Popcorn and Potato Chips: Z's Debut

It is a gorgeous day in the San Francisco Bay Area and it was a perfect day for a perfect drive in perfect spring weather (sunshine!) to American Girl Place San Francisco.

I went to AGPSF knowing I probably would bring home the poppet girl Z, Popcorn and the Filming Accessories...

The store was understandably quiet for a Thursday morning, though I saw a few mother-and-daughter/s visiting the store and lingering over Z's display.

Z's main display area was pretty compact. The four-cube kiosk held her entire collection.

So Z was cute as expected. In some ways I was underwhelmed by the four-cube display. I think we are used to large character debuts like for Tenney or a BeForever consisting of 5+ outfits and at least one giant display piece like Tenney's Stage and Dressing Room or Maryellen's 1950s Diner Set.

But in spite of the more compact size of the collection, like many prior new character doll debuts, I find I react to the whole venture like potato chips... you can't stop at one.

Remember, the idea was to pick up Z, Popcorn and the Filming Accessories...

Here's what came home! What's in the big red bag? What's that huge box under the bag?

I can't wait to play with the Desk Set!

The Desk Set comes in a utilitarian cardboard box that can be used directly for shipping--but it is now a bright red and displays a huge image of what is inside. Don't count on being able to mail order this item and have your children (or husband) unaware of its contents! (This new non-discreet packaging style is noted on AG's website as well.)

Poppet Z, Popcorn and Filming Accessories came home with us today. But also her Accessory Set (white jacket, hat, scarf, and funky orange glasses) and that fun Desk Set.

I just love looking at a new poppet still in her box!

No new name for Poppet Z just yet but we heartily welcome her to her forever home!

Who and what will be coming home this spring for you?

Tenney and Logan Homecoming

Fun at AGPSF at the Tenney and Logan debut!

And at the end of all of and returning with us home is... tah-dah!

I was surprised it all fit in the one America Girl shopping bag. The majority of the purchase today was Tenney and Logan and accessories, but Kit and Maryellen also each got a new outfit as well. 

While Tenney was planned, I honestly did not make the final decision to purchase Logan until this morning as my husband and I drove together to the store. I was talking out loud in the car about the pros and cons of getting Logan, the two main set of issues being "I don't need a Logan. I am already buying a lot today. I could live with not getting a Logan." vs "Logan may not be around long. He's pretty special being the first boy. I think he would make a great manager (not canon, renamed, etc.) for Tenney's career."

So after all this babbling I turned to my husband as he was driving and asked him straight up if I should get Logan. He just smiled and chuckled and said yes, I probably should get Logan. Lol.

There are more outfits I hope to get for Tenney and Logan, especially the unreleased outfits seen in some of the American Girl marketing materials. Logan needs the bomber jacket and Tenney needs that black sequin dress!

Look at those cute faces! I can't wait to get them out of their boxes.

AGPSF Flash: Peeking for Perma-Panties

While I need to write a few longer posts on PantyGate, for tonight I want to give a short update on American Girl Place San Francisco and the presence or non-presence of perma-panties.

In brief, as of this Monday evening, AGPSF seems to still be primarily stocked with the older versions of the 18" dolls--no obvious signs of perma-panty dolls. I was only able to open a few boxes, such as the TM 55 pictured above and below.

It was surprising how happy I was to see the removable panties on the TM doll!

I peeked in a few more boxes in the TM area and then opened one Julie box and was pleased to see she was still sporting removable panties as well.

So now a on worrying note--the store was quiet, there were plenty of assistants doing what looked like stocking and arranging--but the # of doll boxes on the shelves in the BeForever area seemed extremely sparse. 

Where I might normally see BeForever doll boxes lined up in each character kiosk area at least 2 deep and all the way across I now saw boxes only 1 deep and not all the way across. My (irrational?) fear is that for the big debut of Tenney & Logan on Thursday that AG is also planning to pull, re-box, and "debut "the BeForever girls in some new atrocious full-window style box.

Note that AG has been known to pull out and re-box store-stock dolls in the past. For the big Truly Me debut launch in May 2015 the Visual Department at AGPSF took ALL the modern dolls out of their old boxes, redressed them in what we know as the current Lilac Dress, and then re-box them in the new Truly Me box. (I overheard some of this while in the store the morning of the Truly Me debut in 2015 and also managed to get a few behind the scenes tidbits of info when I found a chatty employee who told me that Visual hd been up until 4am making those very changes the night before.)

TL;DR

*AGPSF still has older dolls with removable underwear in stock. Go soon to avoid perma-panties.

*The BeForever box could change without warning and Thursday's debut is one possible (but not confirmed) switch-a-roo point.

Giveaway Winner: I Love Baby Sloths!

