UPDATED WITH WINNERS!! Congratulations to:

• Maddie – Heat of Tension
• Becky – Talent Show
• Sharry – Rock Flower Solo
• Shauna – Mary Had a Little Lamb
• KT – School Talent Show

I will be emailing the winners shortly! Thanks to all who entered! Be sure to visit the gallery of entries to see everyone’s creative work.

May is typically full of end of school year activities, recitals, talent shows, and the like so we have decided the theme for this month’s reader photo event will be “Lights, Camera, Dolls!!” So, what kind of photos are we looking for this month? Some ideas include photos of your dolls having a talent show, having a concert, putting on a play, performing in a dance recital or reading poetry. Be creative!

In Natalie’s photo  you see Kit (in the black and white outfit from Favorite Friends) introducing Journey Girls Kyla who is getting ready to sing a solo.

The rest of the details:

• Everyone is invited to submit ONE entry per day using the guidelines above.
• ALL DOLLS are encouraged to enter – American Girl, Maplelea, Springfield, Ellowyne, Barbie, Tonner, Bitty Baby, and the list goes on! The more variety the better.
• We will draw 3 entries at random and 2 entries will be picked based on their creativity/excellence to receive an exclusive Doll Diaries Love t-shirt for 18″ dolls OR one for 14-16″ dolls. (Thanks to My Doll’s Life for supplying the white tees so I could make the shirts and the smaller tees I purchased from Mini Me Dolly Divas).
• The event will run from May 11-21, 2012.
• If you are 13 and under you must have your parent’s permission to enter.
• We will only publish photos that are of good quality and appropriate for viewers of all ages.
• Photos MUST BE YOUR OWN – do not take someone else’s photo from somewhere else on the Internet and post it as your own. Doing so will get you banned from all future photo events on this site.
• By submitting your photo, you are granting DollDiaries.com permission to publish the photo along with your first name and the description you provide. We will never publish or share your email address or personal information. You are also granting us permission to use your photo on the DollDiaries Facebook page and/or YouTube channel.

What are you waiting for? Fill out the entry form below:

When you are done, go to the May Photo Gallery to see all the entries (it may take up to 24 hours for entries to appear)! And as always, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

One of our reader’s husbands was recently in London and was kind enough to take some photos of the My London Girl store in the Westfield London Shopping Center and he brought back some great goodies for his girls, too. Thanks to Michele and Angelia for sharing these great photos with us.

The entrance to the My London Girl store. In addition to the 18″ dolls and their clothes/accessories, My London Girl carries matching items for girls, tea sets, baby items and special occasion items.

One of their 18″ dolls along with some beautiful tea sets for girls, too.

The various dolls in different outfits.

Some of the My London Girl outfits are designed by well known children’s designer David Charles. How cute are these outfits and I just love the hangers too!

This is the Black and Ivory Petal dress collection also from David Charles.

The Ivory Swirl dress display also part of the David Charles collection. How sweet are they?

This one is a little blurry but it still shows how beautiful and how much detail was put into each display throughout the store. What a treat to get to visit!

I think what really makes My London Girl stand apart is their clothes and accessories! Check out these adorable UGG style boots for dolls. Seriously – how cute are they?

The My London Girl outfits come in garment bags so you can easily keep all components of an outfit together and keep the outfit looking nice. BRILLIANT! There is also a girl sized My London Girl t-shirt which I think is so neat.

Some of the take away cards advertising the different London Girls. These girls have very familiar faces but their clothes, as I said before, are what really appeal to me.

Here is Kit modeling a My London Girl outfit outside of Lanie’s camper.

This is Nicole – also an American Girl doll – wearing the My London Girl meet outfit. Our dolls LOVE the shirt!!

Thanks again to Michele for sending in these great photos! If you just happen to be in Westfield Shopping Center in London, stop in the store – it looks like way too much fun!

Ready for a treat?? Our friends at A Girl for All Time (makers of Matilda Your Tudor Girl™) have sent us two photos of their new doll, Amelia Your Victorian Girl™, who will be available in September 2012.

From the A Girl for All Time website:

“My name is Amelia Elliot.  Just an ordinary school-girl in Victorian London. I’m looking forward to my thirteenth birthday when I’m going to inherit the family traveling trunk bequeathed to every first born girl, by my great great great…..well so many greats I lose count…grandmother Matilda.

