Noelle (Our Generation) review

I've added quite a few dolls this year.

From left to right: Perdita (#26), Guenevere (CYO), and good ol' #58 - who I am keeping as a boy, and looking to name. One name I keep coming back to is Jude. We shall see.

So I thought I do not need any more dolls. Time to put a brake on.

But then I started seeing pictures of the new Our Generation face mold. I have never been a huge fan of the OG faces, which has protected me from going doll shopping and restricted me to accessories. But I am kind of in love with the new face. And then I saw pictures of Noelle.

I actually went into the store and looked at the box and left without buying it, but she still stuck with me. I loved the blonde and brown-eyed combination. I have no dolls with that hair color right now; it's kind of an ash-blonde, and my only blond doll is Karol, whose hair is much lighter. And she is one of the deluxe dolls with posable limbs. I hoped this might open up some new avenues for photos.

So back I went.

I love her calm smile. The older OG face mold always looks thin and kind of pinch-mouthy to me. But this is adorable.

Her hair is rooted and fairly thick. It is so soft and silky right now; not sure yet how it will age. It was rubber-banded into ponytails, and it's actually supposed to be loose but I like the pigtail look so much I haven't taken it out yet.

The poseable limbs do look weird when they bend; they're soft plastic and they basically fold with a crease. I was aware of this before I bought her, so I was prepared for that. She also does not stand well. Her shoes are high-heeled and possibly not the best perches, but also the soles of her feet are slightly rounded.

Anyway. She comes with light purple underpants...

And two outfits: a party dress and pajamas.  The dress material feels cheap. The shoes are all hard plastic.

Here's Noelle in the pajamas, which are adorable with their snowflake pattern.

She comes with two gift boxes (paper, with the cutest little ribbons), a glass of chocolate milk, a gingerbread man and sparkly snowflake cookie, a plate, and a blank letter. The reversible letter is bilingual, addressed on one side to Santa and on the other to Pere Noel. Each side has a different illustration.

Now for the real test: seeing how she sat. You can observe the results here.

So far, I'm a big fan of Noelle. I love her coloring. Here she is alongside Larkin, from the front and in profile.

OG may have finally converted me with that face mold. 

My Life As Get Well Play Set and Art Supply Play Set

Today at Wal-Mart I picked up a couple of sets. I knew as soon as I saw pictures of the Get Well Play Set that I wanted it, and I've learned that when I really love a set, it's better to snag it while it's available. I've seen sets go away while I waffled over whether to buy them or not.

At first I didn't think the set was there. There were a lot of very cute new sets and in the middle of all that it took a few minutes of searching. I also ran into the Art Supply Play Set, and picked that one up.

First: the Art Supply Play Set, my impulse buy. It comes in this adorable little plastic tote and includes all sorts of things.

A plastic "canvas" with a painting on it, some tiny sketches, and a sketchpad. That sketchpad was my deciding factor. It is filled with blak pages.
There's also an artist's palette, paint tubes, three paint brushes (with different brush sizes and shapes!), glue, glitter, colored pencils, markers, and scissors.

The scissors open and close, and THE MARKER CAPS ARE REMOVABLE. I actually squealed when I realized.
Those are going to be very easy for youngsters to lose. Lots of small parts in this set. I love that it all comes with its own convenient tote, so I can keep them all together easily.

The drawing implements have loops, so the dolls can hold them. All in all, a gorgeous little set. Wal-Mart is stepping up their game - and has been for a while now. I was just in awe going through the aisle seeing the new sets and new twists on old sets (like a new vending machine with different packages inside).

Now: the Get Well set. First, there's a little dining tray. The legs fold out.

There's a tissue box, a bowl of soup with a plate and spoon, an ice pack, a thermometer, a hot water bottle, and TEA. The mug of tea, two lemon slices, two little teabags labeled green tea and herbal tea, and a bottle of honey.

The soup didn't really impress me (and to be honest I thought the plate was a piecrust at first, it just looks odd).

The tissue box is plastic. It actually opens and has one cloth tissue inside. The icepack can also be opened up and you can put things in if you like; if you have some pretend ice, you could insert it.

The hot water bottle is a single piece of solid hard red plastic. Here it is compared to Molly's water bottle.

The mug of tea is the same as the hot chocolate mug from one of the My Life As winter playsets. However, the drink is translucent.

The tea packets were one part that really impressed me. I'm used to seeing Wal-Mart sets where the paper pieces are just a flat piece of cardboard printed on one side only. But when I opened it up, I found that they were actual envelopes!

And of course, for the tea you have lemons and honey. The honey bear was my entire reason for buying this set. I mean it's all pretty cute but that bear sold me on it.
My bear actually has a black mark on the back of the head.

Size comparison: here's the dolls' honey bear with a honey container from my cabinet, along with a little mini one I saved from a while back.

Here's Molly feeling under the weather. At least she has some good food to help her feel better.

Well, except for the honey. That's in the kitchen with the other condiments. The dolls can start collecting stuff for a spice cabinet!

Maleficent Doll Costume

Here's an update with a project I've been working on: transforming Elphaba into Maleficent.

