Dolls And Such

16 Aug, 2025

✱I started writing this very early this morning but didn't finish it until late this afternoon. Whatever. Leaving the timestamp. :P

Hello, world! I can't sleep so here I am, writing a blog post. :P

There hasn't been a whole lot going on with me lately to be honest, except for one thing. One somewhat obsessive, hyperfixated thing.

I've gotten back into American Girl dolls. So much so that I've made a shrine on my site (look under 'shrine stash' and scroll to the bottom for the winking doll icon)! I've also bought several things (I've gotten a teeny bit carried away honestly), including a tiny diabetes care kit, which is the cutest thing I've ever seen. See it below compared to my real kit! (there's also a tiny insulin pen, insulin pump, and a little 'Type 1 Diabetic' bracelet, but as I have type 2 and don't use insulin, I didn't include them in the photo.)

I'm also working with my mom to figure out how much it'll cost to get my childhood doll, a Samantha, shipped from her to me. I hope the poor thing has done okay; she's been in storage for about 20 years! I can't believe it's been so long. I think she may even be a 'white body' doll, which means a very early American Girl doll, but I'm not 100% sure. I guess I won't know until I see her.

I originally got Samantha when I was probably 8 or 9 years old? Maybe as early as 7. I have concrete proof I had her as of sixth grade (see below), but I definitely had her at least a couple years before that I'm sure of because a certain neighbor kid stole Sam's little purse and coin from me. 😭 I still need to replace those.

I received a Samantha doll specifically because she was the one out of the three (or four?) available dolls that looked the most like me at the time: brown hair and brown eyes. She also happened to be from the Edwardian era, which led to some really cool tiny reproductions of antiques (like a school desk of the period that was nearly identical to a real antique school desk I actually had!).

I've always loved miniatures, especially ones that work at least to some extent, so I was instantly enchanted by the dolls and their amazing collections of furniture, clothes, and accessories. I would spend ages going over the catalogs (this was around 1992, 1993? so no website yet), dreaming of all the neat things I could possibly get for my doll! It was magical.

Aside from my beloved Samantha doll, at some point I got Samantha paper dolls, a Samantha cookbook featuring foods from her time period, and a craft book and a craft kit that I think I only ever completed some of. I recall there was a little heart-shaped potpourri satchel as one of the crafts, and I'm pretty sure I attempted to make Lemon Ice from the cookbook, though I can't recall how successful I was. I think I had a theater kit of some kind too, with a little play that could be put on. (and I found some pics!)

On top of all that, I also had a subscription to American Girl magazine, which came out every two months and had short stories, book excerpts, an advice column, actual paper dolls each based on real girls who had researched their family history, and even cut-out-and-staple mini versions of the magazines you could give your dolls! There were specials for holidays, back-to-school, and summer break too, if I recall correctly. I would read and re-read the magazine much like I would revisit the catalogs.

So now we come back to the present. I'm working on getting my Samantha doll to me, but I'm also putting plans into the works for a custom 'mini me' doll of myself as well! Hence the little diabetes kit at the beginning of this novel, lol. Figuring out which doll specifically I want to customize, how I want to style her hair, if I want to give her these neat rainbow eyes I found instead of brown eyes, and finding doll clothes as close to what I actually wear as I can manage.

I found a listing on Etsy for doll t-shirts you can have customized with your own choice of image, so I'm planning to probably duplicate a couple of my actual shirts for my doll as well. I've even found the things I need to duplicate my various accessories (watch, bracelets, earrings, etc.)! I have been a busy bee, lol.

All this is going to take a while as I am not exactly made of money, but it'll be fun too. I'm even going to make a recreation of my one-of-a-kind Mighty Ducks: The Animated Series punk-inspired 'battle vest' for my doll! I think it'll be a lot of embroidery because I'm not sure can manage hand-made patches that tiny. I should have had the darn vest today actually but for some reason my mail got routed weirdly. :P Hopefully it'll turn up Monday so I can start on it!

So yeah, TL;DR: I've got another weird hobby. 😆