Operetta has her own gang!

Frankie was my first Monster High doll, and when Ghoulia came out she became my number one fave. But when Operetta was announced I knew she would be my new must-have -- I mean, a rockabilly monster gal? Whose crazy facial scarification leads into a full-length arm tattoo? Who plays guitar and skates on the Roller Derby team? And loves biscuits? You can't ask for much more! Plus her pin-up style fashion set is for a day out shopping for vintage vinyl records. Swoon!

The only drawback was her hair -- while we lucked out and got dolls with good hair, the style wasn't quite what I'd hoped for. But there was no way I was going to wash it out and wreck my lovely doll!

Finally last week I got the chance to try doing something new with her hair, when I spent a lovely day with my friend Vivien playing with some spare messed-up dolls....she turned out a gorgeous record-shopping Operetta and while I roughed out what I wanted to do with my doll's hair I wasn't able to get it into shape that day. And when we got home from our trip and finally had a little spare time, I had Emily's doll to contend with as well! But at last we're done, and here are the results!

First up, for reference purposes, is what Operetta is supposed to look like out of the package:

(Click here for close-up.) She doesn't quite look like this in real life, to be honest; the curls in the back just don't happen, the rolls are sticking out to the sides, and the bangs tend to be a bit lower than on the prototype. She can look really good though -- here's my original Operetta with factory-fresh hairstyle (wearing the fashion pack plus her little cropped jacket):

The rolls are a little goofy, and now that I'm getting picky I see that her bang roll is tilted -- but she's still a cutie and I'll be leaving her be.

My remake is a wrong-side-of-the-tracks Operetta, maybe even a little on the J.D. side. Teased up beehive, little bang curl, and a lot of sass:

 

You can't see it, but there's a white rose on the back of her head at the base of the bouffant. Her belt's been switched out with a generic Monster High belt (from the witch set) and her jacket's gone. She probably smokes, too. I was pretty happy with the way she turned out.

But I have to say, my pride and joy is the Operetta I did for Emily. She spent a day looking through my Lauren Rennells books (Vintage Hairstyling and Retro Makeup) and settled on the "Happy Pomp" style that's shown on the cover of Vintage Hairstyling. I had to modify it a bit to make it happen on a doll, but we were both incredibly pleased with the results. She even asked me to fasten Operetta's mask on as a hairclip in the back (where the original style has a clip-on flower).

I kind of think I want to steal from my own child.

Here's the Operetta gang all together:

Now she's triplets! Final judgement? Best restyling doll ever. I bet I could do half the styles in Vintage Hairstyling on her and they'd all look amazing. Those thick bangs really make a world of difference. Still, I think the next retro restyle needs to be someone different, more than three Operettas would be ridiculous!

Happy 100th Birthday!

How cute is this 1950s Junior Troop? From a gallery of Life Magazine photos by Edward Clark.

Today is the 100th Birthday of Girl Scouting in the US -- Emily is a 3rd-generation Girl Scout and proud of it; I was a Girl Scout, a Leader and am currently an Independent Scout Mentor, and my mother was both a US Girl Scout and a Girl Guide in the UK. We are not a dyed-green all-scouts all the time family, but it's obviously been an important part of our lives. Happy Birthday, Girl Scouts, and here's to 100 more great years!

Happy Girl's and Ghoul's Day!

March 3rd is Girl's Day in Japan, and we've celebrated it every year since Emily was born, usually by going to Mitsuwa in NJ and having lots of food and fun. This year we had a special guest girl to celebrate with us (and we let our boys come as well) and I think it was the best one yet -- in no small part because we also celebrated Ghoul's Day that evening! Girl's Day is also the Doll Festival and all three of us are huge Monster High fans -- so Emily had the idea to have a spooky doll-related party as a surprise for everyone. We made everything a day or two ahead of time and hid it, and after resting up from our day out on the 3rd we had some spooky fun. The highlight, of course, was the food:

Ghoul's Day party food!

We made the official drink of Monster High, Ghoulia's Ghoul Juice -- it's a recipe you can win on the website by playing a game (or just look up online). Looking at the directions, I realized it was just lemonade with food coloring added, and a bit of baking soda thrown in for fizz. So I just used our normal lemonade recipe and colored it bright green. No gummy eyeballs were to be found in March, so we just used maraschino cherries -- and skipped the fizzy baking soda part.

Ghoulia's Ghoul Juice (a.k.a. bright green lemonade)

Bloody Oreos were next on our list -- originally I meant to use some leftover red candy melts, but they never really melted (and to be honest, I think that stuff is gross). We were almost out of time but I found a recipe for a glaze that worked perfectly (1/3 c butter, 2 c powdered sugar, 2 t vanilla and 2-4 t hot water -- melt butter, add everything else and whisk until smooth). We colored it bright red and drizzled it on our cookies and came up with this:

oreos dripping with vanilla sugar blood

Seriously cool, and tasty as well! But the coolest looking snack had to be our Brain Puffs, based on a snack that the zombie girl, Ghoulia, has in her slumber party version. Emily thinks that popcorn looks a lot like brains, and I vaguely remembered saving a clipping from a 1960s magazine for making colored popcorn. I never did find the clipping, but luckily I remembered jello was involved and it turns out jello popcorn is a well known classic snack. I used cherry jello and this recipe, made human-sized boxes and we filled them with our Brain Puffs!

BRAAAAAIIIIIIINS!!!!

I have to admit, the candied popcorn was a little sweet for us. It does keep well, but with a box of bloody oreos in the house to go for instead it didn't really have a chance. And without the box, the spookiness is pretty much lost. But the bloody oreos and ghoul juice will definitely be coming back for Halloween!