Ralphie promo photos from Tonner - except I didn't say "fudge"...

Two new promotional photos were released today by Tonner Doll Company for the new dolls, Ralphie from The Christmas Story movie.

He uses the 12" Harry Potter body in cameo skin tone with a new Peter Billingsley head sculpt. He has blue eyes and blonde molded hair, which looks pretty accurate. He also wears his trademark glasses and includes a resin faux BB gun (but no photos yet!).

He's dressed in a red plaid shirt, ivory sweater, and brown cords, white socks and brown faux leather boots.

He's limited to 1000 and retails for $159.99 with shipping info to follow. You can preorder yours from many Tonner dealers or from Tonner Direct.

Photos are property of Tonner Doll Company.

Pullip as Marianne

Pullip as Marianne, a photo by alington on Flickr.

I'll be posting some of my favorite Christmas gift dolls this week. I've been a little under the weather, and I haven't had a chance to do much else, so forgive some of the regurgitated photos.

This gorgeous girl is Pullip Marianne. This photo was taken in December 2010--truly a lovely doll.

You can see more photos of her on Flickr.

Yuletide Yummies Barbie coming soon!

Yuletide Yummies™ Barbie® - photo property of Mattel

The next Holiday Hostess doll and Barbie Fan Club exclusive is going on sale on September 12, 2012.

Yuletide Yummies™ is designed by Bill Greening with a vintage face, and she's wearing a lovely tea-length green satin dress with lace trim on the sleeves and and oversized plaid bow. She includes a beaded chain necklace, gold earrings, and red sandals. Her golden blond hair is pulled into a curled ponytail with a plaid bow.

She retails for $75 and is a Gold Label doll.

Honey, I shrunk Abby!

I recently created a mini wardrobe for a Peak's Woods Cue, at the request of friend, and fellow FDR blogger, Kathie. The doll was a Christmas present for Kathie's daughter, Sarah, who loves the show NCIS, and especially the character Abby Sciuto. As soon as a wig and boots were found by Kathie, it was up to me to dress her in clothes that Abby would wear.

All I want for Christmas... and I even have a picture!

This is the time of year when most Americans seem to lose their minds, and spend like there's no tomorrow. Yes, we as a people throw financial caution to the wind, especially when offered irresistible door buster sales opportunities. January should perhaps be renamed "Resmorseuary," because that is the time the credit card bills start coming in, and most Americans realize that they will get their credit cards back down to reasonable balances just in time for NEXT year's Black Friday.

Doll collectors have this problem all year long, but I digress.

I have decided I want to rectify this situation with a very simple wish list, which includes only one item. Thankfully, Mabel, one of the members of my doll club, showed up with a beautiful simulacrum of the item I want. I am posting a picture of this item, and I will not caption the picture, since it should be obvious what it is, and why I want it. I have never seen one of these in reality.

Thank you, Mabel. You have made the acquisition of the thing I want most at this moment in time possible through your incredible artistry. Now I can show my family and friends EXACTLY what I want, without fumbling for words to describe it.

ADDENDUM: A last minute addition, but Mabel informed me that another member of our club, an equally great lady named Bobbi, helped her create this simulacrum. I always like to make sure that credit is given where it is due. So any kudos for this piece of artistry belong in equal terms to Mabel AND Bobbi.

Ho-Ho-Holiday Extravaganza at TonnerDirect

Save 20% off your order and get free shipping--or save 25% percent when you spend $500 or more at TonnerDirect. Use the code HOHOHO11 at check out. If your order is more than $500, use SANTAPANTS11 instead.

No exclusions, but must be for new and in-stock items only. The offer expires at midnight, December 18, 2011.

International customers should email their order number to receive a $9.95 shipping credit.

Bring a lovely Peak's Woods girl home for the holidays!

If you frequent The Fashion Doll Review, you have undoubtedly seen some lovely Peak's Woods girls. In order to help with funding of further dolly / holiday purchases, I am parting with one of my own Peak's Woods girls - a Fairy of Colors Yeru.

Yeru is a charming little lady! She is an older Peak's Woods girl with the S-hook loop in her headcap and she has also yellowed a bit. In spite of her yellowing, she is very lovely. I worked a lot on buffing some of the yellow out of Yeru, and I think she is just fine as she is! She is very tightly strung, but as a result, she stands like a rock! Yeru has a beautiful custom face-up, and would love to come home with you for the holidays!



Since she isn't quite as pristine as a brand new dolly, I am only asking $400 + shipping for her. This is nearly $200 off the original price! If you might be interested in bringing Yeru home, send me an email at melissa.metheney@gmail.com

A little holiday shopping with a point?

Have you gotten all your holiday shopping finished already? Not me!

In fact, if you want to take a quick breath for your dolly friends, check out my latest auction additions, including this lovely Midge and vintage Enchanted Evening outfit. They are in excellent and very good condition, and you can qualify for free expedited US shipping from all the items in the Fashion Doll Review's store!

