AG Spotlight: Denise Goldberg

I was the Moon Girl's first custom job, but not the last!

FULL NAME:  Denise Samantha Goldberg

NICKNAME:  My Hebrew name is "Hannah."  I chose that name because Hannah was patient and faithful, just like I want to be.

WHERE I GOT MY NAME:  One of Moon Girl's second cousins, and Samantha, and a common Jewish surname.

BIRTHDAY:  September 23rd

CUSTOMIZED FROM:  A Pleasant Company-era Samantha.  I don't remember who cut my hair or why, but it came out pretty darn good!

HOMETOWN:  Greensburg, Kansas

HEAD MOLD:  Classic

HAIR COLOR:  Dark brown

EYE COLOR:  Dark brown

FAVORITE COLOR:  Green

THINGS I LIKE:  Classic rock, dancing ballet (sometimes to old rock tunes, LOL), peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pineapple anything, fruit in general, frogs, ladybugs, baseball (the Cardinals and the Royals are my favorite teams), hockey (the Blues are my favorite team), springtime...except for the tornadoes that come with it!  Unlike Kyle and Silver Bird, I was actually there when Greensburg got hit, and it was terrifying.  

THINGS I DISLIKE:  Grabby, overenthusiastic kids, getting up early on weekends, injuring myself in ballet class (thankfully that doesn't happen often), jerks, tornadoes and thunderstorms in general, being impatient

MY CHOICE OF MUSIC:  The Who, KISS, and Deep Purple are my big three.  Roger Daltrey is a hottie!  Luciana and I like to tease each other about our respective blondes (she likes Robert Plant), though we both see eye-to-eye on David Lee Roth.

BEST FRIENDS:  Sadie and Xenia.  Sadie and I were on the welcoming committee when Xenia arrived, and we just sort of clicked.  I also like Samantha since I was a Samantha herself once (I don't remember much about that), and since I'm around Samantha a lot I subsequently know and like her boyfriend Justin pretty well.  I worship with Lindsey and I count her as another close friend, though we do sometimes tease each other about baseball (Lindsey is a Cubs fan, blah).

SOMEONE I'D RATHER AVOID:  Molly can be a little clumsy when she dances.  I like her, but I don't always like to dance with her.  Doremi is a jerk to her brother a lot, so I do prefer to keep my distance from her.  I don't know what poor Justin ever did to her. 

HOW I CAME HERE:  Moon Girl's mother found me abandoned at the elementary school where she works and brought me home.

ABOUT ME:  I'm originally from Kansas and loved it there, but I love living in Missouri too!  This area of Missouri is almost as flat as the countryside around Greensburg, but not quite.  As Courtney and Julie (and probably Moon herself) have established, it's impossible for a seismic area to be completely flat.  It's certainly not flat enough to see a tornado for miles around, like it is in Kansas...not that that mattered much when Greensburg got hit.  Shudder...I don't want to talk about it, nor do I want to think about "the Big One," the huge earthquake that the Moon Girl predicts will eventually happen here.

*Side note from the Moon Girl:  Hey, it happened once.  It can happen again.

Yeah, but I hope not while we're all alive!  Oh right, dolls can outlive humans by a good margin if our luck is right.  Sucks to be me, I guess.  Oh well, we could be wiped out by a meteor strike any minute too and you don't think about it until it happens.  Aaaanyway, I'm like Silver Bird in that I'm pretty fancy-free, though like her I do like to wear dresses sometimes.  This is my new dress; it's got...flowered fruits on it.

Moon says she saw that in the grab bag she got and knew it would be for me.  I do love my fruit!  My dearest wish is to try durian.  LOL, I hear it stinks, but I also hear it's delicious if eaten at the right time.  If they're unripe I hear they taste like rancid scrambled eggs, and Coyote Peterson apparently agrees.  Moon says that durian gets an unfair reputation among westerners as disgusting because people eat the unripe stuff.

Lemme see...earthquakes, Kansas, durians...I used to be an Oriental clothing enthusiast, but I had to stop that since SOMEONE griped about appropriation.  It wasn't anyone in Casa Del Luna, y'all; Ana Ming says she'd happily share if our measurements were the same, and Z says I fill out her hanbok better than she does.  Poor Z, she has the slimmer permapanties body...but then again I have the chubby Pleasant Company body!  But anyway, appropriation be danged, I'm not giving up my sombrero!  I only wear this during parties anyway, y'know, like how some folks end up with a lampshade on their head at the end of a party.  Or I wear it when I'm in a celebratory mood, like I was a few years ago when the Blues won the Stanley Cup.

