Redress Success featuring Naia (Barbie Fairytopia Sparkle Fairy blue)

Treesa here to show off another Redress Success. This Disney ily 4EVER Moana inspired fashion pack suited Naia so well, I just had to share her with all of you. The touches of blue in the outfit really compliment Naia’s pale blue skin tone and blue lipstick. I think my fondness for dolls with ‘fantasy skin tones’ developed as an offshoot of my fondness for dolls with ‘fantasy hair colors’. Anyway, the combination of Naia’s blue skin tone with the “Save Our Oceans” message on the hoodie kind of reminds me of the first generation version of Monster High character Lagoona Blue. Actually, the name Naia is a derivative of the name for a type of water nymph from Greek mythology.

For those of you who may be wondering for clothing fitting purposes, Naia has a ‘belly button style’ Barbie body from the early 2000s. The fashion pack fits amazingly well. However, the fabric does have some good stretch to it, and hoodies are generally designed to be a little roomy anyway. Therefore, I cannot verify whether all Disney ily 4EVER fashion packs will fit a ‘belly button’ Barbie this well, since I don’t own any of the other ily 4EVER fashions, or any of the corresponding dolls for that matter. I only took a chance on the Moana inspired fashion because I found it discounted to $3.00 at a liquidation store.

I’m very happy with how Naia looks in this. It can be tricky to redress a doll with a ‘fantasy skin tone’ in casual clothing without the end result looking odd. I hope all of you enjoyed this Redress Success, and have a lovely day.

Signed, Treesa

Redress Success featuring Lyric (Equestria Girls Lyra Heartstrings)

 

Welcome friends and visitors, this is Treesa. In today’s post, I’ll be sharing another Redress Success. Let me start out by saying that I have a lot of respect for any collectors who have the discipline to regularly take stock of their collections and purge anything they’re not currently using. With that being said, sometimes it pays to hold onto things. Because as most doll collectors will attest, there’s always another doll.

The outfit I used for this redress is handmade, and was original purchased from FreekyChicBootique, an online Etsy shop. I checked the status of the shop while compiling this post, since the outfit was bought a number of years ago, and FreekyChicBootique does not appear to be actively selling on Etsy at this time. But anyways, the photo in the shop listing showed the jeans and top outfit being modeled by a Forest Pixies Featherly doll from the Ever After High Dragon Games line. I bought the outfit with the intention of using it for my Forest Pixies Deerla doll. I wanted to make over Deerla as a younger sister for my Monster High Isi Dawndancer doll.

However, when the outfit arrived and I tried it on Deerla, I immediately ran into problems. The jeans were sewn as a pull on garment without any fastener, and on my doll the seam was straining to the point where it started to come apart at the waistband. The top didn’t seem to fit right either. I contacted the seller and explained the problems I was having, and the seller offered me a refund, also telling me that I could keep the outfit. While I was disappointed about the outfit not fitting, I appreciated the seller’s efforts to make things right. And I understood how difficult it must’ve been to sew at such a small scale.

As time passed, the outfit continued to sit around in its original bubble mailer, waiting for me to figure out what to do with it. Years later, I happened to spot a nude Lyra Heartstrings doll from the My Little Pony Equestria Girls line at the thrift store. I immediately fell in love with the doll’s coloring and with her musical themeing. However, I knew that finding clothes for her would be a serious challenge. So I waited until she went on discount before finally purchasing her. It wasn’t until quite a while afterwards that I rediscovered the Etsy bought Forest Pixies outfit and decided to try it on Lyra, whom I’d renamed Lyric. The jeans fit so perfectly it was as though they’d been made for her, with no straining at the seam. The shirt was originally a bit too baggy on Lyric, but I was able to cinch it using a Monster High Twyla doll belt for the 13 Wishes line. 13 Wishes Twyla uses what Monster High collectors refer to as the ‘little sister’ Monster High body.

I’m so happy with how well this redress came together. Not only does Lyric look great, in my opinion, but I was also able to make use of an outfit that had been sitting around in my collection for years. Not to mention I was able to find something for a hard to redress Equestria Girls doll to wear. I hope that you enjoyed Lyric’s new look.

Signed, Treesa

Hit Clips cartridge Giveaway on my other blog

Treesa here, I’m holding a giveaway for a Hit Clips song cartridge on my keychain collecting blog, Grab The Brass Keyring. And since Hit Clips cartridges look like miniature CD cases, complete with replica album cover artwork, I thought I should mention it here in case anyone might be interested. I’m fairly sure the scale of the cartridge would work well as a Barbie-sized CD case. And I’ve heard there’s been renewed interest in boy bands recently.

