A quick rant about my love hate relationship with Beforever...

Hello everyone! Over a year ago I wrote a post about where I thought the historical collection was headed. Since then, we have witnessed the rebirth of the Historical Characters as Beforever, My American Girl's transformation into Truly Me, and a packaging update for the Girl of the Year. In short, a complete facelift of the American Girl brand. So I thought I would go over these changes and talk about how I feel about them, and contrast my predictions with what actually happened.

Okay, first of all let's make a little timeline...

1986: Pleasant Company was founded and American Girl started with just the Historical Characters

1995: American Girl of Today was launched (now known as Truly Me)

1996: American Girl of Today changed to American Girl Today

1998: Mattel bought Pleasant Company and all marketing began to use the nomiker American Girl packaging colors were changed, etc.

2006: Modern line renamed "Just Like You"

2010: Modern Line renamed "My American Girl"

August 2014: Beforever Launched

January 2015: Packaging for GOTY changed

May 2015: My American Girl line changed to "Truly Me"

So, in just the past twelve months, we have seen American Girl completely revamp their entire line. That's a lot of change in very little time. But not all change is bad, right?

I guess the main thing that I struggle with is how much I wanted to see American Girl focus more on their Historical Characters. I wrote this back in February 2014, when we first heard Samantha was coming back:

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 funny thing is that that did happen. The uniformity the Historical Line had is returning. In the June 25th 2015 release, each character got a revamped bed and pajama set, along with bedtime accessories. There are now clear "key" items that each character is going to have, key collection points. The color schemes have also been homogenized. Addy is blues, Julie yellowy pinks, Rebecca is purply pink (magenta?), Samantha is pastel pinks and greens, Josefina is South Western Oranges, Blues, and Reds, Kit is bright green, orange, and pink. This makes boundaries between collections clear.

A job well done? Look at those prices...

And yet, I'm not satisfied. Probably because what I dreaded also happened:

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.

This prediction was pretty spot on.

Is it just me, or is everything looking pinker?

At least Kaya's outfit doesn't have any pink on it. Yikes. And my guess about consolidation was right too. Remember the consolidated books? We now have two instead of six (plus a choose your own adventure book that I don't really count). So yeah. Here we are.

I have always been a huge fan of the Historical Line. It was pretty much the only thing I cared about. And now... I don't really care at all. I've bought a single Beforever outfit. At my last trip to the AG Place in LA, I didn't buy ANY historical clothing. It might be because Marie~Grace's collection was retired so I can't get any clothes for my doll. I mean, I'd like to get Addy's pajamas.. Or it could be because this line is losing its appeal to me. In any case, I'll probably be scouring ebay to finish my NOLA collection.

One last quote from my February 2014 post...

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...

It's funny to me that the "Middle Ground" ended up being a combination of the best and the worst. So while in theory, I love the focus being on the Historical Line, this doesn't cut it and my wallet will speak for me.

Spa Day!

Hey peeps! It's Maple. Today Taryn and Saila went to the spa so they could be totally ready to party on Canada Day. When they weren't looking I took some pictures. They are going to be so mad when they find out ;) Oh, and if you're wondering that clear bubbly stuff is a hotel sample filled with mild   hand soap and water. And, yes, it is safe to use on dolls. One more note, the stuff in the background is for our upcoming AGMV! You should totally watch it when it comes out!

Sorry for the weird lighting! It's actually very relaxing when your laying in it!

Love <3

The BIG Picture Summer 2015 Edition

Click on the first image to start the magazine.

FAO Schwarz in New York!

Hello everyone it's Honey here!
So, recently I went on a school trip to Boston, Washington D.C., and the highlight of the trip, New York. We did lots of things while in the big apple including going to the base of the Statue of Liberty, walking through Time Square, seeing the view from the 87th floor of the Empire State building and even seeing The Phantom of the Opera on broadway. We also did a ton of shopping, and I mean a ton! During one of our shopping sprees I was able to go into one a store that has been in my dreams ever since Toy Box Philosopher did a post about it back in 2012.

FAO Schwarz!!!!!!


So the actual store itself is across the street from the Palace Hotel and right next to an Apple store

I only had my phone with me so all the pictures in this post will be pretty low quality. Sorry about that.

When I first walked in I felt like a little kid again and even though I am a fourteen year old girl; I may have acted a little bit like one too.

