Reminiscing with Jess

Jess here, everyone.
A few years back, I went with my parents on a trip to Belize and boy did I love it! My mom and dad are both archeologists, so I accompanied them on a dig. It was so interesting to learn about the Mayan people that once lived there. I even made I friend, Sarita Bol, and we had quite a few adventures together. Even though we're not close anymore, we occasionally write to each other.

Thinking about Belize makes me a little homesick. It wasn't my home, technically, but it had been for a whole summer and that's the only way I can think of to describe it. I miss the weather, the culture, the people I met while I was there. Staying at home for the whole vacation seems boring in comparison. Nothing here is like the rain forests of Belize! I included an old snapshot of me while we were there. Looking at it makes me want to go back! Maybe someday...

-Jess Akiko McConnell
Guest Blogger

Spring Time

A glance outside from the window, you see partial sun, green grass, seemingly nice weather. Step outside, and there's fifteen mile per hour winds, a temperature of forty degrees, and foreboding, dark rain clouds in the distance. Are you sure it's spring?

The dolls had been dying to get outside, so I had scheduled a "spring party" outdoors with the new picnic table this weekend. Unfortunately, on the account of rain, the spring party was transferred indoors. Though inside, Sonali, Gwen, Nicki, Emily, Marisol, Ruthie, Mia, and Jess still had a good time. They talked, ate cookies, and played games. The silly girls even began singing! :P



It figures that the rain stopped as soon as the party was coming to a close. Either way, I wasn't complaining. Everyone quickly headed outside to splash in puddles and pose for some photos.

You can see all the spring photos here. The pictures included in the post are just a teaser :)
Models:
-Ruthie Smithens: Electric Turquoise Drawstring Dress by The Heritage Clothesline
-Nicki Fleming: Eyelet Spring Dress by The Heritage Clothesline
-Jess McConnell: Precious Pink Party Dress by Melody Valerie Couture
-Sonali Matthews: Dainty Dots Dress by Melody Valerie Couture
-Gwen Thompson: Chrissa's Meet Dress by American Girl
-Emily Bennett: Kit's Blue Bell Dress by The Heritage Clothesline
-Marisol Luna: Flower Garden Dress by American Girl
-Mia St. Clair: Chrissa's Sundress Dress paired with Sonali's Meet T-Shirt by American Girl

As you may or may not notice, we have two new dresses from the Heritage Clothesline. Micah does an amazing job, the quality, customer service, and price are great. The Electric Turquoise Drawstring dress is shown on Ruthie, and the Eyelet Spring dress is shown on Nicki. A big thank-you to The Heritage Clothesline!

Thanks for reading,
-Brooke

Gwen's sleepover!

Hello, everyone, this is guest blogger Gwen Thompson! This is my first time posting on the blog, which lately is more for all the girls here, and not just Avery. Life has been pretty busy, so sorry for the lack of updates.

Well, as you may or may not know, I moved to Yorkshire to attend Mondale Preparatory Academy, where my two best friends from Edgewater, Sonali and Chrissa, transferred. I missed them so much, not to mention that Mondale has an amazing orchestra program (I play the violin). So, here I am! Though, I almost feel bad about coming here. Because of me, Erin moved away. But, she still comes back for visits, so I suppose it's all right.

Anyways, March 27th was my birthday, my first one celebrated here at Mondale. It was the first weekend that I didn't have mountains of homework in what seemed like forever! To celebrate, I invited some of my closest friends to a slumber party. Unfortunately, Chrissa was sick with a flu that's been going around, and Avery was doing things with the science fair (I'll make sure she posts to explain!), but Mia, Emily, Sonali, Jess, and Ruthie were able to make it.

The group came to my room where we all changed into our pajamas, ate popcorn, and talked. I had a great time, and I hope my guests did, too.

Coconut and Licorice had fun as well!

-Gwen
PS: Brooke apologizes for the poor indoor lighting and messy scenes.

Jess and Ruthie: A Tribute

Jessika and Ruth-Ann,
Some people have the power to chance our lives- even after they're no longer a part of it. A sister is a forever friend.
♥

[[Our 200th post is dedicated to Ruthie, Jess, Sitara, and everyone over at MLWB]]

The surprise!

I'm posting this late, but, as promised, a post on our surprise items! Picture heavy post to follow.

The surprise was... couture! Two Heritage Clothesline dresses to be exact. Brooke ordered Samantha her ice cream dress and Jess a lovely, red frock. Both are stunning, and we are so happy to have these two new dresses for the holidays!


First is the ice cream dress, inspired by book illustrations.

It is a lovely, crisp, and white with beautiful black ribbon detailing. Very, very pretty! Amazing quality, and looks just like it does in the book! This has to be one of the prettiest Edwardian-era dresses I've seen, even better than those made by American Girl! Samantha looks so beautiful with her dark hair and eyes against the white dress. This dress seems to work for both winter and spring, which is very nice. Samantha is so happy to have her new dress!














Next is the Toy Soldier red dress, which was promptly claimed by Jess. I think it looks very nice on her, red looks very great with her coloring. The dress is made from a rich, red fabric that has white lace detailing. Everything is absolutely gorgeous! This is a great holiday dress.














Well, these aren't the greatest pictures. Sorry for not posting much these past few days!
-Avery

The surprise outfit- Liberty Jane duds!

