Amy by F & B Doll Studio

Welcome to 2017 everyone! I had a very eventful 2016, including taking the CPA exam (and passing the last section in December)...now that it's finally over, I hope to be able to spend more time with my dollies in 2017! 

This year for Christmas, my hubby surprised me with a new ball jointed doll. Her name is Amy, and she's by F & B Doll Studio. 

Here is the first pic I took of this sweet girl.

I had recently discovered F & B dolls through a doll group I'm a member of on Facebook. It's no surprise I hadn't heard of them before, as F & B just celebrated their 2 year anniversary this past October. In that time span, Amy is the first MSD they have created. 

Practicing her needlepoint.

When they started sharing pics of Amy during her pre-order, I casually mentioned to my husband how much I would like to have her. Or okay, maybe I tagged him in every single picture they posted of her, I can't really remember at the moment. At any rate, it was a huge surprise this Christmas when I actually received her! I really felt like a kid again, getting my American Girl Felicity on Christmas morning. It was a great feeling. Because she was a total surprise, I had not done any shopping for her in advance, so I found myself raiding my doll cabinets for outfits and wigs that she could wear. The outfit above is a Vidal Rojas dress, which actually suits her very well, and the fit is good. She is supposed to be able to wear Kaye Wiggs sized tops and dresses, but as I do not have any Kaye Wiggs dolls, I cannot confirm this. Her hips and bottom are a bit bigger, but I found that Journey Girls pants fit her quite well. I'm a huge Journey Girls clothing fan.

Looking a bit more modern.

In the above photo, she's wearing Journey Girls jeans, and a BFC ink shirt and boots. I think the fit is good, she might look better in something a little tighter. I spent some time last night making a legging pattern for her only to figure out I don't really have any stretchy fabric at the moment, so I will give that a shot sometime in the next couple of weeks. 

I was surprised at how quick the turn around time was for this doll, but as I discovered from reading F&B's Facebook page, it seems like the dolls are 100% manufactured in Russia. I can say that this doll has a very high quality resin and jointing. She is the easiest doll to pose of all the BJDs I own. I believe her joints were sueded before she arrived. I have never sueded joints before so I'm not sure exactly what it looks like when done, but it seems like there is a thin layer of silicon in each of the joints. I am so pleased with her quality, I am already planning to purchase the next doll they have up for pre-order. I'm really, really happy with the dolls beauty, flexibility, and quality, and I say, if you get the chance to make one of their dolls yours, go for it!

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Nikki Britt Resin Dolls: A Complete Guide Part 2 (YOSD)

With special thanks to Janice Scott for her collaboration 

Dolls created by sculptor Nikki Britt have become one of the most coveted brands in today’s doll collecting community. As new collectors continue to discover her work, naturally, many questions arise about them. This guide is meant to answer many of those questions, with an explanation of her types of dolls, prices of her dolls, and of course, what everyone wants to know, how to get one of her precious creations.

In attempt to make this guide more digestible, I will break it into 3 parts: MSD size, YOSD size, and Tiny size.

My Adeline, enjoying the beach

Currently, Nikki has released 2 sculpts in YOSD size. They are known as Adeline and Peppermint Annie. The resin colors for these dolls is peppermint green, apricot, fair, and opaque (vanilla?). Peppermint Annie has almost the same facial sculpt as the MSD Pepper Annie, just in a YOSD size. The resin colors and characters known are as follows:

Sculpt	Resin Color	Character Name	Quantity Known
Adeline King	Opaque	Adeline	1 Known
Adeline King	Apricot	Adeline	Est. 10 show dolls, Preordered 01/31/17 - 02/01/17 in an open edition with a limited ordering window
Peppermint Annie	Green	Peppermint Annie	Estimated 40, event doll for MDCC 2016 ($150 registration plus $625 purchase price for the meal event and doll)
Mini Pepper Annie	Light apricot	Mini Pepper Annie	7 sold at MDCC 2016, preordered on 4/10/2017 (edition unknown) ($850 for an artist edition, $650 for a factory edition)
Peter Pan	unknown	Peter Pan	Estimated 60, event doll for MDCC 2017 ($150 registration for MDCC plus $625 purchase price for the doll)

