Doll-A-Day 288: Hello Hollywood Hello Gene

  Today's doll is another of my favourite Gene's. She's Hello Hollywood Hello Gene.

I love the 1930s and ''40s. This Gene is very 1940s.

  Gene is the creation of Mel Odom, and made by Ashton Drake.

I love her suit with the matching muff.

There are two gloves with this set, but she was only wearing one in her box. I assume it's because etiquette in those days was that a lady wore one glove and carried the other. With the muff on her one hand I didn't bother to have her carry her glove.

This set also has a bouquet of flowers, but that's not the look I was going for here.

I saw her more on a city street, trying to get somewhere.

She looks good hailing a cab...

"Taxi!"

...but she just can't seem to get a cab to stop for her...

"Taxi!"

"TAXI!"

The girl hails a lot of cabs. If you look this good doing it, why not?

What the hey?!"

Her collar is having trouble laying down properly because of the way the cardboard pushes it up when she's in her box.

There is a lot of great detail in this outfit, including the hat...

...the pleats in the back of the skirt...

...the seams in the back of her stockings...

...the button on the muff...

...and the lining in the muff matches the lining in her jacket.

Gene is a beautiful doll. I don't care for the new Gene face though.

The only flaw to these Genes is their lack of articulation. They're only jointed at the neck, shoulders, and hips.

Later they did make this style of Gene with jointed knees too, and later jointed knees and jointed elbows.I have one with jointed knees, and I just got one with jointed knees and elbows. I have to get rid of a couple of the Genes I got recently, to pay for the couple of Genes I got recently that I want to keep. Unfortunately I prefer the outfits on the unjointed girls! What do I do?!Decisions, decisions!

Doll-A-Day 287: Hearts for Hearts Girl Surjan and a Trip to the American Girl Store

    You may have noticed there was no Skipper on Skipper Saturday.That's because yesterday was a REALLY busy day. Ivy's birthday was on Thursday, but since she was so busy with the play we put off her real celebration until yesterday so she would have time to shop, and eat out at the restaurant of her choice. Ivy always chooses The Melting Pot, a fondue restaurant, which is about an hour out of town, in Columbus. So we got up super early and were at the shopping center before it even opened. There were several places she wanted to shop. Luckily, one of them was the Barnes and Noble, and it was already open. She did her shopping, and picked out some presents she wanted, then at lunch time we went to The Melting Pot. The fondue there is good, but there's not a lot of it, unless you want to spend a fortune on fondue. Ken and Fuzz always complain that they starve to death when we eat at The Melting Pot. Actually, I got kind of full yesterday, and all I ate was some fondue with bread and vegetables and half a salad. Of course, those two glasses of Pepsi might have helped...
  While we were at the shopping center I discovered that there is now an American Girl store there. Right before we left, while people split off into bathroom breaks and quick runs off by themselves to grab certain things, I thought I would check out the American Girl store to see what it's like.It's huge for one thing. Not that you could see much of the store, since it was covered by people. I never saw a store so busy when it wasn't even Christmas shopping season. The place was packed.It was barely navigate-able, but I managed to get a quick look at all the stuff on display. The dolls are a lot prettier than the older American Girls. I was never that interested in American Girls, but I could be persuaded to own one of these. I like the realistic glowy skin tone on most of the dolls.My favourites were #61, and another doll that had the same shade of red hair, only a shorter style, and she had freckles. I think the perfect choice, if I were picking one of the dolls, would be #61 with freckles. I also really liked Kit, and the mini dolls. I think $25 is a ridiculous price for a tiny doll like that though.In fact, everything in the store was very expensive. I know all that about, 'but they're heirlooms that can be passed down'. That's all well and good, if you can afford them in the first place. Those prices are crazy. Their clothes cost as much or more than real, kid sized clothes. There were some amazing doll sized things, (I love the ice cream parlor!), and if I was a gazillionaire I might have them all. But I'd have to be a gazillionaire.Cool as it is, who can afford to spend  $350 on a doll sized Volkswagon? (And call me a nit picker, but for that price the doors should open.)I'm glad my kids never got into American Girl stuff, because I would have had to sorely disappoint them. There's no way we could have bought them such expensive stuff unless they didn't want much for Christmas.(You get a doll and 2 outfits, and that's your whole Christmas.Anything else you wanted: forget it. )
  While we're on the subject of the American Girl store, let me just say that we are very well located for all kinds of things, living near Columbus, Ohio. Columbus is a test market for a lot of things, since it's supposed to be the perfect average American city. We get a lot of products here that other people don't get because they are being test marketed, and if they don't make it here, they may not be sold elsewhere. That includes foods, and all sorts of products. Unfortunately it also means you may find something you're crazy about, and then never find it again, because it was only a test item. We also get a lot of stores that only other really big cities have, like American Girl, and the Disney Store. We live in a small town,with no book store,no music store, and no toy store, but we are less than an hour from a Disney Store and a Barnes and Noble, and within an hour from the American Girl store, several Tuesday Morning stores, Toys R Us, several Targets, several Barnes and Nobles,and loads of other stuff. (As Ken would be sure to point out, there are also lots of different good restaurants within an hour from here.)
  After we left that shopping center Ivy's next stop was Target. We did some shopping there, but had to be back in time for Ivy to perform for the second night of the high school production of Les Miserables.

