The answer is yes. Low temperature does affect resin and plastics and could cause your doll to crack while traveling in transit, or in storage where the climate gets low. To avoid breakage, try not to ship dolls where they will travel in or through areas with freezing temperatures. If the location of a doll has climates of snow or ice, it's possible that in transit even to a warmer climate that through transit or as it moves from warehouse to warehouse destination it could crack or break on its own or become brittle enough that basic handling can crack it. This makes winter doll shipping tricky, and you might want to wait until temperatures warm up if the doll is expensive. Vinyl dolls don't seem to be as fragile and won't break just due to cold alone, but storing in freezing temperature can cause vinyl to become brittle over time or attract moisture.

If you are anything like me as a small business, you wear a lot of hats and work long hours. That fateful day when we all hope that we become millionaires at one point is long off, and we are in the day to day struggle of making things work and figuring things out by ourselves. I'm hit flush in the face with all kinds of advertisements that promise AI sales and marketing tactics that will somehow carry your business from the slow pace of growing to the sound of a Vegas slot machine hitting the jackpot. Let me tell you friends, for most of us, that stuff will never work. It's not that we are doing anything wrong, it's that everyone is playing the same game. Everyone is trying to post, everyone is trying to make content, everyone is trying to grow their following, everyone is trying to get more subscribers, and everyone is trying every day to be seen and grow. Some are doing it for business, some for vanity, some for kicks, some for entertainment, and other such reasons. It's like looking into a room of people pushing and shoving at a store's door busters deals before Christmas shopping season. Everyone wants the same thing and all fighting to get to the front and out the door. There is an algorithm at every door. One for Google, one for Instagram, one for Facebook, one Tik Tok, the list goes on, if it's social or web based there is an algorithm for that and it controls who sees you and who does not. Good intentions of course, they are all designed to push things that they think the user will like based on what they've interacted with, what they've shown interest in, what they've searched for and so if you aren't presenting that subject matter you just kind of fade in the background. Many of us have experienced this on a small scale with our shops where listings are popular one week and then the next week fall flat, or everyone saw your post for dolly subject matter and then the next week no one saw anything. With everyone on their phones as a source of entertainment and for cutting boredom or awkward silence, the past time of today is scrolling scrolling scrolling. Social media pushes you to stay on, look at all the people looking, scrolling, if you aren't in front of them you don't exist. Meanwhile small business owners are met with an unbelievable demand of being content creators and unreasonable posting objectives. I've been frustrated myself. I push my customers to "Like" me on Facebook or Instagram, but when I'm ready to release my new dolly product or show what I've recently created, I'm having to find my followers all over again. I was contacted by one of my former Etsy customers not long ago, who came across me on another platform and was so happy to find me again. Again, how is it I lost a customer somewhere on the web? I'm constantly posting everywhere and yet this person could not find me. I searched everywhere, and then found that this same person "followed me on Instagram". How is this possible - this person could not find my store, but was one of my own followers on an active account? Why? Because even though they were a follower, my posts did not end up on their feed because I had been filtered out. So then I had a think about this...so I am busting my butt growing followers, promoting use of social media and then I can just fall off the face of the earth without my customer even realizing they lost sight of me. This reminds me a lot of many situations where I found myself doing all the hard work to make someone else successful. Yes folks, social media needs us to be working hard, creating content, and making platforms look interesting and full of information and to sell advertising, but is it really stable enough to grow business? Or is it a revolving door of people coming and going or getting lost along the way? I think technology as a whole is something that we must keep up with as business owners. We can't sit idle and let opportunities pass us by, but I also think that we need to use our time wisely as otherwise we meet impossible standards of tasks and spread ourselves way too thin. Here today, gone tomorrow is not a mindset that seems very stable to me. I'm not saying get rid of social media, I enjoy posting photos and occasionally getting feedback or likes, but it no longer defines my success in business. I am not going to cry if only 8 people like a post or that my business Facebook page has only 100 followers. Because all of that is superficial. Ok 100 people thought I was interesting enough to click a like button, that doesn't mean they will ever purchase anything from me. In fact social media gets you about 1% in sales from your following. Larger percentages are achievable if you are really killing it but averages peak at about 5%. Now think really hard about that number, and then think really hard about what percentage of your time you are spending killing yourself on posts and creating content. My guess is that it is not 5% or less. What am I trying to say here? I'm saying that we are all dancing around in a bubble of promised success with very low results and a whole lot of fluff. We have defined our success from numbers of people who have no real intent of ever being a customer. Some of us are defined by those numbers as how popular our businesses are and who is an influencer. There are real influencers out there, yes but there are lots of wizards behind the curtain as well that are just putting on a good show but actually don't have any power at all. Many businesses are thriving without social media at all - which seems like a crazy thing. But what is actually crazy is the day we gave up other types of marketing and interaction with real people for a world full of superficial ones. I find it super sad that I can spend all day on social posting and interacting and maybe get 1-2 sales from it or be at an in person doll event and walk home with 3 new network connections and 5 new customers. Social media should not be the only thing on the agenda and it shouldn't be deserving of all your hours in the work week even though you can do it all from home. Explore other types of marketing and measure the success vs social media. Take into account how much time you have to put in to get your results as that is eye opening. • Radio • Google Search • Doll Events and Conventions • Doll Clubs • Teaching a Class in person or online • Magazines for doll collectors • Physical mailers and catalogs • Networking events • Kid events • Craft Faires Everyone's business and customer base is different, but a mix of different methods and figuring out what gets the best results is key, and it may surprise you if social media is not #1.

