The MAC living room:

I'll do real intro posts for these girls sometime, but at the moment I've got some shots of them in their little room.
.
I'm lucky enough to be getting my own crafting room (at the cost of extra rent$ but Current Me says, "whatever.") and the temptation to not make half of it into a dollhouse has been fought.

I've done a terrible job of 1) making them all everyday outfits, and 2) changing everyone out of their party outfits.
So Rose and Megan are still in their Christmas outfits, and Riley, Heather, and Alison are in their whatever clothes.
I'm sort of torn between loving and hating that I accidentally made a Magic Attic OC. I've been considering rebranding her as Jane, but my entire knowledge of Jane comes from one cover of a book that they apparently never actually put out copies of and written by an author who is un-googleable:

I also sort of felt that Chloe was supposed to be Jane, so I might merge the two if I ever get Chloe (she's at the bottom of my WTB list, though)

Anyway, that cover and that blurb from the catalogue can definitely influence how Riley's personality is going, but for now she's Riley.
When I was a kid and had just unwrapped Alison, I wanted to name her after my friend from preschool because they both looked sort of the same. She ended up going back to Alison, but that friend's last name was Riley, so we're going to stick that name on Riley and call it good.
(It's been so fucking long since I've written here that I don't remember if I ever explained it, but Riley was one of the 2002 model Alison's with rooted hair. That hair was a disaster so I shaved it and gave her a wig. I don't actually like this wig too much for her, so she has another in the mail to see how that works out. Right now she looks like Alison Minus Bangs and that's not what I'm going for. It also doesn't help that it's a 10-11 wig and she's an 11" head, which is apparently too big for a 10-11 wig. It's not glued down and sometimes it just moves places, so forgive that in the pictures.

So here's half the living room. Due to their legs splaying when they're sitting, these dolls aren't always the best for displaying while they're sitting, but I think it's cuter that way. Here Heather is trying to braid Rose's hair, but Alison keeps sticking her bare foot on the back of Rose's neck to see if she'll notice that it's not Heather's hand.
Not basing this off stuff I did as a kid or anything.
Megan's got her hand pretty close to Alison's foot and is probably ready to grab it if Ali starts trying to cause too much trouble. Megan's sort of the mediator of the group.

Outfit wise, Rose and Megan are still in their party dresses, but everyone else is back in more normal clothes.
The main problem about buying dolls without buying extra outfits is that everyone has to share Alison's collection of casual clothes and whatever outfits they were wearing when I got them (which wasn't much). Alison also pretty much always has to wear a hat due to her bald spots in the back.

And over in the corner, wearing Megan's jacket and some hand-knit tights is Helena. Due to her being 50cm/19+5/8", she can share the 18" furniture pretty well, and alternates between living with the xtra tall Monster High dolls and the MAC girls.

And in the other corner, we have Helena, Ann Estelle, and Riley with her guitar. Ann Estelle is a doll sculpted by Robert Tonner, who did all the Magic Attic dolls (except maybe my Megan's face? It's hard to find info about things that happened when I was in 6th grade and didn't care).
Now that I look at this image, the thing striking me the most is that I've been looking for that bottle of window cleaner all damn day.

18": Five's a Party!!

So many dolls!!

So, this is what my Ebay Disease got me. One one or two or three, but four new Magic Attic dolls. Old (kanekalon hair) Heather and Rose, and new (wigged Saran hair) Alison and Megan. Megan has the new face sculpt, which I'd suspected from the two pictures the ebayer posted, and I'm very excited about that!

