Minty Dolls

Olivia Gets New Clothes And A Wiglet

2011-10-26T22:05:00.000-07:00

Olivia, my My Twinn doll got some new clothes recently, and I realized I hadn't shared in a while on here.

And actually, as my camera cord is currently missing I've been taking a lot of shots with my iPhone. I know, bad, but at least you get shots! So they've been uploaded to my flickr quicker than they get up on here. If you have a flickr add me as a contact!

See you around the blog hopefully more frequently!

New Madame Alexander Doll From Goodwill

2011-08-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

So while I was in Sacramento I didn't get any more doll photos taken, but I did stop at a Goodwill and picked up a new doll. Here are her before shots...

Her hair looked awful, but I was confident I could save it. I didn't even have to wash it to get the tangles out, just a gentle brush and I used a tiny bit of febreze (not sure how safe for dolls this is... don't trust me!) because she smelled a little bit off.

She had a few tiny marks on her face, but you can't really tell in these pictures. I used a magic eraser to scrub her face and body clean.

See the marks on her leg? Ick. She also had her price which was $2.00 written on her foot but I rinsed that off as soon as I got back to Cheyenne's house because I was worried about staining worse. It came out no problem with a little bit of water.

Not going to lie, she looks a tiny bit freaky when she looks at you straight on, but I guess that's the risk you take with these Madame Alexander face molds. Some of them are adorable, others are a bit creepy. She's wearing Lara's (My Giving Girls Karito Kid) extra pink shirt and her meet skirt. I made the shoes for her out of foam, some ribbon and moleskin (it's a product, not actually made out of mole's skin and is typically used to help keep blisters from forming/protect them once they've already formed but it makes for great bottom treds on doll shoes.) and in her hair she's wearing a Wee Three Friends tutu that I'm using as a sort of scrunchy.

If she looks to the side she looks cuter. I dislike how her hair is just a shade too light for her skin tone and eye colour. I might put a darker wig on her at a later point, but since she has rooted hair that's a big commitment to cut all of her hair off. Actually she's wearing a bit of a wiglet in these pictures. Her hair was fine once I brushed it out but it didn't look very long in a ponytail and I like my girls to have longer hair so she got an old Cheer Flipz wig leftover from my sister's competitive cheer days. Her front hair (fringe and the part that's not coming out of the ponytail) is nearly the same colour as the wig so you can't even tell! Also, as you can see she has painted on eyelashes and under her bangs (fringe) she has painted eyebrows that I'm not a fan of. I might take a combo of magic eraser and some polish remover.

It SHOCKED me how much she looked like an American Girl doll from a few of these angles. It's weird how even with such different face molds they can look a lot alike from above.

I think this is my favourite one of the shoot! I was using a macro mode from above with a flash (couldn't be avoided, it was late) but with most of the lights in the room turned off.

Their bodies look so similar to AG bodies, except the molded plastic neck, which comes in handy for lower cut shirts and tank tops.

I think I've decided to call her Delaney. What do you think does that fit her?

I decided to take a few pictures of Fliss beside Delaney. I like how Delaney has more of a neck, but I'm not as fond of her smaller head. Also, in these pictures I like neither Fliss or Delaney's skin tone, so it may be a bit of the lighting causing issues. I like Fliss' skin tone better, but I still prefer the pinky tones of the pre-Mattel dolls. I have a PM Kirsten, and she just looks so glowy and adorable.

Here are some more shots of Fliss and Delaney! Sorry for all the flyaway hair, I didn't notice it as much when I was taking the shots.

That's all I have to share for now! I might be doing my first Liv body transfer soon so maybe I'll post shots of that!

Tiny Dolls on Vacation!

2011-08-01T22:18:00.000-07:00

So sorry it's been a long time since I've made a post! School has been keeping me SUPER busy! I even took College Algebra as a summer class. Which I got my grade today and I got a C which is all I needed to pass, meaning NO MORE MATH FOR ME! I'm currently enjoying my tiny vacation before Fall semester starts up by visiting my cousin Sarah and her girlfriend Brandi in San Diego. I'm here until the 6th and then it's on to San Francisco and Sacramento to visit my friends. I brought a few tiny dolls with me so I decided to do a photoshoot in Sarah's backyard.

All the dolls are new since I last posted so I will introduce them to you in this post and then there may be a few more photoshoots over the span of this trip!

This is Bernadette.

She's a Mattel So In Style (S.I.S.) Janessa doll.

Here she is balancing on Sarah's back porch fence. I made her outfit myself out of different ribbons I handsewed together. I got her and Julian (Who I'm going to name Brandon because he looks like the tiny doll version of Brandi who I'm staying with.) from my Mom's hospital gift shop and I think she's my favourite of all the new "Chelsea" sized dolls. I do think it's a little weird though that her body is skinnier than the Chelsea dolls though. I tried to put the swimming suit she came with on one of my Chelsea dolls and it wouldn't go over the hips. Bernadette will probably come with me to the beach sometime on this trip so look forward to adorable swimmy suit pics!