This is what the front part of the first floor looked like. I took this picture from the stairs that led down to a slightly lower level. The first part of the store had most of the FAO Schwarz toys and some other stuffed stuffed animals. Amazingly, the only thing I bought was a little pink FAO Schwartz puppy, from this part of the store, for Aspen!

Then if you kept going down the stairs I was standing on you get to the candy section. My friends spent most of their time there while I explored the rest of the store. (This gave me time to fangirl over various dolls without being judged too hard).

There was sooooooooo much candy!

There were stairs in the back where the weird clock thing is that led down to the toddler section which I unfortunately did not get any pictures of. 

In this section they also had the Muppet Whatnot Workshop!

There was no one there while I walked by so I didn't really get to see how it worked or what it really was but as a Muppets fan it was really cool to see.

So after that, I traveled to the second level. You get there by riding on an escalator with all these huge slightly realistic stuffed animals next to it. At the top there was an almost life sized panda which was priced at over 1,000 dollars!

 So the first thing on the second floor is a section of Steiff bears which were all adorable but also very expensive. The rest of the second floor was a little like a maze of toys and other wonderful things. Here are some of the my favorite things from FAO Schwartz New York's second floor!

They had a surprisingly large comic/video game section including the elusive Avatar: The Last Airbender comics. I was almost going to get one but then I decided I really didn't want to carry those stinkin' huge books all the way back home.

Near the comic books, there was a man making fake snow out of this white powder. A while later my friends joined on the second floor and when we walked by him he excitedly asked us (a group of 5 14/15 year olds ) if we wanted to see a magic trick! Being the people we were we said yes. Then we all came over and he gave each of us a handful of white powder and then he poured water over it and it turned into snow in our hands! (wow! much cool! so magic!). Anyway, while the "magic" itself was not that impressive it was cool how he was willing to let even us join in, instead of leaving these things exclusively to the kiddos. 

There was a really nice Beatles display and while some of the figures/toys where slightly terrifying it was still cool!

 The store also had a pretty big Lego section. I personally don't really play with Legos it was pretty cool to see Emmet and Wildstyle from The Lego Movie (I loved that movie)  made out of tiny plastic blocks! Also when I came to take a picture there was this little girl who when she saw Emmet her whole face just lit up and she ran to him and she was hugging him. It was very cute!

FAO Schwartz was so big they fit an entire Claire's store, complete with an ear piercing station, inside their store.

They had the biggest Ever High Doll stock I had ever seen! 

A very big Monster High display.

The Barbie section which overlooked the streets below.

It's pirate hour at FAO Schwartz!

And much to my delight a huge Playmobil section! I had already seen (or owned) most of the sets they had so I didn't spend much time here. I did take a picture with the giant Playmobil figure ( I mean how could you not).

She's an evil enchantress. She does evil dances. 

I was seriously considering bringing this home

They also had a very nice My Little Pony section which I spent way too much time looking at, prompting one of my friends to ask "Honey, do you like My Little Pony?" 

The answer is yes, yes I do.

They had a second Barbie section with some vintage Barbies.

And the famous Giant Piano!! A while ago Willow was in a production of Big where they had one of these so it was a cool throwback. (In Big the Musical, they dance on the giant piano!)

Okay now I am going to get into the actual doll section of the store. First off, we have A Girl for All Time. After hearing so much about these dolls it was cool to see them in real life.

5,000$ for that Elsa, the panda is sounding like a pretty good deal right now!

They had an excelent collection of Madame Alexander dolls. And while the staging of the decapitated doll heads was pretty creepy for some of my friends, I found it really cool and informative. (#thingsdollpeoplesay).

The steampunk wizard of oz Madame Alexander dolls were awesome!

Next to the Madame Alexander section was a section of baby dolls, here all the staff were dressed up like nurses. It was very cute.

Although it was small and almost completely out of stock, the Tonner section was probably my favorite part. All the dolls where so pretty! I just wanted to bring them all with me! Sadly the only  dolls that were actually in stock were the Tonner patience ones. Naturally I took out the boxes for Tonner Patience Dorothy and Alice and got a better look at them.

She looks so scared.

They were so pretty!! I especially liked Alice. As I was opening her box and balancing her on my leg and trying to take a picture without looking too suspicious, my friend just asked "Why don't you just take a picture of her in the display?" (And I was like You don't understand... It's PATIENCE)

So yes that is the end of my adventures at FAO Schwartz in New York. If you are for any reason in the area you should definitely stop by! It is worth it. Trust me. 

See you next time!