For those of you who don't have the history of the Magic Attic Club memorized, here's a quic, review, as it relates to these dolls:

• Back in the late '90's, the Magic Attic Club was one of American Girl's main rivals. Their dolls are full vinyl, and much slimmer than the soft-body American Girl. 
• The Magic Attic girls--Alison, Heather, Keisha, Megan, and Rose (Chloe doesn't count, sorry Chloe) were modern-day girls who could transport themselves to adventures by putting on outfits their elderly neighbor had, and looking in the mirror in her attic. The adventures range from modern day (Keisha's cheerleading adventure, Alison's hiking, Heather's dressage adventure...), to historical (usually relating to their real-world selves: Heather's persecution as a Jewish girl in Spain under the rule of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, Rose living as a Cheyenne on the prairie), to fantasy (Keisha saving a city on a snowy planet by finding a crystal of power). Each story had an outfit and a series of accessories, and a story book.
• Once American Girl's "American Girl of Today" line started, they ended up being more fierce competition to MAC. Before, American Girl only had historical dolls, but now they were competing in the modern day too. 
• Once Knickerbocker, who owned Magic Attic, started hurting for money, cuts in quality had to be made. They stopped making stories and started just making outfits for the dolls. 
• Another big cut, and one that matters with the dolls that I own, is they made a change to the hair. They went from wigged kanekalon (wigged meaning they have a tiny wig glued to their head, kanekalon being the best fiber for dolls that get their hair played with and what a lot of human wigs are made of) to rooted Saran (rooted meaning tiny holes are drilled in the head and the hair is put in, think Monster High, and Saran being a thinner fiber that sticks to itself--same fiber as Monster High's, who aren't expected to have their hair played with for hours on end and for several years) to wigged Saran after they got noticed for the rooted Saran being crap.
  That's a seriously effed up sentence there but I"m tired and not going to fix it. One of my followers is a teacher. Sorry, Amanda!
• The Magic Attic Club got handed around from company to company. One of those companies thought they could save it and released a new doll (Chloe), gave Megan a new face, gave everyone new starter outfits, and a couple more things. At some point, they were given belly buttons.
• It didn't work.
• Around 2003, there were no more catalogues to sell, and in 2007 their doll hospital closed. When the doll hospital closes, your doll line is officially dead. 

So, it's getting late and now I want to be alone, so let me finish this up quickly and add to it later.

Heather and Rose are the old dolls, with Kanekalon hair. It took me about 11 minutes to brush out both of theirs hair. Kanekalon is great for restyling.

Side note: I somehow still have the original brush that I got with Alison. It's my favorite brush for doll hair. It's got rigid teeth aligned in parallel rows, with the vertical rows spaced out closer than the horizontal rows. It gives me roughly what a wide tooth comb and a narrower comb, depending on how I hold it.

Megan has a lot of hair.

Saran is a bitch and I braided it right after I combed it out.

The city I'm in has marginalized its Black community so much that I couldn't find braid spray even though I went to three stores, but children's detangler spray worked wonders. That stuff's basically propylene glycol in a spray bottle. Saran loves to stick to itself, and so this volume of hair wants to become a giant knot so badly.

Alison #2 also has a comical level of hair:

Remember, my Alison has really thin hair, and originally came with a lot more than you see here. Not as much as Ali#2, though!

Heather and Rose both have the higher quality hair. It looks way better under flash than the Saran. Heather had some weird ends. Some of the ends were three inches longer than the rest of the hair. I trimmed it off.

Here's a picture of Rose next to my Alison, just showing how thin my Alison's hair is. I don't mind, though. It means she was loved. Is loved.

So, speed summary of plans for everyone, and then I'm going to pass out.

• Heather: even out the ends a little more
• Rose: She's just fine how she is
• Megan: Add some layers into her hair to thin out the horzontal width, cut another layer into her bangs to fix the stair step problem she has right now. I'm going to rewig her eventually because I effing hate saran hair. There's a reason why Monster High dolls come with oodles of product in their hair.
• Other Alison: Ebay. If no one buys her, rewig and make a new character to play with my group

Meanwhile Helena is feeling left out. I keep reposing Gooliope and Maddie, but I haven't done more work on painting Gooliope just yet. I'll get back to it when it calls to me.

It's kind of freeing to accept that I'm not in this to "preserve the value" of them or anything. They're dolls for play. I'm going to play with them. Obviously, as an adult, I'm not going to mess them up like I did with Alison, but I am going to do what I want to to make them the characters I see in my head.

I have tomorrow off from work and you can bet your booty I'm going to play barber with Megan. I'm going to do it after I take a lot of photos, of course. Got to document everything and make a real product registration page for each of them.