On this dismal, rainy, and blustery day, a small white package arrived on our doorstep, a bright spot against the dark clouds.
"I wonder what this could be?" Jess thought. After a long day of biology and algebra classes, she was relieved to finally be at her dorm. Boy, was she surprised when she opened the box to reveal a lovely Liberty Jane Clothing outfit! A very trendy pair of distressed jeans, lacy white tank, graphic tee, and cute converse sneakers lay inside. She quickly changed into these magnificent duds, and took some pictures.

Presenting the surprise outfit- "our version" of Code Red by Liberty Jane Clothing! Cinnamon was wonderful, and worked with us until we found our perfect outfit. Substituting the skinny jeans for dark destroyed denim, replacing the sparkly silver cons with these new circle ones, and leaving the vest out entirely gives this outfit a whole new look! Originally it was going to be for Sonali, but Jess couldn't resist. It's just her style too.

This outfit is absolutely wonderful. I could swear that it was made for a real girl! The jeans are super cute, and have ripped and bleached areas to give them the destroyed look. They have a perfect fit, but still go on easily. The two shirts are great, and have a lot of mix and match potential! The white tank top has lace accents at the bottom, and looks great with the graphic t-shirt to make the layered look. Speak of that t-shirt, it's amazing! The fabric is adorable, I love the funky print. We also got a pair of circle converse shoes, they're too cute! I can't get over AG shoes, they're the sweetest things.

Amazing quality and attention to detail, I love this outfit!

This outfit gets an A+ from Jess and I! This is my first Liberty Jane outfit, and I couldn't be more thrilled.



Behind the photography with small lesson:
Fashion photography has been an increasing interest of mine, and to get these 3 shots (which, I have to admit, I'm very proud of!) took me about 45 minutes to an hour. First off, you have to get your doll looking perfect. Then, I had to set up the scene. I have an nice spot in my house with decent lighting from a window and sliding glass door (which is why a lot of indoor photos have the same background, sorry!). I also have a table craft light I use to get a nice look. Lighting is everything! Then, I take about 30 pictures, at least. Some with flash, some without, just experiment with everything. I then load them onto the computer and delete the ones I don't like as well. Seeing it on the large monitor helps to see which shots are your best. After deleting some it is narrowed down to about 10 shots. I put them on flickr.com (love this website) and they have an excellent editing program called piknik. I cannot recommend piknik enough! You have to have a good photo to start with, but editing it well on the computer can make all the difference. For these photos I added text, toyed around with brightness levels, sharpened, and enhanced the colors to really make them pop. It helps a lot! You don't have to have the most expensive, fancy camera to get nice looking pictures.

Thanks for reading! We love the new outfit!

-Brooke

Boredom

Uhhhh, I am so bored. Nothing has been going on around here. Luckily it has cooled down some, and we're back in the comfortable weather. Brooke is going to work on the video today. The camera's batteries are low though, so I'm not sure how far we're going to be able to get. She's just starting, and hasn't gotten any farther along than the last post.

Here's a picture for you. I don't like to publish posts without pictures!

Jess et Mia. Ils sont de toute beauté. (Jess and Mia. They are very beautiful)

Lately this blog has been about a lot of stuff. Couture, stop motion, new dolls, etc. It is supposed to be my blog though, but it seems I'm posting about everything else except me.

~Avery~

Jess

Jess is so pretty.
She had her stop motion segment filmed today, and wow, she looked amazing.
Here's two pictures of her. They look pretty similar, but I couldn't choose which one to post. These are part of Jess' clip in the video, so I guess this is another 'sneak peak'.
Real life has gotten in the way, again, and Brooke will probably be gone (at the beach!) til around 5:30. So, Monday night is looking like our predicted date for the video.

Sorry for the short post, but pictures speak a thousand words.

~Avery~

Jess's new 'do

Hi everybody, Avery here! I did Jess's hair today, and picked out a new "weather appropriate" outfit for her.

This is her outfit

-Pink Tank Top from Nicki's Tie Top and Shorts Outfit (retired '07)

-White Cardigan from Emily's accessories

-Jeans from the Sparkly Tunic and Jeans outfit

-Shoes from the skateboard outfit(can't see these in the pictures, so here they are from the AG website http://store.americangirl.com/agshop/html/ProductPage.jsf/itemId/142135/itemType/TOY/webTemplateId/3/uniqueId/189/saleGroupId/137)

-Toshi from Jess's accessories

Notice how I coordinated Toshi with the green on the shoes =)

Here is how I did her hair:

I parted her hair and gave her pig tails. Then after I tied the pig tails I took the pig tails and tied them together too! Its hard to explain so I put in a picture.

Jess says that she really likes it here and that Ivy and I are her closest friends here right now.

Jess Akiko McConnell

Our owner got Jess on Ebay a while ago, and she just came in the mail today, hmmm looks like the 3 of us may be going to AGPC! =P Probably not though.

Jess is really pretty and she has the same shaped eyes as Ivy, and my owner said thats because they're both Asian. I think they're eyes are pretty. I also re-braided Jess's hair for her, she has the silkiest prettiest hair! My owner says that she has a "thin wig" but I like her hair better than my own!

Jess came with her accessories too, and I really like her monkey Toshi.