A lot of people have been asking for photos of the items in the new release. We went down to the Columbus American Girl Place store yesterday, and I took a ton of photos! I've tried to organize them into slideshows here, but if you see something missing, just let me know. Also, I've included some comments on the different items below each slide show, but if you have more questions . . . just leave a comment or send a note in the contact form.

Here are photos of the new Beforever historical releases. Use the thumbnails to navigate through photos, and if you want to see something at larger size just right click and select "open image in another tab".

Nanea's Luau Dress and Set
The latest addition to Nanea's collection features a new outfit and the great Luau table and food.
The table and food look very appealing, but the price tag seems a bit high, compared to other items, at $85.00. In all fairness, it has been pointed out that the table is made for pressed wood, so you don't have to settle for plastic on this one! The dolls can sit at the table (see photos 6-10), which is really cute. If you're at all able to make your own table (or know someone who can), it would be nice if it was slightly bigger. However, this is a cute set . . . and the food items are adorable. Looking up those types of items on eBay (as it was suggested that you could buy the same items pieced out of discontinued sets), this is not a bad price, as it is very expensive to buy these individual things. The coconut drinks are adorable!

Nanea's new dress doesn't appeal to me. It's not Hawaiian looking or 1940s, but since a lot of people have complained about those two aspects of her collection --- this dress may do well. The shoes don't seen quite AG standard.

Rebecca's Movie Premier Outfit
I'm sorry to say that this outfit doesn't look better in the displays than it does in the photos. The colors are horrendous, and it doesn't flatter a gorgeous doll like Rebecca. Poor girl. She's beautiful with such sad clothes. There is no model of this outfit out to be seen from behind the glass, so I didn't get to feel it or anything.

Kit's Garden Stand, Outfit and Accessories
This stand appears to be one of the outstanding buys at American Girl. It looks fabulous, has adorable accessories and looks like something that every little girl would love to play with (and boys, too, for that matter)! And the $100.00 price tag seems great for what you get. The scale is perfect, and the doll fits in the area inside that stand, even on her own display stand. The accessories set (including canning jars) is also really cute, though a bit pricey for the few pieces. Nice addition, though, so worth getting if you have the stand already.

The gardening outfit is very appealing, looking like feed sack material. The pants look a bit short, so if you have a tall doll (my 1997 Josefina stands 18-3/4" tall), they wouldn't fit. But they are really cute and a great look for the stand!

With the re-arrangement for the new release, the cubed Historical dolls are now out in a small case of their own. Previously, these had been shoved, all three together, in a little cube behind the hair salon area. Here are a couple of photos showing how these three are displayed. They are across from the Rebecca case.

Girl of the Year doll Luciana got another outfit and accessory set. This is a shimmery black dress that is a classic sort of plain cut. While there is nothing particularly wrong with it, it does seem a little uninspired. It's the cut that Melody would wear. The material is a thin but solid black with starry-colored bling dots all over it to give it the look of the night sky. It is not lined.
Normal black tights and some shiny purple-pink pumps, topped by a little headband with a huge glitter pom-pom on top.

The accessory set features a purse and some jewelry. I like the bracelet (reminiscent of Grace's Paris charm bracelet), but the ring is a bit hunky, in my opinion. There are some accessories inside the purse (including a passport), but I realize that I forgot to photograph those. If I can get a picture tomorrow, I'll add it in!

The following photos show the three new dolls as displayed throughout the store. However, I bought a #80 and have already posted a review and lots of photos for her in a previous entry.

There were three new dolls this time. #80 is the dark Josefina mold, and is in three under-glass displays at the store --- plus the Truly Me case. She is a gorgeous doll who can look either Hispanic or Indian, depending on the wig placement.

#79 is a "not Kanani" Jess mold with medium skin. She's very pretty and quite a nice choice. She's similar to Kanani but not the same. Her skin tone is also a new shade like no one else, so we posed one of the display models next to a Nanea doll. #79 is a little yellower in tone than Nanea.

#78 is the new blond doll. We took a lot of photos of her, because she's hard to photograph and to even see her color in the very pink store! She has sold dark green eyes, which I don't think are very realistic looking or a typical green color. It is very vibrant and dark green but with no gradient or variation in color. Her hair is pretty classic blond colored and curly. The most different thing about her, though, is the face paint. She is painted very pale, rather like the old PM dolls have faded now. This is a good option if you don't like the lips of Tenney and some of the newer dolls.

These are photos of the different displays showing the Gaming Set, Game Night Games, Sushi and Pizza Sets, and the new bunk bed. Just keep clicking through, because there are multiple displays for each set/item.

The Xbox Gaming set is quality. Looks great. Fits great. And every little girl in the place liked it, because it "looks just like my brother!" I would imagine this will do really well!