G'night

Fabric Softener Foils and the new Wardrobe

So here's Ali's cute bath robe, which was a craft fair find, and in her hand's the tint brush I used.
Like most of her non-MAC clothes, the bathrobe's built for an American Girl size, which is a fair bit bigger than the slim body of the Magic Attic girls. I usually pin it in place like you see here, but I'm going to sew a snap there in the future.

I really with I knew who made this. I remember it was at the Lincoln Craft Fair in Lincoln CA and about ten years ago, but don't know anything else about it. It's got matching slipper slides, which I'm going to put some clear strap on so Alison can wear them without them falling off.

Tint brush hadn't been used on human hair before. It's brand new. If it was one of my old used ones, it would have made her hair pink from the residual dye.

Foils go on fast when your hair's as thin as hers. It was about three per layer, and the final product is 16 foils for a whole head.

As we went up, I found a spot where her hair had been pulled out or broken off.

Almost done, and looking pretty, Ali.
The foil I'm using is standard kitchen foil, and they're keeping her robe neat and tidy and keeping the softener from drying out. It's several hours later, now, and it's still moist in there.

And, since I don't want the foils to make a stress point that can rip her hair out (which is a much bigger concern with bleach and human hair, but it doesn't hurt to worry), here she is with her pretty and oversized towel turban.

The downside of this method is that I don't get to soak the top of her head. If this does good things for her lengths, I'll try painting the softener on her scalp and see if that helps too. For now, time to wait and see.

The major upside is that I don't have to leave a doll soaking in water (which doesn't feel like a good idea), that the foils keep everything neat, and that I can use pure fabric softener without adding water.

I know that I did at one point soak Alison in a lot of water, because tiny me definitely took a bath with her more than once. Unlike some of the really nice dolls that my grandma gave me, I don't feel bad about the fact that it definitely caused damage (I think that's how she lost her left index finger). These dolls were built for being played with, and knowing that she fulfilled her purpose and made little (and present!) me happy writing stories and playing and dressing her up and brushing her hair until it wore out doesn't make me sad at all. Every time I see a MAC girl on ebay that says "never been played with," I just want to buy her and play with her a little bit. Every doll built for play deserves that. Wearing a few pretty outfits with different hair styles and sitting with other dolls and enjoying fake tea.
I know they're not alive and they can't feel that, but I think caring about something inanimate gives it a little echo of a soul, and honoring that echo isn't a bad thing.
Toy Story and all that shit.

Speaking of pretty outfits, though, Toys R Us put the Journey Girl's Wooden Armoire on clearance today, and I bought one. I'm going to buy a second tomorrow and stack it on top, because I don't have enough space in this one for even half of Alison's clothes. As for now, I just put all of the made-for-Ali MAC clothes that I have in it. The coat hangers that the wardrobe comes with aren't my favorite, so I got some from the Springfield Girls, because I get 20% off and there are two 60% off one item coupons at Joann, and they carry them. Sadly, the original purple Magic Attic hangers that I have don't fit in the wardrobe. All in all, I'm really impressed with the quality of the wardrobe for the price.
Assembly was required, and it took me an hour and a half to set it up, including a lunch break and finding a #1 phillips screwdriver.

Looking at the Journey Girls, they're MUCH prettier than the American Girls (in my opinion). If I'm going to start collecting more dolls, I'll get them. I think Alison's made me biased, but I really like the look of non-closing eyes better than the recessed sleep eyes most dolls this size have. It's weird when they're lying down in bed, though. Alison has a towel I put over her face when I'm pretending she's asleep, just for that reason.

Anyway, that's enough for tonight. Tomorrow will be an update about how the Fabric Softerner Foils go. Maybe it'll catch on and overcome the popularity of the Downy Dunk. Who knows.

Alison's hair struggles (and more!)

Careful and not-so-careful observers alike will notice that Alison has some hair problems.

It's very frizzed (I think heat damaged) and has a couple of short spots in the back where a younger me cut pieces off. I was also doing this to my own hair, at the time, but doll hair doesn't grow back.

