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American Girl Website: Fun for Girls!

I was bored and took a trip through the wayback machine today 🎀💫

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Hallmark: The American Girl Collection

Book ends 📚

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American Girls in my style!

Just a fun little fan art series purely for the nostalgia! Do you have a favorite?

Molly and Kit

Addy and Samantha

Kirsten and Kaya

Still working on a few more!

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American Girl Catalogue

Summer 2002

Found on worthpoint.com

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She’s for sale!

Kiki 🧹🥖

Miss Witch and Jiji are ready to fly…

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Took Lanie to the tulip festival!!!

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Today is a beautiful day. Not too hot, not too cold. All you need is a light rebozo.

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pretty miss Nanea with a home-grown plumeria for her curls ❀

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Who could forget the twins, Agnes and Agatha, Samantha's favorite new relatives when Cornelia and Gard get married?

I love all the mischief these three get up to in Samantha's stories, so bringing them to life was really fun! ☺️

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Kanani forever

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I just noticed that this scene from Meet Addy….

echoes this scene in Changes for Addy….

and isn’t that just the most beautiful thing?

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i think there’s a piece of media that every american girl doll collector should watch and that is, stay with me, the arthur episode “world girls”

world girls are the arthur equivalent of american girl dolls and the episode details how three characters—wealthy collector muffy, disinterested tomboy francine, and worldly realist sue ellen—connect to the brand and contend with their expectations and disappointment with a company that claims to care about girls and their cultures but ultimately falls short.

francine gets the more positive story: she initially hates world girls and thinks they’re overpriced and meant to sucker people into collecting beyond what they can afford. interestingly, francine also comes from the lowest income bracket of the group, meaning her dislike is more driven by her hatred of the company’s money-hungry behavior than her being a tomboy who doesn’t care for dolls. however, while at the store, francine finds a doll version of the famous athlete babe didrikson zaharias and connects with her because of her story as a world-class athlete from humble beginnings. this storyline exemplifies the positive part of american girl doll in its ability to give young girls positive role models and representation

for sue ellen, she starts off with high hopes about the company and ends up disappointed. sue ellen is also resistant to the idea of collecting the dolls and only has one, a doll from tibet that she wants to buy a special accessory for. however, the store has discontinued the doll because she’s from a buddhist country and therefore didn’t generate enough accessories to sell. when sue ellen finally gets her hands on a secondhand accessory, she realizes that it is historically inaccurate and corrects it herself with paint, giving the company no money in the process. the idea that the world girl company would stop making a doll and accessories just because they didn’t sell well enough, the culture and significance be damned, is obviously heavily mirrored by the american girl doll company, but the episode at least does spotlight the value of making and customizing your own dolls and accessories

as for muffy, she’s the collector of the group and wants to get all of the dolls and their accessories. however, she soon becomes overwhelmed by the sheer volume of dolls, even more so when they stumble into the world girl factory and see dolls being manufactured en masse. at the end of the episode, muffy decides to donate most of her dolls and only save the ones she really likes. her obsessive collecting not only overwhelms her, it leaves her totally disconnected from the dolls’ backstories and cultures to the point where she has no idea what any of them mean or stand for. she doesn’t even read the books they come with. muffy’s story is twofold in that it is a cautionary tale against being so collection-driven especially with a company that is just trying to milk you for every dollar you have and a lesson in learning about the culture of the dolls and respecting that when you buy them.

sue ellen and muffy have a very telling, insightful exchange that i feel encapsulates the moral of the episode and the idea behind why american girl dolls exist. muffy says the dolls are about collecting and sue ellen replies “no, they’re about connecting. connecting to cultures.”

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Happy 210th Birthday, Josefina Montoya!

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This scene from Kirsten’s mystery goes unreasonably hard.

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American Girl Doll: Courtney's Strawberry Shortcake Sleepover Accessories

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Kirsten Larson is the only American Girl whose life story is not shown to us after her last book comes to a close. All of her short stories, her one play, and her one mystery take place between the events of Meet Kirsten and Changes for Kirsten. The last we see of her, she’s running down the lane to greet and embrace her father, who has just returned from the logging camp. 

If I could have any book, any product, any crumb thrown to me from this company, it would be a peek into Kirsten’s life after her stories end. She went through so much hardship and sadness, and yet she always held out for a happy ending; I just want to know that it all worked out. I want to know that she’s okay.