Win or lose, the Blues are my team!  But oh, was I happy when they won that Stanley Cup.  They'd never won one.

So...hockey and fruit...I'm pretty boring, actually!  I don't chase tornadoes or walk on fence rails like Silver Bird.  I'm often most content with going to the playground to play.  Yesterday I even got Rita Cheryl to play with me.  

Rita Cheryl is pretty serious, and getting her to loosen up isn't easy, but I got the job done. 

Rita Cheryl told me that next time we should bring our own dolls and show them the playground.  She just got Gabriela, and I have Luciana. 

I live with a full-sized Luciana, and I never stopped to ask her if it's okay that I have a doll like her.  We belong to different friend groups, but I respect her intellect and her interest in space and the Earth sciences.  I guess I need to talk to her...LATER!!!

Hmmm...maybe I'm more like Silver Bird than I realized.  Oh well, nothing wrong with that!

Love,
Denise Goldberg

Sunday randomness: the dress that started it all

A couple of nights ago this image popped up in my Failbook memories.  I took this poorly-lit, slightly unfocused photograph of Denise five years ago, before I was a hardcore Etsy fan, and when Denise was my only modern AG doll.

At the time all Denise had to her name was an ill-fitting pair of stretch pants and a sweater knitted by an inexperienced knitter (me).  Mama decided that "her granddolly" needed something nicer to wear, so she bought the ladybug dress.  Five years...five years can be an eternity or a nanosecond, depending on what you do with your life and how things play out.

In five years Denise has managed to grow a large wardrobe, one that takes up two drawers of a three-drawer storage box, but her favorite outfit will always be her ladybug dress.

I have to admit that it's one of my favorite dresses too.  I love green, I love ladybugs, and I love the cut of the dress.  It's perfect for spring...if spring will ever get here, that is.  Seriously, we had wet snow last Tuesday evening.

Cordially yours,
RagingMoon1987 

Dollies for Valentine's Day

Several years back I did a post like this, with a number of my dolls wearing red or heart-themed clothes.  This year, each of my library girls has something red or pink or heart-themed to wear, so here's how they look.  Here's Xenia.

In addition to her omnipresent heart-shaped shades, Xenia is wearing a red and white ballgown from Hobby Lobby.  I have never used this dress in the four or so years that I've owned it, so it's unfortunately pretty wrinkled.  I'm hoping that the wrinkles will hang out, but with this stiff material I doubt they will.  Underneath her long skirt Xenia is wearing these cute shoes, also Hobby Lobby finds.  For some weird reason my camera didn't want to focus on these, so they're blurry.

If I had any complaints about this outfit it would be that it has no sleeves.  Valentine's Day falls during winter here in the northern hemisphere, and as a result it's still pretty cold out there.  Xenia could probably do with a jacket or bolero to cover her arms...but then again no one specifically said that this was a Valentine's Day dress!  The skirt has polka dots, not hearts.

Hearts or polka dots, the colors are perfect for today.

Lady Sadie is wearing an Etsy number, another gift from my mother.

Sadie, I have decided, shall be my uber-girly-girl, the one who likes to wear frills and the like, though she's just as capable of being a tomboy as Denise is.  Take a look at this fabric, though; it's got teddy bears!

So cute!  I love teddy bears.  Underneath her skirt Sadie wears these cute frilly socks and red pleather shoes.  The shoes are labeled "Sophia's" on the inside.

I love this headband, though it's a little hard to get placed over Sadie's thick hair.  It has some elastic in the back, and that helps.

Underneath her dress Sadie is wearing a cute pair of bloomers, but I didn't show that.  I don't like showing my dollies' butts.  Overall this is pretty typical of a garment from Etsy:  cute and well-made, perfect for any eighteen-inch doll.  Score another point for my mother, who finds some pretty awesome things for my girls!

I wasn't really sure what to do for Silver Bird, but since the Star Hoodie Outfit is dominantly pink I decided that it would fit the bill.