The pizza and sushi sets are adorable. Personally, the pizza is one of the cutest sets they have made in the food line. The scale is amazing, and the pizza in box is perfect! The dolls can hold different pieces from both sets, thanks to little clear plastic handles. Very nice.

The Pictionary, Uno and Checkers sets are fabulous. They look nice and they fit the dolls very well.

​The new bunk bed does not look very quality. It looks like a toy, but for all it's worth, every kid loved it.

The 3-in-1 Game table is one of the most quality items in the place. It may be plastic, but it's quality. My Dad sat with a display model and turned it all around, tried each game and inspected the whole thing. He was really impressed. Definitely great and worth the price of $75.00.

The volcano set is really cute. It's nice quality when you feel it, and the scale is amazing.

I don't really know anything about skateboarding and ramps, but I took a bunch of photos. It looks fine but plastic. It didn't seem to appeal to the little kids in the store, but if this is your thing --- it's probably really cool!

I hope that I have all of the new outfits shown here. If you don't see what you are looking for, send me a note or leave a comment. I have other photos (which I think are just duplicate shots but might be wrong) and can look through.

These are pictures of the new outfits and pets. People were interested in photos of the different wheat colored dogs, so there are some at the end of the slideshow. We bought the new Wheaten Terrier, so I've also included some photos of it with a couple of our boy dolls. It is very cute and quality!

Just a few quick comments on the new TM outfits. The fabrics on this release are really poor. They are thin and the colors and textures within outfits often do not match. The pieces are made as small and tight as possible, so that the pants and shorts don't actually fit the back bottom of the doll (several photos show how the back of the pants cannot pull up all the way) --- something that is also a real problem on the meet outfits of the TM boys. If the pants have back pockets, those pockets actually hang on the back of the doll's thigh, instead of sit on their bottom.

Another thing that my sister and I really noticed is the fact that the shirts have short pieces of velcro that only come about half way down the back of the doll. This leaves the bottom of the shirt hanging open to show the body fabric of the doll and the ill-fitting pants or shorts. See photos above of many.

Okay, I wasn't totally sure what was new in Wellie Wishers and Bitty this time around, so I just took a bunch of photos. If something is missing, let me know, and I can see if I got it!

Well, this should be everything for the new release. More photos of some of our new dolls to come soon, plus a big-time comparison of the old and new eyes.

Okay, the American Girl Summer release is here. A lot of people on my AG forum are waiting on photos of the new items, so I'll be posting pictures over the next couple of weeks. We went to the Columbus store on Tuesday (June 19th) to see the new stuff . . . sadly, I got there and the camera wasn't working (long story and an operator error --- all fixed now and ready to go!), so there are no photos. In the end, it was a blessing, because Mom had taken us for an early birthday trip and we got to shop for fun! We spent over four and a half hours in there. Elizabeth bought two dolls (#67 and 74), Mom bought one (#77), and I got TM #80. This and the Wheaten Terrier Puppy are the two items from the new release that we bought, so I'm going to start posting photos.

We'll start with TM #80, because several people have asked for photos of her and comparison. I love the Josefina head mold and have Josefina, #28, a customized Lea and Mckenna. But I LOVE dark skinned dolls. My first AG was Addy, and I've always loved dolls with dark skin, followed by medium tones. Let's just say that I've never been much into blondes. :) So, hearing that the Josefina mold was being made in a dark tone sounded great --- with some reservations, of course, about the new eyes. When we got to the store, Mom and I headed to the Truly Me cases right away to have a look. Hmmm . . . not super impressive. But I've realized that I just don't care for those TM cases. The dolls are all standing there with their hair hanging straight around their faces out of the nets. They look 25 years old and rather personality-less.

So, we kept shopping and looking around. Then we found the three different displays showing #80 in set-ups, wearing different outfits and sporting some cute girly looking hair styles. Cute, but not my thing. That is . . . until my Mom rounded the corner of the third display and had to stop. She's like, "That doll looks really Indian!" (Meaning like a girl from India.) I skidded to a stop, because I've really wanted an AG doll that looked truly Indian! There she was, sitting on a bed, and they had put a very low "princess" hair style on her. She did look Indian! I couldn't believe it. I had totally not planned on buying a doll, but Mom said I should get one. (Elizabeth says she knew I'd be getting one since the photo was released last week!) So, we went over to look through the boxes for #80. There were only three out on the floor, but the employees were more than happy to keep bringing them out from the back for me to look through 'til finding my perfect girl!