Surprisingly this comes up a lot especially with doll companies that have gone out of business or have been bought out. So the simple answer is no, but let's explore some of the reasons behind the no. Companies that go out of business sometimes may shut their doors but transfer their trademarks to a relative or successor who may choose to renew it. Brand names can be valuable especially if they are licensing others to make products and charge a license fee, or sometimes it's to preserve the brand in case they want to resume operations at any time. So in essence, as long as an active trademark exists and it's being renewed, you have to contact the owner of the trademark to use it in making any product. They may be willing to issue you a license to create products with it for a fee or they may decide they don't want you to make anything at all. The age of the company is not necessarily the factor either, as we've seen older companies who are not operating continue to have their trademarks renewed. Companies that are bought out by a larger corporation often transfer all their trademarks to the new company. This is very apparent for American Girl/Mattel who bought out the Pleasant Company brand and continues registration on all the old logos, doll names, and toys previously made by the old company. In this case the new company renews the trademarks so they remain current even if they aren't producing any dolls/toys under that brand any more. This also protects them from others trying to make old-branded merchandise and passing it off to collectors i.e. counterfeit logo'd products. Can you make your own custom dress and put a Pleasant Company logo on it? No, it would be illegal because American Girl owns the rights to all the Pleasant Company logos, words, and old product names. Can you make character inspired outfits such as Samantha's plaid in a modern day outfit? It really depends on if they trademarked that specific look but also be careful because characters are trademarked so if you are drumming up sales by leaning on their original character that is also a no no. And here's where it gets murky.... If someone traces a company logo and makes it into a digital file for sale online to use with an embroidery machine, Cricut, craft making machines, etc. and you pay to download the file, do you then have rights to use it? Very murky waters here. Most of these files are not created legitimately, at least in regards to be able to distribute the file in digital form or to charge for it and they definitely don't come with rights to use it on products. So even if you downloaded a company's logo from a website and paid for it, still doesn't give you any rights to make mugs or sell dolly t-shirts with the logo on it. What good is it then? No idea. Most disclosures say it's for personal use which is just a fancy term for "things available for which you don't sell and just keep in your house for you", but really. Odds are no one is really downloading to make personal items for themselves to look like official branded items. Even if you did and then posted it on your Instagram or social media of choice there's gonna be someone that goes - hey I want one and then you've fallen down the rabbit hole of selling illegal copies. Can I use a superhero logo on a costume for a doll? Sadly no. Most of the cool super heros have their artwork and logos trademark by their Marvel, DC, Disney, etc. Digital files and 3D print files have appeared on the internet for these items as well, especially Spiderman which is notoriously difficult to re-create with it's intricate webbing design. Trademark owners do find these sites and make the users take down the files as they catch up with them because they also aren't legal. In some cases, we've heard of the trademark owners making demands for the monetary amount made from the sale of the file to be handed over as a fine/reprimand and sometimes with interest to whoever created the file in the first place. We've also heard that in some cases where a physical costume was created that trademark owners ordered the return of the costume by each person who purchased one to be destroyed as a counterfeit and they received no refunds for purchasing a counterfeit costume. However these are cases where a great deal of money was involved in making un-authorized products. Although still not legal, it is not likely that dolls will be repossessed by one-off creations however you should be mindful that selling marketplaces and online communities are continuously scanned for copyright infringement. With that said, there have been some special releases by brands that have been in collaboration and have released super hero themed dolls or clothing - but they have all been granted license to do so by the original trademark owner. We can see this like Disney partnering with American Girl, Smart Doll and Marvel and DC, Harry Potter with a number of doll brands, etc. These same brands are also notorious for shutting down businesses who try to create inspired works of dolls or clothing without a license. If a trademark has expired, can you use it? Proceed with caution. I've seen an expired trademark become reactivated, so it's hard to say what the period of time is or if someone is in line to purchase a brand name. Research these instances carefully. Sometimes it can get confusing as well, for instance Patti Playpal by Ideal stopped renewing their trademark in 1989 however Lovee has a current registration of Patti Playpal that has been renewed and kept current and these Patti Playpal dolls were different models and looks. In this case even though the dolls were produced by these companies with different looks and asthetics, it's the words Patti Playpal that have been trademarked. This has been an issue for recreation artists who do replicas of the original outfits because the words Patti Playpal almost always appeared on a tag or ribbon that was large and very visible on the front of outfits. As many collectors consider the Ideal Patti Playpal the original brand in this case, they don't realize that the words were later trademarked and owned by another brand even after 60-70 years. But sellers are always wanting to put those words on their outfits to make them look more authentic. It is certainly tempting, especially if it doesn't exist on the market. Most of these project ideas start out of just desire to either make something really cute or re-create something that has been retired. The logo is that extra push that makes it look more legit than if you just sewed a blank outfit. Many sewers fall into the trap of just looking around on the internet to see if other people have done something similar or identical to what they want to do, because if it exists on the internet it must be ok to do right? Especially if you see a picture that shows up in your social media feed right? That person did their research? That's really not the thinking that gets you down the right path and it doesn't keep you safe from copyright infringement. Your first idea should be to check the trademarks on the logo and/or word combinations. You can search internet trademark databases just as easy as typing in "doll Nike clothing" into Google. In fact most trademark databases have a search bar at the top where you can type in a brand name, company, or logo. I can pretty much guarantee that if it involves another company's logo it's off limit without a license. As annoying as it is to not be able to create mini-stuff from our favorite brands, it also protects us from being scammed as well. Imagine if you were desperately searching for a retired doll outfit to complete your collection. Doll outfits and sets often become worth more when they are hard to find and rare. Now imagine that you found one and paid top dollar, and then later on realized that it was a copy. No matter what, copies are not worth the same as the originals even if they are very very good. But this delves into the next part of what is unethical here. Not every seller gives 100% disclosure