The Star Hoodie Outfit was the Just Like You meet outfit from 2008 to 2010, and it was one of the last meet outfits that a #4 like Silver Bird would've had (#4 was retired in 2011).  Silver Bird's ensemble is 100% American Girl, something I rarely do for my dolls (I usually throw in off-brand accessories).  A more thorough description of this outfit can be found on AG's wiki.  The leggings are a little shorter than I'd like for this time of year, but Silver Bird is more covered than Xenia and Sadie are!  She's at least got sleeves!

Z Yang's ensemble ties in with Silver Bird's a little as it's mostly American Girl-brand stuff .  However, Z's outfit incorporates the off-brand accessories that I mentioned beforehand.  Here's what Z is wearing.

Z's skirt, sweater, and vest are all Modern Mix and Match pieces from Fall of 2018.  Their AG-given names are the Downtown Skirt, the Sequin Collar Sweater, and the City Plaid Vest, respectively.  I think a better name for the skirt would've been the Stained Glass Skirt, due to this pattern.

Z's tights and boots are Etsy.  The boots are those cute little Ugg-style numbers that I got from Camille's Doll Spa, and I got the tights from there as well.  Silver Bird has also worn these tights a lot, and shoving them onto her proved to be a mistake on my part, as Silver Bird is a Pleasant Company-era doll, and her stout build did a number on the seams!  Some cat hairs are also visible (LOL).

I think that from now on these tights will be exclusively for Z and any other Mattel-era American Girls that I might drag in.  And since I hiked Z's skirt up already, let's take a look at the underlay.

This layer fits Z pretty tightly, tight enough that I can't make her sit without unnecessary force.  If any of y'all have that skirt, best keep that in mind.  Of the five dolls I think Z's look is the most fragmented; I can't decide whether that vest belongs or not.  Mama likes the outfit with the vest, but I'm just not sure.

Lastly, my dear Denise.

Denise is clad mostly in Etsy garb, with the main pieces being yet another gift from Mama.  She bought me the sweater and hat right before Christmas.  The sweater is mostly made of plain white stuff, but it does have a heart knitted into the chest with this soft eyelash yarn.

Denise's sleeves are trimmed with this same eyelash stuff, and both the sleeves and the hem of the sweater are scalloped.

I've crocheted scalloped hems like this, but never once have I tried to knit one.  I have, however, knitted buttonholes.  Yes, to my delight this sweater buttons up the back, which I much prefer to pulling over Denise's head.

Denise's hat matches her sweater, right down to the pink eyelash hearts.

The rest of Denise's garb is stuff I already had on hand:  the blue jeans that she wears with her spring and summer tops, and the pink Hobby Lobby boots that Xenia usually wears with her denim jumper. The boots don't really match the pink in Denise's sweater and hat, but...oh well.  I'm trying to do with what I've got on hand this month, and not buy a ton of crap that I don't really need.

And that, ladies and germs, is my crew for the year.  Come the end of February my girls will change from red and pink to green and yellow, with the approach of St. Paddy's Day and spring.  Wait 'til y'all see what Xenia gets to wear, LOL.  In the meantime I'll enjoy the warm, bright colors that my troupe is wearing and ask y'all which outfit you liked the best.

Happy Valentine's Day,
RagingMoon1987

The eighth child

LOL, Digimon reference!  Well kiddies, I hope our American followers had a lovely, safe Thanksgiving.  Ours was...well, it was delicious of course, but with Daddy, Grandma, and Grandpa in Heaven and Sister and Brother-in-law far away it was also pretty quiet.  Since it was just Mama, Second Uncle, and me we had a huge pot of spaghetti and some garlic bread instead of a huge greasy turkey.  It was a very good pot of spaghetti, big enough that we're STILL eating leftovers, but I missed Sister's smart-a$$ conversation and her husband's big laugh.  First Uncle is home from St. Louis for the weekend and that's nice, but things are pretty different now from the way they used to be.

Now to my aforementioned eighth child.  Yes, if y'all can believe it I've got an eighth American Girl doll.  Say hello to my little fixer-upper, Silver Bird Le.

Yes, that's how she looked right out of the box.  Notice that she's wearing what appear to be a pair of Josefina's moccasins.  Kaya's moccasins go up higher on her leg, so these would have to be Josefina's.

With Z being Korean-American and Ana Ming being Chinese-American I've chosen to go out on a limb and identify Silver Bird as Vietnamese-American.  I haven't yet decided what her first name will be (I'm leaning towards "Matagorda" for some strange reason), but "Silver Bird" will be her nickname because she's developing silver eye.  Indeed, this doll's silver eye is what drew me to her instead of another, cheaper doll without silver eye.  Silver eye is considered a flaw, but I kind of like it!

