About

Welcome to my world of American Girl (and, occasionally, other) doll photography and repair!

I've loved dolls nearly all my life.  As a kid, I had my own dolls, but I can still remember the excitement of being allowed to play with my mom's childhood Madame Alexanders on special occasions.  I think this helped form my appreciation of older, collectible dolls, as my sister and I instinctively knew that we had to be careful with my mom's nearly 40-year-old dolls.

Fast forward a few years.  When I was 20, my mom found an eight-inch doll in the bins at the thrift store.  We immediately recognized it was about the same age as her childhood doll, and set to work researching it.  It turned out to be a Cosmopolitan Ginger, a competitor of Vogue Ginny from the 1950s.  The fun of researching the doll launched both my career as a collector, and my most enduring interests.  More than 20 years later, I still collect Ginger!

For years, my mom and I collected together, primarily vintage dolls like Madame Alexander, Arranbee, Effanbee, Vogue, and of course, Cosmopolitan.  And since many dolls that old require repairs, I learned how to work on dolls as well.  Then in the spring of 2018, an American Girl doll, Kit, caught my eye at a doll show.  After nearly two decades of collecting, I was a fairly savvy collector at this point, so I started researching before making a purchase.

I've always been mildly obsessed about the 1920s, and Kit's collection, while set in the 1930s, shares a lot of similarities.  So Kit made an easy "gateway doll" to launch my AG obsession.  After Kit, of course I had to have her best friend Ruthie, and then there was the Colorado-based, horse-owning (like me) Girl of the Year from 2007, Nicki.  Then I discovered another Girl of the Year, Saige, had a horse too... and it was all downhill from there.

Learning to work on American Girl was easy after having spent nearly two decades working on 50s dolls, so I quickly learned to clean, restring, restore hair, and do a multitude of other repairs to my AG dolls.  Today I own well over 100 American Girl dolls and their collections, and I'm constantly buying, restoring, and reselling dolls as a part of my passion.  "Rescuing" and returning a doll to her original beauty is, to me, one of the most amazing experiences.

Click here to learn more about me.  Enjoy the eye candy and don't hesitate to reach out if there's something you need help with!