This tutorial for a Maleficent cosplay was helpful: http://www.breannacooke.com/how-to-make-maleficent-horns/

I still had a lot of fabric from about a year and a half ago, when I got this sparkly, scaly black cloth for Elphie’s Gamora costume. 

I thought it suited Maleficent nicely.

I made a robe that fastens in the front with Velcro. For the ragged purple trim, I cut up strips of fabric and touched the edges with FrayCheck.

The more challenging part was the headdress. The route I took was a helmet. Here I followed the lead of Evil Ted Smith's video "How to Make a Foam Helmet Tutorial." Here's Elphaba in the midst of having her template constructed.

After getting that template, I put together a simple helmet of craft foam and tape. The horns were made of foam.

One of the tutorials I looked at used electrical tape to cover the horns and get that textured look of the lines on Maleficent's horns in the Disney cartoon. However, I wasn’t able to get good electrical tape and so I decided to go for papier mache.

I was not sure if the soft, floppy foam helmet would hold its shape while I was applying the paper strips, so I pressed Elphaba into service as a model.

Very carefully. With layers of a towel, cling wrap, and tinfoil.

She survived.

While all that was going on, I thought of adding a felt inner layer to the helmet. I used the helmet patterns to quickly sew up an inner cap.

Since Elphie was busy, Larkin modeled it.

Once the paint was complete, I glued the inner cap to the inside of the helmet. And voila.

 She is the mistress of all evil!

As a result of the stiff papier-mache and the skullcap, the helmet is a little tight, but that snugness also means that it stays well on Elphie's head.

All she needs now is a staff and possibly a raven. As we're going towards Halloween, I'm hoping to see some little ravens I can pick up at a dollar store or craft store. I also want to find a stone or bead that will look perfect for her staff.

Doll hospital, continued

I've been working on  the rescue dolls little by little over the past weeks - also reorganizing the playroom so that all my sewing stuff can be in there. It's slow going.

#26 really just needed a cleaning - and some hair care. She still has some small green markings on her torso and her hair is not great, but I'm still astonished by how gorgeous she was just to begin with.  One wipe-down and she looked ready to be played with. This is a beautiful doll.

Before

After

I also need to do more work on Kirsten, who appears to have had some haircuts in strategic places around her scalp, and her wig is dry and brittle - but her eyelids cleaned up very nicely.

Before

After

Next: Nellie. This picture really doesn't do justice to how grimy she was.

Nellie and Pink Lady were the two who I unstuffed and threw into the washing machine because it was just that bad. I cleaned her face multiple times, getting layers of dirt off. I also washed as much of her hair as I dared - which was really just the ends.

Here she is now:

There are some lingering stains on her body, but for the most part the washing machine worked nicely. Nellie turned out to be astonishingly orange.

 

Here she is with Larkin (my custom Grace). Together, either Larkin looks sallow and drab or Nellie looks incredibly pink/orange. It was interesting to compare their coloring; Nellie's hair is lighter, her freckles are much more faded, and her eyes are a deeper blue.

Finally: Pink Lady, who I've tentatively identified as Just Like You #33 based on her face mold, blue eyes, and strawberry-blonde hair with a left side part. You will recall she got her name because of the gigantic pink stain on her torso.

Pink Lady and Nellie with their respective stuffing

• The problems just kept mounting the more I worked on her.
• She was entirely filthy, even her eyes. 
• Her eyelashes had been cut unevenly in spots.
• The pink stain issue, of course. This was mostly resolved with a trip through the washing machine and some rubbing alcohol; I think it was paint?
• A large section of her hair was matted with gunk that would not come out even with washing . . . I don’t even want to speculate on what it was, but after it dried and was relatively cleaner, I noticed a persistent foul smell. Even the wig cap itself seemed spotted with dirt.

At that point I decided to just strip off the wig, since her eyes were fairly dirty too and I wanted to try an eye swap. The wig came off very easily (the easiest wig I’ve ever removed) and there were brown spot-stains on the inside of the wig cap and imprinted on the head.

At this point I was ready to throw out the Biohazard Wig, but as an experiment decided to try throwing it in the washing machine. There wasn't anything to lose at that point.

I put it in a pillowcase and washed it on the delicate setting. It came out very tangled and frizzy and dry. The smell had gone and I couldn’t find the dried gunk in the hair, but the spots were still evident on the wig cap. I ended up pitching it - it just grossed me out too much.

The spots did clean off the head with the aid of some Magic Eraser.

As all these issues kept popping up, it became clear that Pink Lady was the one I was going to keep for my customization experiments. Although I love #26 (especially #26) and Nellie, I don't have room for them. So I used Pink Lady for my first eye removal (which ended up being more my brother's first eye removal). I think the eyes benefited from cleaning; they were full of sand and dirt. Since I wanted to try out heterochromia, I put one eye back in and replaced the other with a green eye.

Before

After

At this point I don't think I'd notice the pink stain if it wasn't pointed out to me. Unfortunately, you can tell pretty easily that the eyes are from different manufacturers (even without the snipped-eyelash issue). However, I think she's up for some new looks and experiments. I want to try a brunette wig on her.