Adeline King was the first doll Nikki introduced, by showing collectors via her Facebook page her work in progress photos. She was first made available for sale at IDTS 2016, in a nude, basic edition for $650. This is where I purchased my Adeline, who Nikki said had a resin color of opaque. There were 2 other Adeline’s available there, if memory serves me correctly, they were both apricot colored (she may have said they were fair, I sadly cannot remember). Later in 2016, several full set Adeline’s were available for purchase from Nikki’s table at MDCC, and these had the apricot colored resin. The price charged for these Adeline’s was $775. Adeline is scheduled to preorder in December of 2016, and there will be artist full sets available as well as basic factory dolls. The pricing for these dolls is yet to be seen.

Janice's OOAK Adeline from MDCC 2016

My Adeline, from IDTS 2016

Also at MDCC 2016, Nikki had an event called “Down the Storyhole”. The event doll was Peppermint Annie, and each one is an OOAK artist edition, fully customized by Nikki. The cost for the event, which included the doll, was $650. For about 2 months prior to the event, MDCC organizers opened the event to absentee registrants. If you could not physically attend MDCC, you could still register as an absentee for $150, and then register for Nikki’s event to receive Peppermint Annie. This is how I acquired mine.

My Peppermint Annie

As if there weren’t enough dolls to make your heart skip a beat, Nikki’s centerpiece dolls for her event were Mini Pepper Annie’s. The price for these centerpiece dolls was $850, and they were each OOAK created by Nikki. They will be available for preorder, as either artist full sets or factory basic sets early in 2017.

Janice's Mini Pepper Annie

For MDCC 2017, Nikki will be the featured artist. The cost to attend is $150, and the cost of the doll is $625. Based on that cost, we believe the event doll will also be YOSD sized. This is a great opportunity for someone who has been wanting a special Nikki doll to get one. I will update and confirm more details once they release pictures of the souvenir doll.

Here is a size chart for those of you waiting on a YOSD:

Measurement	Size
Wig Size	7-8”
Eye Size	14 mm
Shoe Size	38mm x 17 mm fit well, can also use Littlefee
Height	10" from head to toe
Shoulders	2.5 including the arms
Chest	About 1 5/8 " across
Waist	About 5 1/8 across belly button
Clothing Size	Wears Littlefee clothing

You are in luck if you love Nikki’s YOSD sized dolls, as they are scheduled for her next two preorders. Don’t miss out, as her preorders often sell within minutes. If you want purchase one, I advise that you be ready, at your computer, with payment information in hand, at the moment the dolls go live. The faster you can get the doll in your cart, the better the chance you have. Once you have checked out, the doll is yours! If you want an artist full set, Nikki takes orders through her Facebook page. There are a limited number of those available, since she customizes each one herself, but they are not out of reach. You can drop her a message when she makes them available and you have a good chance at getting one. Best of luck to everyone and I can’t wait to see your pictures once these girls start coming home!

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Valuing Your Collection (Monetarily)

As I continue my series on financial matters related to doll collecting, I want to talk about valuing your collection. If you think your doll collection is worth more than $1,000, you should commit to an annual valuing/revaluing exercise. What do I mean by this? Doll values in the market fluctuate, sometimes wildly, and it's important for many reasons to have a good current picture of what your collection is worth. A few of these reasons include insurance, calculating your net worth, and making arrangements in the event you pass from this world. As someone who collects dolls for the fun of it, I admit it can be daunting to go through and revalue a collection annually. Regardless of the lack of fun this activity provides, I think it is an important task that should be completed. What follows is an explanation of how I revalue my collection. While I'm sure there are other ways to do it, this is the method I use.

The first thing to consider is what time of year you plan to revalue your collection. I like to revalue mine somewhere around Christmas, as this generally is when things fetch the highest value. I would stay away from summer months, because sales seem to slump that time of year.

It's the most wonderful time of the year ... for finding doll values.

The hardest thing you will have to do in the process is create a list of every single item of monetary value in your collection. I have lots of dolls that are very sentimentally valuable to me, but are devoid of any resale value. I do not include these in my revaluing process. I keep a running spreadsheet using Google Sheets to keep up with what I have. I create a new tab for each year so I can track fluctuations in my collection. If you would like a copy of the template I use for this, feel free to comment below with your email address and I'll send it to you. This will at least help you get started.