on selling things, I wish sometimes the world was honest, but many aren't. Some sellers will try to pass off a copy as an original by using key words we are looking for such as original, vintage, etc. Some sellers will claim to be "not knowing" so that you have to hunt and figure out the authentication on your own so that they are not responsible for giving you mis-information. And some will make it look like they have gotten permission to sell logo'd items by just omitting the subject entirely, again to claim that "they didn't know", and finally some that will disclose it's a copy but not disclose they have no permission to use the logo to make their sales. Why? To make sales of course and for plausible deniability. After all would you purchase that cute doll logo t-shirt if the description said "it is illegal for me to use this logo or sell this item but I'm doing so anyway"? Not likely. Instead it's much easier to simply say, "I didn't know that I wasn't able to use this logo to sell this cute doll logo t-shirt". It's a lot easier because we can forgive the person for breaking the rules when they didn't know but not when they are doing it intentionally. Copyright has a lot of grey areas and it's not always clear cut. Recently we were educating doll lovers and artists in the facelessnotvoiceless campaign which was American Girl vs. the handmade artists on selling clothing using the doll models in photos wearing the clothing. What's at fault here? The American Girl Company has trademarked their doll faces but they don't own copyright to prevent doll sewers from sewing their own clothing (unless someone slapped an AG or Pleasant Company logo on it). So this becomes very grey, and which confused most artists on what they did wrong. And where does it stop, can an owner of a doll be reprimanded for selling a second hand doll because the doll's face appeared in a picture? Can a photographer create doll related merchandise from photos that they themselves took or is it against the rules because the doll's face is copyrighted? When you are down to splitting hairs in a grey area, it is not always clear what you can and cannot do and even in the doll community and the only ones that can spell it out for you would be a lawyer or talking with the company that owns the trademark direct. If you are too scared to do either, there's a rule of thumb or a series of questions you can ask yourself and if you answered yes to any of them, odds are you are on the wrong side of copyright. Questions to ask: 1. If a doll collector came across (this product that you've made) without any descriptions or backstory, would they believe that it was issued by the original company or manufacturer? 2. Is your product giving people the perception that you have been given legal permission to use a company's logo or create products with their brand on it? 3. In order to sell your product, are you needing to lean on the company's original brand or what that company's brand represents? Let's break down these questions. #1 This deals with the perception of the public on your product. Logos, neck stamps, and tags are often ways that a consumer looks for authentication on doll items. Starting out, you might have a full disclosure on your website that you are making a copy of a product, but once that product circulates it could pass through several owners and down the line could be believed it's an authentic piece of merchandise especially if you've used that company's logo in your work. In copyright disputes a common question is if that seller is impersonating a genuine product by the way they've created it. The original company's don't like that because their brand is representative of their own criteria and rules, it covers how their products feel, what they are made of, how they are sewn. If you've used their brand name and that item is not made according to the brand standards, it is looked on as damage to the brand name. However if you are trying to avoid this, since clothing itself is not copyrightable you can create a similar product that looks like a retired outfit or a particular style and put your own logos and tags in it. Then you cannot possibly be accused of misrepresenting someone else's brand and the tags will travel with the garment long after it's left your selling site so that no one could mistake it as an original from the original company. #2 Many companies have been given licenses to create product lines for original brands and likewise the original factories that produce the brands and packaging are given legal permission to product products under the brand's name and logo. People can sometimes assume that because you are offering a product, that you've already cleared the permissions to make it and that you are legally allowed to make it. Even if you omit those words from your selling description you can still give that impression with the public. The correction to this is obvious but no one wants to do it because as we said earlier, a seller who is trying to hide that fact is not going to post on their sales post that they don't actually have permission to sell the item or have use of a trademark. So odds are if it's not mentioned that it's (c) official merchandise anywhere in the description, that it is likely that seller doesn't have permission. Furthermore if the seller has disclosed that they have created a replica using their own brand name, you can be assured that at least they are going out of their way to disclose and be honest about what you are buying and that the seller is being respectful of any original trademark owners. #3 This area was the grey area for the facelessnotvoiceless issue mentioned above. When it came down to it, it wasn't really the doll's faces used as models to show off the clothing that the seller was making as the heart of the issue. And it was clear that the original brand was not making the clothing or that any seller was trying to pass off their clothing as original brand clothing. The issue was using the brand's implications to sell. Brands are more than words and logos, they also convey a consumer's idea of quality or company presence or a history of how products are made. The piggy back question to this issue was - if you removed American Girl from your titles and descriptions, would your item still sell? The question was prompting if the seller needed those words to sell their own product and if they were dependent on using the brand name to sell their product. The counter to this argument has been that the American Girl body size is unique to the other 18" dolls created similarly in this doll's category so the necessity to mention the words American Girl and showcase the clothing on an American Girl branded doll was essential to selling because it conveys the proper fit and is not leveraging off the brand to create sales. So the answer to this was - make sure you've written your description to reference American Girl as words in reference to size and not to insinuate that it is a branded product, and if possible include other doll brands in listings to showcase that you as a seller are not dependent on a single brand to sell your product. This becomes the key standard now - for suppliers of clothing, wigs, and accessories to showcase more than one brand, to refer to the brand as a size reference, and to make wording in a way that it is not piggy backing on the reputation of the brand as a means to sell their own handmade products. I hope this has helped clarify some issues for those of you that research and struggle with compliance. If you have more questions that I haven't addressed, feel free to leave them in the comments. I'm not 100% perfect in these issues either but I make a consicous effort to follow the rules and help spread a little clarity as there is so much mis-information on the internet and a little bit too much assumption on what you can do. As we learned this last year, it is much worse for sellers who wait to get caught rather than taking preventative measures ahead of time.

