Fashion Show!

My Christmas dolly diorama. 

It's some hybrid of sleigh ride and caroling.  

Don't think about it too hard, just enjoy the seasonal 

T-shirts.  

     After holiday markdowns and Santa's visit, more of them!  I bet the bottom halves of Khalil and Jeremiah are cold.  Also Hagrid's toes.  Hagrid is tickled pink at shirts he can wear, and even talked me into letting the gold and black be a year-round shirt.

Santa also brought Grumpy Bear Cutie Reveal and a whole bunch of clothes!  (Also some Mini Brands Home, but that's got no bearing on the fashion show you know I planned immediately.)  The clothes are second-hand and not all in pristine condition, some need repairs, but Santa did an excellent job of finding me a variety.  No complaints.

I decided to use the dolls in the diorama (and Grumpy, because none of the diorama females are standard body molds.  Susan B is curvy, Morgan and Diana have the athletic/heroine mold, Rose-Grace has a Wild Hearts body) as models in the fashion show. 

Are we ready, kids?

We'll start with the Disney Princess gowns.  I'm assuming the solid-color skirts go here because they were packaged with the gowns.  Ariel, Tiana, Rapunzel, Rapunzel skirt.  (Grumpy's built-in top helps with modesty!)

Mirabel, Isabella, and Merida

Anna, Belle skirt, Belle, Elsa skirt.  Rose-Grace's improvised top is not part of the fashion show.  

Three versions of Elsa.  The sheer fabric on Morgan and Diana's shoulders were in bad shape, so they went bye-bye.  Other wise, all fashions shown are as they arrived.  

The red/yellow on Casey would work better as a top, or on a shorter friend. The red on Diana (I'm pretty sure) came from a Holiday Barbie.  I suspect the ones on Susan B and Morgan are hand-made.

More dresses.  

Susan B's house robe is really quilted.  I think it and the dresses on either side of her are hand-made.  

Skating costume and some more dresses.  I promise, we'll get to britches eventually.

I wonder where they are going, all dressed up?

Susan B finds another dress that better serves as a shirt.

The dress on Susan B looks like it came off a teddy bear, definitely needs some taking in.  Or turned into a skirt.  She's one movement away from a wardrobe malfunction!  (And yes, I know Diana looks like Jeanie dressed her.  Because I did!) 

Look!  Britches!  Now Susan B looks like Jeanie dressed her. 

Rose-Grace and Grumpy rocking the micro mini skirts.  Or are they shorts?

Now that we're into britches, the guys join the party.  

Ignore the dice bag holding up Khalil, he has a bad case of the floppies.  

Hagrid is wearing his original pants.

Now we're just getting silly.  Ron's in a life vest and Yule Ball Harry is wearing a coat with shorts.

Now Casey's wearing a coat with shorts!

Now, I know that Baywatch suit came on a full-size Barbie!  But it was even too small for Grumpy?

Trying really hard not to go off about doll proportions here.  Barbie's unrealistic, but them undies came off a doll with a head bigger than her torso.  

Back of the jackets modeled elsewhere.  The blue one says POP, not POO.

The swimsuit tops are too big around the chest (under the boobs).  

You saw Casey model the gingham, but it was very tight, and the others' waistband were too small even on Casey.  These things will fit Emma, Dan, or Roxy.  Maybe even the Harry Potter girls - they're quite skinny. 

All told, a very nice addition to the doll wardrobe.  

Downsizing Is Hard (Part One)

 Since I came to the realization that Barbieville had gotten out of hand and decided to stop the soap opera, I have been really strict with myself about what can stay and what must go.  I started with the standing sets.

Here we see Bellatrix laying on the floor of Sulu's Greenhouse, the denuded hospital exam/waiting room, and a giant couch in the grocery store.  I'm sure you can guess that I had already started work before thinking to take pictures.

The exam room walls became a wall full of graffiti.  I kept the canyon sunset, as it can be either a mural (as it was in the waiting room) or simply the view.  Green felt for grass, and I have a permanent spot for the playground.  The children will hang out here full time.

