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desertdollranch · 9 hours

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Amy is in her happy place: outdoors, being active! Today she's practicing her tennis serve.

#amy #australian girls doll #doll sports

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desertdollranch · 18 hours

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Dolls brands I never thought I'd own, part 4: Global PenPals

Meet Amity Anderson!

This doll was a tough cookie to track down. I first stumbled across her last year while searching for a completely different doll on eBay. I thought she was adorable, but priced way too high, so I let someone else have her. When I saw her come up again recently for a lot cheaper, I lost the bidding war. When she popped up unexpectedly a third time, I managed to snap her up right away.

The first time I saw her, I was curious about her origin, since the listing said nothing about the brand, Global PenPals. I figured it was someone's small business, because it's an unfortunate truth that many, many 18 inch doll companies produce beautiful and quality dolls for a few short years and then go out of business. Because she certainly didn't look poorly made or low quality; she obviously had a lot of love put into her production. I could tell she had a really nice wig and a carefully sculpted, realistic face mold. She was meant to be more than just a toy, but a little friend as well. That's what I liked about her. She was special, rare, obscure, and unique. And as much as I love my American Girl dolls, I also love the rare and obscure 18 inch dolls that have fallen into my lap over the years through pure luck. That has turned me into a connoisseur of obscure dolls. The rarer, the better.

So for that reason I couldn't get her off my mind. I became very fixated on finding one. I did a Google search that brought up nothing but the listing for her, plus a few dolls with similar brand names, or sites for finding an actual human pen pal. But I noticed the listing photo included a picture of her box, which had the URL of the brand's website. It was defunct, so I plugged into the Wayback Machine at archive.org to see what I could find.

Keep reading for a deep dive into The Global PenPals.

(Hello to anyone in the future who might be doing a web search about this doll! I'm sure you've found little to no information. I've put everything right here for your convenience!)

...

The site's first snapshot was taken in February 2011. It has a very short intro:

"This site is dedicated to children everywhere. Autumn Woods and Amity Anderson will begin pen pal corresponding with children in other parts of the world. They will learn about different living conditions and diverse cultural traditions. Will they discover that children are the same worldwide? Come along with us and see!"

None of the links on the sidebar were archived by the Wayback machine, so I looked at the next three snapshots, taken in July 2013, January 2014, and December 2014 (the final snapshot).

Now this snapshot displays a lot more content, although once again most of the site didn't get archived. The intro is more or less the same. But now we can see illustrations of the two main characters, Autumn Woods and Amity Anderson.

Clicking through the "Meet and learn more about Autumn" graphic linked to a page that had biographies for both characters.

Autumn Woods introduces herself first. She was born in October, hence her name, but she loves Christmas more. She lives in Kennewick, Washington with her parents and younger sister, and likes her school. She's athletic and loves to do cartwheels. Her best friend Amity lives in Basin City, near the farm where her grandparents live. She doesn't know a whole lot about the world outside of Kennewick, so she's looking forward to making pen pals all around the world.

Amity Anderson introduces herself next. She loves living on a farm in Basin City, and most of the other kids at her school are also from farming families, or live in the area seasonally, which has made her curious about the lives of other children of different background. Her family grows cherries, and sometimes the crops fail due to weather conditions. They also have lots of animals including dogs, cats, and cows. She has a secret hideout in the hay loft.

The next page linked at the top contains all of the pen pal letters to and from Autumn and Amity.

There are 10 pages of these letters. The first letter is dated June 11th of 2011, and the final one is dated August 14th of 2013.

Next link is Marcia's Dolls.

To sum it up, Global PenPals was started by Marcia Elovich in 2010. She had always sewn doll clothes for her granddaughter, and her husband built doll furniture. She used dolls to help schoolchildren learn more about the lives and perspectives of children all over the world. She modeled the dolls' faces on her granddaughter and niece, and hopes to introduce more dolls to the brand.

The next link is to the shop.

Only the Amity doll is being sold here. All the images are broken, but I can see that Amity cost $59.00.

The next tab, Media, is pretty much empty.

That's all that I can access with the Wayback Machine, but I didn't stop there.

I Googled Marcia Elovich and found the three Global PenPals books she has published.

These are current, no need to use the Wayback Machine. Here's the link to the list if you're curious about the books. You can click through and read summaries of each.

