some Liv dolls/accessories on sale for 5-6 each.  They even have "black" Alexis, who is a great skin match for a lot of the brown barbies.  Go!

Another sale

http://www.gilt.com/sale/children/barbie-7975
Gilt group has a sale on Barbie DOTW.  I have ordered from them before and they have good prices.  A word of warning, though--they process orders and ship them very slowly.  The last thing I ordered (I believe it was Grace Kelly) came about a month later and the box was badly packed so the box was damaged.  It didn't matter to me, but if you're an NRFB person, you might want to consider that.  Happy shopping!

Hurry! Cheap princesses!

Good today (6-18) only, the online Disney store has 4 of its classic princesses on sale for 4.99.  Even if you don't need a princess, these dolls have articulated elbows and wrists and the old style click-bend knees.  http://www.disneystore.com/donalds-daily-deals/mn/1001262/
They have Tiana, Ariel, Rapunzel and Cinderella.  Go look!

Ru Paul for president!

Integrity Toys' RuPauls are on sale right now--http://www.integritytoys.com/shop20/home.php?cat=12
Thanks to the post on the doll page for the heads up!

Gilt group sale on collector dolls

Anyone else get the BarbieCollector email about gilt group having sales on some collector barbies?  http://www.gilt.com/sale/children/barbie-collector-cla is the link, but I don't know if it will take you directly there.  If not, go to gilt.com and click on baby and kids and you should see the link.  They have the To Catch a Thief barbie, Barbie loves Elvis and Barbie loves Sinatra for $19, a repro of the 1959 babs for $19, and the grace kelly wedding doll for 79.  I have ordered from them in the past...if I remember correctly the shipping was a bit slow, but the prices are pretty great.  Go!  Now!  Sale is only on for 2 more days. 

My Josephine Baker

So I saw someone post about Josephine Baker on FB for Black History Month,

and then I saw a Josephine Baker doll for sale (way more than I could afford) so I got inspired to make my own.  She was an interesting, groundbreaking and brave person, beyond being absolutely gorgeous, so she was just begging to be in my Barbie collection. 

Josephine starts life as a Hula Hair Christie

Shorn.  All that multicolor hair gone!

I used straight acetone to wipe her eyebrows off, and taped off where they'd go back.

First try. I like the right brow but not the left and the eye liner takes all the sparkle out of her eyes.

Face touched up and scalp painted black.

Flocked, waiting for glue to dry.  Don't mind the body.  She's on a spare body temporarily to make her head easier to work with

Painted, flocked, and ready for a nice Artsy body, which I can hopefully get tomorrow.  Not a twin, obviously, but close enough for government work. 

 Next up?  Fashion photos!  Because it's just not Josephine Baker without gorgeous fashion photos!