So far, the giveaway itself doesn’t seem to have stirred up much interest. So as of right now, your odds of winning are fairly high. You can check out the giveaway post here, though you’ll have to scroll down past my throwback review of the Hit Clips line to find the giveaway information with how to enter.

I hope that you all enjoy the upcoming holiday season, and good luck to anyone entering the giveaway.

Signed, Treesa

Redress Success featuring Omma (5 inch Fairytopia Omma by Mattel)

 Treesa here. It's been a while since I've attempted to redress one of these 5 inch Mattel fairy dolls. The last one that I posted about was Mariette back in 2017. Admittedly, these dolls are challenging to redress. They're small for starters. But from my experience, the most difficult hurdle when redressing these fairy dolls is their wide-armed stance. The arms are only articulated at the shoulders, so trying to position them so they'll fit into the armholes of a shirt or dress, even a sleeveless one, tends to be difficult, especially with those posed wrists.

But, as frequent readers of this blog know well, I have a weakness for dolls with 'fantasy hair colors'. And it seems that children who played with these dolls back when they were first released in 2004 had a tendency to lose the small accessories, like the factory issued 'flower petal' skirt and hat that Omma would've originally come with. So these fairies are often in need of clothing when they're found for sale secondhand. Considering that Omma's friend, Organza, still needs to be redressed, something tells me I should keep on the lookout for small doll halter tops.

The top that Omma is wearing in the photo appears to be from a 2003 Bratz Strut It! Meygan doll, according to my online research. I don't actually collect Bratz dolls, but I do tend to buy mixed bag lots of doll clothing and accessories from thrift stores. So I often end up with some very random clothing pieces.

The skirt was part of a 2015 Bratz Deluxe Fashion Pack, that I bought after other doll collectors online shared how they'd used pieces from these packs for other, hard to reclothe dolls like Barbie's sister Stacie. I think the green leaves on the skirt's sunflower print coordinate pretty well with Omma's factory painted green bodysuit. And the autumn leaves outside provide a lovely photo backdrop.

I hope you enjoyed this 'redress success', and Happy Fall to you all.

Signed, Treesa

Barbie Tie-Dye Fashion Kits at Dollar Tree (Product Sighting)

 Attention friends and visitors. The following is a notable product sighting from Treesa.

This weekend, I spotted some Barbie Tie-Dye Fashion kits at my local Dollar Tree store. There seemed to be two different styles available, a sleeveless dress and a one-shoulder dress. I haven't actually tried out the kit I bought, yet. But I wanted to upload this quick post, just in case any of my readers were interested in checking out these kits for themselves.

Signed, Treesa

On Scaling

 Greetings friends and visitors, from Treesa.

I picked up this adorable, small plush manatee thinking that he might work well in doll scale. When I first bought him, I didn't have a clue how large a baby manatee was supposed to be, scale-wise. But thanks to the internet, I knew that I could figure it out. According to my online research, a newborn manatee calf is between 3 feet and 4 feet long at birth. (Like their land based 'cousins', elephants, manatees are large animals and their babies are born big.) This equates to 36 inches on the low end or 48 inches on the high end. To figure out how big a newborn manatee would be in doll scale, all I had to do was pick which scale to use and then do the math.

After seeing the real world measurements for newborn manatees, I was fairly sure that this plush would be too small to work with an 18 inch doll like American Girl. According to the label, this manatee plush is 7 inches long, though when I measured him myself to verify that, he actually seemed to measure up a little longer. Regardless, I started off my calculations using American Girl dolls as a reference point. American Girl, and similar 18 inch doll brands, are 1:3 scale. This means that something measuring 3 inches in our world should be 1 inch for them, although many mass-produced 18 inch doll accessories are notorious for being under-scaled. Anyway, a newborn manatee calf that's 36 inches long would be 12 inches in 1:3 scale, at the very least.

The next set of calculations that I did was for 16 inch dolls. This scale would include my Tonner doll, Tennille, and my Disney Store Singing Dolls. Dolls in this range are 1:4 scale, so a 36 inch newborn manatee would be 9 inches in their world. This measurement was closer to my target length, but still off scale-wise.

