Medium Skin, Blue Eyes AG Doll

I've known for some time that I was wrong about there being no medium skinned, blue-eyed American Girl doll. I saw a used one on AGPlaythings a while back, but it was long after I had switched Meredith and Kyla's eyes. Alas, had I known this I would have bought this doll for Sakari instead.

Though honestly, I think the Journey Girls doll looks more like her. So its not a total loss. And I still would of had to get a different wig. Idealy, I would have also bought Kanani and switched wigs with her. Kanani would become Siku (Another RP character of mine... medium skin, grey eyes, black hair) and #67 Would be Sakari.

Part of me is still all like... its not too late. But I'd have to modify Sakari's tunic so the snap was sewn elsewhere (harder than it sounds, as part of it is hidden in the bias tape) and I'd have to bite the bullet and actually pay $150+ for a used Kanani, only to cut her hair to a reasonable length. Also, like I said, the JG facemold fit her better.

I've been looking at other eyes on the interwebs, hoping to be able to find something to replace the JG eyes with so I can better customize them. I have so many character ideas, and these dolls are much less expensive than AG.

By the way, I'll just put this out there- if anyone is interested in me making them a doll using a Journey Girl as a base, please let me know! They have 4 basic doll types: Black, Medium Skin, Light Skin, Light Skin/Asian. I could switch any of their eyes out for you and make their clothes. I'm fairly certain I can rewig as well though I've yet to do so for my own doll. Still waiting for a medium brown wig with a side part to come up on the marketplace. So if you have one of those for sale too... please tell me!

Food & Pants

When I found Molly's Tea Set at the flea market I immediately wanted to get a hold of the silverware and birthday cake that once came with the set. The cost on eBay for the silverware was ridiculous, so I turned straight to calling American Girl to order replacement parts. From them, I managed to buy all the silverware, napkins, birthday cake candles, and a new set of glasses for Molly. (Though something tells me I could find those when I next raid my parent's attic in an attempt to find my doll stuff mixed in with my sister's.) The birthday cake I bought from a member of the AG Playthings board.

Molly's Birthday Cake

I've had all these pieces sitting around for a while, but I wanted a red tablecloth to display them on before I took and uploaded pictures. So today I finally ironed out a fat quarter of red fabric and hemmed the edges. Then I started taking more pictures...

Kit's Birthday Cake

Pictures of things such as my most recent eBay purchase, Kit's delicious-looking cake. It won't be long now before I buy the depression glassware set for her to complete the set-up.

My display of doll food and knickknacks on top of my bookshelf. Aurora has been dutifully guarding the curio cabinet for some time now.

Where both Molly & Felicity's tea sets reside on my dresser. You may notice Appa resting on my pillow in the mirror. I sure did...

 

So I decided that Sakari & Appa needed to meet.

By the way, I made Sakari's black pants to go under the tunic. It took two tries, as my first attempt to alter a pattern to fit  Journey Girl dolls made for some awkward-looking pants. I may embroider the hem to match Sakari's sleeves, but not today.

Meet Sakari

Since the great Eye Swap, Kyla has been standing around, doing her upmost to look like the character she was meant to be. That is, my Avatar roleplay character, Sakari.

Sakari - Age 13

Kyla with Blue Eyes

I did some research and found a pattern to help me figure out how to construct Sakari's tunic. I chose It's A Wrap, an Ardently Admire pattern sold on Liberty Jane's Patterns. In the end, it was heavily altered for my dress, but I'm glad I had something to give me a start.

When I got the chance, I went to the fabric store to scout out what I'd need. I came home with a pile of supplies.

First, I opened up the colored wire and twisted together Sakari's bracelets. This was a pretty easy, mindless job, and by far the easiest part of the project.

I altered and cut out the pieces, embroidered the sleeves, then began my first ever attempt to make (and use) bias tape. It did not go well. While the pattern guide was helpful overall, its instructions for making bias tape went way over my head. Instead, I youtubed instructions. They were helpful, but my fabric strips were still rough and I couldn't iron straight. Giving up, I returned to the fabric store to buy the pre-made kind.

Then I sat down to sew.

The thread broke.

I tried again. It broke again. This went on for... every single time I tried. Re-threading didn't help, messing with the tension dial didn't help. I eventually gave up and did this:

Now all of facebook knows my sewing machine's shame.

The next day, though, I figured out I had the stupid needle in backwards. After that my machine sort of worked, but still jammed. I took yet another trip to the store to buy some new needles, some specifically for knit fabric, and voila!

Two days of sewing later, I finished Sakari's tunic. By explaining all its many faults away by saying the original was sewn by an emotionally distraught eleven-year-old girl with no mother figure and I feel a little better.

Sakari Waterbending

Embroidery

Bracelets

There's still more to do, including finding the perfect wig, but for now I'm done!

Journey Girls: Meredith & Kyla Eye Swap

Meet Meredith and Kyla, both 18" Dolls made by Toys R Us for around $30 each.

These Journey Girls Dolls were amount the first 18" Dolls I've bought outside of American Girl. The others were Disney Princess and Me dolls I bought at the same time to be reviewed in another post. What ultimately lead me to these dolls was a desire for a medium-skinned doll with blue eyes.

