Samantha joins the family

As we are now trying to get one of each historical doll and one of each Girl of the Year to join our family, Samantha joins us from her Arizona home just yesterday. What a pretty girl she is.

She is so welcomed by her 10 sisters!

Back row: Molly, Kit, Kayafina, Kailey, Marisol, Mia
Front row: Josefina, Kaya, Samantha, Jess, Darcy

A Real Makeover

Wow, what a challenge! This lovely Josefina came in an auction with her sleigh bed and bedding, and the AGoT trundle bed. This "extreme-makeover" Josefina was just an added bonus, as we already have two Josefinas. We refer to her as "Fosterfina" since the plan is to re-do and re-sell her. So she's a foster daughter right now.
Fosterfina came from Massachusetts in mid-July, 2007.

                              Before                                                       After                          
    
She came with eyeshadow (blue poster paint) on her eyelids; glue on her eyeballs, eyelashes, and hair; glitter glue on her face and ears; white poster paint on her teeth; red nail polish on all her nails; highlighter on her leg and filthy limbs all around. What fun she was to clean up!

She feels so much better now after her time at our Spa!

Darcy's makeup

Darcy came to us in April, 2007 from a college friend here in Tennessee. She didn't come with a name (she's a GT#17 - red hair, blue eyes), but I thought she looked Irish, so we gave her an Irish name: Darcy McKenna.

The only thing wrong with Darcy was her face makeup was faded out. She looked washed out.

I just used real peach colored blush on her cheeks and a bit of lip pencil on her lips and then rubbed it off carefully with a q-tip. You have to be really careful with real makeup on a vinyl doll. It will stay exactly where you put it, as it soaks into the skin. Use makeup with extreme care.

Since Darcy is an original 1996 Girl of Today (the second year the non-historical dolls were ever produced) she's of higher quality vinyl and has a plumper body and limbs than the dolls you will get from American Girl today. She stays in her box most of the time to retain her value and pristine condition.

Kit Kittredge

Okay, so maybe her real name is Margaret Mildred Kittredge, but she's better known in AG world as Kit. She came from South Carolina just last week.

Kit was given a warm welcome by her eight sisters.

Back row: Kaya, Kailey, Jess, Kayafina, Mia, Josefina
Front row: Molly, Kit, Marisol

Kailey's bad hair day

When Kailey arrived, she only needed a bit of a combing with Downey-water spray. Not much of a makeover, but she looks better!

Limited Edition Kailey

We're almost up to date on the girls in our family currently. Right now we need to add Kailey, our "Girl of the Year" (summer 2003-04). We acquired Kailey from a seller in California in late June, 2007.   We got her entire world collection along with her.

(Check the header picture for the picture of them All Together after Kailey arrived.)

Marisol joins the crowd!

Then I see this beautiful Marisol that's really reasonable. So now she's part of the family. Lovely Marisol came from a family in Texas.

Marisol is the retired "Girl of the Year" from 2005.

So here they are all together in the tree, June, 2007:

Kaya' aton' my'

I received Kaya from my DH as a thank you present for helping him (putting up with him) during his five years of working on his Master's degree. She is my first, brand new American Girl to this day.

This picture shows the first five girls and Darcy, a red-haired blue-eyed Girl of Today (GT17) that we bought off a college friend. She spends most of her time in a box to keep her value up.  She's originally from Missouri.

This is a picture of the 7 girls in May, 2007. Top row, left to right: Molly, Darcy, Kaya, Kayafina.
Second row, left to right: Jess, Josefina, Mia

Now we make five!

Here are all the girls together. At this time there are 5 of them. This is March, 2007.    

Kayafina         Jess                Molly              Mia             Josefina

A Molly Makeover

I found on eBay this poor doll for a BIN of $10. I bought her. The seller, from Illinois, said it was "Samantha" which was what I was looking for since we already had a few Samantha outfits and no Sammy doll. But when she arrived (in a shoe box!) she was MOLLY!

The eyes are the main difference between the two.  Samantha has brown eyes and Molly has gray eyes. Also Samantha's hair is curly and meant to hang down her back. Molly's is straight and meant to be worn in two braids.

I decided to send Molly to the AG hospital to have her makeover since she had so many problems. Here is the result:

The hospital cleaned and reattached her limbs; combed and re-braided her (cut) hair; and replaced her eyes...evidently they were beginning to show signs of 'silver eye'. She was glad to return to us in her adorable hospital gown with bracelet and get well balloon. And the turn around was under a week. Great job AG hospital!

Then along came Mia

I need to update this more quickly as I back-track to get all the dolls on the blog in order...but the collection is still growing today!  So, in March, 2007, along came our first American Girl of Today.  She is known at AG as GT21. We call her Mia, which is Spanish for "mine" and she is. Mia came from Pennsylvania.

 

                    Jess                       Kayafina                    Mia             Josefina

Jess joins the family

Two Josefina's seemed like the perfect amount of girls at this time. Boy was I to be proved wrong!  Jess the 2006 Girl of the Year joined our family in February, 2007.  She came from Chicago. Jess came in her box and barely used. I love Jess!

 

 

      Josefina                    Kayafina                       Jess

Happy Fourth of July!

Another Josefina!

My first AG, Josefina, received many outfits for her first Christmas with us. in fact she ended up with all of her outfits, both current and retired. She also was joined by an original, pre-Mattel Josefina in early January, 2007. This Josefina came from Oregon.

 

Now our original, first Josefina is referred to as Kayafina, since she enjoys wearing her hair in the double braid style of her namesake.  There are many, small differences between the first edition Josefina and the later version, the one we call Kayafin

First edition (pre-Mattel doll) Josefina has longer, curled up eyelashes.  She also has longer, thicker hair and a more plump body and limbs. Her face and arms have a softer, less plastic look. Her face makeup is a bit different too, but that can happen on all the dolls depending on the point of manufacture.

Home-made clothes

Since my first Josefina came complete nude, I made her some outfits to wear (also in October, 2006.)

 So she was well clothed, for my first 'pre-loved' American Girl refugee. But that was all to change in a couple of months....stay tuned.