"About the Author" on the second and third books:

Marcia Harvey Elovich has enjoyed interacting with children in family, at school and other community settings. When she began looking forward to retirement from the local school district, she set up a website around two fictional characters, Amity Anderson and Autumn Woods, using her granddaughter and her niece as visual models for the character images she draws. Through the website, Marcia continues to story-tell to youngsters and adults alike. Amity lives on the farm in Basin City where, in fact, Marcia was raised, and she pursues many of the same interests and activities Marcia did while growing up with her best friend Linda. Autumn lives in town and attends Amistad Elementary School, where Marcia formerly worked as a para-eductor, and earlier as a nurse in the Kennewick School District. This was the birthplace of her peaked interest in interacting with children and later-in-life interest in education. Marcia has recently begun manufacturing of the character dolls and is now converting the website stories into children's books. Also within the framework of her stories, Marcia has interactions from her personal pen pals with whom she is communicating around the globe. Through contrast and compare, she can better present awareness of how alike we are from country to country, culture to culture, religion to religion. "Perhaps the next generation will be more compassionate, not merely tolerating diversity but embracing it!" she adds. In their retirement, Marcia works with her husband and sidekick Bob, marketing her dolls and his woodworked doll furniture. She has one young adult son living at home and an older son living within the community. Her daughter and grandchildren live out of state, so she has to love them long-distance. Through Bob, she has acquired a second daughter who lives in the area and a step-son living out of state. Marcia specifically wants to thank her mother and father, Bob and Kay Harvey, for providing a childhood almost as colorful as the fictional one of which she writes. They gave to her, her three brothers and many childhood friends their mentoring in an era when the village actually did help raise the children.

I also found Marcia's Pinterest profile. She has pinned exactly four images.

The first two are the illustrations seen on the website. The other two are pictures of the dolls.

This picture's caption:

"Amity Anderson if one of the first two characters at www.theglobalpenpals.com and the first to be manufactured as a doll. She is vinyl with soft body and has beautiful peach complexion, with perfect detail down to tiny doll- scale freckles across her nose. She comes in clothes as seen, turquoise tennis shoes, and the matching elastic headband on her long, tangle-free auburn hair. I designed the doll after my own granddaughter. Lovely presentation box designed solely for The Global PenPals."

This confirms that the doll I have is indeed Amity, not Autumn as I had sort of guessed. Amity is illustrated with bangs, but it seems that changed at some point in the doll's design.

I guess that's Autumn on the left? I see no indication on the site or elsewhere that she was ever sold, so it's possible she never made it past the prototype stage.

There's very little else out there about the dolls. A few pictures on Worthpoint with captions stating what I've already put here.

Amity seems to be one of those ultra-rare dolls that only a few collectors know about. After losing out on two other listings, I know that at least two other people do have one and know what Amity is worth. But I have no idea exactly how many dolls were ever produced and sold before the brand disappeared, which probably happened within three years of their debut.

I wonder if their failure may have been due to the price point, $59, which seems very low for a doll with such a nice wig, sleep eyes, a cloth body, a beautifully designed box, and proprietary clothing.

#long post #global penpals doll #amity anderson #18 inch dolls

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desertdollranch · 1 day

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My new Vanange doll has been such a sleeper hit. For how little I paid for her, I didn't expect to be this impressed with all of her good qualities and features. I added some face paint to her cheeks, brows, and eyes to make her look a bit more alive and full of the personality I've begun to appreciate.

I also decided to rename her, since she's going to be a different character than the 7-year-old Vanange made her. Her name is Althea and she's 13 years old. She was born in the Philippines but has lived most of her life in the United States. She likes iced coffee, fashion, and skateboarding!

She also has a new baby sister, Daniela.

#vanange dolls #althea

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desertdollranch · 2 days

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@rienerose asked for a comparison with an AG doll:

They have similar proportions from head to toe, and Faith can fit into pretty much any AG clothes I've put her in. There are some small differences, though. Faith's hands are a bit bigger, so tops with small arm holes may be a minor struggle. Her shoulders and upper torso are a bit slimmer, so shirts can be just a tiny bit loose. And her feet are a bit chubbier at the top with a bigger angle, so shoes with straps like sandals and close-fitting shoes like sneakers don't fit as well, if at all.

I do highly recommend these dolls as friends for AG dolls. I know they're often listed for ridiculous prices; don't pay those! You absolutely can get one for much less if you're okay with not having the original box, outfit, and/or wig.

