Meg

I'm excited to finally be able to share this collaborative Little Women project!  As I mentioned last time, I leaned heavily on the sewing and research skills of my friend Rebecca from Stitch in Times Designs for this collection, and I've also had a lot of fun sharing ideas with Rebecca along the way.  I'll give you a little peek into her creative process as I present each doll.  

To get started, though, let me tell you what I've been up to for the past few days: I photographed Meg, watched the 1994 version of Little Women while editing the photos, decided I didn't like Meg's hair, re-did the hair three times, photographed her all over again, and then watched the PBS miniseries of Little Women while I edited those photos.  It's a good thing that the hair finally turned out in a way that I could tolerate, because I've cried too many times in the last few days and don't think I could have handled another version of the story!  How many times can a person watch Beth die?

I've composed myself for the time being, though, and am ready to introduce Meg.  Meg started out as an 01 vinyl Catherine from 2001.  The Catherine mold is fairly common and doesn't tend to get a lot of attention, but I've always liked the sweet smile and large eyes on this face:

2001 My Twinn doll with the Catherine face.

The Little Women

Whew!  I have about ten different things going on in my life right now, and it's a real battle to find time in the workroom with the Twinns.  However, I'm determined to finish this one very special collection before the move completely consumes my life.

Back in February, I began corresponding with Rebecca from the Stitch in Times Designs Etsy shop.  Rebecca is a seamstress who makes beautiful historical clothing for dolls like American Girl, A Girl for All Time, and My Twinn. Rebecca and I decided to collaborate on a project, and chose Little Women as a mutually-inspiring theme.  Now, 7 months and 215 messages later, I consider Rebecca to be a good friend...and an incredible artist.  Wait until you see what she made for these girls!

My challenge over the next few weeks will be to create dolls that are worthy of Rebecca's outfits.  Here's what I had to work with (see if you can guess each doll's character!):

My Twinn Little Women (before picture).

The TBP Virtual Garage Sale

I'm probably jumping in way over my head, but I started the store over at Toy Box Philosopher yesterday.  Here's the link.

I plan to use this store to list some "quick fix" My Twinns in the future.  These will be dolls that either didn't need much work or that I didn't have time to blog about....and I'll try to keep them all under $100.  For now, the shop just has a few play dolls and some Tonners.  I'll keep adding inventory every day.  Check it out if you'd like, and feel free to offer suggestions about the kinds of things you'd like to see for sale!

Ariels for Sale

The Ariels are all ready to find their new homes!  These gemstone girls were an unruly bunch to pack into one photo, but here's my best attempt:

My Twinn dolls with the Ariel face mold.

Mariel

I'm pretty sad to be at the end of my Ariel experiment.  I've learned to love this face even more than I used to, and I've really enjoyed finding subtle new ways to paint the mold.  In fact, I know the contours of this face so well at this point, it's going to feel really strange to work with a different doll next week!  In a perfect world I'd do this kind of series for every My Twinn face.  That would be so much fun!

The Ariel variation that I saved for last is the one that I assumed would be my favorite.  Three guesses about what her coloring is going to be...the first two guesses don't count.

This lovely girl's original pale green eyes didn't stick around for very long, but they gave me all the inspiration I needed to get started on this makeover:

2002 My Twinn doll with the Ariel face.

And the Winner is...

I decided to try out a new random drawing site this time, just to change things up.  This spinning wheel is from WheelofNames.com and I think it's a lot of fun!  I especially appreciate the fact that the program announces the winner, because I would not have wanted to call this one--it's a nail biter!

Here we go...

Directions for the winner are after the jump!

Ambriel

The doll I'm going to show you today was not a troublemaker at all.  In fact, everything about her makeover process was smooth, fast, and fun.  The delay in my post has more to do with the fact that my world is shifting in strange ways these days.  My eldest son and his girlfriend moved out at the beginning of the week, and this was both exhausting (moving furniture is hard) and sad (I love them!).  I'm also going to move to a new state myself in the next couple of months, and that's a big emotional adjustment.

Still, before the chaos of moving envelopes me, I'm going to work on as many My Twinn dolls as I can.  I'm also in the process of setting up an online store over at ToyBoxPhilosopher.com where I'll sell off many of my remaining dolls in a virtual garage sale.  I'll keep you updated about that in the weeks to come.

But this week, it's just business as usual.  I have the second-to-last Ariel makeover in my Abundance of Ariels collection to share with you, and this girl is a non-Denver giveaway doll.  To enter for a chance to buy this doll for $2.20, please see the rules at the end of the post.

Her initial appearance was not especially promising:

2009 My Twinn doll with the Ariel face.