Thank you to all who entered Poppets & Posies first giveaway!

The winner of the new Sloth from GOTY 2016 Lea Clark's new collection is

CLOUDYKAT

Congratulations, Cloudykat! Please email poppetsLOVEposies@gmail.com 

with your mailing address to claim your prize.

***

Thank you to all my readers and fellow American Girl enthusiasts. It was probably almost as fun for me to anticipate the giveaway results as it hopefully will be for the winner!

Not a winner this round? Interested in more Poppets & Posies fun? Keep an eye out for more 

contests and giveaways to be announced in January, including a special and newly designed Baby Sloth contest!

I am headed to American Girl Store San Francisco in the morning for the debut of Lea Clark! In store pictures to follow!

AGPSF Flash: Taking Stock of Grace Thomas

The rains paused and this sunny Friday afternoon I took a delightful drive up to AGPSF to take a walk-through of Grace Thomas' displays and note her in-store stock.

This is a view into Grace Thomas' main display area at the front of the store. While there is a lot still to see of her collection, there is no grand attempt to fill in the display gaps, most noticeably the huge empty space right in the middle of the floor. There is floor space to do some cartwheels!

Not only is there extra floor space, the display cases themselves are emptying out. The open teal platform long ago held the French Bakery but there was no attempt to make any other display--just a rather well-loved Grace doll with frizzy hair. The pink platform with plexiglass case on the right held the Pastry Cart display just last weekend, but now Grace stands alone in the case.

And the light blue platform case is also emptying out--no more BonBon (he was there just last week!). There are plenty of dolls for sale--but only two of the Travel Set (Luggage) left on the shelves. The Travel Coat is long gone.

Back wall left side--dolls and Welcome Gifts.

Middle back wall--a few Bistro Sets remain.

Back wall right side--Pajamas, Welcome Gifts and City Outfit. Also the Sightseeing Accessories and Sweet Hairstyling Set (left column).

Around the corner and in other display areas are additional outfits and accessories including the Baking Outfit and Opening-Night Outfit. For many Grace Thomas items, going in-store is still viable option at AGPSF.

Available at AGPSF
* indicates sold out online

Baking Outfit*
Baking Set*
Bistro Set*

City Outfit*
Opening-Night Outfit
Pajamas*
Sightseeing Accessories*
Sweet Hairstyling Set*
Travel Set (Luggage)*
Welcome Gifts

Gone Both Online and at AGPSF
French Bulldog
French Bakery
Paris Accessories (Purse)
Pastry Cart
Travel Coat

Only Available Online

Sightseeing Outfit

AGPSF Flash: Hello & Goodbye to Grace's Store Stock

American Girl Place San Francisco had brisk business this Sunday! The store was full with shoppers young and old and many of their red shopping bags were stuffed with AG goodies. My brief visual survey saw that the shopping traffic was very doll-clothing-and-accessories oriented as I saw very few shoppers making 18" doll purchases today.

I wanted to check out Grace Thomas' in-store stock in light of the surprise AG Daily Deal spotlighting her collection--nine items up to 30% off, including the Grace Thomas doll offered at $84! As items become "No Longer Available" (NLA) on AG's website, how would stock at the local store compare?

Plenty of Grace dolls on the floor!

However, both on the website and at AGPSF, Grace's powder blue Travel Coat is NLA. The Travel Set (Luggage) is gone from the website now, but there are still plenty of her luggage sets at the store.

Missed out on the Sweet Hairstyling Set online? AGPSF has plenty in stock.

Grace's Charm Bracelet for Girls disappeared off of the website several days ago, but AGPSF has quite a few left for now.

Also, the Baking Outfit which has been bouncing off and on backorder status online has healthy stock at the store. Other items gone online but that can be still found at the store include the Baking Set (Mixer) and the Polka Dot Apron for Girls.

The only big observation to make on Grace's stock seems to be the obvious one--get what you absolutely want now before it is gone. With the 20% off all regularly priced items through December 12th plus the one day 30% off Daily Deal for Grace Thomas and a huge portion of her collection, the rush is on! 

A quick summary of the highlights:

Baking Outfit 

AGPSF: In Stock
Website: Back Ordered

Baking Set (Mixer)
AGPSF: In Stock
Website: NLA

Sightseeing Outfit
AGPSF: Out of Stock
Website: Back Ordered

Sweet Hairstyles
AGPSF: In Stock
Website: NLA

Travel Coat
AGPSF: Out of Stock
Website: NLA

Travel Set (Luggage)
AGPSF: In Stock
Website: NLA

Bracelet for Girls
AGPSF: In Stock
Website: NLA

Polka-Dot Apron for Girls
AGPSF: In Stock
Website: NLA

AGPSF Flash: A Second Look & The Haul

In the AGPSF store this morning I managed to snap a series of pictures, though I definitely felt more in a rush than usual because of my own excitement and of course from the throngs of other excited shoppers. What I did not recognize until I got home is that the photos I did manage to take were primarily of the items I was not going to purchase that day.