...which they performed on the stage of the beautiful Palace Theatre here in town.(Yes, this is really inside. It's just made to look like he outside of a building. The ceiling is painted and inset with tiny lights, to look like a night sky.)

We got to see her that night, which is what I did the rest of the evening.

Ivy in front, just right of center, in between the girl with the white thing on her head, and the girl in black.She made her skirt and one for another girl in the play.

I have to say this was the most over all talented cast of any musical I have seen the school do since I have been attending these things when Emma started acting in them. (For the record, Fuzz appeared in them too.) All these kids could sing very well, and they were mostly pretty good actors too.

Taking  bows and curtsies. Ivy in the same place as above.

 Ivy has been so tired while working on the play. She's relieved it's over,but she learned to really like the songs during all this. She hated them when she started.
And,while we were at Target I found these:

Hearts for Hearts Girls Surjan on the left, and Zelia on the right.
They're very different head molds.

I have only seen Zelia in a store once, and I passed her up. This time I wasn't making that mistake again.I have never seen Surjan anywhere. She's new, so I don't know how available she'll be eventually, but right now she's hard to find. In an effort to pay for my Zelia I bought Surjan. I'll let her go and hope she pays for my Zelia.In the meantime, I thought there might be an interest in seeing her, since she's so new. So she's today's doll.

  Hearts for Hearts Girls dolls are characters from different countries around the world. The characters are from poor areas and have some pretty depressing stories for play dolls. Surjan is a rescued slave!

The Hearts for Hearts Girls' boxes have been changed. The new style has a clear front with no flap. The old style box had a flap with a big picture of the doll. Here's Dell's box for comparison.

The sides and back of the boxes are also different from Dell's.

As you can see, Surjan's box has had some rough treatment. The doll is perfect though.

Surjan is supposed to be from Nepal.

She has green eyes, like Ivy's: 'with brown in the middle'.Her skin tone is warm and realistic.

She has earrings, a nose ring, and a necklace.

She has a simple, but pretty dress, and pink sandals. 

"$1 of the purchase price from each doll is donated to World Vision, a humanitarian organization that helps girls like Surjan."

The Hearts for Hearts Girls are 14" tall.

They are only jointed at the neck, shoulders, and hips, but their heads can tilt slightly.Their arms can lift away from their sides as well as move up and down.Their legs can spread out a little, but not as much as their arms. They can stand on their own if they are balanced carefully.

Each doll comes with a bracelet for her new owner, and a comb. Their hair is silky and easy to comb and doesn't tangle easily. They are tied into their boxes with only thread and some paper twine wrapped around a couple of plastic pieces that lock the twine so it can't pull back through and will hold the doll tightly. They are very easy to remove from their boxes. You can see these details in my review of Dell HERE.

 Later this week I'll be reviewing Zelia.
See you again tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 286: A Doll of My Own Making: Red Ballerina

  The first thing I have to do today is welcome another new follower, Lisa Neault. Lisa has some blogs that may interest readers of Planet of the Dolls, so you may want to check those out. And thanks Lisa, for joining us!
  Today's doll is another I made myself. She's this ballerina.

She is very poseable, which is good, since she's a dancer.

She's a bit bigger than most of the dolls like this that I've made, as she measures a whole 3" tall.

She's poseable, but I did seem to favour that one leg, didn't I?

She's another I made especially for a repeat customer who didn't pay for her several times. So, she's still hanging around. Not that she isn't looking for a home...

Like the others I've shown you she has a wooden head,and a felt covered wire armature.

She has satiny ballet slippers too.

Her slippers even have tiny realistic soles on them.

As you can tell, it was around Christmas when I took her photos.

Tomorrow is Skipper Saturday. See you then.

Doll-A-Day 285: Happy Birthday Ivy! and Goldberger "Baby"

  It''s been quite a day. Thank goodness Emma is running everybody back and forth tonight because I don't think it's safe for me to drive! Today is Ivy's birthday, so I had a cake to bake. As I told Ken, Murphy's Law, ("Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."), was in full effect today. From letting an egg roll off the counter and break in the floor, to the cake batter not spreading out in the pan, producing a somewhat dry, (albeit delicious) cow pattie, to the glaze running off the cake and all over the place,to starting to cut and serve the cake before putting the candles on and letting Ivy blow them out, I was on a roll today.(And so was that egg...) It didn't help that I still have some of this cold and woke up feeling nauseous this morning. My back was killing me all day too, but at least the headache that has accompanied this cold seems to be over.
  As I said, today is Ivy's birthday, her 15th in fact.