Last night we watched the Netflix Documentary "Buy Now! The Shopping Conspiracy" which was an inside look at corporations getting it's consumers to buy more and more in order to make larger and larger profits without a thought to what the after effects were. After I watched it, my stomach churned which I'm sure was the goal of the film and I found myself questioning whether any of these terrible practices were something that our little business contributed to. Below I address the rules they sited in the film and reflections on how our business deals with that. Rule #1 Buy More Rule One explored how corporations made intentional decisions to shorten the life of their products such as making a light bulb only last 1/3 of it's potential life in order to get consumers to replace light bulbs more often and therefore buy more lightbulbs. Other examples showed technology saving version upgrades so that you'd want to buy a new phone or new computer before the other one wore out to get the latest technology. I found that we as a company actually do the opposite here. We build our doll clothes, shoes, and wigs to be long lasting with the goal in mind to be able to pass down dolls from generation to generation. If you've shopped around for doll supplies in our industry, there are a lot of cheap products out there. $1.99 shoes and $29.95 dolls and it seems the price keeps driving down. It's not to provide you with a better deal folks it's to get you to buy more. In my mind I always thought it was because some corporations decided to produce quality products and others decided to produce cheap products, but the darker thought here is that they are selling this crap to churn more sales as you are continually replacing products. Rule #2 Waste More When you are producing more to get more people to purchase and replace, there becomes more waste. The example in this case was Amazon where the shopping experience was key in that any thought in your head that you needed something, you could simply go to your computer and purchase anything that you wanted and then it would arrive at your door without ever leaving the house. They showed examples of consumers with boxes upon boxes at their doorstep. Yes you can purchase a can opener one day and then a pair of socks the next and they would come in separate boxes. Packaging waste, peanut waste, plastic waste. The terrible truth of where this waste "goes away" when you put it in the garbage is that it goes to areas where people are already struggling in lesser economies than ours. There were pictures of clothes floating in the oceans and piles on the ground, and people crying out that there was more coming in that could even be handled by the people that lived there. And the most appalling of all, to produce products that are intentionally not fixable so that you have to buy a new one instead of fixing the one you have. We are small, but we really try our best to re-use everything possible as we are conscious of waste in the world. We re-use packaging, boxes, ribbons, fabric, clothing, and of course dolls to try to give new life and minimize what ends up in the garbage. Our doll hospital transforms old dolls into ones that can be loved by a new child or collector. We run a doll donation center to re-home dolls to be loved once again. Most of our signature art dolls are made from dolls that were ordinary or mass produced and then made special. Our goals of "Save a Doll" are to keep dolls from the trash, even if they aren't trendy or the next "it" thing. Most importantly, we are actively making services available to fix toys rather than encouraging them to be replaced. I was quite angry when I saw in the film that they were gluing laptops together so they couldn't be opened and shorting battery life on headphones to make you buy a whole new set when they gave out. It's incredibly wasteful and with the purpose of making a consumer purchase another one. Reminded me of Robots movie when they made the decision to not make spare parts any longer to push the older robots to spend their money on an upgraded body. I see that decision when I'm trying desperately to find parts to fix dolls. It's another reason why people move on from one type of doll to another is that you simply can't find the parts to fix the doll or no one is selling clothing or shoes or whatever you need to keep your doll collection going. We as a company, hate this concept and do everything we can to bring back parts and clothes to make it possible to keep your older dolls in better shape and in good repair. If that wasn't all, there were examples shown of corporations destroying merchandise that didn't sell or that had been returned because they had calculated that it was cheaper to burn it than to go through the system again and sell again. That definitely does not happen in our company. We do not burn unwanted merchandise and we don't add it or donate it to landfills. Perhaps I have been lucky, but I always find a way to repurpose something that wasn't successful and thankfully it is not many instances. Rule #3 Lie More Incredibly disheartening that larger corporations make you feel like they are addressing any of the problems when actually they are just running feel good campaigns to make you think that they are. I always believe that you should be upfront about what you are capable of doing and what you are not. As a small business, we have smaller goals. Oftentimes there is more that I want to do but am not capable of at the moment. For example, sometimes I get a doll that gets donated and I just can't find any solutions to fix her and I think, what I need is "this part" or something that is unavailable. It is not possible for me to start manufacturing missing needs for all the dolls, there are many and I don't have the financial capacity to do so, but I would never promise that I can fix every doll under the sun, or that I have parts for every doll under the sun. But I will give every doll the opportunity to find a new owner and be adopted and loved again. I'm happy when I can add options to our website that meet a need, and that has always been our goal. We don't just produce a bunch of stuff for kicks. In fact many times a customer will come to us and say, how about you add this to your website and I tell them 5 other sellers already have that, I don't need to add it just because everyone else has it. I want to add things that make a difference for collectors. Rule #4 Hide More I really didn't like seeing this one where they show you things that are supposed to be recycled or donated to a thrift store or donation center and it's ending up being dismantled into tiny pieces in a third world country that is drowning in garbage. I did even see a clip of dolls and reference to making products better for the environment. I really enjoy seeing people that upcycle with their art because I think it is an important thing in most industries. Making something new and interesting around something that has been discarded is one of my favorites for most things. I am not one of those people who over buy. You might probably laugh, but I will use things until they absolutely cannot be used any longer. Being a crafter at heart and never particularly wealthy, I like things that last. I've repaired broken necklaces, hats, clothing, shoes, dolls, blankets, belts, you name it. If it could be glued back together or sewn back together odds are that I repaired it. My fabric scraps that are too small for making doll outfits from are given to schools to do art projects with. Components left over from projects are saved and re-used in something else down the line. And if you think I'm accumulating stuff in a giant hoard, I'm not because I have a rule never to purchase something unless it is for a current project and I always look at what I have before I purchase more. This is not easy as many things call out to me when I'm shopping for fabric and such, but if I know I won't be able to sew the idea right away then I make myself walk past. Storing fabric is never my objective. I once had a friend that would always tell me that she had boxes upon boxes of fabric in a storage unit that she could sew things from and always quoted thousands of dollars worth. One day we went to that storage unit, the fabric was covered in dust, smelled wet or musty, and had been eaten away by rats. Thousands and thousands down the drain. Instead of "Hide More", this will be a "Use what you have more" as the correct response. I hope we are all looking towards the future and do what ever we can to minimize waste and excessiveness. Purchase dolls and clothes because you love them and can care for them and want them to continue on. Keep dolls out of the trash and stop purchasing things that are made to break or be discarded. Use your items until they wear out, not because something new and flashy is out. Better world tomorrow.