This is Francy.

She is a Birthday Party Fancy Nancy doll.

I got Francy from my Dad's girlfriend, Nan. Both Nan and my Mom's names are Nancy so for my birthday Nan knew I loved dolls and thought this would be a cute addition to my collection.

Francy is wearing an old strawberry patterned Kelly dress I got from a garage sale and the shoes she came with. I love that her knees bend making her really cute to pose, but I wish her legs went straight forward instead of a straddle/split position.

This is Kiley.

She's a Mattel Chelsea Bathroom doll.

I got Kiley from my Mom who I believe bought her at Walmart. She's wearing an old ladybug Kelly dress that I got from a garage sale and black leggings from a Ty Little Ones doll (Awesome Ashley/Cute Charlotte) and shoes from Julian/Brandon with red ribbons tied in her hair.

Behind the Scenes.

While I was posing the dolls individually on the fence I needed a place where the other dolls could sit so I could have the use of both hands. I didn't want to set them in the dirt or on the grass and accidentally step on them so I just rested them on their tummies along the fence. It looks like they are looking at something on the ground like WHAT'S GOING ON DOWN THERE?!

This is the guest bedroom that I'm staying in. I did the photoshoot while I was waiting for Sarah and Brandi to get ready for dinner and then I had to rush out so I left all the dolls spread out on the bed. I came back and I felt like my bedroom belonged to a 5 year old! Between the dolls and my teddy bear, Emmsie, you'd never know that a 22 year old was staying here. Whoops. At least I made my bed! hee hee

Well that's all I have to show you today, hope to be posting more soon now that I have a break from classes!

Tiny Clothes For Your Tiny Dolls: A Not So Tiny Post!

2011-01-10T03:48:00.000-08:00

As a child, I had my fair share of Barbies and other fashion dolls and I loved them, but as time moved on they became less and less treasured to me. The dolls that really stuck with me were my bigger dolls such as American Girls, My Friend Dolls (By Fisher Price), Baby Sitters Club and other 16-23 inch doll types. I think it was mostly because their accessories and clothing wasn't so TINY and easy to get lost in a heap or their accessories weren't the size of my fingernail. Don't get me wrong tiny things are ADORABLE but somehow when things are shrunk down to that size they lose a lot of their detail.

However, when I moved into an apartment, my sophomore year of high school, my bigger dolls had to be put into storage and I wasn't able to get them out for a long time (I'm actually STILL going to pick some of them up later this month) because there simply wasn't room for them. Without the room for my big dolls my tiny doll love began to bloom again. I started collecting smaller dolls such as Flatsy, Dolly Surprise (Like the 80s solution to Chrissy hair grow dolls), Wee 3 Friends and other mini sized dolls.

Now that I'm back in a house where I can store as many dolls as I like (pft... if that was true I'd have to live in some huge mansion) I have a variety of big dolls and tiny friends. While my heart is completely won over by my 16-23 inch crowd my wee ones still need love and attention too. The only problem, as I mentioned before, is that everything is SO TINY. I've always been my dolls' own personal seamstress but when it comes to my tiny girls they always seem to get jipped. It's not because I don't want them to look as cute as my big dolls, but the problem lies in the fact that sewing tiny details is HARD. I can sew an outfit for a Karito Kids doll in a jiffy, but if I have to sit down and sew an outfit for my Learning Curve Madeline doll I'm stumped. It takes less fabric, but always comes out looking like a sack.

So recently I've begun searching high and low to get my little girls some new clothes. Since I'm still not the huge Barbie fan I was when I was 8 years old, most of my tiny dolls are ones that only come with one outfit and have little to no extra clothes sets for purchase. My current biggest "problem" to clothe dolls are Madeline (by Learning Curve), Monday (what I call my Moni doll), Rina (a ballerina doll made by Corole) and my AG minis. Sometimes they can share clothes, but they all definitely share one common problem: lack of bust. These dolls are meant to look like young children NOT adult dolls so I wouldn't expect them to have more than mosquito bites on their chest when it comes to the boob department. So while this is normal for their molds, it doesn't make shopping for them any easier in a world full of bodacious Barbies and other fashion dolls whose bust size can be quite large.

Monday came from an antique store and was the only one available, looking very similar to the doll above. I can find limited outfits for her that were produced by Moni in the 70s and 80s (Moni are the Sasha lookalike mini dolls) online via ebay and doll collecting sites but there's one huge draw back THEY ARE EXPENSIVE. Monday and all of the other Moni dolls are only 8 inches tall, but these kiddos have a big price tag due to how much they resemble the popular collectible Sasha dolls. I already shelled out more than I thought I would for Monday (I got her for $25, not too shabby for mint in the box actually.) so I assumed completing her original wardrobe was going to have to wait.