I've been wanting to make this particular doll for several years now. When I first saw AG's Girl of the Year, Kanani, I thought she'd be perfect if only her eyes were blue. I conspired to get her and swap eyes but was advised by DH to wait until Christmas. Then Kanani sold out. I realized later that an eye swap wouldn't have worked anyways due to the skin part on all blues eyes being too light. I still kind of want Kanani anyways but with an eBay price around $200... yeah.

But the Journey Girls dolls do not have sleep eyes. They have cute faces and Kyla's skin was perfect. I could finally begin my quest to recreate my original character, nerdily enough, based off the show Avatar: The Last Airbender. That's right, my girl is a water bender. I'm coming out of a slight obsession with this show that's lasted through several years, three costumes, and an immersive roleplay on Second Life.

Moving on...

Long story short, I bought both these eyes with the intention of swapping their eyes, despite not finding any information about anyone ever attempting to do this with the Journey Girl line. Going off what I could find about other similar dolls, I decided to first attempt the hairdryer trick. For those who don't know, this involves heating the vinyl around the eye for 3+ minutes until its soft enough to pop the eye out. It sounded easier than it was. It took me more than a few tries to get the hang of it but eventually I did. After taking Kyla's brown eyes (Which are beautiful, by the way) out, I unboxed Meredith and did the same for her.

Putting the eyes back in was far more difficult. As much as I tried with the hairdryer, it refused to work. I was forced to resort to dunking the poor things into near-boiling water.

First, I boiled the water. Once boiling, I poured it into a baking dish then quickly dunked the doll's face into the water for three minutes. Afterwards, I quickly dried the water out of the eye socket and put the eye in.

Understatement of the year.

Putting the eye in was VERY VERY DIFFICULT. It took me about an hour to figure out how to get just one brown eye into Meredith. So please don't attempt this unless you have a lot of time, experience, or patience. My ultimate technique involved trying to insert the eye in the center of the socket, starting perpendicular and pushing inwards. I tried to illustrate with this photo, but honestly... I doubt it will help much.

After I got the first eye in, I started the process over for the second eye. This time, Meredith lay on her side to avoid getting the eye wet. This made it unavoidable to get her hair wet, but it doesn't seem like there was really any damage from this.

After just two rounds of soaking I managed to get eye #2 in, completing Meredith's eye swap.

It didn't turn out entirely perfect. I tried to use the hairdryer to loosen it up and move the eye around a bit but it didn't really work. I had the same problem with Kyla.The hairdryer helped me save some of her eyelashes caught beneath the vinyl but by then they were already crushed. Luckily, I don't think it looks too bad.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Meredith yet. I may sell her if I can find a buyer, or make her into another character. 

Journey Girls Ski Lodge Set

A few weeks ago I decided to take advantage of a 20% off sale and get the Journey Girl's Ski Lodge from Toys R Us. I had never seen anything from this brand in person but it looked cute online. I've wanted a doll-sized fireplace since I was young and would set up Christmas each year for my sister's dolls. My childhood fireplace was a badly-painted piece of cardboard with a string across it to hang my youngest sister's socks. Good times.

So I bought the Journey Girl's Ski Lodge... because as much as I love American Girl's beautiful parlor for Caroline, that thing costs $300. Maybe someday. When I have a place to put it. If I can convince myself to throw that much money at a non-doll doll-item.

 

Its a cute set. I pretty much knew what I was getting myself into as far as quality goes so there were no real big surprises. Anyone who's read any reviews knows that the chairs are a bit too small for AG girls to fit into properly. The little cushion had to be taken off to get her in.

I'm not really fond of the bright blue logo stamped on the front. If I were to keep the rest of the set, I'd want to repaint the chairs.

The coffee table is okay. I honestly don't have much of an opinion on it. Its just kind of... there.

Rug is hideous. But I've never been fond of animal print so maybe its just me.

The TV surprised me by being made of wood. I don't know why, but I expected it to be plastic and none of the reviews I had read said otherwise.

I may just be spoiled by AG food, but this food is cheap looking. I never took it out of the plastic. If and when I do, I'll add pictures of it as well. The photo I took through the plastic turned out way too blurry and is packed away in the box with most of the set at the moment.

And now we get to the main event - the fireplace.

Its a decent size. It came in three pieces that required a screwdriver. The stone facade is just paper. I hadn't noticed this from pictures online, but there are splotchy colored blots over the stone that are kind of ugly. The bricks on the inside are also paper. They have a slightly colored gradient added to them that I suppose is meant to make the center of the fireplace brighter... as if the fire is casting shadows onto it? I'm not really sure. I may eventually try to make my own paper to replace the ones the set came with.


Now this is the part where I both complain about Journey Girl's Quality Control and praise Toys R Us's customer service.

The paper was peeling off in places that made it impossible for me to fix without entirely disassembling the fireplace. I might have just dealt with this myself - After all, I was already thinking of replacing the paper, but that wasn't the only problem. There was a dent on the mantle.

I tried to ignore it, to pretend it didn't bother me. But it did. A lot. So a day or two later I called customer service and got a label to ship it back. They were very easy to deal with and I commend them for that. A few days later my new set arrived via UPS. It took me a few days more to ship the original set back- it was hard to get out of the house with a giant box and a six-month-old baby. UPS couldn't pick up the package themselves without charging me and that just wasn't going to happen.