Once you have your list of dolls and doll accessories ready to go, just do an eBay Completed Listings search to get an idea of the value of each item. Keep in mind that you should compare the value of your item to one in similar condition that has sold (i.e. do not compare a gently played with doll to a mint in box doll, they aren't the same thing). I have two examples of this to show you. The first example is this:

Small World England Doll that my Grandma gave me

I simply do an eBay completed listings search and come up with this:

Sold dolls

My doll is not mint in box, but he is also not missing accessories like the doll sold at the bottom. This is not a scientific process, but I would value my doll somewhere in the middle of these two. I would feel comfortable putting a value of $150 on the doll I have. This doll was an excellent investment, as he was only $25 in the store, and is now worth quite a bit more (thanks Grandma!).

The second example is this doll:

Via-E Alexis doll

This is a Via-E Alexis doll (see here for a complete review of this doll). I personally love this doll as I think she is so unique in the 18" doll world. Regardless of how much I love her, what's she worth? A completed listings search yields NO RESULTS. I paid the introductory rate of $95 for Alexis back in the day. She now sells for $114 on Via-E's website. The factor that makes pricing this doll difficult for me is that quite a few Alexis Factory Seconds dolls were sold on eBay for $40-something dollars. This really annoyed me at the time and I thought it devalued the doll I had purchased. I do have a first edition doll, but considering all the factors, I would value this doll somewhere around the $80 range. This was a bad investment, but I'm okay with it, because I really do love this doll. 

Valuing and revaluing your doll collection can be a daunting task, but don't let that sway you from the mission. Pick a week or two, and fill in your values over that time. You don't have to do it all in one sitting, I certainly don't. With this kind of data, you will be much more likely to recover insurance money in the event of a catastrophe (check to see what your homeowner's insurance covers, or even get special collectibles insurance). And in the sad event that you pass away, how will your loved ones know what is a fair price to get for your items? With the proper documentation in place, whomever you bequeath your collection to will be armed with knowledge needed to sell it. Now, I have personally instructed my husband to build a mausoleum to hold my remains and my doll collection (hahahaha!). But no, seriously, I hope through this post the importance of knowing the value of your collection has hit home. I would be happy to hear from anyone who decides to do this! Good luck!

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My Father's Doll

Yes, you read that correctly. One of the things I love about collecting dolls is the stories they have to tell. Many of my dolls have fantastic stories, and I would like to showcase one of those today,

My father's doll

When my dad was young, I believe about the 3rd grade or so, my grandfather was stationed in Germany. My dad has loads of fun stories about driving to Holland for weekend camping trips, and about living in an apartment in a small German town, where most of the residents were from all different countries. One of the tangible memories I have from this period of his life is this Pelham puppet. He was purchased for my dad while he was living in Germany. As you can see, he has been very well loved. 

I wanted to know more about this special fellow, so I did some research. Pelham puppets were made in England beginning in 1946, although their creator, Bob Pelham, had been making animated donkey toys for much longer. My particular puppet is called Tyrolean boy, named for a state of Austria. He originally came with a wooden cross bar which served to hold his strings, and a green felt hat which has long been missing. He is made of wood with metal joints holding his pieces together.

I distinctly remember him hanging from his wooden crossbar on a mirror at my grandma's house when I was very small, so I know his destructed look comes from my own hands. I plan to get some green felt and fashion him a new hat to replace the one I destroyed. Something about creating a new crossbar and tying him to it makes me feel kind of sad though, so that will not be a part of his sprucing up. He's got no strings to hold him down, to make him fret, to make him frown! He had strings, but now he's free...well you get the idea.

I've got no strings on me!

This puppet is an invaluable part of my collection, because it once belonged to my dad. I don't think many doll collectors can say they inherited a doll from their dad. Sure, my dad gave me plenty of dolls when I was young (and even now that I'm old, ha!) but this one is extra sentimentally special to me.

