Indigo Obsession - A Grail Doll Purchased!

"Indigo Obsession Barbie" by designer Byron Lars has long been on my grail list. However, it was beginning to seem that I would not be able to get her at a price I was willing to pay, and I had kind of given up on getting her. Released in 2000, here is her stock photo below:

While browsing through photos on Flickr, I ran across a series of photos of the various Byron Lars dolls that Mattel had produced. Among these, I saw a beautiful photo of my coveted Indigo Obsession, which once again made me go on the hunt for her. Low and behold, I was able to find not one, but two of these beauties within my price point, and as a matter of fact, she was only a few dollars more than her original price on Barbie Collector! I decided that I probably would not see her at this price again anytime in the near future, so I made the plunge and purchased her.

She arrive, NRFB a few days ago.

Still in her box, she is every bit as stunning as I imagined she would be!

I am not one to leave my dolls in the box, though. She was very quickly released!

When Mattel released the darker skintone AA doll "Barbie Girls of Music Playset" I quickly ordered more than one of them from Amazon as I knew this would be a skintone that I would definitely need for body swapping!

While she is not a MTM body (which would have been nice, Mattel!), she does have approximately the same articulation of some of the earlier Fashionista releases. Her joints are nice and sturdy and it doesn't bother me that she doesn't have the jointed ankles. 

I thought that this skintone was a very good match for my Indigo Obsession, so I promptly rebodied her!

I am so very happy with this new lady! She will cetainly be turning some head in Hanaly Corners!

A New Wildflower Doll

I don't know how many of you are familiar with Wildflower Dolls, but I just purchased my second one. My first one was a doll that reminded me of my sister Margie who had passed away in 1969 from leukemia. I had named her Margie after my sister:

You may remember Margie from a previous post

My second Wildflower Doll is an Asian beauty. When I saw her on Flickr, I immediately contacted Andrea Meyer at her Etsy shop:Wildflower Dolls to order her. Andrea is a true artisan. She sculpts and paints each unique doll head and affixes them to an articulated body. Margie is on an Obitsu body and my new doll is on a Made to Move Body, but Andrea will create them on any other body you choose. 

Meet Maylee! 

So beautiful!

It was not long before some of the men around here took notice of her. I recently restyled a Japanese Ken doll and put him on a Superman body. He was the first to have his head turned!

He still has his fisted hands, but he will be getting some FR Homme hands very soon!

He was quick to introduce himself to Maylee and to suggest that the photographer take some photos of them together.

But he was not the only fellow to take notice of the beautiful Maylee! Takeshi Kaneshiro was about to leave the studio after his photos were taken when he saw the rare beauty!

Before I knew it, Takeshi had introduced himself to Maylee!

This did not go unnoticed by the other interested fellow. 

Japanese Ken was quick to let Takeshi Kaneshiro know he had eyes on Maylee! 

Maylee was quick to let them know who would be making that decision!

Well, Maylee, looks like things will be interesting for you in Hanaly Corners!

Happy Easter Everyone!

Here's wishing all of you a very Happy and Blessed Easter!

Adventures in Body Modifications

Now that my Giveaways are over (at least for the time being. I will be doing a Birthday Giveaway in July), I thought it was time to do something else! My next adventure was to attempt to add articulation to dolls that only had partial articulation. I get a little frustrated when Mattel puts out a doll with articulated legs and stiff arms or visa versa. I have already done quite a bit of leg swapping, so arm swapping seemed to be the next logical step! After seeing a post on Flickr from John Pickles where he did an arm swap, I decided to take the jump and try this myself. 

My first victim -- umm candidate -- was a Sledding Fun Skipper body. She has articulated knees and stiff arms. Now if I had any more of the Hawaiian Skipper bodies, I would have done a leg transplant as those are much easier. However, I did have a donor Barbie body (she had already lost her head!) that had articulated arms, stiff legs and the dreadfully distorted torso. She was a good skintone match for this Skipper, so this became my donor!

Sledding Fun Skipper Promo Photo (not my photo)

Her is what is left of the donor body -- RIP!

Here is the body with the new arms. I was worried at first that the new arms would be too long, but I think they look great!

 I had this vintage Skipper that I loved, but her original body was badly chewed up and I gave her this body. Love how she turned out!

That turned out so well, I selected my next candidates for change. 

I had gotten the Barbie® Beauty Salon & Doll - Brunette play set a while ago. I also had the Fashionista 54-Tutu Cool - Petite and had put her on a MTM body, but I thought I would see if I could use an Azone Pure Neemo Body size Medium for a Petite doll. I got one with large breasts which gives the doll a more mature look.

Barbie® Beauty Salon & Doll - Brunette and Fashionista 54-Tutu Cool - Petite promo photos - not my photos

Barbie Beauty Salon with her new arms and Tutu Cool with her Azone Pure Neemo body, flesh skintone

Dressed!

I had another Azone Pure Neemo body in Medium with small breasts and with the pale skintone. I decided to use one of the many MTM Lea heads that I had in my spare parts box since she had donated so many bodies to the cause! She got a new haircut and I wiped her lips. I have not been brave enough to attempt any face painting, so they are staying pale for now. 

Petite Lea next to Petite AA for size comparison.

I never have enough little guys around! For this little guy, I took an AA Lori doll, removed some of the hair off the bottom half of the head, set really tight curls to the remaining hair and flocked the bottom part of the hair. 

I do think he is an adorable little boy! 

I had this old vintage Ken who had seen better days. His body was in bad shape and his flocked hair was partially rubbed off. I had popped is head onto a Volks 1:6 male body (they don't make those anymore 😒😢) but it was not a good skin tone match. He got my last ATM Cheerleader Ken body and I reflocked his hair.

He is now quite handsome and hunky!!!💪😀

I am sure you have heard me rant a lot about the lack of articulation for the Curvy bodies. I mean, I love the Curvy bodies, but I want them to be articulated! While I am waiting for Mattel to listen, I did some limb swapping of my own to help me out. Popstar and Everyday Chic agreed to go under the knife (after a little arm twisting 😊💪). Sweetheart stripes came along to show a comparison of the original Curvy body and to lend her support.


Popstar got a leg transplant. Her donor was the "Hidden Sword Wonder Woman" doll who got a MTM body. Everyday Chic Got legs from "DC Comics Wonder Woman Queen Hippolyta & Horse" who got a MTM body almost immediately on her arrival. I tried to also transplant the arms, but the shoulder balls were too big. She ended up getting arms from an old body with the stiff legs and distorted torso I had laying around. Over all, I think everybody is happy!

Pop Star and Everyday Chic with new articulation

Sweetheart Stripes joins Popstar and Everyday Chic

Naked Curvy girls!

Rear view!

Look what I can do!

Even better!

 Whew, these were definitely not easy! There is some evidence of a little warpage and the arms are not a great fit for Everyday Chic, but I still like the end result. My next attempt may go even better! 

Hope you enjoyed this. Let me know what you think! have any of you tried limb swapping???