Finally we come to Barbie, and similar 11 1/2 inch fashion dolls. They are the primary focus of this blog anyway. Barbie dolls are 1:6 scale. Therefore, a 36 inch to 48 inch newborn manatee would be between 6 inches and 8 inches in Barbie scale. That's pretty much spot on with this plush.

So, here's Manny the manatee with Finnick, a Dreamtopia Rainbow Cove Merman. I thought that the name Finnick would work well for a merman, since he has a tail fin, or tail fluke? I'm not really sure of the terminology. Anyway, that'll wrap up this quick update post. I hope that all of you are doing well.

Signed, Treesa

I've Been Tagged For The Mystery Blogger Award

 

Hello friends and visitors, Treesa here. Quinley, over at the doll blog Q's Creative Corner, tagged me for the Mystery Blogger Award. Thanks, Quinley! I've been 'nominated' for similar blogging 'awards' in the past, such as the Great Doll Blog Award in 2016 and the Liebster Award in 2015. The Mystery Blogger Award specifically was the creation of blogger Okoto Enigma. Basically, these 'awards' are a way for bloggers to connect with and draw attention to other bloggers. The standard format for these types of awards requires any blogger who is tagged to answer a list of questions provided by whoever tagged them. Once these questions have been answered and the answers have been posted, the tagged blogger will then have to nominate a certain number of additional bloggers and write a new list of questions for their nominees.

The specific 'rules' for the Mystery Blogger Award are as follows.

1. Display the award logo on your blog.

2. List the rules.

3. Thank whoever nominated you and provide a link to their blog.

4. Mention Okoto Enigma, the creator of the award, and provide a link.

5. Tell your readers 3 things about yourself.

6. Nominate 10-20 people

7. Notify your nominees by commenting on their blog.

8. Ask your nominees 5 questions of your choice, with one weird or funny question.

9. Share a link to your best post or posts.

That's a lot of steps, so let's take them one at a time. I already completed steps 1 through 4, so we'll skip ahead to step 8 and answer the list of questions that Quinley posted. Now, I'm not 100% sure why Quinley chose to nominate me, since the questions she wrote mostly seem to apply to 18 inch dolls, while my blog focuses primarily on one-sixth scale fashion dolls. Maybe this nomination was actually part of a cunning plan to try to get me and my dolls posting more regularly. Just kidding, Quinley, no offence intended. I do at least own some 18 inchers, so I'll do my best to answer Quinley's questions.

Question #1: Who is your favorite American Girl doll, and why?

My family started receiving American Girl Doll catalogs back when there were only 3 dolls to choose from: Kirsten, Samantha, and Molly. Kirsten was my favorite of the three, mostly because she befriends a Native American girl in one of the books of her series. I had a bit of a fascination with Native American culture back then. My mom actually contacted Pleasant Company after Felicity and Addy were released to suggest that they add a Native American doll to the line, and she was essentially told by a representative that because there were so many different native tribes in our nation's history it would be impossible to fairly single one out for inclusion in the line. So, when young me finally saved up enough birthday and Christmas money to buy an American Girl doll of my own, I chose Kirsten. If Kaya had been released at that time, I probably would've chosen her.

I also ended up developing a bit of a fondness for Josefina when I was going through my 'Zorro'/'Queen Of Swords' phase. For anyone who doesn't know, Queen Of Swords was a short lived addition to the syndicated TV adventure show craze that started with Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess. In a nutshell, the title character of Queen Of Swords was pretty much a female version of Zorro, a Spanish aristocrat turned avenger of the common people.

Anyway, as far as American Girl dolls go, I don't really have a current favorite either in my own collection or in the present American Girl lineup.

Question #2: Do you like any other 18 inch dolls that aren't made by AG?

I have a few 18 inch dolls that aren't American Girl brand. I have a Magic Attic Club Rose doll that I managed to get, dressed in her 'meet outfit', for an amazing deal at a thrift store. As a grade-schooler, I used to pour over the Magic Attic Club catalogs just as much as I did the American Girl catalogs. Rose was my favorite of the Magic Attic Club dolls because her character had Native American heritage.