If you inherited a doll from your dad, I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

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Lesly Famosa: La Hermanita de Nancy

Once upon a time, I ordered all my Nancy dolls from El Corte Ingles in Spain, but they discontinued shipping service to the United States. I went for quite awhile without getting any new Nancy dolls. Nothing puts a damper on collecting like an impossible situation where you cannot buy what you want. The other day, I decided to cruise over to El Corte to see what was up with them. And guess what? They are shipping to the US again! Woo hoo! There is a difference now. In the good ole' days, I could order pretty much however many Nancy dolls I wanted for one flat shipping cost. Now, there is a limit of 3 kilos for 40 Euros. It's not as good as it was before, but it's not terrible. As soon as I found out they were shipping, I just had to place a "test order". I ordered two Lesly Famosa Communion dolls, one for me, and one for a friend. They arrived from DHL within one week, which was a lot faster than the previous orders I had placed. I checked their weight, and they were about 1.5 kilos. The Nancys will be heavier, so I'm thinking I will probably be able to order Nancy dolls in the future 2 at a time.

My sweet Lesly

I was really happy to finally get a new Lesly. I have an older Lesly, but I bought her out of desperation to have one (because she was for sale here in the US), and she is in really terrible condition. Her hair is a nightmare that I don't even know how to begin to fix.

My Two Leslys

My new Lesly does have a few flaws. First off, although this isn't inherently a flaw, she is made in China. That was disappointing. I have found consistently that the Nancy dolls made in Spain are of much superior quality from everything from their plastic to their clothes to their hair. This Lesly is no exception, and the most notable issue she has is that her shoes are way too big. They will not stay on her feet. When I pick her up, the shoes just fall right off. I think I will be able to get her some tights or socks and that will fix the problem, but they should be a little snugger than they are. Her legs are also a little unevenly sized, which is not atypical for the other Nancys I have. Otherwise, I really love her and she's such a cutie. I'm so glad I finally got the opportunity to add her to my collection. 

For those that don't know her, Lesly is Nancy's little sister, and she's about 12 inches tall. Here's a photo of her with some other dolls so you can get an idea of size:

Little Darling Elsa, Lola from Berdine Creedy, Lesly, and Hearts for Hearts Tipi

Lesly will definitely need some new clothes, because I'm not a huge fan of the communion look. It looks like she may be able to share with some other dolls, but I haven't had the opportunity to have a fashion show yet. 

If you're on the fence about Lesly, I would say you should have one if you are a Nancy collector. Even though the quality isn't perfect, this is a good way to get a nice, clean Lesly doll to add to your collection.

How can you resist this sweet little face?

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A Tonner Salute To Gone With The Wind

Yesterday, I attended my first ever doll event: A Tonner Salute To Gone With The Wind. I am not really a Gone With The Wind fan, but I am a doll fan (obviously), and since this event was in Atlanta, it was close enough for me to drive. I enlisted one of my best friends, Henny, to attend, because I didn't want to go alone. She also happens to be a huge GWTW fan, so it wasn't too difficult to convince her. Naturally, my ulterior motive is to hook her into the world of doll collecting, so we'll see how this all pans out.

Since this was my first event ever, I didn't really know what to expect. I'm going to lay everything out here, the good, the bad, and the ugly, so that if you, like me, are planning on attending a Tonner event, you can know a little more about what to expect, in terms of the event itself and costs associated with the event.

The Hotel

The event was held in the JW Marriott in Atlanta (Buckhead), and we did drive down the night before so we wouldn't feel rushed the next morning. Henny's father in law works for Marriott so we did get a little bit of a discount (about $20) on the room. The hotel itself was gorgeous, and it was one of the cleanest hotels I've ever had the pleasure of visiting. We ordered room service for breakfast (a continental) because we wanted to get ready and eat breakfast in a leisurely manner. The total cost for the room plus the room service was $126.44.

Registration
Registration began at 9:30, and we went to register around that time. There was a very nice spread of pastries and beverages available for attendees. Of course, we had already had our fill with our breakfast, but it was a nice touch, and definitely something I'll remember for the next event before I consider room service. When we registered, we got a hand stamp.