I got Madeline as a gift from my Mom who brought her home from a big garage sale at her work used to benefit the hospital. Madeline came clad in her original red satin party dress, but nothing else unless you count the delicately applied coat of pink nailpolish on her tiny fingers and the lovely black scuff on the back of her left thigh.

Rina came to me from a garage sale where I scooped up 2 other dolls (One a mini AG Josefina I call Josie) for a total of $5 for the lot. She was wearing a slightly faded pink leotard complete with attached tutu and some tights (some people call them stockings or pantyhose) that had multiple holes.

My mini AGs, other than Josie, have all come from Sam's. I have Josefina (who I call Josie), Rebecca (who I call Beckie), Addy (who I call Addison) and Felicity (who I call Liccy). While the tiny outfits are very detailed almost exactly matching their bigger counterparts "meet" outfits down to the stockings, bloomers and even slips, you only get the one for each doll. I've been hesitant to "trade" clothes between the girls because I didn't want to mix up articles of clothing. Also Addison & Josie's shoes have tiny ties that whoever sold me Josefina, learned the hard way, are IMPOSSIBLE to retie. You can find tiny clothing on etsy and ebay for the mini dolls, but it gets to be pricey. At $6 for a pair of tennis shoes that would fit on my pinkies I think I'll keep my pocket book shut thank you very much.

So up until this week none of these lovely dolls have had a wardrobe change since arriving home. I always felt terrible when I went to change their older sisters into new outfits that I didn't have something for the tiny girls. And then this week I hit pay dirt!

While searching at my local Walmart for a few last minute gifts for my friend Babs' dolls, (Which by the way are suppose to arrive TODAY in the mail so *fingers crossed* we can post about them soon!) I happened upon a few Lalaloopsie outfits that were sold separately from the dolls. Everything but the size of the armholes looked like it MIGHT fit my Best Friends Club doll, Rachel (formerly named Noelle by MGA Entertainment).

Lucky for me the manufacturers of Lalaloopsie originally thought to call the dolls Bitty Buttons, but unlucky for them, the name didn't stick. The packaging for the extra clothing still bore the Bitty Buttons logos so they were trying to sell them quick and they had a nice sale price $2.50 a piece! I snagged two of the "fashion raincoats" thinking I could try one on my Rachel and if it fit send the other off to Babs for her Gianna doll. Unfortunately, Rachel's thumb kept getting stuck at the end of the sleeve, and there was no pushing it through. I wasn't disappointed, though, because I had only invested $5 in the outfits and I was sure I'd find a doll for them to fit. From the moment Rina slipped on the raincoat I knew it was made for her. I had recently put a new pink bow in her hair and the detailing on the raincoat (which actually looks more robe-like with it's terry cloth fabric to me) matched it PERFECTLY. She hasn't been back in her dingy ballet costume since! The shoes still fit none of my dolls, but we are keeping them for when we get a doll with hard to fit feet.

Then since Tuesday I've been in recovery from having my tonsils removed. Not a fun process for a 21 year old, as it takes 14 days to recover. I've got some good meds keeping me relatively pain free, thankfully! I can't be out for more than an hour at a time or I get dizzy. Plus, I haven't felt much like doing anything but sleep, watch movies and knit. I'm lucky that my recovery is going fairly smoothly, but I still have to take it easy.

So I've only made it out of the house twice this week. The first time was to go to the thrift store to drop off some clothes, which actually ended up with me coming back with about as much as I walked in with in doll clothes (More on that in a later post) but I also walked out with quite a light head and had to lie down as soon as I got home. The second "adventure" was a trip to Tuesday Morning. I don't know if you are familiar with Tuesday Morning, but they have EVERYTHING in that store for bargain basement prices. Rightly so, because it's organized about like you would your storage basement with things haphazardly placed anywhere there's room. I have found many a Gotz doll, some smaller Teeny Bellini friends and even a Karito Kids doll there before, all at less than half the original price. Mom had been taking my sister to a friend's house, but she was only able to stay for 45 minutes. So I was asked if I'd like to run to Tuesday Morning while we waited to pick Kendall up. I figured I could handle a tiny break from the house so I hopped in the car.

What did I find there but America's Next Top Model doll clothes at only $1.19 an outfit! What a bargain! I wasn't sure they'd fit my tiny friends, but I knew that the ANTM dolls had much smaller busts than Barbie. I got one of each fashion and headed home with some other goodies. When I got home I was so happy to find that ALL of the outfits fit my dolls (besides Rina who is a bit larger) and some looked like they were MADE for the dolls I put them on.

