Welcoming the New Doll

There is something about dolls that I love. It is not a blind obsession where I feel the need to collect every doll under the sun from every walk of life. Mostly, my doll collecting falls into the category of "If I like it and I can afford it, I will take it!" I have various dolls around my home, but the majority of them fall into the fairytale theme; namely Rapunzel and Tangled.

Indeed, I have many, many, many Tangled dolls. I have multiples of some dolls because I have changed their hair color or am working to customize them and wanted a doll that was still as it was made and left in the box.

One doll I fell in love with when I first saw her was the first edition of the 17'' Singing Rapunzel Doll. Her dress had the same details as the film and her hair had the tinsel in it to make it appear shimmering and magical. My collection had started in 2011, after the first wave of dolls had gone through the Disney Store. I had myself a singing Rapunzel doll, the second edition in her satin dress, but there were no details like in the film.

Possiblezen's Singing Rapunzel.

The cosmetics were not the only thing that changed during the first two editions of this doll. To operate the first doll, you had to touch the right hand of the doll where there were two prongs. You had to touch them both at the same time to get her to sing. This proved to be a little difficult for children to do and when they redesigned the doll to have only one prong to ease-of-use, they redid her clothing and hair as well.

I was a little sad when I found this out. I absolutely loved the old design. I would often haunt Possiblezen's flicker pages to stare at the version of the doll he had (seen to the right.) Not only was she the first edition of the doll (note the two prongs on her right [our left] hand), but he had braided her hair, added flowers, and even out some gems on her dress. All of this just made me want her more! I eyed these images for over a year.

Last week I was browsing eBay as I tend to do, and I saw two Rapunzel dolls that were both the 17 inch singing doll in the original dress with the tinsel hair. One of the dolls had hair that was so matted I knew I would not be able to comb it out, even after letting it soak on conditioner. The other one, was a composite doll. What this meant was that the seller had gotten the head and dress from the first edition doll but replaced the body with the second edition doll to make sure any children who had it could make it sing easily. I was not too concerned with the fact that the doll was a composite, since the doll was meant for me and meant to stay in my collection. If she was worth money someday, great. If not? Well, I loved her and that is all that mattered.

I watched the doll for a little while, then decided that since the buy out price was about the same as the doll would have cost in the store new, I bought her. My life has been emotionally straining as of late, as you may have read in the my other post, and this doll was going to be here to cheer me up. I just knew it.

The night before the doll arrived, I was absolutely miserable. Without going into details, I felt as though I did not belong where I was living anymore and I felt as though those that were close to me were not as desiring of my company as I thought. When I woke the next day and went to the mail box, there was a box in there waiting for me. When I opened it up, Rapunzel's smiling face was there to greet me. Immediately, I took her inside and unbraided her hair. It felt a little grimy and there was some dirt on her face. After washing her face, I wet her hair and washed it with conditioner (ironically I used a conditioner that made a Rapunzel comparison on the back of it.) As her hair dried, I set to work on fixing her dress. The edge of the dress where the trim is against the other panel in the front had un-pleated. Therefore, the trim was further from the panel than it should have been and did not look right. I ironed the pleat back into place with low heat then put a small stitch in the holes of the lace at the hem of the skirt with invisible thread so that it would not un-pleat as quick.

As I stared at my new doll, I was unsure what to do with her hair. Logic told  me to braid it, since that is the best way to keep the hair tangle free and from getting messed up. However, I knew I was going to want to take photos of her with the hair in braided, so she stood on my Tangled  shelf for the day as I cleaned and worked on some art projects, before I finally got out my camera and took photos of my new Rapunzel. I took a lot of photos.

The composite Rapunzel doll beside a boxed second edition of the singing doll.
The second doll's box also advertises only 14 inches of hair versus the
roughly 17 inches that the first doll was said to have.

A few more creases in her dress need to be taken care of,
but she looks so cute I cannot stand it! I wanted to take
a thousand more pictures, but I did not have the time to.

Rapunzel's hair.  From crown to the longest point,
her hair is about 19 inches long, though I think it was
originally advertised at 17 inches.

I have a desire to take her out into nature and take a few pictures of her there before I bind her hair in a braid and add some flowers. When that day comes, you can bet there will be more pictures and that they will get posted here.