This was also when the opportunity to buy raffle tickets presented itself. I bought 50 raffle tickets for $35. 25 raffle tickets were $25, and there were bigger price breaks the more tickets you bought, just to give you an idea. I'll talk more about the raffle in a bit though, as I would like to go in chronological order. After registration, everyone was mingling and waiting on the sales room to open. There were no lines, just everyone meeting and greeting. The ladies did finally open the doors, and we walked through the main event area into the sales room. 

The Sales Room

There was not a lot of competition to get into the sales room. There were plenty of dolls to go around (I don't think this event sold out, I felt like we were a small group, maybe 80-100 people maximum). The event exclusive dolls were immediately to the right, across from the cash register when we walked into the room. There were 3 event exclusive dolls: Over the Top? Ellowyne doll, Lost Honeymoon Scarlett Doll, and Shame Scarlett doll. I grabbed an Ellowyne and a Lost Honeymoon doll, but the Shame dolls seemed to already be sold out. How could that I be? I was one of the first in the room...more on that later. Since we were in the sales room early, I was able to check out with ease. The Ellowyne doll was $165, and the Scarlett doll was $225. With sales tax, the total cost came to $421.20. Ouch. What follows are some pics from the sales room.

That sales room is a bit dangerous. I had never been a fan of Evangeline before, but seeing her in person really piqued my interested. I think I will probably buy one in a few months. She is really stunning in person.

The Lost Honeymoon Scarlett was also the centerpiece of the tables

Gorgeous Ellowyne

She has the prettiest coloring.

Meeting Robert Tonner

We were among the first folks to check out in the sales room, so we had a quite a bit of down time afterwards. We had gone to pick our table and stood by our chairs talking, people watching, etc. We chose a table in the back, and we were the only two people at our table at that time. About the time I had organized my purchases underneath my chair, Robert Tonner walked over to us and started chatting. The 3 of us chatted for about 10 minutes, and he is such a nice person. I didn't really expect to get to talk to him much other than a "Hey, how are you, could you sign my doll" kind of situation, but it wasn't like that at all. We didn't even talk about dolls, we just had a normal conversation about life, what we do, and business in general. It was really nice and I was so happy to be able to have that experience and to meet him, and to be able to have a normal conversation (not about dolls). He even teased us a little about maybe having a convention in Atlanta, they were so impressed with the hotel. He also let us take this selfie:

Henny, Robert Tonner, and Me

The Raffle

After he walked away, I decided to choose my raffle dolls. I was trying to wait until everyone had put their tickets in so I could see which dolls had the least amount of tickets. I put 25 tickets into Golden Gothess Evangeline, about 20 tickets into a Parnilla doll, and the last 5 into some random bags. The drawing was held later in the program, and very sadly, I did not win anything. This was actually very disappointing for me as I felt sure I would win, since I had put 25 tickets in one bag. I think that was a bit of naivety from me, because I'm sure other people bought a lot more raffle tickets. Two gentlemen in the audience won raffle drawings twice. You want to be happy for them, but well, you know...Anyway, I'm sure I would buy raffle tickets again. The anticipation of waiting to hear your name called is so exciting. I think next time I will spread my tickets out and put at least one in each bag so that I still have a chance up to the end.

The raffle dolls

More raffle dolls

Not a winner :(

The Luncheon

The lunch was served buffet style, and we were dismissed table by table to serve ourselves. The food was excellent, and much better than I expected. On the buffet were the following: mixed green salad, shredded carrots, red wine vinaigrette dressing, tomatoes, tomato and cucumber salad, shrimp and pasta salad, marinated tomato and mozzarella salad, spiced collard greens, green bean almondine, sweet potato hash, baked chicken with a mushroom gravy, bbq pulled pork with a Georgia peach sauce, Parmesan crusted trout, mini pecan pies, peach melba, and a triple chocolate mousse. Man, was that lunch good.

My plate

Mini pecan pie

A nice surprise: a choice of red or white wine

Gettin' crunk at the doll event

The Event Presentation

While everyone was wrapping up lunch, the presentation began. First to speak was a lady whose mother was Margaret Mitchell's first cousin. She brought a few things that personally belonged to Margaret Mitchell, and they were on display (now that I'm thinking about it, this lady may have actually spoken to us before lunch, but I considered her part of the presentation). 

