TBP Magazine Spring 2014

 Willow here! The Big Picture magazine is a magazine we make for our club members. However, I've decided to make a public version for everyone to enjoy.

Here it is! Enjoy!

Samantha Parkington is Coming Back!!

*UPDATES*
-Nellie will not be coming back
-Samantha will get a new meet outfit
-Samantha has feathered eyebrows
Click here for the source of the information

American Girl's Facebook this morning.

Willow here!

Many of you might have already seen, but American Girl is bringing back Samantha! This is HUGE!

So, Samantha was archived in 2009. That means it's been 5 years since she has been on the market. When she was around, she was one of the most popular characters. I myself own a large quantity of her things, though not her (the doll). This confirms one of the rumors on Living a Doll's Life and makes me wonder how many more of them could be true. They are right that AG retires low selling dolls and brings in dolls that make $. So, that would mean that this fall we have some interesting candidates for the chopping block:

1. Addy Walker

I just want to emphasize that this is a really ugly picture of Addy. If you look at our pictures of her, you'll see what I mean!

Okay, so Addy has a few things going for her in terms of retiring. First of all, she's been around the longest of our candidates, having been released in 1993. Secondly, from what I know, not a lot of people own her. I mean, we do, but we own the only Addy in the whole club (which has over thirty dolls in it!) Also, Steampunk Addie predicted her demise (although she was wrong, Molly went first.) Steampunk Addie also did hint at the possible retiring of our next candidate (or should I say candidates).

2. Marie-Grace and Cecile

Maybe the reason these dolls aren't selling is because of the terrible photography. Ew.

So, these two have only been around since 2011, so three years. They're like babies compared to Addy. With those kind of stats, you wouldn't expect them to be retiring. However, the events leading up to now certainly hint at their archival. At their height, they had 6 outfits each, seven including their meet outfits. They are now down to four including their meet outfits. In addition, many of their accessories have been retired, such as the treats table. They've also been on Jill's Steals and Deals (on the today show) repeatedly since their release. Finally, their collection is one of the only two to not get a fresh release February 13th.

3. Josefina

Okay, that's a better picture.

To be honest, Josefina doesn't have that much going for her (in terms of being archived). The only piece of "evidence" I have is that she didn't get anything new February 13th. However, she still has 9 outfits (counting her meet outfit), 7 accessories, and two furniture sets. That's more furniture than Julie has! (Although July does get a car...) In addition, Josefina is currently the only Hispanic character AG offers at the moment, so archiving her could be controversial.

I'm betting on Marie-Grace and Cecile at the moment, as much as it irks me to do so.

One of the things that interested me the most about the Facebook post was the line "is just one of the exciting changes to our historical line." As the speculator I am, I can't help but thinking of what might happen...

The Ideal

This is what I really want to happen. I want AG to shift their focus back on the historical characters and their stories, and bring back the uniformity where each character had a birthday story, a christmas story, a winter story, etc. Unfortunately I don't think this is going to happen.

The Worst Possible Outcome

AG changes the historical line so that it's non-existent? Okay, that's highly improbable, but they might consolidate what they have and perhaps redo the meet outfits of the characters to make them more pink. That's been a recent trend. Don't get me wrong, I love pink (ask Honey) but it's nice to see diversity and both Caroline and Marie-Grace had pink dresses.

The Middle Ground

To be honest, I'm unsure about what this one would be, despite that it has the most likelihood. Maybe AG will redo the formating of how they market the historical line and add some new catch phrases? Who knows...

Opinion Time

Okay, so now's the part where I say what I think...

It's very cool that Samantha is coming back. It'll be interesting or not to see whether her whole collection comes back in its full glory, and whether Nellie (her friend doll) comes with her or not. I'm disappointed that two

Happy Valentine's Day!

If you're reading this, thank you so much for reading our blog! We really appreciate it!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Post GOTY Syndrome

This is Honey.

Well, its a month and a half after the girl of the year reveal, Liberty Jane has closed their contest and all the other doll companies have made their releases. The life of the play doll world has come to a screeching halt. Nothing is happening! I think we are all feeling a little bit of Post GOTY (Girl of the Year) Syndrome.  This tragedy is eating away at the lives of doll lovers everywhere! We must do something! And that is why I came up with Post GOTY Syndrome Awareness month. Here is the poster.

Help spread awareness by hanging up this poster in your doll's bedroom and encouraging friends and family to do the same. If we all work together we can find a cure and help fight Post GOTY Syndrome!

BFFs!

Hey guys! This is Maple!

With Valentine's Day in only a week I want to write about who is bffs with who. Lets start with the obvious. Marie-Grace and Mckenna. For as long as I can remember they've been best friends. Taryn and Addy are close but nothing like MG and Mckenna. Saila has has a friendship in store for her in the future. Friendship is a subject that is hard to explain but I can say: No enemies, lots of friends!
 Later!

        Maple ;)

Pine Valley Elementary. In case you were wondering...

Hi everyone! It's Willow and Honey.

                  We've already established that when you get perfect outfits for your dolls, the only thing you can do is make a video! Actually, I was going to say that we've made it clear our dolls live in the fictional town of Pine Valley. The question was: Where do they go to school? What do they do at school? And why don't they have ditch days?

The Answer: Our new series!!!!!
This is our first live action series, so we'll see how it goes, (actually it's our only series other than Concrete Princesses) but it should be easier to do than stopmotion. Which takes forever. The series will pretty much show you what our dolls do at school and such, which sounds boring but... Well... Marie-Grace tends to shake things up a bit. We interviewed our dolls to see what they thought about having a Reality TV show about them. Here's what they said.

Marie-Grace: SO EXCITING! Gotta change my outfit! #lookingfaballdetime

McKenna: Can we have a rockband? I just got a new guitar!

Taryn: Why would you make a series about US. I mean, couldn't you have chosen something better?

Addy: Hold on, I'm drinking my tea.

Saila:.... Sure!

  As you can see, there were a lot of differing opinions. And McKenna does have a new guitar, but that's a series for another time.

Here is the link to the video. Enjoy! 
http://youtu.be/suRiNERhBlw