When you are checking out there are actually two checkout steps. The first page allows you to enter a promo code - this is if you received a special coupon code via email or on a special sale code. It will show you a subtotal and shipping cost. Note that the shipping cost is a drop down menu. It doesn't always default to the cheapest amount so make sure you select Free shipping if you are in the USA and spent over $75 or if you are under $75 that you select USA Ground which will usually be the cheapest rate. If you are international you must select one of the international rate options, selecting a USA rate will mean that a customer service representative will contact you to let you know you selected the incorrect rate and your order will be on hold until you pay for the correct rate. Once you have selected these options there will be buttons at the bottom, "Checkout", Checkout with Apple Pay, Paypal Checkout, Paypal Pay Later, Venmo Checkout, and Google Pay. You must select one of these buttons to get to the second Checkout screen. On the second checkout screen it will ask you for all your details such as email, name, phone, address, etc. This info will be pre-filled in if you have purchased with us before or if you have logged in with one of the payment services with saved information. On a mobile device scrolling to the very bottom you will see "Enter a promo code" again if you didn't enter one on the previous checkout page, if you have a coupon code. There is also an option that says "Redeem a gift card" if you have received a gift card from someone for our shop. Below that it will tell you the amount of points you will receive for placing the order and it will say log in to collect or redeem points. Note that you must be logged in to your account to redeem points. If this is your first order you will not accummulate any points until you set up your account and place your first order. Then points will be able to be redeemed on your next order. If you are logged in there will be a blank where you can type in the number of points you wish to redeem. You do not have to redeem your full balance on a single order, you can save them for larger purchases or sale dates. If you are on a desktop computer the information above will be on the right hand side of your screen. Once you have filled out everything you can click "Continue" to finish checkout and you will be charged for your order.

This article is intended to assist small businesses with guidelines as it relates to creating doll products. It is not legal advice. For specifics relating to your business we do recommend to speak with a lawyer to review the specifics of your store and wording. THE AI TROLL It has been discovered that AI is being used to uncover copyright infringement and serve notices on popular platforms like Etsy. Etsy's policies allow reporting and enforcing of brand trademarks. These AI agencies troll listings for specific key words such as brand names or doll face molds. Because it's not human, it has the potential to make mistakes in identifying or not detect some people while detecting others. This identifies the "why me and not them" claims that every small business who is hit asks. However Etsy has a very strict and somewhat scary procedure on doing a counter claim or appeals to a copyright strike in which you CAN write to say someone has made a mistake. But then they send that paperwork to the brand and give the brand 10 days to make a court case against you. If they don't, yay you win and get your listing back. If they do, you are going to court. Seems like high stakes just to let them know an AI troll mis-read your listing information. No one to date has recovered their listing or been able to repost on the Etsy website after a copyright strike. WHEN YOU ARE HIT When you are hit, you lose your listing and all the reviews of it. You can't repost it, you can't recover it and if you try to battle it out with Etsy they can disable your account for going against their policies. There was a 3-Strike rule that Etsy had written into their policies that allowed them to take down a store after 3 listing hits for copyright. It seems that recently due to how many stores are encountering this issue all across their platform that they have stopped taking stores completely down after 3 hits. This data was obtained from talking with many shop owners that came forward and gave the details of how their shop was hit and how many times. It is unknown if they will re-activate the 3-strikes policy in the future. It is unclear if they stopped removing shops in response to losing shop income or seller complaint, we hope that it was though! When a store is completely shut down, you lose a lot, but not everything. You lose access to the Etsy App which sends you notifications, so if customers are messaging you, you won't know unless you log in from a computer. They hold any income you've made from sales to protect themselves from refund requests when your shop disappears. This is returned in a period of 3-5 months after shut down when they feel it's safe no issues are coming. If you continue filling your orders and keep your Etsy customers happy they won't hold it forever. You do have to purchase your shipping labels outside of Etsy though. As part of shut down, they disable all your listings and all your traffic and income is shut down. You are able to recover data from active listings such as your descriptions and photos but you lose anything that has sold. All the reviews you have obtained are no longer accessible. Client conversations and messaging remains active even long after you are shut down. You can use this to individually message your customers and let them know what happened to your store or talk about current orders. There is no mass emailing function. Many Etsy sellers don't realize the power they gave Etsy as a seller. As they bring their customers and referrals to the platform, those customers use the platform. Etsy's marketing efforts don't favor you when bringing your own customers, they market the product and want the sale. They have no issue referring you customers once on the platform to competitors who sell similar products. That epic traffic that keeps pumping buyers to your shop can be shut off at any time by Etsy for any of their policies and they are happy to keep your customers you've referred as well. We 100% recommend that you have independent means of retaining your customers. AFTER YOU ARE HIT If your store is not shut down you can make changes to your listings to comply and not be hit again. Due to the fact that the AI trolls detect at random, we do recommend if you are staying on Etsy that you have some back-up precautions so you don't lose your livlihood if you are hit again. A separate website, alternative store, or alternative platform that is set up as a fall back are all good ideas. We always reccommend when referring customers to purchase, recommend them to come direct first and then Etsy as last resort. Etsy has no issues trying to market your competitors and keep your clients if you are ever shut down. If you store is shut down, all is not lost. You just need to sell on a different platform and start a bit over, but it is doable and you can be up and running after some hard work. There are many options out there you can hire someone to build you a website, you can use popular alternatives such as Wix or Shopify that have drag and drop applications or you can sell off Instagram or Facebook. GUIDELINES TO REVISE YOUR LISTINGS If you are still on Etsy, you have a stricter guideline to follow because AI will find brand keywords and recognize brand doll models and flag you. How you word your listings, may not help you because the AI is not going to identify terms of use or that you have a careful disclosure written up. As painful as it is, removing brand names from