I admit that my fondness for the Mark Lindsay song may have also had something to do with Silver Bird's nickname.  Heavens, if I'm going that route then I could make her real name "Arizona"!  Sigh...I always will maintain that the sixties and seventies had the best music, and why I had to be born during the nineties with crap like "Oops, I Did it Again!" and "The Real Slim Shady" I'll never know.  Anyway, in addition to having the beginnings of silver eye, Silver Bird also has some staining on her arms that looks worse in real life than it does in my pictures...

...and her hair needs a little attention, about as much as Felicity's and Julie's does.

She also cost significantly more than Julie did (but less than Z did, LOL).  But to my great surprise she's in much better shape than I thought she'd be; I was expecting that hair to be an irreparably tangled mess.  So why did I want her since she's so similar to Z Yang, you ask?  Two reasons.  One, she's wearing part of the very first Just Like You outfit, better known as the Mix and Match Outfit.

The white shirt, the original shoes, and the hair scrunchie are missing, but I was able to replace most of the missing pieces with parts from another almost complete set.  Here's how Silver Bird looks now.

She even still has her original necklace!  It was tucked into the collar of her T-shirt.

Her hair still isn't perfect, but having been brushed it looks some better, and overall she looks more put together than she did.  I'll keep the spare pieces for mixing and matching, per the outfit's name.  Josefina's moccasins???  Julie can have those.  They're about par for what someone might've worn in 1974, and they're more suitable for winter than the sandals Julie currently has.  The laces are crumbling badly, but I can replace those.

Too bad they don't come in my size, because I love moccasins!  Anyway, with Silver Bird wearing her proper shoes and accessories, all she lacks now is the hat, and I'll have it in another day or so, so no biggie.  Oh, the logos on the reverse side of the vest take me back!  When I was a little girl that logo was on EVERYTHING American Girl-themed, from the dolls to clothes for the kids to sleeping bags and backpacks.  Indeed, I was the envy of my fourth grade class because I had a set of jewelry with this logo.

And yet I still didn't have a doll!  I didn't get Felicity until next Christmas, LOL!  In a continuation of the jaunt down Memory Lane, Silver Bird still has her stick-on Grin Pins...all ten of them.  Six on the right side of her vest...

...and four more on the left side.

Once upon a time American Girl included...I think it was ten of these little buttons called "Grin Pins" with each purchase.  My Grin Pins were included with the jewelry set Mama got me, for example.  If one bought an American Girl of Today (as they were called back then) one received a card with ten miniature Grin Pins that adhered to the doll's clothes.  As is often the case with anything that sticks on, these Grin Pins would eventually lose their tack and fall off (that's already happened to two of these) so I'm very pleased to see that Silver Bird still has hers after twenty-five-or-so years.  I may get some fabric glue and stick these on permanently, and just for shizzles I may dig out my own collection of Grin Pins (I had about thirty) and start wearing them again.  Hey, if I wear goofy hair bows to work then why shouldn't I wear Grin Pins too?  Among the Grin Pin designs were the fifty U.S. states, and each time I got an assortment of Grin Pins I hoped for the one with Missouri on it, but alas, it was not to be.  Indeed, I don't even know what color the Missouri pin was!  I remember Idaho's, though; it was dark blue with a teal background.  The Idaho pin was my favorite because the jewel-toned colors seemed fitting for a state nicknamed "the Gem State."  Daddy once asked me why on Earth I'd wear a pin with Idaho on it when I'd never even BEEN there, and when I said "Because I like the colors" he smiled and said no more.

Alrighty, there's my overly lengthy reason number one.  Silver Bird has parts of her original outfit, complete with Grin Pins still intact, and I love it.  Reason number two is actually the more important reason, and that reason is that Silver Bird sports the "Asian" head.

Ah yes, I've loved this head mold right from the get-go.  Back when the Truly Me line was called "American Girl of Today" there were twenty options to choose from, and #4 and #15 were my picks of the litter.  #15 didn't have bangs and I liked that, but #4 was completely different from the Historical girls (there were only five at the time), and from her fellow modern girls as well.  Before Jess McConnell debuted her head mold, #4 was the go-to doll for anyone who wanted an Oriental character.  It's not super-different from the Jess mold, but one can tell the two apart if one knows what to look for.