So I offer my readers some photos of what I did not buy followed by a rather revealing "The Haul" photo.

But before I launch into those photos, I did manage to catch a snap of the Take a Picture with Grace station when no one was posing with it, though it took some patience. The fabric awning is a great detail and I am obsessed with the tiled roof of the Mansard styled french roof.

Above the picture station one can see the Eiffel Tower. (Count the Eiffel Towers!)

The City Outfit--little Bonbon looks unfortunately startled in this picture. I leave this "Love" outfit to purchase a bit closer to Valentine's Day (though I do bring little Bonbon home today).

City Outfit shoes. (Count the bows!)

Gloves and purse from the Paris Accessories. The texture on the shorts is fabulous and interesting.

The Bistro Set table. (Eiffel Tower!)

The Bistro Set table, napkin, food, carafe, and menu.

The Bistro Set sidewalk menu board. (Count the hearts!)

Grace's Pajamas. Another purchase for later. I am definitely ready to head out soon! (More bows!)

Grace's Travel Coat. Love the texture of the fabric. But not today. (A bow!)

Grace's Opening Night Outfit. I love the pink tulle mesh over sequins look. I thought sequins would be gone after so many in Isabelle's collection. I must admit, I am not tired of sequins yet--however, this is also a February outfit if I can hold out.

Cute Eiffel Tower earrings--it looks like they can be doubled up with the heart or bow earrings (Eiffel Tower! Hearts! Bows!) I need to find time to go back and purchase the earring set but not actually pierce her ears.

The above picture also shows Grace's Pastry Cart. Wait. I did bring this home--they were flying off the shelves (so to speak) and I decided that I would add the Pastry Cart to my purchases in the final minutes before checking out. While I plan to eventually get Grace's "Whole World," this was the one impulse/early purchase based solely on the store vibe.

Check out went quickly but we needed assistance to take our haul to the car. Enter Nick, one of the most sincerely cheerful and helpful sales associates we have ever met at the store. He even agreed to pose with all of our purchases and gave me permission to use his image on this blog.

Nick shared with us that he really enjoyed working for American Girl. He confessed to owning one AG doll, an Isabelle which he won in a contest. When I asked him if he was going to get a Grace doll he said he wasn't certain, but when I pointed out they both had blue eyes, I could tell the idea to get Grace had crossed his mind at least once before! (Note it was Nick's idea to pull Grace out of the giant red shopping bag for this picture! Yay, Nick! Yay, AG!)

One can really see the real estate difference between the French Bakery (bottom box) and the Pastry Cart (top box). The latter is not only a wallet saver but also a space saver! However, I was obviously not detoured.

Today's purchases include

Grace Thomas

Welcome Gifts

Bonbon

Baking Outfit

Baking Set (the mixer, etc)

Pastry Cart

French Bakery

I am looking forward to begin unpacking and photographing all the new items over the coming days and weeks. First up in The Wonderful! World of Grace will be a blog post later this evening with the first pictures of Grace right out of the box!

AGPSF Flash: Searching for Isabelle

I had a few exchanges to do this year before Isabelle stock disappeared completely and headed up to AGPSF this afternoon. The store was doing brisk business, both in sales and returns/exchanges. My main objective was to exchange my recently purchased Metallic Dress since it had a long run in the lavender tights straight out of the box.

As I suspected, there were no more Isabelle dolls on the shelves anywhere. But surprisingly, there was a reasonable number of outfits available, and for the savvy shopper--all on sale.

On the left side of the back wall display was plenty of the Metallic Dress, so the exchange went smoothly. 

And on the right side of the back wall was plenty of the Sparkle Dress.

But no Isabelle dolls! Normally, the bottom shelf was full.

And no Isabelle dolls under the dvd display.

And around the corner where Isabelle's Studio used to be displayed, there are no Isabelle dolls on the top shelf anymore.

However, quite a few of Isabelle's items were still on the shelves, including

Isabelle's Accessories

Purple Leotard

Scrunch Pants

Funky Leggings

Performance Outfit

Metallic Dress

Sparkle Dress

Makeup Box

The girl sized clothing and accessories were down to just a few handfuls in random sizes--and I saw quite a few moms with the girl sized clothing in their hands waiting to check out. 

There were also only a handful of the girl sized Jewelry Box left, perhaps less than ten. The dwindling supply of all the Isabelle goods is just a reminder of the excitement just around the corner.

I plan to be in line at 10am on January 1st! Will you be going to your local American Girl Store on the 1st?