your listing wording and blocking out the faces is the only way forward to protect yourself. It's a theory - but websites are not hit as much. We believe that has to do with the vast internet and picking up keywords and pictures would also pick up all the consumers and personal doll photos. You'd have to comb through that data to find those that sell. We have the theory that is why AI is trolling marketplaces rather than websites. However this doesn't mean that you can go wild on your website. A human can still call you out for improper use on a website. You are however in complete control of your own website and can respond properly to any requests without fear of losing your income. Using recommendations from lawyer input in response to this specific issue, these are the recommendations given. Read through: Fair Use of Trademarks (Intended for a Non-Legal Audience) - International Trademark Association (inta.org) The article above gives a lot of good information on how to word your listings to keep out of trouble. Top guidelines to put into practice: Fair Use requires that you demonstrate you can sell your product without dependency on a single brand. To do this: 1. Remove a specific brand name out of your title and keep it related to the size doll category you are selling in. 2. If you do mention a brand name, mention others too. 3. If you need to use a brand name, use it as a descriptive entity like a reference to size or scale. 4. Use other doll brands in your store to illustrate your products can be used for different brands Fair Use requires that you don't suggest that you have been endorsed or sponsored by the brand 1. Add a disclosure at the bottom of your listings to state that you are not afflliated or endorsed by any brands you mention 2. Don't use words that lead anyone to believe the product is made by the brand. For example don't use wording like American Girl Dress and instead use Handmade Dress for 18" Dolls such as American Girl Dolls. This can also be a variance of This dress fits: and list the brands the dress will fit. You can also use words like "The brands above are used to reference the size and fit types of dolls that can be worn". Note that these are suggestions for off-marketplace listings as an AI troll will pick up the words American Girl or brand name regardless of how you are using it in the listing. Fair Use requires you don't use a brand name to enhance your own product as leverage, or ridicule or damage the reputation of the original brand. This would be saying things like My Dress is better than American Girl or American Girl makes bad products, etc. If you are designing creative products that are exclusively used for one brand only, it is recommended that in order to stay away from "brand dependency" for your products that you design products with a more universal concept in mind. Dress patterns for dolls can be graded and offered to fit multiple dolls of similar shapes and offered in a package that shows more than one doll on the cover. Doll dresses/clothing can be made with some flexibility or adjustability to fit multiple brands. Doll crafts that are scaled for one doll might be able to be used by other dolls of similar scale. There are small changes you can make to stay away from these hot points that lawyers look at and can cause trouble. What is an After Market Product? Aftermarket products is a market for parts, accessories, or products used to maintain or improve an existing product. We often see this term as associated with cars, cars are manufactured with original parts and then a third party develops a replacement part and usually uses a description like "Engine for a Ford 2000 Truck". In this they are using the brand name to identify as a description of what the part is used for. It would be very difficult to tell a consumer what the engine would fit without use of the brand name or model for which it was designed. In doll world, the creative community makes aftermarket parts for dolls. There are repair kits to help fix issues with the original dolls such as a restringing kit for American Girl. As dolls all use different string widths and lengths, you wouldn't be able to sell it as just a restringing kit without reference to the doll it was for. Likewise wigs that fit a certain size doll or clothes that fit a certain size doll. Many of these doll products are specifically designed to fit a certain brand. You just need to word it as reference to a size, scale, or replacement part. Feel free to ask questions or share your story #facelessnotvoiceless

If you've done a Google search lately, you may have seen that the top page search results for just about any product you look for is taken by marketplaces like Amazon, Mercari, Ebay, Etsy, Ruby Lane etc. and sometimes multiple times. With that kind of placement, we wanted to capitalize on that advertising. We've also found that many doll collectors use Ebay as a #1 place to research the value of dolls, shop for new or used dolls for their collections, and search out supplies. We realize the other marketplaces are also areas where doll shopper go, but we found that Ebay is the best fit for us at this time. Why are we on eBay? We use eBay as an advertising method to reach new collectors and customers who may not otherwise have known about us. Is Pricing Different on Ebay? Transaction costs are 20% on eBay, so all our products are listed at full price. The only discount that is offered is if you bulk purchase the same item (no mix and match) so 5 of the same wig in the same color is an example where you would get a discount. Combined shipping does not auto calculate and is more because of eBay fees built in, so customers have to request adjusted shipping totals to get combined shipping discounts. Is there any benefit to purchasing on Ebay? Some are more comfortable purchasing from a marketplace than from individual websites, or it may be more convenient if you are always on eBay and have an account. This is up to the individual customer on their preferences. Are the products you list on Ebay a liquidation? No. All our products other than the CTB items are new items with no defect. We are not offloading or liquidating any of our products there. They are all listed at full price. We list on eBay for advertising exposure not to liquidate or discount our products. Do you offer the same sales or promotions on eBay? No. We don't run any sales or promotions on eBay. Because costs are high for transactions, it doesn't make sense to run added discounts or deep sale prices on that platform. The best deals and sales will always be directly on our website. What are the benefits of purchasing direct versus eBay? All our promotions and deals are exclusive to our website which means customers save the most in buying direct. Customers also can take advantage of our Loyalty Program which gives tiered benefits year round and Birthday Club for special discounts on your birthday. eBay listings only contain products that are in stock right now, so if you want to request a product that is out of stock or be notified on a restock you can submit a request on our website. As well new and up and coming items are announced only on our website. Customers can also take advantage of our Doll Forum for tutorials and information. Wholesale purchases are also only available through our website. Shipping costs are also lower and we have free shipping over $75. Services like hospital services and donation services are only available through our website. Not every product we sell is listed on eBay. There are things we create and sell that you can only purchase through our website. Are you going to add more marketplaces in the future? It is not our plan to run our business on a bunch of marketplaces in the future. We want to stay as independent as possible while growing our presence in the market.