However, I think my current favorite of my non-American Girl 18 inchers is my Madame Alexander Wicked Witch Of The West doll, that I bought when I was on my 'fantasy skin tones' doll kick. This Wicked Witch doll has a similar body type and similar features to a standard 18 inch doll, but with a green skin tone. I've redressed her in a contemporary American Girl doll outfit, given her a pair of American Girl brand eyeglasses, and named her Helen, after the legendary beauty Helen Of Troy, because my doll is beautiful just the way she is. Yes, I know I'm a bit odd. In my defense, I may have still been in my X-Men/Marvel mutants phase when I bought Helen. But I can't remember for sure. I also gave Helen a black plush cat as a pet, who she named Gilbert. In my little group of 18 inch dolls, Helen is the one who does the most reading, and her favorite author is Lucy Maud Montgomery, who is best known for writing the Anne of Green Gables book series.

Question #3: What retired dolls do you think AG should bring back, and why?

I think Caroline would be a good candidate for a comeback, given how popular the Federalist/Regency period is in modern society due to Hollywood's perpetual cycle of adapting Jane Austen's work. Granted, I've never actually read Caroline's books, so I'm not entirely sure what aspects of the time period they cover. I've also heard a lot of good things about the Cecile and Marie-Grace AG line. But again, I never took time to read the books, so my opinions of the line are under-informed.

Question #4: If you were to create an AG doll (or any other type of doll), what would your doll's story be? And what would your doll be like?

I've tried my hand at creating character backstories for some of my dolls once or twice. I came up with a reasonably detailed, in-universe character bio for my Monster High Create A Monster Witch doll, who I named Sabina Osborne. I also incorporated a few elements from the musical stage play Wicked into the doll's backstory. In true Monster High fashion, even the doll's name has some deliberate character allusions worked into it. Sabina is actually a reference to the television show Sabrina: The Teenage Witch, starring Melissa Joan Hart. But I dropped the R to make it sound more Ozian, because of course, Osborne = Oz born.

I actually wrote up Sabina's backstory, mostly in the form of a stylized, first person narrative, and then posted it to my Fanfiction.net account with the title Sabina Of Oz, under my pen-name T'Ley. I had started drafting something similar for my Monster High Create A Monster Sea Monster girl doll, who in my mind is now Calpurnia, daughter of The Sea Witch. But I never actually finished writing it.

As far as my 18 inchers go, the only one I ever really attempted to construct an American Girl style backstory for was Drexel, an American Girl Just Like You #24. But that backstory was never fully fleshed out, and because I didn't write it down I can't remember now most of what I had planned. I know I named the doll Drexel after a well-to-do family from the early 1900s who were prominent in the history of my hometown. Drexel, the doll, was going to be a history buff who enjoyed antique hunting and learning about other time periods. I even gave her a miniature, hardcover copy of the book Antiquing For Dummies, to keep in the reusable canvas tote bag she would carry while browsing outdoor flea markets and garage sales. Of course, Drexel's favorite books were going to be the American Girl series.

Question #5: If you could own any of the clothes that your dolls have in your size, which one would you like to have, and why?

For everyday wear, I tend to prefer comfortable clothes over fashionable ones. My casual, summer wardrobe can mostly be boiled down to tee shirts and shorts, while for colder weather I tend to lean towards fleece pullovers paired with long pants. I do try to wear fancier or more formal tops and slacks in certain situations where I want to be respectful, such as attending weekly religious services.

I also prefer to wear loose fitting clothes, and I'm very sensitive to the weight and feel of certain fabrics as well. So, pretty much everything I've seen in the current doll market would, in my scale, either be too tight, or too heavy, or too scratchy, or what have you.

Step 9 involves sharing links to my 'best post or posts'. Since I'm not quite sure how to judge which posts are the 'best', I'll just link to some of my most viewed, and presumably most popular, posts.

Lois' Story

Galoob Anastasia Doll Dress

Update from Dandelion 

(I am a little confused why this post has such a higher number of recorded views than Dandelion's original post.)

Sue's Story

An Inspirational Moment With Misty and Tom Servo 

As for steps 6 through 8, having to nominate other bloggers causes a bit of a problem for me, since so many of the ones I've followed over the years are no longer actively blogging. But then, my own blog has been rather quiet lately, so I can't exactly judge.

That just leaves step 5, tell your readers 3 things about yourself. I thought it might be a good idea to find out if there was anything specific you readers wanted to know about me. So, if there's anything that you've been curious about or that you've wanted to ask me, now's your chance. Leave your questions in the comments, and I'll choose a few to answer in a follow-up post.

Signed, Treesa

P.S. If there are problems with any of the links in this post, please let me know so I can try to correct them.