Addy's Plaid Summer Set Review

I'm craving summer, are you? Addy dressed up in her Plaid Summer Set today and wished for summer to come early!

This outfit set comes with a dress, a pinafore, a pair of boots, and a hair bow.

Here's an overview of the whole outfit.

 The dress is adorable by itself! It is a plaid combination of pink, white, and beige.

 The dress has a ton of cute details, like the ruffled sleeve edges, and the little gatherings in the top bodice!

 The whole dress is light and breezy -- perfect for a summer dress!

 The pinafore that goes on top is adorable! It has ruffles and a deep v-neck, and two pockets in the front.

 What should Addy put in her pockets?

 The dress velcros in the back, but the pinafore ties on like an apron.

 Always love matching hair ribbons! This one is wide and really fun and easy to tie in a bow.

 Before I purchased this outfit, I always thought the boots were pink and white! When I got them I was surprised to see they are beige and white. I would have preferred pink, but I am a pink fanatic. The beige is adorable too, especially with Addy's skin tone. I guess I don't want TOO much pink anyway, or else it will verge into Barbie territory ;)

Here's a shot of the back of the boots. By the way, do I have her boots on the wrong feet? I always assumed the ties go on the outer sides, but in the new stock photos of Addy and her limited edition Dress and Sewing Set, she is wearing tie boots similar to these with the ties on the insides of her feet. Sorry if I got it wrong! I'd love to know the answer!

I give this outfit an A+! The colors are so pretty for spring, and so pretty with Addy's skin tone. The pinafore is very detailed and high quality, with no velcro and real pockets! The dress has adorable details, too. And I love the boots and hair bow!

Addy's Winter Coat, Derby Hat, Mittens, and Knee Warmers Review

Right now where I live, in Minneapolis, the temperature is only 1 degree! I think it's a good day for Addy to put on her winter coat, derby hat, mittens, and knee warmers.

I have to preface this post with a few apologies: First, I don't have Addy's Tartan Plaid Dress, so she is wearing her Plaid Summer Set dress under the coat, and it looks pretty silly! And I thought her blue boots would look nice with the coat, but with the Plaid Summer dress, she ends up just looking like a crazy bag lady in this whole photoshoot. I hope you'll forgive us! Second, the wool coat and the felt derby hat are both cat fur and dust MAGNETS. I spent a long time trying to pick little fuzzies and cat hair off both, but some will show up in the pictures. AHHH!

Anyway, the coat is just fantastic! It is HUGE! My chubby Pleasant Company Addy was kind of swimming in it. But that's awesome, because there's plenty of room to fit dresses underneath!

The mittens are attached to each other by a knit string, and you can put them through the arms of Addy's coat so she doesn't lose them! And the buttons on the front of the coat are real. No velcro here! Oh, third apology: the fringe on my coat is permanently disheveled and I haven't found an easy way to fix it yet!

The hat is adorable, but very lightweight, and Addy has so much hair that it won't really sit down properly on her head.

Perfect crazy bag lady legs! I use the knee warmers more as leg warmers, so you can see them better.

Further proof the coat is gigantic!

And further proof the derby hat will find every piece of dust in my house and hold on to it. But the hat is soooo cute from the back!

I give the coat and winter accessories an A! I really have no complaints, except that the hat collects so many fuzzies (but I wouldn't want the hat to be anything other than fabric, so there's no way to really fix that...) and that the knee warmers have to go under the knees to be visible. Even in the stock AG photo, Addy seems to be wearing them farther down her legs. But the colors are cute and the coat is extremely high quality, with real functioning buttons, and is so adorable!

Dollhouse Saga, Part One!

I've known since I started collecting American Girl that I was going to need something HUGE to display my dolls and their gigantic furniture. I read on various AG boards that some people have Pax wardrobes from Ikea. I decided it was my favorite method of displaying AG items, and went out to get one for myself!

I finally built it, rearranged my room, and found a space to put it in two nights. I found out after it was all put together that I skipped a step and nailed the back on upside down. Oops! It would only be a problem if I was going to attach it to the wall for support, but I'm not going to do that right now (as I intend to move at the end of this year). When I move, I DO want to attach it to the wall, but I think I can pry the nails out and fix it if need be. It will be a lot of work, though. SIGH, IKEA.

Here are some pictures of the wardrobe after I kind of threw everything in it, in the formations I sort of think I want.

I bought the shorter of the two units, and as you can see it almost reaches my ceiling. At some point I had dreams of putting another scene on the top, but nothing will fit up there! I made the middle room taller than the other two.

The top room will eventually be shared by Isabelle, Rebecca, and Samantha. It will have the window section of Caroline's parlor, Rebecca's bed, and Samantha's bed. But I don't have Rebecca, Samantha, or Samantha's bed yet, so for now it looks like this. Ha! And Grace doesn't have anywhere to go yet, so she's making friends with Isabelle.

 I wanted to show here that there's lots of room above the doll's heads even in the shorter rooms. There's even a tiny bit of room above Caroline's parlor! The Pax is gigantic, but it looks so nice and roomy in doll pictures.

The middle room is pretty much going to stay as it is, with Caroline's fireplace section, the NOLA bed, and the NOLA desk. I'm not sure who is going to share it with Cécile in the future, but when I get a second wardrobe, Marie Grace is going to have a room of her own with the NOLA courtyard furniture, Grace, and Grace's silver cupcake cart. So many aspirations, so little money, room, and time.

The bottom room is the saddest, haha! It's going to be Addy, Kirsten, and Caroline's room, with Caroline's shelf section, and Addy and Kirsten's beds. But I haven't quite figured out how to arrange it yet. And I don't have Kirsten or Caroline yet, so Addy's sitting on her bed all alone. She doesn't stand up very well by herself because she's old, so she has to sit. But the room is the same height as the top room.