Our first collection for Patti will include reproductions of outfits in her original wardrobe and some pieces of our own as a throwback to the clothing of the era. We've been busy matching fabrics. The collection will be designed so all pinafore pieces are interchangeable. Some of the original pinafores were actually permanently attached to the dress ie it was just the front sewn into the seams like an apron. We thought it would be fun to mix and match all the pieces. We have also been busy collecting vintage era clothing for kids to draw inspiration for doing additional pieces along the same theme.

This doesn't happen for vinyl dolls, but lately I've come across some plastic dolls that have been damaged and the methods are very similar for repairing. Using epoxy glues and super glues can save a broken doll and in some cases keep it from incurring future damage. This video was helpful to see reconstruction of a completely broken head Tips and Tricks of a Doll Head Reglue Using Epoxy with Stanley Strawn | Virtual Doll Convention (youtube.com) This video was very useful if you apply the concept to repairing broken neck pieces but also can apply to fixing areas like leg holes, arm holes, where the plastic has broken or chipped away and it affects being able to attach a limb. The method uses crazy glue or super glue and then applying baking soda on top of it to build up the areas and make them strong enough to reattach the pieces. This can be particularly helpful if pieces of plastic have broken off and are not present and you need to rebuild an area. The only thing I do not like about this video is that it starts from the end and then as you watch the video you get an idea of what it looked like from the beginning so it's not chronological. But watching the technique is important https://youtu.be/1N9Fq5CWS7A?si=-AtOVks_IeJM-ikj I found these two videos incredibly helpful for repair.

This statement is 100% true. When you are working on your own company, you are living, breathing, and putting your blood, sweat, and tears into it. Why? Because it's your baby, the dream you want to make true and the success that you are dreaming for in the very end. Small Business owners have the dream to not stay small, but to make an impact and become bigger businesses. They are run by mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, families and they are some of the hardest working people I know. They run on the fuel of their desire to make their companies successful and they put in more hours than anyone to "make it work". There is a particular leech in bigger business that preys on these hard workers and tugs at their emotions. Their promises of "let us help you get there, let us make it easier for you" calls to us as we are losing nights of sleep on what did well that day and what did not. I call them leeches, because they are not really there to help you successfully get to your dream, they are there to take a piece of your dream and have you work all the more harder. They play with your emotions on promising that you will get to your dream faster or easier and they hold the cherry of your dream of success right there so you can almost taste it. They become a promise that someday you will succeed as long as they are along for the ride and sometimes we are desperate enough to believe that and so we invite them in and let them take 10% 20% 30% of our profit to get to the next level. It's not just one kind of business, it's many. It could be an advertising agent that promises to scale you up by paying a certain fee with the promise that you will be making tons of money in the future. It could be a marketplace that asks you to fork over 10-20% to list your items on their website to grow your sales. It could be a business partner that promises that you'll go twice as far if they are cut in on the deal. It could be a bank that is offering you funding or rather debt to spend your money away and grow you to the next level. It's the hardest thing we have to do in growing our business, is to trust ourselves, and invest in ourselves. We often think that someone else is wiser, someone else has all the answers, someone else will guarantee that success. That might be true for some people, but for a lot of us we underestimate ourselves and it's just a short cut to avoid doing the hard work. Being a small business owner takes a lot of patience and a lot of time. It seems like everyone is getting richer and you are left behind struggling, but that's not really true is it? I've seen small business owners work themselves to the bone, forgetting everything from their own hygiene, to sleep deprivation, to letting everything go. I've seen the small business owner fail and fail again and the look on their face when they've hit a wall. But this time is not wasted, you've just learned what doesn't work and what won't work and now you are a little wiser than yesterday. If you haven't failed, you haven't learned anything at all. When you rise from failure you are a stronger and wiser you and you have new ideas on how not to fail the next time. With the world changing as it does, we have fallen into the lure of instant satisfaction. We have gotten used to swiping past the things that don't interest us in only a few seconds. We've watched someone compact a video that takes a person hours and hours to make and reduce it down to a 60 second transformation wow. In the effort to grab people's attention, you have to be grander with a more dazzling end result, and it gets faster and faster. It's an impossible standard that we've set up for ourselves to see the world through filters and short clips of hard work simplified. We made it look easy and that anyone can do it. We are drowning in content that we have created and an audience trained to scroll past in an endless feed. We are now subjected to this endless stream of perfection and have burnt ourselves out just trying to keep up. Now stop. Take a deep breath and don't fall for it. None of that really matters - oh they make you think that it does, but it doesn't. Your best customers are always going to be the ones you made an impact to their lives. I'm not saying you have to solve world peace in your transactions, but if your product helped a customer with something that impacted them, that's the customer you want not the one that jumps from one trend to another and forgets about you 2 seconds later because something new came in their feed. What I love about small business owners is that they dream big and they seem to always be working on a problem that they want to change in the world. It doesn't matter the size of the impact, but to each owner the customers they affect mean the world to them and they are truly providing a service not just trying to get rich. They are working hard for their families, they are working hard for their customers, and they have much less in the way of resources than the big companies. If you are out there and working hard for your dream, don't give up. Each day presents challenges. Conquer them and become better and someday you will get there. Believe in yourself and don't sell out for a short cut. Do the work and it will pay off, you don't need to sell chunks of your business to get ahead.

