Doll-A-Day 2023 #365: American Girl Elizabeth

   Whoo Hoo!! I did it! 365 dolls in one tumultuous year! Whew! I wasn't sure I was going to make it, but I did. Soon we'll be back in our house, and I will be constantly working on clean up and repair, when I have lights and hot water to help me get things done. I anticipate being in constant pain and tired all the time! Even though I'll be super busy, I want to finish up the posts about our trip last year too, because I also have come so close to finishing those. I wish I had finished the posts on our previous trip to England. This time, I'm going to finish. There are lots of interesting things for me to show you from the last few days of our trip. In those days we visited Germany, Bruges, and Brussels in Belgium, and Paris. I will definitely be showing you that. And happy news, I found one of our missing memory cards from the trip in our bedroom a couple of weeks ago! It doesn't have much of the trip on it, but there is some. I think it's things I've already shown you, but I am glad I have the memory card!

  I wanted to end the year with a bang. I tried to think of a super wonderful doll to show you that would knock your socks off. In the end, I settled for this doll, in spite of the fact that I haven't cleaned the white mark off her cheek, or combed her hair. She's American Girl Elizabeth Cole.

She is a nice looking doll, with tight limbs and all of her original outfit.

I got her at a garage sale this past summer, for, let's say, a pretty cheap price. I wanted to sell her to make up for the signed Raggedy Ann I bought for myself. Once I discovered she had her ringlets buried in the sides of her hair and she could be tidied quite easily, I thought I had it made. But just recently I noticed that she has one flaw that can't be cleaned off, like that white splotch on her cheek can. Can you spot it?

Try again.

See it? She's missing the eyelashes on her right eye. Dang it!

I swear those were there when I got her! It's a shame, because everything else about her is so nice She has her complete original outfit, including her dress, which is bright and clean.

 

The ribbons are nice, and she has her pearl necklace.

Her shoes and stockings are also in great shape.

She has her shift too.

Her pinner cap is pinned to her head with a pearl top pin.

And she has her hair ribbon. 

  Elizabeth was the best friend of Felicity. Elizabeth was originally described in the book as having dark hair and brown eyes. This was changed either, as theorized, because she was played by a blue eyed blonde in the movie, or, as American Girl said, to distinguish her from Felicity. The book illustrations were changed to align with the new look.

She has her pearl drop earrings. Elizabeth was the first American Girl doll to have removable earrings, and she came with more than one set. And see? She does have her ringlets.

  Elizabeth was originally released in 2005, and archived only 6 years later, along with Felicity and her entire collection. Felicity was later rereleased, but not Elizabeth. 

  She's marked Pleasant Company on the back of her neck.

The tag in her pinner hat and her dress says 'made in China for American Girl'.

  If anybody wants to take Elizabeth, she's up for grabs. 'Cash grabs' that is. I will be asking for more than postage for her. Leave a comment with your contact information if you're interested. I have two American Girls at home, and this isn't one I really want. 

  Don't forget to check out the Doll Book of the Month Club post today too. 

  I'll be popping in every now and then next year, but not posting everyday. Whenever I do that, after every day posting, I feel like I'm goofing, off, like I should be doing it. But I'm going to have a lot of work ahead of me to get the house livable again. There hasn't been anybody but cats living there for a year. We had a bird in the house since we had no windows in Fuzz's room for a few days. I'm still finding poop spots. The whole upstairs, except Ivy and Emma's rooms, is covered with soot. So are the stairs and the stairway walls. I need to pull up the landing and stair carpet. Like I said, a lot of work.

  As I started to say yesterday, in the coming year I will be going through a lot of dolls and getting rid of them. Not my collection, but dolls we had to sell. When I get a chance, every now and then, I will be posting a doll that will be for sale. So stay tuned and maybe you'll see something you like. I'd rather offer the dolls here than have to resort to Ebay. I'll be offering everything for fair, if not downright cheap, prices. 

  Happy New Year everybody! See you soon!

Doll-A-Day 284: American Girl Samantha

  I'm feeling a bit better today, thanks to Emma agreeing to pick Ivy up from 'play practice' last night. That meant that I didn't have to take Ken to work to have the van, which meant I didn't have to pick him up from work at 2AM or whatever last night. With that sort of freedom, I took a hot shower, and took my carton of orange juice and my glass and went to bed not long after 9 o'clock. I totally conked out without even getting comfortable first. All that extra sleep did me a lot of good and while I still have a whopper of a cold, I feel much better than I did.
  Today's doll is American Girl Samantha.

She's by Pleasant Company, not Mattel.

Cute little teeth.

Samantha is one of my yard sale finds. If you've been reading the blog you might have seen her in the post from the day I got her. She cost me a whole dollar. That sounds great, but perfectionists would not like that she has had some of her fingers squashed.

You can see her hand problem here.

Her legs are a bit loose too, but that doesn't bother me very much.

Her legs are so loose she was having trouble standing up today.

I've had a lot of American Girls pass through my hands, but Samantha is the only one I've kept. I would kind of like to have a Saige, but unless I find one the way I've found the others, (at yard sales and thrift stores), I probably won't get one.

She's wearing a coat I got recently.

 It's actually a Bitty Baby coat, but it fits her pretty well. I love the toggle buttons. They don't stay buttoned very well though.

They kept popping open during her photo shoot.

It looks so warm and cozy.It even has a nice plaid lining. It was on a cheap baby doll at Salvation Army, but I could tell the coat was a really nice quality piece of clothing.

I have a thing about coats. I like to have coats for all my dolls.I like to feel everybody is warm.

The same baby was also wearing the brown Battat pants and the shirt, which is a different maker, but matches both the pants and the coat.Unfortunately, the kid wasn't wearing any shoes...

...forcing Samantha to hide her feet until she gets some brown boots.

Not long after I got this Samantha doll I found an American Girl Addy at Goodwill, and she was wearing Samantha's Meet dress. What are the odds?

The job of the day was raking leaves. We live on a corner, so the leaves (and trash) of everybody in the neighborhood end up on our property. The leaf sucker truck will be by sometime soon, although no one ever knows exactly when.So, I thought I had better rake my leaves the 4000 miles down the street to the front of our house where the leaf sucker truck comes by and vacuums up only what is left in the tree line. Except that they don't always come, so I might be doing all that work for nothing and just killing all the grass in the tree line AGAIN.As it was, I started feeling too lousy to finish,so with my luck the leaf sucker will come tomorrow.

How many American Girls have crossed my path? Let's see. There was the Molly from a yard sale,the Girl of the Year from a Goodwill,Molly and Josephina from Goodwill,Addy from Goodwill, Josefina from a yard sale,and Samantha from a yard sale, (My best American Girl buy. She had her tights, complete with runs, her Meet dress with the Bertha collar,and she was 75 cents. She did, however, have one arm off, and it was duct taped to her body.It took a lot of hot water, dish detergent, and scrubbing with a baby tooth brush to remove the tape residue. I reattatched her arm, but then her leg came off!I reattached her leg and her new owners were very happy with her.)

This Samantha has very silky hair. She just needed some combing when I got her to straighten it out. I did fully wash her though, and conditioned her hair.The other Samantha I had had crispy ends on her hair.Is it the earlier or later ones that have the crispy hair?

See you tomorrow for another doll.