Also, 25% of all sales will be donated to the Toys for Tots foundation.

Thanks for your support!

Do you love Marilyn Monroe?

If so... today is your day to click on over to Joe's List and open Advent Calendar #6!

There is a wonderful collection on sale today! Check it out!

Joe Blitman's Advent Calendar

Joe's Advent Calendar

It's that time of year--every day from now through December 24, Joe at Joe's List will have a new special! This year's theme is "A Hollywood Christmas." Eeek!

Why you should care? First, it's incredibly fun and addicting to visit the store first thing in the morning to see what's on special.

Second, Joe carries top-quality products for every type of fashion doll collector, whether you collect vintage Barbie, contemporary Barbie, Integrity Toys, Tonner Dolls, Dawn, celebrity dolls, and more. His products are priced reasonably, and he has some wonderfully hard-to-find items, priced for every collector.

Third, you'll get great customer service and fantastic deals.

Fourth, it's a little game. Go play!

Save 10% on all Christmas goods at Angelic Dreamz!

This weekend only, you can get a head start on your Christmas decorating and save 10% off all Christmas goods in stock. Orders of $100 or more qualify for free ground shipping within the continental US.

Sale starts today, and runs through November 13, only!

Tonner's latest release--I'm gonna die!

Wow, wow, wow! 

The new release from Tonner is here, and there is one particular outfit I won't be letting slip by!

The Rose of Versailles is a limited edition outfit of 100 pieces. (I believe this outfit may have been originally designed for a cancelled event, but I'm not sure. I'm thrilled to see it was produced!) Check out that hat!

The outfit retails for $139.99 and fits the 16" Tyler body. The pieces include the ivory and blue printed dress, the feathered floral hat, blue shoes, pearl earrings, platinum wig, and a blue choker with lace and cameo. Expected ship date is October 25. (I think the model is Carol Barrie.)

 From the Antoinette collection, putting in the holiday spirit is a new dressed doll, Chilled. She has blue eyes and platinum hair (it looks like it's pulled back in a ponytail). The doll has the bloom skin tone. She's wearing a gorgeous dolman sleeve bouclé dress, trimmed trimmed with faux fur, an off white matching faux fur hat, grey gloves and boots, and crystal bracelets.

Chilled retails for $179.99 and is a limited edition of 300. She's scheduled to ship October 25.

The next new release from the Antoinette collection has amazing facial screening. She's called Delightful and is dressed in a gorgeous fall/halloween toned printed suit with an over-sized collar. She includes burgundy gloves, pumps, and a fun multi-colored beaded necklaces. She is the bloom skin tone, and has auburn hair and blue eyes.

Delightful is a limited edition of 300, retails for $179.99, and is scheduled to ship on October 17.

From the Cami&Jon collection, we're treated to a gorgeous new Basic Platinum Cami. She's got inset acrylic eyes (blue) and long, rooted platinum hair (straight). She comes on the Antoinette body and is in the lily skin tone. She also has applied lashes. She doesn't include a stand--and she isn't shown with shoes. She may be an Ultra Basic doll.

If you weren't able to pick up a wigged Cami earlier this year, now is your chance. She retails for $89.99, and is expected to ship on October 25. She's a limited edition of 500.

Bridgehampton is a new outfit offering for the Cami&Jon collection. It's a pale blue and gold long dress, and includes matching beaded bracelets and gold shoes.

The expected shipping date is October 25, the outfit is limited to 300, and it retails for $79.99.

Next, a new collection has been introduced: White Christmas. The licensing for these dolls limit sales to the United States. Rosemary Clooney as Better Haynes is the first doll. She's limited to 500 and available for $199.99. 

The doll is a new sculpt on the 16" Tyler BW body. She has blue eyes and blond hair with the bloom skin tone. She includes a gorgeous red gown, white muff with beaded decorations, red gloves, beaded earrings, and red shoes. She's expected to ship on October 25.

Next is Judy Haynes. She has a new head sculpt on a bloom skin tone Tyler BW body. She has brown eyes and blonde hair. She includes a gorgeous red gown with cape. She also includes red gloves, beaded muff, red shoes, beaded earrings and a white faux fur hat.

Judy is expected to ship on November 8, and she's a limited edition of 500, and retails for $199.99. 

I love the new promo photo photography style--though I'd love to be able to see the shoes! Kudos to this new release! I'm thrilled. 

Go place your orders at your favorite Tonner dealer today.

Photos property of Tonner Doll Company. Like their new photographer? It's Ernesto Padro-Campos.

Mattel made a Canadian Barbie, eh?

 They sure did - and she happened to be my Christmas present from my friend, Alison! It was news to me that Mattel's Dolls of the World Collection included a Canadian Barbie, as Canada seems so close to the United States, and not very "exotic." (Although, being a Canadian living in the US, I can testify that there are definitely differences between the two countries...and their inhabitants.) Besides having that beautiful 80s Barbie face, she makes me smile. Seeing the Canadian flag on her box makes me feel like she and I are sharing something special.