This is a subject that comes up quite frequently because children seem to discover these pesky little drawing items and color our beloved dolls. Or it could be a case of going to a thrift store and finding a doll that has been marked on. However it got there, from drawing or from dye transfer from clothing it becomes inevitable that we want those marks off. Number one because marked dolls have significantly less resale value if at all, and number two it's an eyesore on your doll. First we always suggest when starting to clean a doll that you use plain water first. This will remove any surface dirt, grime, and spots without chemicals and expose areas that you may need to treat with more complex methods and chemicals. You want to use as little chemicals as possible, and only when absolutely necessary to preserve the integrity of your doll. The most popular method and probably the most time consuming is the ever popular Zit Cream method. Yes folks, remedies for getting rid of acne is the same formula that gets rid of dye and marker, somehow lifting the stains. In order to make this method work, you need time and patience and a lot of sunlight. Yes indeed this method needs the heat and light to get these stains out. Don't ask me the science behind it, but apply Zit Cream to the affected area and bake in the sun. Repeat as necessary. Sometimes it takes more than one go to get that stain lifted and off. Twin Pines Remove Zit is a popular brand for this. Note that you don't want to keep it over 6 months of the expiration date as it will lose it's effectiveness. Key ingredient you are looking for is Benzoyl Peroxide if using other brands. Sun treatments can last anywhere from 4-5 hours in direct sunlight. Other reported methods: Hand sanitizer. This is one I heard about recently that people were getting results from using hand sanitizer. Note that hand sanitizer has a large amount of alcohol in it's contents and alcohol does strip vinyl down over time. While I have not tried the effectiveness of this method, I caution people who are trying this because you have a chance of ruining the vinyl. Alcohol will remove the sealant on vinyl and will dry out the vinyl in that spot where you used it causing the vinyl to get brittle over time and cause your doll to age faster. That sealant is important to keeping your doll clean as well and removing that barrier will cause your vinyl to absorb more grease, dirt, and grime. It essence, you just stripped your doll of it's protective layer. Nail Polish removers reportedly get rid of a lot of marks but you want to use a non-acetone version as acetone does the same thing as alcohol where it will strip the protective sealant from vinyl and cause it to become brittle and absorb more dirt over time. The thing to continuously check for before using a chemical on your doll is whether it has been tested safe on vinyl and plastics. This will guide you in the right direction to not damage the vinyl on your doll.

The First book I got is the Art of Patti Playpal by Jennifer A.H. Kohn, Rita J. McLoskey, and Pauline V. Yohe. What I like about this book is that several collectors came together to showcase this line of dolls and they hired a nice photographer to take professional shots of the dolls. The pictures are clear and big so you can see a lot of detail, which was great for me because of course I am studying the outfits for future sewing. This book also has a small section dedicated to restoration, it isn't very extensive and the methods are a bit dated as it mentions using Pert as a shampoo to wash the hair, but the visuals are nice to see the inner mechanics of the doll. There is quite a lot of history writing in this book about how the doll came about, sculpting, and a love for the design of the doll. This is accompanied by large pictures of eye candy on these dolls, so it was a hard read for me without getting distracted. There is a chapter dedicated to Patti's hair and make-up and how that came about which has large colorful pictures of all the different bang styles and hair colors and background information on how the dolls were painted and details about what went into the faces and hair choices. My favorite section goes into detail about all the different outfits and highlights about what to look for to see that it is authentic. There is just something that reels me in on 1950's fashion. I love it on adult dolls, but it also draws me in on children's clothing. I suppose it's because it's so delicate looking and "pretty" with bows, curls, flowers, and patent dress shoes. My girls love to dress up, but in this day and age dress up goes to special occasion dresses or princess dresses. This is something else entirely, it is a trip to a historic era and it is very collectible fashion. For me, I have a great love for fashion history so this is checking off a lot of boxes for me. I collect Gene Dolls as well which have great 1930's-1940's fashion on adult dolls. I also collect Shirley Temple for similar reasons because so much of her costumes and film dresses were just adorable Little Miss looking clothing and I was seeking any opportunity to recreate Shirley Temple style for my daughters but there is just not the right occasion and it's just out of place in everyday life. I suppose that having this doll now presents that opportunity since there is a Shirley Temple Playpal and I can forever enjoy the fashion without the awkwardness of it being out of place in modern times. The book continues to go into detail about her types of shoes, underwear, and socks. In the later chapters, it reviews the various family members as part of this series and then there is a nice big section on the Shirley Temple Playpals which made me very happy. It is interesting to me that most of my Shirley Temple collection is Danbury Mint because I believe it had the best likeness and faces to Shirley, but by far Ideal's Shirley Temple beats out Danbury Mint's version of Shirley Temple by a landslide. The color photos in this book of the Ideal Shirley Temples just captivated me as well as the beautiful dresses. I might be in trouble here, as there are many film costumes I have always wanted to recreate and I can see myself wanting to display multiple. Yep definitely in trouble here. The last page of the book has a listing of the children's clothing sizes that Patti and the Playpal Family can wear. I am not sure if sizing has changed since this book was done, but I'm not sure if the sizes are still true. Patti is supposed to be a lifesize companion to a 3 year old girl, but my daughter is three and they are the same height but I found that my daughter's dresses were rather big on Patti. I found that going a size down to a 2 year old size fit Patti's chest much better. It also recommends a size 5.5 Wide shoe, but I found that a size 7 was perfect sizing so I'm unsure on how accurate or useful this page will be. As I plan on recreating vintage clothes and not really using what's available for today's children, I probably won't use this much as a resource for future.