BFC Ink Doll Collection Complete!!

Well, if it isn't obvious, I got into doll collection, but I suppose I always was a doll collector, just not really by choice as my mom would buy me a porcelain doll every year for my birthday until I moved away for college, but even then I still got porcelain dolls as gifts from her and other members of my family.

Over the years of course I have collected dolls from the 80's like the Kimberly doll by Tommy, and of course Barbie...  then I got into repainting Bratz dolls the past couple of years and added Monster High to the list of dolls to look for at flea markets etc...

But one day, by chance I came across the now out of production MGA Entertainment 18" BFC Ink (Best Friends Club Ink) dolls.  These dolls are way cuter, in my opinion, than American Girl Dolls (which I really do not like at all actually) or Journey Girls etc...  They have a hard body all the way and were made in two types.  The first productions were just all vinyl bodies, much like the Wellie Wisher dolls (which I do think are super cute...) also from American Girl...

Left to right: Calista, Addison, Aliesha, Kaitlyn, Noelle

They also made fashion doll size versions... I am not a bit fan of those, but they are Skipper size, so good for Barbie's sister to have more friends...  This photo contains cuter versions than what was released... all the official photos looked slightly different...

Left to right" Aliesha, Calista, Kaitlyn, Noelle, Addison

And then they made a second version and those were the fully jointed ones....

There were 12 dolls that got produced in the fully jointed style. I am unsure about the first body style as I have never seen a CJ doll that was not fully jointed. So the set is the original 5, then with the addition of three more - Yuko and Gianna, and the only boy, CJ (Short for Christopher James). At some point before or after that, they released the Pen Pals introducing Esla from Sweeden, Nicollete from France, Brit from England (how fitting of the name), and Carmen from Mexico...

Originally Nicollete was to have Blue eys but they went with Brown instead...

There was a 13th doll that never got produced, Lily from South Africa which would have been released with the BFC Pen Pal Line.

I have all of them.

I customized Elsa's eyes for a lighter shade of blue.

I also, once I learned how to remove their eyes, swapped out some of them...

I have extras so I was playing with customization.  I had made a custom Nicollete doll at one point but then found the actual one on Ebay, without her original dress and along with two more I figured I could customize or resell.  She looks a lot like Kaitlyn except her hair is slightly darker and her eyebrows are darker too.




I had bought one of the non jointed Addison dolls on ebay when I saw she had really light colored blue eyes...

Eyes coming out, also this is one of the dolls I was playing with for repaint purposes.

I ended up swapping them out for Elsa's eyes... it make so much more sense to me that the fairer Elsa get the crystal blue eye color...



And later I bought another Addison with light color eyes except they were more gray... I debated swapping out Brit's eyes since she is the one who is supposed to have gray eyes... but I decided to swap out with a Noelle doll making a completely new doll for my collection...

Meet Maya. I named her after a new eBay friend who corrected me on the BFC doll names... Aliesha and Noelle are twins so I get them confused! LOL

I gotta fix her wonky eye, kinda messed up a little there....

So I have 13 dolls in total in my full collection, plus all the extras I got from buying them in lots or buying the dolls because of eye color or clothes...  I will post about my tester dolls which were balled BFC dolls which I plan to customize and re-wig.


I've listed several at my ebay store...
http://stores.ebay.com/nerdysweetsboutique


Here is a video I made showcasing some of them...

So after getting the entire collection I decided I needed to learn more about them.  I want to know their back stories and have become somewhat obsessed about that detail.  I ended up buying Yuko, Calista, and Gianna again for the sake of getting their diaries...

I get the feeling the contents were different depending on the type of doll purchased but I am satisfied with the versions I got...  Gianna's diary is mostly about cupcakes and the teenage Vampire guy she has a crush on, and Nick from school...  Calista's and Yuko's tell a story, which I liked and they reveal more about the others too.  CJ's tells a story too and you learn he has a crush on Addison.

But I was missing Kaitlyn's, Addison, and the twins stories... so I broke down and ordered the fashion dolls...  But much to my dismay, Kaitlyn and Addison's books are in German!  I realized it after the bid was over... so when they arrive I am going to translate those books... I might as well learn German!!!


So now all that remains is the mystery of the Pen Pals... Am I left to write their story?  What are their last names?  Who do they live with?  What are their hobbies?

It's okay!  I plan to start making movies for YouTube about the doll's adventures as told in their Diaries... this should fill my creative appetite as I'll be making dioramas, taking photos and filming, and of course editing.  Voice overs will be the challenge unless I opt to simply Narrate everything, which I might do.

I also plan to photograph all the pages from each diary and post them in this blog.  I couldn't find anything like that on the web and it was frustrating for me.

So all in all, I think I am done with this journey...  I will sell my duplicates, I might end up buying some other dolls, like Wellie Wishers and Hearts For Hearts to play younger siblings to these... Also, Addison has a brother so I gotta figure that one out for my movies... I might buy the Carpetina dolls for that, since there are some decent looking male dolls... or I might resort to using my porcelain dolls to fill in the roles in the movies...

Also these dolls are all 18 inches which means I can use a lot of the same accessories, except for clothes since they are slim, as American Girl, Our Generation, and Journey Girls.  This is great because I need camping gear for them, and other things...

Well, if you have questions, drop me a line, comment, etc!  I look forward to sharing my journey with anyone who gets joy from this too!!!

Okay, and to get things going I am starting a specific blog for these dollies.
Here is the link!
http://bestfriendsclubdolls.blogspot.com/