Eventually, I intend to wallpaper each room and maybe get some stick on wood flooring. I was going to buy the wood grain shelves at Ikea to have mock-wood floors, but the wood grain color was all sold out, so I just got white because I'm too impatient to wait for it to come back in stock.

The specific Pax unit I bought was this one: m.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/art/20214566/ with two shelves to make 3 rooms. Eventually I'm going to buy doors so I can close it up, too.

Anyway, I just want to post updates of my dollhouse as I make it, and here's the first installment! I hope it helped or inspired some of you thinking about making an American Girl dollhouse as well!

Happy Belated 2015!

I took this snap of my dolly lineup in their holiday dresses, and finally found the time to post it! I already have a new girl in my doll family, and all six are already dressed for Valentine's Day, so I'll try to post that shot soon!

Addy's Flower Picking Outfit, Kite Flying Outfit, Blue Dress Review

I was happy to find Addy's Flower Picking Outfit on Ebay! The first version of this outfit came with a kite, and was known as Addy's Kite Flying outfit. The second version, mine, is the Flower Picking Outfit, and came with a bouquet of flowers. The third version, which is still available from American Girl, is simply known as Addy's Blue Dress, and comes with... nothing! I'd rather have flowers or a kite, wouldn't you? I'll be on the hunt for the kite to go with this dress, but in the meantime, here are some pictures!

 It comes with a surprisingly soft, linen blue dress, a black and white gingham hair ribbon, and a bouquet of fabric white, red, yellow, and blue flowers.

 Addy's really working it in this photoshoot.

 

The sleeves are so cute!

 Pintucks everywhere!

 I love the big hair bow too!

 The flowers are cute, and match the flowers that are in Addy's Party Treats set and her Ice Cream set.

They're tied together with a little green twistie string thing.

The dress and hair bow in this set are adorable, and I love the flowers too, but it's impossible for Addy to hold them unless I taped her hand, or something. I don't think it would have been too hard to make a green loop that could go around her fingers for her to hold the bouquet. I also still only have Addy's meet shoes, and I think an adorable pair of white or light colored boots would have gone really good with this dress! But the dress is so beautiful, so I'm really glad I got this set.

Grade: A-

Addy's Birthday Outfit, or Addy's Birthday Pinafore and Snood Review

Since Addy was my first American Girl doll, I'm now trying to get more of her collection. Luckily, I found the retired Birthday Outfit (aka Birthday Pinafore & Snood) at the outlet store!

 It comes with a brown and cream checked pinafore, a cream blouse, two ivory socks, and a brown and cream snood.

 Since it doesn't come with shoes, I styled it in this photoshoot with Addy's original meet boots.
 

 Here's a shot of the back!

Addy felt very celebratory in this outfit!

The snood is so adorable! I was afraid at first that it wouldn't stretch enough to fit all of Addy's hair, but it ended up fitting just fine! The cream detail around the elastic is satin, and the cream ribbon bow on top is adorned with yellow "feathers" from the canary in Addy's birthday book. They really just look like yellow fabric leaves from any craft store, but they're adorable anyway.

Both straps on the pinafore tie together to make bows that sit atop Addy's shoulders.

 Here's a side view of the snood, so you can see how far it stretches to fit all of Addy's hair (she has a ton of it!)

 

 Here you can see the three adorable red-brown buttons on the blouse and the ric rac trim around the collar.

 The ric rac trim is also on the two triangular pockets on the front of the pinafore. The ivory blouse is ribbed and has double-puffed sleeves!

A closer shot of the back.

A better view of the pattern on the adorable knee high stockings. And you can see how the laces on her boots have discolored over time :/.

Overall, I love this outfit! All of the fabric is nice quality and very thick. The colors look fantastic on Addy and would also look great on any doll with brown hair and eyes. The only tiny criticism I have is that, in some light, you can see the glue underneath the fabric "feathers" on the ribbon of the snood. But that's no big deal to me. I also would have loved some brown boots or shoes to go with the outfit. But I love it anyway!

Grade: A

All About Me and My Dolls!

Hello and welcome to my About Me and My Dolls post! I'm a twenty-something long-time doll collector, and I'm exceptionally boring! I received my Pleasant Company Addy as a child in 1994 and soon after became completely uninterested in her. She only got one outfit from PC other than her meet outfit, the really ugly mid-90's Girl Scout uniform, and then she stayed in her box and made around a dozen moves around the Midwest with me as I grew up. I don't know why I kept her through all of that time, but I'm so glad I did! In my early twenties, I started collecting Blythe dolls, which led to collecting Pullip dolls, which led to almost starting to collect Asian BJDs. I got one before I realized I can't afford it. Through all this time I wanted to collect American Girl dolls, because I love history and all the historically accurate furniture, clothes and accessories they have, but I've always lived in small apartments and thought collecting American Girl required a giant house and a dedicated doll room... or two. In 2014, I finally said to myself, too bad! I'm going to MAKE room. So far it's not turning out so great, as my bedroom looks like an American Girl stock room, but I'm having a lot of fun anyway!

I started making Youtube reviews as my AG collection began but soon realized a blog is much better for me, as I love to write and I hate to talk. Yay internet anonymity!

My dolls:

Addy Walker ♥ Arrived in 1994

Cecile Rey ♥ Arrived November 2014

Isabelle Palmer ♥ Arrived December 2014

 (picture coming soon)
Marie Grace Gardner ♥ Arrived December 2014

 (picture coming soon)
Grace Thomas ♥ Arrived January 2015

 (picture coming soon)
Caroline Abbott ♥ Arrived January 2015

Stay tuned (or whatever you do on a blog) as my American Girl collection grows exponentially -- I'll share everything with you along the way!