A Madame Alexander Scarlett doll, belonging to Margaret Mitchell

Margaret Mitchell's perfume jar and powder jar, plus some GWTW memorabilia

The display

Next to speak was a local Atlanta historian and writer for the Atlanta Constitution. She gave us some interesting stories about Margaret Mitchell, and invited everyone to come visit The Margaret Mitchell house, where she gives tours on Tuesdays and Fridays. She also gave our her email address, and told everyone to email her if we were going to be visiting, and she would make sure she was there. It was interesting and informative, and probably more so for Henny who is a GWTW buff. Next, RT did a short presentation about the GWTW dolls that they have done, and told us that they will continue to make them because the line does very well. He also said they were "scraping the bottom of the barrel" on dresses, so they were making a lot of costumes that had been created as prototypes but never actually used in the movie. The Lost Honeymoon doll and souvenir doll are both lost costumes.

The Door Prizes

Once the presentation was complete, it was time for door prizes! We were told to number off at our table. At our table, there was one other couple that was together, and then a lady we met who was also a newbie that we invited to sit with us. We had three empty chairs at our table, so we numbered off. For the empty chairs, we gave each couple another number, and the lady by herself also got another number. So really, we all had more than one chance to win. Note to self: always sit at the back for optimum chances at winning. The tables were all numbered. The way the door prizes were awarded was RT would pull a person number, and then he would pull a table number. They gave away quite a few door prizes, and one of the guys at our table won a doll, but not us sadly. At this point I wasn't totally disappointed because I still had the raffle to come (see above for the sad ending to that tale), but I thought it was so exciting to have the door prizes. That's something I would definitely look forward to at another event.  

The Souvenirs

At the table itself, we had a small table gift, which was a cute little ceramic Scarlett bell.

The table gift

The teaser all along about the souvenir doll had been that she would be featured in a dress from the movie, but in an original color that was rejected from film. And we weren't disappointed:

Shame Doll (Duh--of course she wasn't sold out)

One Last Surprise

Just when we thought it was over, they revealed one last surprise. They had brought the factory sale to us! My blood pressure shot up as I looked over at the bags of dolls they were unloading onto the table behind us. RT drew 3 people numbers, and those people could go to the table first. They had 2 minutes to make their selections, time was called, and then the next 3 people numbers were called. I got in on the 2nd round at the table, but with only 2 minutes to decide, it was so hard! I ended up with a Disney Small World doll for $20.

The factory sale dolls are all bagged like this and priced.

By the time I was finished checking out, everyone had a chance to have their turn at the table, and so it was open and you could just browse with less pressure. On my second round, I picked up a Prudence for $65, and a Cami and Jon for $35 each.

My Prudence

Some sample items they had and their prices were: Glinda for $80, several Lizettes and Prudences for $65 (I wanted a Lizette but they went too fast so I didn't get one), lots of Tonner Models who I don't recognize were $60, Rufus for $70, some male dolls I didn't recognize for $50-$60, Viktor Krum for $70. I was a little sour about the pile of Viktor Krums there, since I paid full price for mine way back when. One lady scored an Ellowyne wig for $10. 

I could have gone totally nuts on that table, but I didn't, thank goodness. I got home and totaled my bill:

Registration: $225

Raffle Tickets: $35

Event Exclusives: $421.20

Factory Sales: $167.40

Hotel: $126.44

Parking: $12 (Tonner validated our parking but it only covered the hours we were in the show)

Total Cost: $987.04

Wow. Not for the faint of heart. I will definitely have to let some other dolls go to make room for the new ones (and recoup some money). The surprise factory sale took me by, well, surprise. Overall, I loved my experience. It was expensive, yes, but less expensive than travelling to one farther away. The most important thing is I had a great time, with a great friend, doing something I love. In fact, the entire Tonner staff is so friendly, you feel like you're there with lots of great friends. I will definitely be attending other Tonner events in my future. If you've never been, and you've been considering it, I'd say go for it, but keep in mind you need to be financially prepared.