Ivy's pretend 'sweet' face, during her present opening. The poor kid had to fit her birthday celebration in between 2, when she got out of school,and 4 o'clock, when she was due back for 'play practice'. She'll be a beggar woman in "Les Miserables"  for three nights,starting on Friday night.

In her honour today I was going to feature her favourite small doll, Blue.

Blue on vacation in "Doll Italy", visiting the statue of David, with a strategically placed head... This is a picture from an email Blue 'sent' to Ivy while she was there years ago. She still had most of her hair then.

Blue came to us as a 'Tommy as Colonel Candy' from the Barbie Nutcracker movie, but she was so pretty we decided she must be a girl.

Wow. Did Blue ever have that much hair?!

Ivy was tiny, and only knew one colour: blue, and was naming almost every doll she got about that time 'Blue'. This Blue is the only one that still bears the name though.
  However, when I went to her room to find Blue, she was nowhere to be seen. Also AWOL was Ivy's other favourite, Blue's sister Rose.

Blue and her sister Rose, in a picture from another doll vacation email from "Doll England". These dolls 'travelled' more than I do.

See?! This is Rose and Blue in "Doll Italy" again.

(Rose was originally part of the Barbie and Kelly Bedtime Stories set. Emma and Ivy split the set, with Emma, Ivy's older sister, taking the older sister and Ivy taking the younger sister. They gave them their own middle names, Olivia, and Rose.)

Predictably though, Ivy's favourite bigger doll, "Baby" was on her bed. (Don't tell her friends, but I recently went in Ivy's room late at night and found her curled up with Baby under her chin. Shh...)

"Baby" is a Goldberger doll.

  Baby has been Ivy's favourite doll longer even than Blue and Rose.

She has a vinyl head and limbs,with a cloth body. Her original stuffing was an inflatable pouch that Fuzzy popped by squeezing her too hard when he was little. She was packaged laying on some super soft polyfill stuff because she was supposed to be 'soft as a cloud' or something like that, because she was filled with the inflatable thing. After her pillow popped we stuffed her with her 'cloud', although it has had to be supplemented over the years!

I bought her for Ivy when Ivy was a baby herself. The reason I bought her for Ivy was because at the time, Ivy only had two lower teeth, and blue eyes exactly the colour of Baby's, (Although Ivy's changed to 'green with brown in the middle', as she says.),and they looked alike.

Well, it was cute at the time...

I could put the end of my hair, (since it's long enough to do this...), over Baby's forehead and put Ivy's baby bonnet on her, and it was an amazing resemblance.

Baby was originally wearing a one piece pink suit with matching headband. Ivy, who likes to sew, at some point made her these jammies from an old t-shirt of her own.

That used to be a peace sign on there.

She never quite finished them though. She must have found these PJs while cleaning her room recently, because this is the first I've seen of them on Baby in ages.

As usual, Ken balked at buying Baby, as he does most things. He didn't see that Ivy needed her. I just kept going back to see her though, at the KayBee toy store that used to be in our local mall. Finally I put my foot down and we bought her. I'm glad we did. You never know what's going to become the 'toy love' of your child's life, the toy they'll keep forever, even if they hide it away when they're old enough for it to be embarrassing. Baby became Ivy's. (She hasn't been hidden yet though.)

Since Ivy was tiny when she got Baby, too small to make Baby talk herself,I used to make her talk to Ivy. I gave Baby a crazy voice and something of a Southern accent. I don't know why.

I'm amazed, and a bit disgusted when I see stores selling those ready made 'lovies', usually a tiny blanket with a stuffed animal head attached. You're supposed to buy those for your kid so they don't haul a ratty blanket everywhere. You can't choose what your kid will fall in love with! They'll love what they love. And as far as ratty old blankets go, although Ivy never fell in love with her blankie, my other two had very close relationships with theirs. They both had names, (Somewhat predictable ones: Baa and BaBa.), and went everywhere with them for a while, and are still dearly loved, if not used any more. Emma's even wore clothes, 'ate' plastic food,'drank' with a straw, and was even given a middle name (Rosebells). Yes, they looked a bit gross, especially later in their respective childhoods, but did that really hurt anybody? They were washed regularly, (I have a sweet picture of toddler Fuzz trying to reach Baba as 'he' hung over the shower rail to finish drying.), had a lot of repair work done, (Fuzz always made me leave the piece of satin trim hanging out that got left out in a very early repair. It became known as Baba's 'tail'.),and Baa doesn't even have any pictures you can make out on her any more.But they are full of love. In a fire they're still some of the first things I think they would grab.

She's about 15" tall. Her head is hooked on with a cable tie, and it tends to turn around backwards some times!

Baby is another of those 'fire grabs'.She's been washed many times, but she won't come clean any more. Even her nose has a dirt stain! And look at those finger tips!I think the only way I could get that off is with a baking soda scrub! I'm not sure Ivy would allow it though!

Everybody always loved Baby because the darned thing is just so crazy looking!

So, happy birthday Ivy. From me and Baby.