Fashion Doll Photography - Christmas Vacation

Photographing my fashion dolls in venues other than my home is something fairly new for me. It began a couple of years ago when a friend of mine and I hosted the official travel doll for the 2009 National Barbie Doll Convention. Since then I've taken various fashion dolls to local areas for impromptu fashion shoots. Over the holidays we made a couple of trips for which I decided to take a fashion doll, much to the amusement of my family.

Happy Go Lightly in the lobby of the War Memorial Opera Hou

The first trip was a quick visit up to San Francisco to see the Nutcracker Ballet at the War Memorial Opera House. I thought Happy Go Lightly Silkstone Barbie (HGL) would enjoy dressing up in her finery to attend a beautifully produced ballet in such an historic location. She took the opportunity to don Sheer Sparkle by Dressmaker Details. Photographing dolls out in the public is a constant learning experience. Available lighting, on-site props, people milling about, the camera, and the photographer's skills (just to name a few) all influence the outcome of the photo. In this case, there were so many folks visiting in the lobby that it was impossible to get a photograph of HGL without someone stepping into the picture. The unfortunate aspect of this is that it messes with the perceived scale of things. Also, I need to learn more about my camera's capabilities. While the lighting at the Opera House is fine for it's intended use, it's underlit for photographing HGL. I currently use a point and shoot digital camera and right now I only know either flash on or flash off. With the flash on, HGL was in focus but I couldn't see the background. With the flash off, HGL is a little fuzzy but we can see not only HGL but the background as well. And isn't that why I took her to the ballet in the first place? So for now, to explain the fuzziness, I'm going with the old Hollywood standby of claiming she wanted petroleum jelly slathered on the camera lens to give her a more youthful look.

Endless Summer Poppy Parker with Minnie Mouse.

For our next trip, we went to Disneyland. For this little junket, I took Endless Summer Poppy Parker. Poppy has become my favorite fashion doll (shh, don't tell HGL or any of my other dolls!). She has such a youthful appearance and she wears so many different clothing styles well. For this session she wore a jacket, top, belt, and pants from Clear-Lan and shoes and jewelry from the Ask Any Girl gift set from the 2010 Fashion Royalty Convention collection. This photo session went much better as we were outside for most of the photos which gave me natural lighting to work with.  Also, while there are just masses of people at Disneyland (the fire marshal actually closed the park to newly entering people due to overcrowding) the people have more space to spread out so I was able to do better about avoiding folks stepping into my picture. Here Poppy poses with Minnie Mouse in front of Cinderella's Castle.

While I do occasionally run into glitches with my doll photography, I still enjoy the experience immensely. When I first began I was a little timid about how people would react. Now I don't worry about that because I've experienced how much fun it is. As a matter of fact, on both of these trips, I had complete strangers come up and photograph my doll as well! And I know that with time and practice, my photos will begin to better meet my expectations.

If you'd like to see more pictures from these two photo shoots, please visit my Flickr.

My Play Scale Christmas Diorama

I recently purchased a GORM shelving system from IKEA. It was easy to put together and I love it! I already had BONDE bookcases from IKEA, but the interior dimensions of the shelving area made it a little hard to realistically display my dolls. With this GORM system, I'm able to have a larger space to display each "room" of my diorama.

On this level of the shelving, we enter the apartment of the play scale, or 1/6th scale, dolls. Guests enter the living room from a patio (not shown). Displayed is a silver tinsel Christmas tree from Michael's along with various miniature ornaments. Under the tree are wrapped Christmas presents from both Michael's and Walmart. From this angle we get a glimpse of what is to come.

Here we get a full view of the living room. Darius is seated in a side chair from Welcome Home by Maryann Roy. In fact, much of the furniture you see in this room is Welcome Home furniture.  The sofa, coffee table, floor lamp, room divider, and fireplace wall back drop were all created by Maryann Roy. I love her mid-century modern flair! The On Location model muse is wearing a Santa t-shirt that is actually a Jolee's Boutique scrap book embellishment.

After the living room, we pass into the dining room where the table is already set for the impending feast.  The table is from a Gloria dining room set that was refurbished by a friend to look more realistic. Seriously, does anyone out there have a pink dining table in human size? Once again, there are other pieces from Welcome Home. The gold buffet and the window seat back drop are fairly recent additions from Maryann. The chandelier is from Kikkerland. They were given out at the 2010 Barbie Convention, but I actually bought this from a room seller at the 2009 Barbie Convention. The clear is no longer available from the Kikkerland website, but you can still get the black or pink variant. And the best part? The chandelier really lights up! It's battery operated so no need for an outlet. The rugs in the two rooms are from eBay. They are woven cloth.

You can see a few more pictures on my Flickr page.