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Via-E Alexis Doll: A Collector's Review

First of all, I want to emphasize that this is a collector's review, and that this doll is not intended at all for collectors, but for little girls. Okay, disclaimer out of the way, let's get started!

If you haven't heard of her, Alexis is a new doll in the 18" category, made by the Via-E company. The company is newer, and I got a "first run" Alexis, which the collector in me couldn't resist.

Meet Alexis

Alexis is fully jointed and made completely of vinyl. As a collector, this is a huge selling point for me, since I love being able to pose my dolls the way I want for photos and whatnot. She comes in an outfit, which I happen to think is absolutely terrible. I love cats, but this just doesn't do it for me. I'm sure little girls love it, but the only piece of her "meet" outfit that I like is the boots. And when I say I like them, I mean I love them. 

John Wayne ain't got nothin' on her fringe game...

The boots are really high quality, and the zippered back makes them super easy to get off and on. I will definitely be pairing these boots with some other outfits later in Alexis's life. Since I hated her original outfit, I had to buy an extra outfit, into which I promptly changed her. 

Alexis in the Loving Sao Paulo outfit

The outfit has a dress, a reversible vest, a bandanna, and ribbon sandals. The dress is tagged Carpatina, which I'm still trying to work out (I'm not sure if Via-E purchased some old stock, or they have a deal with Carpatina, or what, but I would think they would be tagged Via-E). One thing I really like about this company is how much they stress learning and creativity, particularly because I'm a teacher. The dress is designed to be styled in many different ways. Why would I care about this as a collector? Well, I am one of those collectors who doesn't sew very well, so my dollies usually only get new outfits if I purchase them. The fun thing about this outfit is I can switch it up and it feels like a new outfit.

Reversing the vest, and using the bandanna as a belt

I really appreciate this versatility in the outfit, and it's easy to create the new looks. Another thing that's striking about Alexis is the attention to detail. 

Separated big toe, and killer pedi!

The mani to match.

Alexis's big toe is separated from the rest of her foot, allowing her to wear more realistic footwear. I love this touch and think it adds so much personality to the doll for such a small detail. Alexis also has a great mani and pedi, and has blushing painted on in all the right places. For a $95 doll, it is really hard to figure out how much profit could have been made from this first run. You are getting a lot of small details and high quality for that $95. You won't see an AG with blushing on her hands and feet, and especially not a mani/pedi. Her face mold is also full of character. If you're looking to add something new, fun, and different to your 18" collection, Alexis is a good choice, particularly for the money. 

Side view of her face mold

Alexis's face mold is very different. My mom said, "I don't like her, she has a snout." Well, she does, sort of, but I think it's precious and it adds some diversity to the Sea of Sameness, where the rest of the 18" world seems to be drowning. Alexis has rooted hair, which I generally don't prefer, but on her it's quite nice. The hair is high quality, and easy to brush. The color is also very complementary to the doll's skin tone. There were some manufacturing issues with the doll's hair originally, and Via-E sent them back to the factory to have more hair sewn into the head. 

Back of the hair

In all of the confusion, according to a Facebook post made by Via-E, the dolls' hair were never trimmed in the factory. Alexis was actually supposed to have a couple of inches less of hair, but I have decided to leave mine like she is and not trim it up. I think it's gorgeous and long, and I will be able to make quite a nice Katniss braid when I get around to it. 

The last thing I want to say about Alexis is not actually about her, but about the the company, Via-E. The lady who founded the company is named Ellen, and she's very transparent about everything Alexis through Via-E's Facebook page. During the production process, she constantly kept everyone updated on what was going on in the factory. Even as an adult collector, this made the excitement palpable, and I felt connected to the doll before she ever arrived on my doorstep. She also frequently posts activities, games, and creative things that can be done with the Alexis doll. While I don't normally do any of these things, as a teacher, I think that shows what a commitment Via-E has to its customers, and to the children who have Alexis dolls. One last commendation is that Via-E even offers a discount for good grades.

10% discount for good grades!

But please Via-E, it's "I before E, except after C", so hopefully they'll fix that "receive" on the good grades image, because that drives me nuts! 

Does anyone else out there have an Alexis doll? What are your thoughts? Please leave them in the comments!

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