Dolls! The Olsen Twins/ Triplets Have Had their Makeover

 

This is the after photo of the Olsen dollies I got from the Op Shop before Christmas.   These Mattel dolls do capture the real Olsen twins likeness in my opinion.

 

Pity the twins are not smiling in this photo so we can do a better comparison of the likeness:

 

Picture of the Olsen Twins from Wikipedia

The hair on the blonde Olsens turned out nicely, but it isn't of great quality and a lot of it came out.  Both blonde dollies lost hair as it was so knotty before hand and took a lot of 'aggressive' combing to get the knots out (especially the one that had nail polish in her hair).  Strangely the brunette Olsen has much better quality hair which didn't come out anywhere as much as the blonde Olsens. Not sure why they made this doll in the two different hair colours; perhaps they change their hair colours a lot?

Two blonde Olsens before their makeover

Smooth hair after makeover

 Here are all of the girls to receive their makeovers.  I still have the Crissy family dolls to complete and show you when they are finished. I am afraid I have a bad story to tell you about one of these dolls, as I had a failure with her hair - my first one!!  She isn't too bad and I did learn something in the process.

'Days of Our Lives' style photo with a Barbie

Butterick 4685 Peasant Top - An Oldie, But A Goodie

 

I have made this Butterick top 3 times and really like it as it is a cool top to sew quickly for summer.  I raised the neckline about an inch as I didn't use lace and didn't want it to be too low. The fabric is Liberty's Tana Lawn and it is divine!

Here is a close-up of the fabric.  It is like a watercolour painting.

 

I finished the neckline with an overlock stich, folded it over and sewed it down leaving enough room for the elastic.  I think it is easier and neater than turning over a small hem and then turning over enough for the elastic casing.  I also sew in a marker for the back in red thread as it is hard to tell the front from the back.

 

This is the pattern. I made the white version on the top right, minus the sleeve ruffles and the lace around the neckline.

My next project will be clothes for these kinds of dolls.  I bet you know who she is. Leave your guess in the comments section for this little Mystery Doll!

Dolls! 1972 Madame Alexander Elise Bride Doll

This spooky little bride is all hard plastic with a slightly softer plastic face. She is in reasonable condition with only a small tear at the bottom of her veil. She still has her bouquet and hang tag.

She is not exactly a glowing bride is she!  Perhaps a distant cousin of Chuky?

The hair is in really good condition and is of good quality.  You can see the Madame Alexander tag stitched into her dress:

 

Back view, in all her tulle and lace glory.

She is not one of my favourite dolls, and I have thought of selling her at times as she is huge and I don't really have the room to display her.  But every time I look at these photos I think that I will keep her a little longer.

I also have an Elise Ballerina from about 1984 and she doesn't have the spooky doll look as much as the Bride:

Elise is on the left in the pink tutu

For anyone wanting to research Madame Alexander dolls since 1965, the book by Patricia Smith called 'Madame Alexander dolls 1965 - 1990' (Collector Books 1991) is an excellent resource with good quality photos of hundreds and hundreds of dolls.

Dolls! 5 Mattel Fashion Dollies & A My Scene Swappin Styles

Bootsie in 40+ degree heat wave.

No, this isn't a Mattel doll, of course!  But it is how we have all felt here in Melbourne this week; only got the energy to lie on our backs on cool floor boards with our tummies catching the breeze and waiting for food tid-bits to be put in close proximity.

Now on to the real business of this post.  After I got my Diva Starz dolls from the op-shop, I went all mad for those dolls, and bought another one on Evilbay.  When I was looking for the Diva dolls, I spied these dollies one of which has inter-changeable heads. I just had to get them, and the seller had them at a very reasonable price so they have ended up with me.

Only one has the removable head, can you guess which one?

 

This one with the lovely long applied eye-lashes?

Or this one? By the way, the clothes these dolls came in are quite well made - this jacket is lined!

 

It's this one!  You can see in the photo there is a line around her upper chest. This is where the head comes off.  In the photo below, you can see the button release mechanism.

  

All of her extra heads. Oh wouldn't it be good to be able to put a new head on that came with a completely different hair style!

 

 Pigtails head and the little stand that the heads are stored on.

 

Back view of Pigtails Head.

Beyonce Head?

 

Lovely Thick Long Hair Head.

All the dolls have c Mattel on the back of their heads and c 1999 Mattel Inc on their backs. I haven't done any research to see exactly when these dolls were made except to check the Mattel website which wasn't any help. I think the quality of these 6 dolls is wonderful and their hair is divine. I don't think I will have to do much to restore their hair.  The fabric that they are posing against is a cotton poplin from Spotlight which I am aiming to make into a shirt for me at some stage. I am halfway through making a summer top from some divine Liberty Tana Lawn cotton (for me). I took the photos of my Connie Crawford shirt but they came out really dark so I will have to take the photos again - but not today!

If you like posts about doll hair as a feature of the doll, have a read of Nymphea's post on 'hair themed dolls', it is excellent!  If you want to see the advertisement for the My Scene Swappin Styles dolls, click here.

Thanks for making it this far in this pic heavy post. You might have noticed that I have added "'n dolls" to my blog title. The dolls appear to have taken over this blog and so I thought I had better change the blog title to reflect that. Nymphea suggested making up a new blog for my dolly stories, and while I am very tempted, I just don't think I could keep two blogs going.