There are two things that make the doll look different. The first being the ugly new eyes. I looked for one that had less white showing, purely because of the way the eyes are inserted. I don't like the new eyes, but I love Nanea and #80, so it is worth it to me to find a doll with a pair of eyes that I can live with. They also photograph even whiter than they look most of the time, so it's often not quite as bad in real life as the photos.
The second thing was the placement of the wig. If the wig is glued higher on the head, she looks very Hispanic. If the wig is placed lower on the forehead, it gives the Indian look. I have to say that there were fewer of the "Indian" look than the Hispanic. Of the six or eight dolls that I looked at, only two had the lower wig --- and one of the three display dolls in the store. I was able to pick one that looked very like the display that I loved!

                             Here's a slideshow of photos showing her as she came out of the box and hair net.
​                                        Just click on the thumbnails or arrows to advance to the next photo.

These photos above show her step-by-step as she came out of the box. First with the net, then having just had the net pulled off, then once I had brushed her hair down smooth (she has beautiful textured hair like Melody!). I then undressed her, put her hair up in the style like the display, and took some photos to show her body. She has the new fabric, but it's the nicest example of a new-fabric body that we have yet. She does not have the same huge lumps in her back that our others have. Someone asked about the thickness of her wig and how wide apart the rows of hair are. She does have a very nice wig, and the rows of hair are quite nice and close together. If she had any more hair, she would be puffy out the back. There are two photos showing the hair spread for doggy ears/pig tails. You cannot see her wig cap.
​The next two photos show the new way that her feet were fixed in the box. There are two plastic bands around each ankle. Instead of being rubber bands, they are clipped in and you just cut them off (see last photo). Probably a better way, since you don't have to pull the band up and work it over the leg.
Finally, there are two photos showing the new stamps in the vinyl of the doll's under arm area. This is a new stamp, only seen on the three new TM dolls, apparently. This seems to bother a lot of people, but you really don't notice them unless the arm is pulled out all the way to the side and pointing up. I didn't even know they were there until someone asked me to look for them. They are no worse than the big old logo on the back of the doll's neck. But, I've included photos of both arms. My guess would be that these are necessary now that there are multiple shades of the different skin tones. It would be easy to confuse Addy's arms with #80, but they are definitely a different tone.

Here are some photos showing my doll out of her box and dressed in her new outfit (which is actually a brand-new Lea meet outfit). I've named her "Emily Georgiana Violet" and call her Violet. Not very Indian sounding you may say, but there's a reason! An "adopted relative" of mine by that name went to live in India in the 1860s. She died there in 1866, and it took a lot of research to find that out and where she was buried. So, she's a rather special personality to me and always the one I think of when hearing about India. So, this doll is named in honor of her. Read about her by clicking here.

​The other thing that people have wondered about is the tone of Violet's skin. So, here are some comparison photos. The first shows five dolls: Nanea, TM #77, #67, Addy (1995 PC) and Violet. She is definitely a bit darker than Addy --- in the same way that #67 is slightly darker than #77. 

The second photo shows Violet next to Addy (who is a German-made PC doll from 1995).
The third and fourth photos show Violet with my 1997 PC Josefina (who is actually 18-3/4" tall).
​
The fifth and sixth photos are comparison of body fabric and closed-eye lids of Addy, #80 and Kaya. The body fabric of my Addy and #80 are very similar. I also thought that the closed eyes on the two were very close. Addy's are a teeny bit lighter, but the flash on the camera makes them look a lot lighter. The second photo is taken without flash, and while you cannot see the skin tone as well, that is more realistic to the closed eye color. Kaya is definitely lighter and more yellow. We have multiple Kaya dolls, and the body fabric varies a LOT! That is a second Kaya body laying on top of the Kaya doll to show color.

[Edit: 13 Jul 2018] The last photo shows #80 beside a TLC #1 that my Mom just got. We were really amazed to see that #1 is much darker than #80! (Though #1 is not as red in tone.)

I hope that all of these photos help. If anyone has any questions about #80 or would like some other photo, just leave a comment or send a note through the contact form.
More later . . .

Well, I added another doll to my collection. This brings me up to five now, and I can really see that I like the medium skin tone! When we visited the AG store last month, I noticed the Truly Me #26 doll, which is a medium-skin, amber-eyed Addy face mold doll with dark brown hair. She really appealed to me. We grew up with several friends who looked a lot like her, and the combination on the doll was totally stunning. Besides, she'd make a really cute sister for my Addy doll!

So, I sort of "added" her to my mental I'd-like-to-have-her-one-day list. Then, just a couple of weeks later, someone on one of the American Girl forums that I'm on posted one for sale. Only $50.00 shipped, and she send a beautiful green dress, too! The dress is a handmade "Lily Kay Collection" dress and is amazing! It is so perfect, actually, that all I needed to do was add hair ribbons, bloomers, knee socks and boots . . . and it was perfect! Here she is with Addy.

She's named "Jemima" for a British Countess of the 19th century --- not the pancake syrup, by the way.