A gypsy at the fair yesterday, read my palm and said I’m going to have a life of struggle, heartbreak, riches and adventure and that she could see me on stage at a music hall!  What a load of nonsense!”

Read all about Amelia’s adventures in “Amelia’s Inheritance’, available in September 2012.

Amelia ready for a day in town.

What do you think? Her pink outfit is so sophisticated and this blue one is just so sweet like a school girl. I am really looking forward to meeting Amelia and we will be doing a giveaway for Amelia in September, too.

I can not wait for them to release the trunk that keeps getting passed down from girl to girl in the A Girl for All Time series.

After hearing reports that even though some of McKenna’s collection were on backorder, they were still shipping, we decided to go ahead and order her a few weeks ago. McKenna’s starter collection arrived with McKenna, her meet outfit and her accessories – her practice outfit and her warmup outfit were on backorder, scheduled to arrive sometime in June. Imagine my surprise when I got a shipping notification for her warmups last week. They arrived and are just too cute! They are only available as part of McKenna’s starter set, but oh how I love them.

The exclusive Warm Up outfit was just the thing to put McKenna in a great mood after all the talk about gymnastics in this house the past few days.

McKenna’s Warm Up Outfit comes with the purple/orange ombre warm up jacket, white athletic pants with a little gather at the ankle and her trademark swoosh, cute athletic shoes, two orange hairbands and a hairstyle card for how to do fishtail braids on McKenna’s hair. If you don’t have the card, check out this video Megan did on how to fishtail braid your doll’s hair.

Ta-da! It looks great on you McKenna!! This is definitely one of my favorite outfits in her collection.

I don’t know what it is about this color scheme plus the crisp white pants, but I just love it. So does McKenna.

Nice split McKenna but can you just straighten out that back foot? It’s really bad form. Oh, that’s right, you are a doll – you can’t.

McKenna is checking out Megan’s medals and score card from her State Championship gymnastics meet yesterday. Can you tell what places she got? Yep, that’s a second place and two third place awards. Good job Megan.

Over to the beam she goes. McKenna is practicing her beam mount – that’s a fancy way of saying how you get on the beam. And to get off the beam it is called a dismount.

This photo shows the star on her shoulder for Shooting Stars Gymnastics. And I did the Fishtail Braid hairstyle based on the hairstyle card the outfit came with. Fishtail braiding looks hard, but it is actually very easy once you get the hang of it.

Showing off the the detail in the stitching, her swoosh, and her super cute tennis shoes.

Back at the bars, McKenna is getting ready to do some of her conditioning like pull ups and leg lifts so she will be strong enough to make that kip!

On a scale of 1-10, I give this outfit a solid 9.0 – all it is missing are some socks – I mean who wants to wear tennis shoes without socks?

Thanks to all our readers who have shared their photos with us this week! Here are the Sunday Showcase entries for this week.

Jasmine’s McKenna was reading Doll Diaries with her and spotted our Mckenna doll in the Fairy Garden, and was surprised to see her twin sister! Jasmine loved how McKenna looked in the pictures, so she dressed her McKenna in the same outfit and hairstyle! Too cute!

Dharma’s dolls are ready for a sleepover! From left to right – A Pleasant Company Kirsten, AG Chrissa, AG Felicity, and Claira from Springfield Dolls. Did you notice their matching bunny slippers from Springfield Dolls?

Ava’s friend brought her Moxie Girls dolls over for a visit.

Madelon’s family gave Cecile the Parlor Desk from the American Girl store at Tysons (DC) for Mother’s Day.

Merida’s a hit in Australia too! Catherine sent in this photo of the Brave, Merida and Angus playset she found in Big W, which is the Australian version of Wal-Mart.

Hayley just started her YouTube channel and shares a photoshoot she did with her doll Kirsten.

Heather was the winner of the Graduation Gown for dolls a few weeks ago. Her daughter’s Our Generation doll looks great in it!

Sharry sent in a photo of her Springfield Collection doll Julie getting ready for bed. She is wearing replica Julie pajamas available from dollclothesstore.com. She is holding her 1975 Holly Hobbie doll from Knickerbocker toys. Sweet dreams, Julie!

