American Girls Photo Project

Hey, did you catch this link?

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/11/a-mirror-on-growing-up-in-america/

A lady took pictures of girls and their dolls in New York, as a way to look at young girls in America. Pretty neat, worth checking out.

You can see the actual photo project here.

Price Whine

I'm sure everyone else has said this, or at least thought it, but I'll write about it anyway. I was browsing the new release stuff, and while none of it was awful, none of it caught my eye. Well, fine, that means I get to spend less money. Then, this caught my eye:

Oh, hey, neat outfit, right? But then I started looking at the pricing.

This alone is $30, and you could make that. Yes you could.

To get the look in the first picture, you've got to spend $68 total. Uh uh. Maybe if it were human clothes, but I'm not spending $70 on doll clothes! Especially since in the accessory pack, you probably only care about the coat. (That water bottle holder is awful. I know no human who would wear that, and I'm sure the water bottle would slide out in real life.)

In conclusion, I hope no one buys this, and AG rethinks their prices.

THE HAMSTER!?

Everyone's crazy over McKenna's hamster! Until AG offers it up as its own item (or at least a replacement part), the only way your dolls are getting a hamster is if you spend some bank on McKenna's bed.

Err, except not.

Follow me back to a magical land called "The Mid 1990s." They haven't made a historical doll about it yet, so you'll just have to use your imagination. During this time, there were toys called Littlest Pet Shops.

"Oh! But Bean! I have some of those," you say! No you don't. You're thinking of the horrifying bobbleheaded genetic abominations they try to claim are Littlest Pet Shop toys today. In the 1990s, Littlest Pet Shop toys:

• Actually looked like animals
• "did something" -- the big hook was that every toy could do an action, like chase a toy or wag their tail or something.

Now, some of these toys are scaled perfectly to AG size. Some aren't, but such is life. But! They actually released several hamster sets that, drumroll please, look strikingly similar to McKenna's.

Don't feel limited. They also had a gerbil set that would stomp McKenna's hamster set into the ground. That cage in the picture is modular. It came with different pipes so that you could come up with a huge variety of configurations, and a magnetic wand so that you could guide the gerbils through the cage.

Actually, both those pictures come from a really good Flickr set if you're interested in seeing more of the old toys. There were literally hundreds of them, way more than pictured there.

If you decide you want to pick up some of the old 90s Littlest Pet Shops, sadly, your only source (that I know of?) is eBay.

New Stuff!

All right! Everyone who saw McKenna's collection, raise your hand!

I'm not that excited about McKenna herself, and don't plan to get her. But! About all I ever want is JLY school clothes in piles, and I got them!

I. LOVE. The school outfit! It probably helps that I have a similar sweater. That sweater can even be paired with jeans or khakis, too, but I kind of dig the skirt. I wish the flats were solid purple, but I've got enough doll shoes to where that wouldn't be a problem.

I haven't decided, but I might take the PJs for Sonali. She doesn't have decent cold weather PJs, and I love green and purple together.

Not sold on the bed.

The fancy outfit is so pretty! I'm not sure who'd get it, but I like it, and that's what's important. I've seen AG use that pattern so many times that I'm wondering if I shouldn't get my hands on one of those dresses and reproduce it in a tutorial.

I kind of like McKenna's meet shirt, too. I wouldn't actively search it out, but if anyone was trying to pass it off, I'd bite.

And finally, I know I said this on Twitter, but I need ALL those teeny nalgene bottles YESTERDAY!

AG Places Do Online Reservations -- I Never Knew!

I may or may not be the last person on the planet to discover this, but the AG Places do online reservations!

My friends and I are taking a trip to Atlanta, and my friends were curious as to why my husband loves the AG Bistro so much. (He is seriously nuts over the food.) I almost called them to make a reservation, but when I loaded the website up, I discovered they'll take it online!

I was MOST impressed with the fact that they asked about accommodations, because we have one friend in a wheel chair and another friend allergic to eggs. They gave me a conformation number, and I took a picture with my phone just to make sure I had it.

One thing I didn't like? It was in flash, so I couldn't do it from my iPad.

... unless AG wants to go ahead and make an AG Place app ... ?