Love, Life, & Lace Agnes Von Weiss

Although I mentioned this doll a couple posts earlier,  I finally decided to debox her.  I was so disappointed by the head not matching the body that I just stuffed the box in the back of the closet.  Since Integrity Toys has agreed to replace the heads (and allowed collectors to keep the original head since it wasn't purchased through a dealer), I decided to make it my mission to find a body for this head.

Here is a closeup photo of the doll.

And the full length photo for everyone who is just too lazy to scroll back a couple posts (LOL!).

Here are the accessories.  Although I'm not head-over-heels in love with the silver (maybe had they used beads similar to the lace, the effect would've been more cohesive), I do love the taupe shoes.  

When I undid the ties and took her out of the box, imagine my surprise at finding the messed up hemlines on the lace!  Just look how horrible this is.  I really love this dress, but there's no way it can be displayed on a doll - the lace is as much as >1/2" shorter than the hemline of the dress in some areas.  Another call to customer service.  What's going on with quality control????  $140 is just too much to spend on this mess.

It turns out that LLL Agnes actually does have a head closer to the "Porcelain" skin tone of the earlier FR tall bodies like Tatyana, Brides of Dracula, Kesenia, et al.  Poor Shake It Up Korinne lost her body (compliments of Follow the Line Kesenia).  It's an excellent match, don't you agree?

What I do like about this doll is how different LLL is from other versions of Agnes.  This one looks younger to me and more like Giselle.  I really love the hair color and neutral makeup.  I don't mind the older FR tall bodies, so it's not a problem for her to reside here.  Now, we have to find someone to give up their space for her.

2016 in Review

Every year I try to reflect on my collecting.  I am very happy to report that more dolls left my collection in 2016 than was added - 37 dolls were sold and 34 dolls were purchased.  I know that isn't a large difference, but at least it went in the correct direction!  Several of the dolls that I purchased were Barbie play line dolls, so I think I came close to being even with money also!

I did exceptionally well with most of my guidelines this year.    Guideline #5 was a bust as it relates to Poppy Parker.  I completely missed the potential of the "Poppy Goes to Paris" line.  I can no longer even joke that I don't collect Poppy Parker.  I purchased four of these on secondary market and have learned my lesson to pre-order all of them in the future!  Poppy Parker was my #1 of 2016.  I posted the following collage of photos on Flickr and it broke all records on my flickr account.

This photo has over 12,000 hits and even was invited to "in explore".  I have always been excited to get a couple hundred hits on a photo.  A few times I've had over 1,000 hits spread out over months, but nothing like 12,000 hits in less than 48 hours.  Go Poppy Parker!

I have decided to sell off much of my collection in 2017.  I am going to try and get my Ellowyne addiction down to 12 dolls.  I hope to eliminate many doll lines and focus my 1:6 lines to Poppy/Misaki, Fashion Royalty, and NuFace.  It's time to slow down on what is purchased, enjoy my favorites by playing (redressing) more, and let go of the rest.  

I hope 2017 is a great collecting experience for all of you who follow my blog.  I will try my best to post more often and share my journey as I move forward.