In honor of her birthday, Kit is wearing her reporter’s dress and holding one of her chickens. The backdrop is pink, but she probably wouldn’t have preferred it. I hope this year she has the Robin Hood Party she wanted many years ago. Thanks to Madelon for this beautiful photo.

We love seeing what you make for your dolls, adventures they have, and great finds. If you would like to submit your photo for next week’s Sunday Showcase, here are the basics:

• Email your photo to share@dolldiaries.com (it must be your own photo – do not take photos from someone else’s site and submit them as your own)
• Put “Reader Photo Submission” in the subject line (I get a ton of email & this will make it easier to sort through)
• Resize your photos to 540 pixels wide (if you can)
• Make sure you include a description or caption for your photos

PS - I am going to be gone at Megan’s State Meet for gymnastics today so this is the only post for today. I will try to check comments from my phone as much as I can, but no guarantees. Also, keep sending in the Lights, Camera, Dolls entries and I will get them all posted tomorrow.

One of the most frequently asked questions I get is “how can I tame the frizzies in my doll’s hair?” A pretty common technique is to give your doll a “Downy Dunk” – where you wash your dolls’ hair, then soak it for an extended time in Downy fabric softener. The results of a Downy Dunk on an American Girl doll can be amazing!! However, the Downy Dunk process is time consuming and doesn’t need to be done very often.

I was asking around and more than one experienced doll collector gave me the same basic tip – put two tablespoons of liquid Downy fabric softener in a spray bottle of water and just spritz your doll’s hair with the softener solution any time you need to give her a touch up or even if she needs some major work. We tried this today on a bunch of our dolls and I am super happy with the results!

Here is American Girl Kailey – she was the girl of the year in 2003. We got Kailey last summer when one of Megan’s friends decided to sell her doll collection. Kailey was in pretty good condition, but she has lived life to the fullest and her hair tells the tale!

You can see Kailey is a mess! I sprayed her hair with the softener and water mixture and worked section by section, combing it out from the bottom to the top. It took plenty of patience and I had to keep spritzing as I worked but I am SO happy with the result.

WOW! Doesn’t Kailey look amazing now? Her hair is so much smoother, so much softer and easy to brush through now.

Kailey’s shine is back!!

I was so happy with how Kailey’s hair turned out, I decided to give some of the other girls a touch up. Apologies for the bad photo – I used my iPhone and the lighting was not fabulous. So from left to right – Julie got her hair touched up and then braided; Nicole (our very first AG) looks so much better now – she really needed the Downy spray; Alex’s curls were pretty dried out and frizzy so the spray really helped her look; then the fabulous new and improved Kailey; and then Nicki is on the end and her long curly hair was just so happy to get the treatment, too!

Let me know if this helps or works for you! Happy doll hair styling!

It’s time to celebrate another one of our favorite American Girl historical character’s birthday – Kit Kittredge! Kit’s birthday is listed as May 19, 1923.

In celebration I put together the collage of some of my favorite Kit moments in Doll Diaries history. The very bottom photo is from our trip to American Girl Place New York in 2006 when Megan got her special Kit. Our Personal Shopper Robyn tirelessly opened box after box until Megan found her perfect Kit! And Kit is still one of the most precious dolls in our collection.

We love you Kit! Happy Birthday!

It is a bonus craft day!! My friend Jen from 100 Directions has a super easy tutorial for making doll sandals for us today and if you follow the link at the bottom of the post she has a tutorial for an easy doll sundress on her site, too.

The girls need some fabulous footwear just in time for summer! Here’s a quick tutorial to help you make your dolls a pair (or 10) of cute sandals using recycled stuff from around the house. No worries, you don’t need to sew either, yay!

I made these sandals for an 18” doll, but you could do the same thing for whatever size doll you have.