The #4 head is not a rare mold; indeed, JLY #4 was available until her retirement in 2011...dang, 2011 seems like it was just yesterday!  Even though #4 isn't thunderously rare, it IS hard to find a doll with this head in good shape for a reasonable price!  Furthermore, only JLY #4 used this head mold...and I mean ONLY JLY #4!!!  No other JLY dolls, no Historicals, no Girls of the Year.  Also, this mold is one of only two molds to have been retired by American Girl altogether (the Marie-Grace head is the other).  I don't think a reintroduction of this head is impossible, but given the popularity of the Jess mold it's probably unlikely.  So that's why I have Silver Bird now.  Oh yes, since she's an older #4 her skin tone is a little different from that of the other dolls.  According to her Wiki page, #4 had a "golden" skin tone initially, and indeed this can be seen when I compare Silver Bird to Z and Denise.

And maybe it can't be seen.  It's hard to get these three photographed properly, but here it's fairly easy to see that Silver Bird is fairer than both Z and Denise.  I wasn't expecting that.  And yes, Denise is dressed as a pilgrim.  She spent the month of November greeting patrons at the library dressed like this.

Thank you again, Mama!  My dolls are better dressed than either Mama or I are, I think!

And that, folks, is my lovely Silver Bird!  She will probably need a Downy Dunk like Julie and Felicity do, but no biggie, I can handle that.  Right now Silver Bird is too excited about having new friends to pay much attention to her hair.  Unsurprisingly, she immediately gravitated to Z due to their similar features.

Oh sure, Z looks a little reluctant in that picture, but in reality she welcomed Silver Bird with open arms.  Not only do the two look quite a bit alike, but Z knows how it feels to be the new girl.  For that matter, so does Julie!

Julie has vocalized a fondness for both Z and Silver Bird since they both remind her of her friend Ivy Ling.  Yeah, we all know Ivy is Chinese, and Z and Silver Bird are not, but for Julie the resemblance is still there.  As for me, I'm glad to have another new head in the collection.  Here's the classic mold (Denise, left) and the Jess mold (Z, right)

...and here's the Josefina mold (Julie, left) and the Asian mold (Silver Bird, right).

All of these are identifiable as American Girl dolls, and yet they're all different...and through sheer coincidence I picked four of my five brown-eyed girls (Samantha is the fifth).  LOL, there's an old song that I DON'T like!!!  As inconceivable as it may sound, I don't like all the music from that era; everything Bruce Springsteen did makes me want to vomit and then run screaming into the night, for example.  Anywho, I needed Silver Bird like I need a hole in the head, but as with all my American Girls I'm glad to have her along for the ride.  I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do with her hair.

Changing the subject a little now, I didn't show this in the pictures above, but Julie got some new earrings.

Bees!  The studs were once Elizabeth Cole's, and the bee dangles came from 2SistersSewCrafty on Etsy.  These were made with Blaire Wilson in mind, but as with all doll jewelry anyone can wear them.  The shop also sent along a headband and a ring as freebies.

Silver Bird will probably get the ring since it matches her outfit, and I haven't decided yet who will wear the headband.  Z would look good in it, but so would Denise, and so would Silver Bird and Xenia and the Madame Alexander duo.  Yes, duo.  Remember Alissa, my smug little flower fairy?

Alissa went to live with Isabelle and Little Gracie, and her name is now "Rosie."  I still have the fairy costume, though (LOL).  Anyway, any of my eighteen-inch dolls can wear that headband, but right now I have it in storage, waiting for the right outfit to come along.

With the Christmas season just around the corner, I'll be veering away from American Girl dolls to focus on another doll, one that may possibly be a on a lot of little girls' lists to Santa Claus.  I may update this post when Silver Bird's hat gets here.

Ciao,
RagingMoon1987

Update, 12/3/2019:  Silver Bird's hat came today after a minor snafu with delivery.  Mama thinks the hat adds the perfect touch.

I also was able to figure out a formal name, though in my typical noncommittal style I ended up choosing ALL the names I had planned.  Silver Bird's full name is now Arizona Matagorda Silver Bird Le, though to me she'll be known simply as "Silver Bird."  I've seen dolls named "Neon Annabelle" and "Susannah Maria Augusta Eliza Lucy Louise," so my doll's name isn't super-weird.  It's merely...a little weird!

End update!