This cool kid had a successful eye swap operation, got her ears pierced, and picked out a permanent wig! I decided not to keep her as her canon book character, so her new name is Faith (a tribute to her origin) and she's a modern girl. She's eleven years old, is Catholic, loves horses, plays softball, and does modern dance. She has two moms, and wears her rainbow beanie to show her pride and love for them.

I will very soon be making a post about how I replaced her eyes. It was super easy and turned out great. Discolored eyes is a very common problem with A Life of Faith dolls, so I know a lot of people would benefit from learning how to fix it.

#a life of faith #a life of faith dolls #custom dolls #doll review

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desertdollranch · 2 days

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The oldest dolls in my collection might actually be these two little babies!

Last month my mom went to a doll show and spotted these being sold. She had no idea what they were, but sent me a picture and asked if I wanted them for the 1:6 scale miniature doll room I'm currently working on.

I said yes immediately, because seeing that picture awakened a very old memory, and a quick Google search did confirm that these are called Tiny Blessing dolls and they were first released by Bandai in 1987. These ones are two of the six total babies produced. Read more about them here.

I don't exactly know how I recognize them, though. I may have owned one, or maybe I played with them at preschool or a friend's house. But I'm so glad I have them because I think they're just so cute and charming. I was able to identify them as Tiny Sarah on the left and Tiny Katherine on the right. They're very very small, no bigger than 3 inches, which is perfectly sized for my mini room.

#tiny blessing dolls #baby dolls #small dolls

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desertdollranch · 2 days

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Springtime princess outfit! Feels like something Rose could wear exploring a garden 🩷 🌸🌼

Up close pic of the boots because I think they're so cute! They're ILY 4EVER so they were a little hard getting on but I tried the trick of slicing down the back of them and it worked great!

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desertdollranch · 2 days

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I saw this going around on AGIG and the AG subreddit and I need AG tumblr to see this too

I have no words

#uh

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desertdollranch · 4 days

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This cool kid had a successful eye swap operation, got her ears pierced, and picked out a permanent wig! I decided not to keep her as her canon book character, so her new name is Faith (a tribute to her origin) and she's a modern girl. She's eleven years old, is Catholic, loves horses, plays softball, and does modern dance. She has two moms, and wears her rainbow beanie to show her pride and love for them.

I will very soon be making a post about how I replaced her eyes. It was super easy and turned out great. Discolored eyes is a very common problem with A Life of Faith dolls, so I know a lot of people would benefit from learning how to fix it.

#a life of faith dolls #custom dolls

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desertdollranch · 8 days

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Doll brands I never thought I'd own, part 3: Vanange

Vanange dolls were first released in 2008 and went defunct a few years later. They were a line of seven dolls all representing seven-year-old girls from around the world, who are pen pals with each other. The doll I am introducing here is Luz, who is from the Philippines.

This was a brand I was vaguely aware of, but didn't know much about due to it being discontinued, and there is only a little information still out there about them. Then I stumbled across the listing for Luz, and she was so inexpensive that after thinking it over for a few days, I decided to give it a shot and bring her into the family.

I was astonished when I pulled her out of the box and realized that she's not 18 inches tall; she's actually closer to 20 inches! I hadn't known that before. It was a nice surprise, since I do like the larger size. She's also built really sturdy, and her wig is lovely quality. Her red and white dress is beautifully made. Her eyes open and close, and she is articulated at the neck, hips, and shoulders. The upper part of her torso is vinyl and the rest is cloth.

She is closer in size and proportions to a Karito Kids doll than she is to an American Girl doll. Her head is the biggest out of the three dolls. Karito Kids get most of their height from the longer leg length, but Luz's legs are a bit shorter

She can wear American Girl clothes and Karito Kids clothes, and they can wear her dress comfortably. The shoe situation is a bit different; Luz's feet are thinner but about the same length as an AG doll's foot, so shoes will be hit or miss. On the right she's wearing Maplelea brand shoes.

And here she is in a couple more American Girl outfits.

And some clothes that I made. The picture on the right shows how she can stand unsupported and hold poses without falling over.

I love to see dolls whose hands aren't identical to each other, which is more realistic. Luz's fingers are individually molded rather than clumped together.

While I am very pleased with her, I believe she might need a bit of work done on her face. I think she'd look better with some color in her cheeks and maybe her eyebrows and lower eyelashes repainted. Stay tuned for that.

#vanange dolls #vanange #20 inch dolls

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desertdollranch · 8 days

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Marietta got her ears pierced and got a new wig! I decided I didn't like the bangs and the big ringlets, so now she is rocking the soft tight curls.