My main plan is to rewig her, but the idea of fixing up her hair in the meantime is one that I'm entertaining

That stuff in the bottle down there is Katie Bair's miracle in a bottle Wig Conditioner. It's a leave in conditioner she formulated for cosplay wigs, which are usually long and straight and smooth and a lot like what Alison's hair should be like. I've used this on long cosplay wigs and it's amazing, so it was time to give it a shot.

Kanekalon is kanekalon, when you get down to it.

You just rub it on, let it dry, and detangle. Going up Alison's head in layers, there's a lot of places where there's nice and smooth hair, especially at the roots. There's also a nearly-bald spot at the direct back of her head.

The wig conditioner helped a LOT, but not enough to fix all the damage. Once everything's as smooth as I can get it, it's all going to need a trim to even it out, especially her bangs.


I know that for cosplay wigs, fabric softener can work miracles. However, I don't know what kind of miracles it can do to vinyl bodies and 20 year faceups. I sure didn't want to un-wig her and glue it back on unless I have to. 

So, the challenge was to get a product onto hair, without that product getting onto faces or hands or bodies or clothing, and to have it remain on the hair for hours without drying out or falling off.

And then I found a tint brush. I used to use these on my hair, back when I only dyed the front locks and left the back plain.


So, fabric softener foils it is! Process is easy, just sectioned off chunks of hair and applied straight fabric softener to it, no diluting. Perks of doing this with fabric softener and not neon pink dye is that I could apply it with the hair in my hand and feel the underside to know when it's saturated. Once it was on the foil, I could add an extra blob on the ends to make sure they're covered.

I have some damn pictures of this but my google drive folder won't refresh and there's no manual way to force it to refresh, so this post is going to sit open on my computer for a while.

Nope, been three hours and fuck all has happened. We'll catch up with Alison and her cute green bath robe tomorrow.

Finally working on Helena

I'm not dead!

So, Helena has a wig, finally. Sort of.

It's 100% athletic tape and yarn, but that's not the point.

I'm not sure I've introduced Helena before, but she's a Bobobie Lotus BJD, light tan, stock faceup. They're about $130, so they're as cheap as you get. 

Polly, 2010-2015: Really want a BJD to sew clothes for.
Polly, 2016: Have a BJD and never sew clothes for her.

I think my main problem with Helena is that she's just not very poseable. Her hinge elbows and knees just don't move as much as I want them to.
This, obviously, is because I bought the cheapest possible BJD that I could find.
I love her face, and I keep considering buying a 5stardoll body (about $200) and putting her head on it.
Of course, this is what I'm going to do with the massive amount of money that I just have hanging around.
Haha.

I actually bought a wig for her a couple days ago, because she really needs one.

<stock image>

I'm getting the feeling that she has blue hair. I got her to sew lolita dresses for, and I'm sure I will soon, but for now, blue hair.

Anyway, the girl needed some hair, and I needed a project that'd take a couple hours and that I could watch TV during.

I started making the wig a while ago. I bought some plied wool yarn and took it apart, to get some chunky curls. The wefts are made of two layers of tape, and the cap's tape.

I pretty quickly realized that I couldn't get enough fiber to make a full wig, so I'd originally stuck the heel of a sock onto the cap. A couple days ago, I finally decided to knit her a real hat. 
The hat's attached to the wig, and it really makes the wig fit better.
She's got a skirt in progress, too. It's on the needles and I work on it before bed.

I've been having trouble finding the motivation to actually sew anything except class work recently.
I've been having trouble finding the motivation to sew for classes, too.
I dropped out of school again.

That's not what this blog is for. This blog is for doll things. Here are more pictures of the doll wig.

Helena's dress that I made her in about 8 minutes doesn't actually cover her butt all the way. Being a BJD, she had a defined vulva. This is why she really needs a skirt or something.

Over on the other side of the cleaning supplies is Maddie, who looks fantastic and makes Helena look like a hack job.

Anyway, I'm back. Doll updates are going to be coming as they do. I think Helena is a bit into being a pirate cosplayer, so prep for some of that.
Poor girl really needs shoes.