Materials you need:

• Craft glue
• Recycled cardboard (like a cereal box) or you could use fun foam
• Scrap ribbon or rick rack
• Scissors
• Pencil

Steps to make your doll fun summer sandals

1.    Using your pencil, trace your doll’s foot on to the piece of cardboard.
2.    Cut out the shape and make sure it’s the same size or slightly bigger than your doll’s foot.
3.    Cut 3 more pieces of cardboard using the first as a guide. Make sure that two pieces are reversed so you have a right and a left shoe.
4.    Hold 1 piece of cardboard against your dolls foot, blank side against the bottom of the foot.
5.    Wrap ribbon all the way around the foot, leaving a little extra to overlap. Glue in place and let dry.
6.    Add glue all over the bottom of a second piece of cardboard and place it on the bottom of the shoe. This will give a little extra hold to the strap and cover the writing side of the recycled cardboard.

You can add extra sparkle to the shoes or even  paint to decorate… make a gazillion pairs! A girl’s gotta have shoes for every outfit, right? I also have a tutorial to show you how to make a no-sew sundress for your doll too!

If you make these sandals, I’d love to hear about it and see your fabulous creations!

Inspired by the “Plant a Row” campaign that encourages families to grow a row of vegetables of their own. I thought it would be fun to make a doll sized garden using items I had on hand.

To make your own doll sized garden you will need :

• 1 9X6 piece of corrugated cardboard from a box
• green or brown construction paper or green fun foam
• white craft glue
• small artificial flowers from your dollar or craft store
• scissors
• green pom pom’s (for cabbage)
• tooth picks
• small cardboard 1 inch squares for garden markers
• Paper
• Marker, pencil crayons or crayons
• *Optional small Garden Gnome such as the one I have used The Wee Little Garden Gnome
• or small doll sized watering can

Step 1- Measure and cut yourself a base for your garden out of the corrugated cardboard 9 inches X 6 inches (larger if you would like).

Step 2 – Cut your soil or grass out construction paper or fun foam to fit your base. I left a small border around my garden and cut my green fun foam to 7 inches by 5 inches.

Step 3- Apply glue to your fun foam or construction paper and place on top of the base and let it dry.

Step 4- Separate your flowers from their stems, and the leaves. You will use most of them for your garden.

Step 5- You will need a parent to help you cut the wire stems off the artificial plant, these will become the stems. Cut them to the size of 2 to 3 inches in length. I used 4 for my row of flowers. You may want to do more.

Step 6- place the flower “heads” on the new stems you just had cut. Add a leaf to the bottom of your flower.

Step 7- Stick them through your garden bed as shown above repeat with your remaining flowers.

Step 8- If you want to have more than just flowers in your garden use some of the stems from the flowers that are left over to make cabbage, broccoli or cauliflower. Ask a parent to cut you a 1 inch sized piece of the left over flower stem wire and place the wire through the leaves. Then stick the end of the flower wire into your garden as shown in the photo below.

Step 9- Place a green pom pom on top of the exposed floral wire. You can just push it through or you can add some glue. You could use a white one for Cauliflower.

Step 10 – Plant some “carrots” with left over green’s from your leaves, you can trim a leaf to look like the top of a carrot or you could use the plastic green bits from the flowers as I have for carrot tops. Glue them to the back of a toothpick you have cut in half and place then in your garden, pushing the toothpick into the cardboard.

Step 11- Make your garden markers with the one inch cardboard squares. Label what you have planted. Color your signs if you wish.

Step 12- Push one end of a tooth pick into your corrugated cardboard sign. If you are only using paper tape the tooth pick to your sign back, then add them to your garden as shown. Now is a great time to figure out where to plant your Garden Gnome or where to put your watering can.

Now your garden is ready to share with your dolls.

I hope you have enjoyed today’s craft and I look forward to sharing more fun ideas with you next week!

I had to go to Target this morning which meant a mandatory trip to the doll aisles! I noticed they had one end cap dedicated to Disney’s upcoming movie Brave and the dolls/toys to go with it.

Target had everything from dress up gowns to mini figures to the 11″ Disney Brave Merida Fashion Play Doll to the toddler dolls and play sets. Actually I should have picked up the larger doll on the bottom shelf – I’m sure one of our dolls could borrow that dress nicely.

So, Merida is pretty cute – especially those little freckles!! It will be interesting to see what the various licensed versions of her will look like. I just need to give Carpatina Erin a boil perm and have her put on my favorite gowns from Carpatina and we are good!

Gem Styling Merida has a reversible cape – cute!

So, what do you think of Disney’s version of Merida? I am so looking forward to the movie!