Marietta is a Starpath doll, a brand that made beautiful dolls before quietly going out of business.

#marietta #starpath dolls

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desertdollranch · 9 days

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Part 2 of doll brands I never thought I'd own: Creatology.

These adorable dolls used to be sold at Michael's craft stores, and they went defunct a few years ago, before I had a chance to get any of the four of them. I hadn't had a lot of luck finding one secondhand until recently, when I stumbled across this sweet girl in perfect shape and for pretty cheap!

She has rooted hair, eyes that open and close, cloth torsos, and vinyl limbs. She has the same friendly face mold that the other three dolls have. She can wear American Girl clothes, but they are a bit loose on her since she is slightly slimmer and has smaller feet.

Her original name was Zoey, but I already have a Zoe, so I'm still in the process of picking out a new name.

#creatology dolls

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desertdollranch · 12 days

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This week's doll project is Millie from the brand A Life of Faith, one of the brands I never thought I'd own, but I recently took a second look and decided I wanted one in my collection.

A Life of Faith is a defunct brand of 18 inch dolls based on the Elsie Dinsmore book series, first published in the 19th century. The dolls were introduced in the late 1990s. They have all-vinyl bodies with bent elbows so their hands can hold a praying position. I'm very impressed with how well strung she is, making the hand position look quite natural, without needing to be up near her face for them to come together. She fits into American Girl clothes pretty easily, although the shoes are hit or miss.

The wig she's wearing is not her original wig; it's one I pulled from my stash may or may not be the wig she ends up wearing permanently. I'll decide that once her new eyes arrive. What you see here are also not her original eyes; those turned red, and the seller replaced them with these purple eyes. I am not a fan of the purple eyes, so she will be getting brown eyes.

Ultimately I'll be renaming her and turning her into a modern character, since I'm not very interested in the books.

#a life of faith dolls

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desertdollranch · 12 days

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It's a late 80s-early 90s party!

Shamsa, Tabitha and Lila, in shorts, are ready for summer, Louisa's fringed jacket look is good for transitional weather; Blaire, LaRae and Annika are ready for cooler days.

I am super bad at taking pano, pictures, here are some closer shots

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desertdollranch · 13 days

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Came home today with a big lot of Pleasant Company Molly things and I’m pretty sure this is an early Bennet!

He came with the collar and leash that matches early Bennet dogs.

No PC tag but he has a Made in Germany sticker.

And omg he is so dang cute! That wee little nose (boop).

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desertdollranch · 14 days

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On Friday I lost an auction for an extremely rare doll from an incredibly rare and obscure defunct brand--I put in a super high bid but someone else did too, which floored me. I'm heartbroken and grieving over that, knowing I may never see that doll for sale again. That hurts bad. I even went as far as messaging the seller saying I would pay them more money than the winning bid, but never got a response. Although I understand it's maybe not the most ethical thing to do and is probably against eBay policies.

But it's not like I don't have any new dolls coming into my life soon........ right? I've been lucky in that regard, and they've all been under $30. So the only upside to losing the auction is that I was able to use the money I would have spent there to get dolls from a couple of different defunct brands that I never thought I'd own.

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desertdollranch · 15 days

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Raphaela enjoyed visiting the beach while camping at Possum Kingdom State Park. Bonus picture of her strolling among the wildflowers!

#kidz and cats #kidz and cats dolls #raphaela

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desertdollranch · 15 days

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This is my new Kidz and Cats doll, Raphaela (originally named Laura).

I've wanted a Kidz and Cats doll for a while now, but never saw one at an affordable price until very recently. They are a defunct brand and so secondhand is the only way to find these dolls. They're super cute with lovely face molds designed by Sonja Hartmann. Like a lot of European made dolls, they have multiple points of articulation and are strung with elastic.

She has wigged hair, eyelashes, and inset glass eyes that do not close. I moved her wig to the side to give her a side part.

She can bend at her shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and neck.

She has a slim, all-vinyl body and can bend her knees when she sits.

Compared to American Girl dolls, Kidz and Cats dolls are the same height, but are much more petite with smaller proportions. Her head is a whole size smaller than AG dolls. She is too thin to comfortably wear most AG clothes, which is also pretty typical for European-made dolls.

AG shoes fit them pretty well, though! Raphaela's feet are a bit slimmer, but are more or less the same length as an AG's foot.

#kidz and cats #doll review

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