American Girl Books: Molly

American Girl Books: Kirsten

American Girl Books: Samantha

The Original American Girl Books

The human is away for an entire week next week with no access to the english portions of the internet because she's off visiting her grandparents in China.  Z is going with her (and taking so many clothes to show off), but the rest of us are hanging out here, enjoying some more of our library.

As always, the human is really good at making stuff, and less good at remembering to show them off.  These were made ages ago.

What are they?  A complete set of the original white hardcover Historical American Girl books for Kirsten, Molly, Samantha, Felicity, and Addy.

Including the correct symbols on the spines

Which character is/was your favorite?

Science Fun (part 2), now with poster printables

There's nothing quite like playing with legos indoors while waiting for the next Nor'easter to hit.  Hardly any snow in February, and now 4 blizzards in March.  But we don't mind.  It gives us more time to work on our personal projects.

The human and her male counterpart did their best to raid the AG store back in January, and we're still reaping the benefits.  Lily has claimed the new dinosaur t-shirt.  We have all learned from past experience that we do not ask about what exactly Lily is making in the lab.  It's better for everyone that way.

Human interjection:

A quick review of some of the new clothes (the t-shirt from the NASA souvenir set, and the dinosaur t-shirt):  they run small.  Sized for dolls with a 10.25" waist and 10.75" chest small.  Only the dolls made after 2015 could wear them.  Also, the sleeves on the dinosaur shirt barely go over the hands.  I like the shirts, but the issue of fit is definitely making me not want to buy new doll clothes from AG unless I take a doll to the store, try it on the doll in-store after purchase, and return what doesn't fit immediately.  Luckily, I can also just sew my own.

And now back to the dolls...

Sam is working on ...something... involving programing a tiny microcontroller.  Turns out, if you have a tiny Adafruit Gemma microcontroller board, you can kind-of-sort-of attach it to an AG laptop.  And Sam has her programming buddy, LEGO Margaret Hamilton, to help her debug.  We do not yet have a doll-sized stack of Apollo guidance module control code.  The human might have balked at printing out 4500 sheets of doll-sized paper for it (and that's the doll-scale model).

Nellie and Cauth have done that thing of making LEGO landmines all over the floor.  They'll finish the Women of NASA LEGO set eventually, we think.  And then it will be time to start the LEGO BB8.  We desperately need to go along with our R2 unit.  It's smaller, so we're sure we can find a place for it here somewhere.

Yes, that is a sonic screwdriver.  No, you may not have it.

And finally, a cute little craft for those last minute Easter baskets or because someone needs more posters in their room:  the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's vintage space tourism posters.  The Mars poster is the same one in Luciana's Mars Habitat.  There's 20 different posters in all.  Print them on lightweight cardstock for the best effect.

JPL Space Tourism Posters

Science Fun (part 1)

It's not every day that the human gets a day off from work, and definitely not every day that the science lab is set up for business.  And, if you haven't met me yet (don't worry, the human has been really really slow about introducing me to the world), I'm Vega.  Jaime Luciana Vega.

And we (meaning Shep, myself, and the human), have been planning space adventures.  Hence Shep's new stash of space toys, and my stash of activity books.  Now for the human to get logistics under control.  Maybe start the Space Tourism Bureau?

I'm not the only new inhabitant of (well, I want to call it the SR2 Normandy.  Raise your hand if you get the reference), but I'll go with 'The Presidium' because it sounds better than 'The Madhouse with a giant cat'.  Meet Liz, the lizard, current perching on Nora.  Next thing you know, there'll be an octopus in the neighborhood.

My new activity books are mostly made from official NASA printables, shrunk down to 1/3 scale.  All except the 'My First Outer Space' coloring book.  That one was made from Dover free samples.  We've got a nifty little 'Space Tech' activity pad, and a little 'What we need to colonize Mars' activity book.  And then we've got some color books on the latest and greatest NASA gear:  the Space Launch System and ORION.

Doll Sized:

Outer Space coloring book

NASA activity books and Assembly instructions

Orion and Space Launch System coloring books

Human Sized:

NASA Space Tech Fun Pad

NASA Surviving and Thriving on Mars

and other coloring books from NASA

Country Lolita Style for Valentine's Day

Kana here.  Valentine's Day (and Chinese New Year) are just around the corner, which means new clothes are a must.  The human was trying out some of her pattern design skills, and came up with these two dresses for us.  Both dress have princess seams and more lace and ruffles than a dress really needs, even though we all know there is no such thing as too much lace.

As an early Valentine's Day/Chinese New Year present, here are some links to our previous holiday crafts: 

Valentine's Day Printables and Chinese New Year's Printables

But now onto the dresses.

Z's dress closes in the front with a row of tiny buttons (and working buttonholes).  There's tiny lace trim along the front placket and around the collar, and lace ruffle at the hem.  The back has corset-style lacing for an adjustable fit.  Four different types of lace sacrificed themselves for this dress.

My dress has a cute bib-front and a round collar, decorated with a tiny coordinating button.  The dress closes in the back with velcro, but also has the corset-lacing backing for a better fit.  The bottom hem has a lace ruffle, and lace edging besides.  But the best parts are the puff sleeves, with lace insertion in the puff and the cuff, and even more lace trimming at the hems and the sleeve seams.  This is all-out lace and girly-ness, and I love it.

The human needs to make some more adjustments to these patterns before releasing them into the wilds of Etsy, so keep tuned.