WHAT IT TAKES TO RUN AGDOLLAWESOME

Hey girl!  My name is Samantha, and I am the owner of this blog, agdollawesome!  Today’s post is going to be something a bit different from what I usually do, but I’ve wanted to do it for a long time so…

It is a Behind The Scenes post!  You guys can see what goes into maintaining this blog, and it definitely is a lot.  I have lots of photos to take, dolls to dress and style, posts to write, and pictures to edit.  In the wake of my blogiversary, I have to say it’s the perfect time to do it.  Let’s get into it!!

This picture… is soooo not worth it for what I had to do for it.

I nearly had to sell my soul for it!

So my brother and I were at my grandparent’s house in the country for spring break, and we decided to play in the river of course.  Halfway through I was like, “Hey, I need this scenery for one of my photo stories!”  so I walked all the way to the house, picked up an Ikea bag full of dolls, and my grandma drove me alllll the way back.

This is the side of the bank that I layed my dolls on.  But of course, Sam decides…

“oh, well I bet I could get a better shot if  just CARRIED my doll and my 600 dollar camera across the waist high water.  Yeah, that seems like I great idea!”

I nearly fell in twice, and I screamed both times.

But as you can see, the bank doesn’t have smooth climbs from the water to the shore, so I had to climb on the slippery mud.  So I placed my doll over on the other side, waded to the original side, and hazel fell.  So I walked back and stood her up, and THEN I finally took the photo.  Then I had to carry her back, and the I decided that I could get a better shot fo the dolls that were supposed to be on the orginal side of the bank across from Hazel, for the story to work, so I carried my camera to Hazel’s side again.

All for five photos!

It was… kind of fun though… XD

As I told you, there was also a bit of styling that goes into it.  For the next photo story, I had to put a bit more thought into that, because it takes place in the Victorian age.  I took these pictures in a huge field at the back of the house, near the winery.

Then, I dressed the dolls in their normal outfits, and carried them in a foodmax bag all the way to my aunt’s house…

Or, my aunt’s tree house…

It was so dirty in there, so I apologize if when you see this one, the photos look a bit rushed.  😦

When it comes to dressing the dolls, I usually undress them from their previous outfits, and then I line them up on this rug!  Then I rifle through my doll clothes, piece together 12 outfits, and see which ones look best on all the dolls.  And then once I finalize which outfit looks best on whichever doll, I dress them and do their hair.  It takes at least 45 minutes to an hour and a half, maybe longer.

I usually watch agtube while I do it too!

But sometimes when it’s only a few of my dolls, I just do it all on my bed!

After I dress them, I use these washable markers that I actually won two years ago from small dolls in a big world!

I do their eyeliner, and on Nora I fill in her eyebrows.

And then I add a bit of lip color!

For this photo story, I need two boy dolls, and I need to transform Maryellen into one…

So I make a doll beanie from a sock…

And I tuck their hair with a bobby pin…

Change their clothes, slap on a beanie, and BOOM a boy doll. XD

For the setup, I closed all my blinds to make it as dark as possible.  Then I hung up my New Years dress, my science fair board, and the back of my mirror.  I made punch out of some water and red sprinkles and set up a table with mini red solo cups.  It took about half an hour to hang up all those fairy lights lol.

For my RED photo shoot, you guys might have thought I edited the photos to be that red, but I didn’t!  Of course, editing would have been a lot easier…

I closed the blinds, and tied a red shirt around my desk lamp!

The Paisley awards is a huge part of my blog, and I put possibly way too much work into it??  I got these trophies from party city, and hot glued them to a piece of wood so they wouldn’t fly around while spray painting/glittering them!

For the set up, I used my science fair board, white paper, paper from paper source, and two shirts as curtains!

I decided to make it extra special and took polaroids for all the winners!

Of course, sometimes they fall over…

looks like I had quite a mess to clean up… XD

Another amazing tip I wanted to share is that it’s ALL about angle.  This angle was taken about Hazel, and she doesn’t look as amazing.

But with this one, you can see a ton of stuff in the background like my aunt’s house, instead of just grass.

In case you guys were ever wondering, I wanted to show you where I put all my doll stuff!  I hang my dresses in my closet like this.  ^^

And a few shelves about my dresses, I put all of my boxes that are full of doll stuff!  I have 6 of them to fit everything.

On the front of my closet, we have a jewelry holder that holds all my doll shoes on both sides!

Finally, we’ll explore editing!  I use the free app, color story!  This is the before of a photo story that is supposed to take place during the night, unedited.  I used my phone light for a fridge light, and I want that to stand.

I darkened it quite a bit, and made it look more like 3 am rather than 3 pm!  😉

That was the official Behind The Scenes of AGDA!  What does it take to run your blog?  Can you guess any of the photo stories the photos I showed you might be about?

 

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