Well enough of my babbling, I'll let the girls model their new duds!

Monday has on a ANTM halter that really brightens up her white shoes. Beckie has on a boat neck lavender dress and shoes she borrowed from Addison. Madeline still looks best in the dress she came in, but now she's able to borrow Beckie's black tights. And finally Rina is in her Lalaloopsie fashion raincoat, looking adorable.

Monday & Beckie took a few solo shots. Beckie's hair is rather hard to tame, so please ignore the poofiness. I was planning on taking some shots of Monday in the white dress with red and yellow flowers as she looks the best of all the girls in it, and then a few other clothing swaps, but my camera died. Bear with me over the next couple weeks as I finish my surgery recovery and start back with school!

Final question... if you have smaller dolls, where do you find extra clothes for them? How about shoes? I'm really having a hard time finding shoes that fit my tiny dolls at the moment. Thanks for reading this rather lengthy post about a few tiny dolls!

A Little Bit About Minty Dolls

2010-12-30T13:45:00.000-08:00

Hello! As I have told you this blog will be where I post about all the things I love about my dolls. What I didn't tell you is why I started this blog and why I decided to call it Minty Dolls. As you probably already know, my name is Korianne and I love dolls. I have since I was a wee one.

Here I am at age 4 with one of my very FAVOURITE dolls, my sister, Kendall. If only she would still let me dress her up like she did when she was little! *giggle*

I have been a book blogger, on Korianne Speaks, for quite some time (Since December 2008 to be exact) now and I really enjoy it. I am delighted to share with other readers the books I truly love and even sometimes some that are not my style. Recently I've begun following a slew of doll blogs ranging from Sasha lovers, American Girl enthusiasts and handmade doll crafters. I had been posting a few pictures of my dolls and the clothes I made them on my tumblr but since most of my followers there were either Gleeks or Broadway fans they weren't really interested in my dolls. That's when I decided I needed a blog just for my dolls!

The reason my blog is called Minty Dolls is actually not to do with the fact that the dolls are in "mint" condition, in fact some of my dolls are very well loved or waif-like. Before I was born, my due date was anticipated to be the same day as the Kentucky Derby and my Mom jokingly said if I really was born on that day she was going to name me Mint Julep! Well I popped out early on April 21st so I wasn't named Mint Julep (a popular drink at the derby for those who don't bet on the ponies) but Minty has become a nickname. Since "mint" is a well known term in the doll world I thought it was fitting.

So Minty Dolls is born! I hope you all enjoy meeting my dolls and seeing what kind of trouble they get into! :)

P.S. Yes, that signature is my actual handwriting and how I sign most of my cards and letters!

We Had A Very Merry Christmas!

2010-12-25T18:55:00.000-08:00

Here at Minty Dolls we've have a lovely holiday so far. I took a few pictures of the dolls modeling their new outfits from Auntie Babs, our new additions to the family, and a big family portrait!

Zoie got a new outfit with a little cuppie cake on the sweater from Auntie Babs. My Mom also gave Zoie new pink shoes. Zoie is Mom's favourite and completely spoiled! Lydia got a cute little dress and leggings set from Babs, but the leggings looked a little funny with the dress because it's a touch big but we like it anyway. She can wear the leggings with another outfit or share with her friends. Sarah Sasha got an ADORABLE knitted hat that Babsie made for her as did Rachel except her hat is a beret! Leza and Lara got cute full outfits. The shoes that came with them didn't fit but they have passed them on to the Gotz dolls & Kirsten.

Then we have some new additions to the family! Gifts from my Mom for Christmas! We welcome Nadia (Formerly Julie by Gotz) who is clearly Lydia's sister, Liliana (Formerly Pita by Karito Kids) who is definitely Lara's sister, and three wee ones Dakota, Skylar & Chase.

Leza & Lara did a little clothes changing. The shirt Leza is wearing came from Babs' gift and seems to be her new favourite, and she borrowed Nadia's beret. Lara borrowed Liliana's jacket as she's been looking for a cute red one to wear with this skirt forever. I think Lara's liking borrowing her sister's clothes! :)

Here's a big family photo after a lot of the gang swapped and traded clothes. We even let Berger out to play even though she's still "in recovery" and in great need of a wig. Also with the addition of Skylar & Chase we now have 3 boy dolls including Goob. I think Goob is happy not to be the lone male of the bunch anymore!

I hope you all had a lovely holiday and are looking forward to a wonderful new year!

2010-12-15T09:55:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! Welcome to Minty Dolls. My name is Korianne and I've been collecting dolls since I was 3 years old. I love to make clothes and play things for my dolls too. This is a blog to share with you the kinds of adventures my dolls have!

Happy Holidays!