Sulu's greenhouse and the Witch's Cove ticket booth combine with the grocery store to become a kitchen/pantry.  New wallpaper and the barn backdrop, cut to size.  (I need to construct an oven door.  Or make one of the refrigerators into a sideways-opening oven.) 

The grocery space is now the classroom for adolescents to hang out.  I kept only the Harry Potter and Creatable world dolls, with the exception of Claudia.  Claudia is a Babysitters Inc Skipper (Asian) on an extra Hermione body.  Classroom is obviously is a work in progress.  Ignore the phone charger cord.

Non-dollhouse-family babies will live in this crib. It keeps getting moved back and forth between kitchen and playground.

It really doesn't matter for the blog, since I'll be doing stand-alone stories with an ever-changing cast and characters, but for simple play off camera, this is the new dollhouse family.

These are the adults I'm keeping.  Before I reorganized, and purged, each of these pockets held two or maybe three dolls.  Granted, the third doll was often a child, but still...  

Honestly, I'm still waffling on a few dolls in the donation bag.  The top of the tall shelf is covered with things like the cash registers from both the grocery store and greenhouse.  But the hardest part is done.  

Funny story: I started my downsize and Sister Number One told me about a convention of sorts, buying and selling "collectables".  I playfully scolded her for undermining my efforts.   Then The Boy's mother made this quilt for my dolls.  So of course I had to playfully scold her as well. 

Then a friend of mine shows up with this! 

LMAO  

 

Creatable World Review

WARNING NUDE DOLLS

FLEE FOR THE HILLS

Thanks to eBay, I finally got one of the Creatable World dolls.  There is a lot of controversy over these dolls, mainly because people misunderstand Mattel's intent.  (I do have a more in-depth discussion of this on my other blog, Adventures In Freeloading.) They are devoid of what social scientists call gender coding. Most dolls are sexless because giving dolls genitals is frowned upon, but these are also devoid of things like make-up and secondary sex characteristics (breasts, body hair).  

Here we see CW with Stacie and Kevin. Stacie is pre-puberty and Kevin is either after or during, depending on who you ask. CW works well in the 1:6 scale universe as a child approaching puberty.  My plan is to make any CW dolls that move to Barbieville be boys, since boy children are hard to find.  Anakin has no feet and is badly discolored by age, so I'm eyeing a CW recast for that role.  

The big selling point to me, though, is the articulation.  CW not only has working knees and elbows, but wrists and ankles.  Y'all know how I am about knees and elbows. Stacie and Kevin have the standard five points (neck, shoulders, hips) and Stacie has click knees. The feet were showing when I took this photo, I swear! If I somehow end up with body donors (aka doubles), Stacie will gain some height and Kevin regress developmentally.

Kevin: Wait. What?!

The CW dolls come with a wardrobe (size depends on what kit you buy). Many of the items are unisex, but some are gender coded. Here Stacie models black shorts under what some people have called a dress. Those side slits go awfully high for a child's dress!  CW dolls have a larger head and feet, so the hat is big on her. The shoes fell right back off. 

Some of the clothes will fit dolls as big as a classic Barbie. It just depends on the body mold and the fashion's design.

CW dolls come with a long hair wig. It pops on over the rooted hair. Most reviewers haven't cared for the wigs because the wig cap is visible.  I didn't even take mine out of the baggie the seller shipped it in.  (This doll is gently used.  In fact, it looks to me like they bought the big kit and only kept certain clothing items.)

Nice denims. The pockets and cuffs on the jeans are real.

I'm so happy I got the shark shirt! (One of the others comes with a monkey shirt.) The black shirt and shorts are what the doll is wearing in the box. The tote bag is functional. You saw Stacie in the long shirt. The skirt in front center looks like coral. 

CORAL! Sorry, I was possessed by Rick Grimes for a second there. 

Anyway, I'm very happy with Creatable World. The doll is well articulated. The clothes and accessories are well made. I found a pair of aviator glasses while typing this. I suspect they belong in this review, but I could be wrong. I'm not the tidiest, ya know.