Some Blogging Tips!

Hey guys, Emily here.
     AAAHHH!!! I'm SO SO sorry that we haven't posted in so long! I feel super bad about this.... But I remembered that I wanted to make this post, so I guess that that's good? This post is NOT supposed to be super strict rules, you can just use one tip, or none, or however many you feel like using :P But they are pretty useful.  I had each doll write out one tip that they thought was important for having a fun blog. Let's begin!

1. Don't make false promises!

     This is simple! Don't say that you're going to do something and not do it! (We haven't been super awesome at following this, like with Craft Time With Natalie and Saige! posts :P) Don't promise that you're going to do something like have a giveaway when you reach 100 followers and then not do anything when you reach your goal. All that you're doing is making people upset that they didn't get what you promised them.

2. Don't stop posting without notice!

     This applies to any break- be it a month, or forever- that you take from posting. When I said a month, I meant that more for a blog that normally posts a few times every week. Just make a short post telling people that you're taking a break, and let them know for about how long it'll be. Try your best to be back to posting by the time that you said (read tip #1). If you're going to stop posting forever, then MAKE A POST TELLING PEOPLE THAT!!!!! We've found SO MANY blogs that just suddenly stopped posting and didn't warn their readers. It's kind of upsetting. If you're going to completely remove your blog, make a goodbye post that tells people that you'll be deleting the blog and leave it up for a month or two, then delete the blog. Leaving the post up will give your readers time to stop by the blog and know that they won't be able to visit anymore. If you're going to keep the blog up (which we recommend) then just make a goodbye post and let it be. Make sure that your readers know whether they'll be able to access the blog after you stop posting!

3. Don't use bad language!

     Don't use bad language on your blog! People will probably not return to your blog if you curse a whole bunch. Remember- kids are the main readers of doll blogs! 

4. Don't brag!

      Honestly, nobody wants to hear about how you got 20 AG dolls and all of their accessories for your birthday. Maybe it's just me, but when I hear stuff like that, I start to not like the blog as much. It's fine if you have a lot of dolls, but don't brag about how many you have. Keep in mind that there are a lot of kids that don't have any AG dolls! 

     Addie and Taylor couldn't come up with any tips; if they do, I'll make another post. Tell us your favorite tip!

Thanks for reading!
Emily, Saige, Molly, and Natalie!

An Interview With Taylor

Molly here!
     I hope that you're all still enjoying these interview posts... Let me know if you're getting tired of them :) If you have any questions for Saige, Elizabeth, or Kaya, let me know in the comments! I'll ask them in their interviews. Let's begin!

I'm so happy that you're here!
Thanks! I'm happy to be here too. What kind of questions do you have for me?
Lots of kinds, let's start. How old are you?
Twelve.
What kinds of things interest you?
Fashion, hair, that kind of thing. And outer space. 
What's your favorite TV show? 
Probably Project Runway. It's so cool to see all of the different fashions!
Favorite book?
The Tale of Despereaux. I answered that in the Q&A post! Were you stealing other people's questions?
What, No! That was just a question that I thought up. Let's keep going. If you had to be from another        doll line, which would it be?
Hmm. Hard question. Either Barbie or Animator's Collection. Probably Barbie because of all the              different clothes and accessories!
What's your favorite subject in school?
Science! I love learning about the solar system and outer space. 
Least favorite subject?
Does recess count? I do NOT like sports AT ALL. Or participating in them, anyway. 
That's all that I have here! Do you want to add anything else?
Ooh yeah! Ashleigh wanted to know if you guys would be interested in seeing more stuff about Piper. Stuff like photoshoots and other things. Let me know in the comments or the suggestion survey!

Molly
Taylor

An Interview With Natalie

Molly here, once again!
     Today, I'll be interviewing Natalie! Natalie writes in purple ink. 

How are you today?
Great! How about you?
Pretty good, let's get to the interview!
Okay, let's do that!
What's your favorite color?
Purple, just like my font color here.
What's your favorite thing to do in your spare time?
Practicing hairstyles! I think that I've improved a lot in the past few months.
Cool! When did you first come to live in Maple Meadows with us?
Christmas of 2013. That's why my birthday's on Christmas!
How old are you?
13.
So how do you and Taylor like being the only dolls to have a sister here?
I don't really know about Taylor, but I love it! It's really cool :D
Are you going back to Camp Little Lake to be a counselor again this year?
I sure hope so! I've gotta fill in and mail my registration papers soon, or I won't get a chance to!
Good luck! I hope that you get a spot!
Thanks! I do too!
Alright, that's all the questions that I have. Do you want to add anything else?
Yes. There's a poll on the right side of the blog, so don't forget to vote! And remember to leave any suggestions in our suggestion survey up above!
Bye!
Molly and Natalie

Our Blogiversary Photo Shoot

Emily here!
     We have a few outtakes and fun photos from our photoshoot on Wednesday! By the way, sometimes, we post sneak peek photos on our Google+ account! You can follow us, if you'd like :) There's not a whole bunch of pictures, but I thought that you'd enjoy them anyway ;)

     Here's us just chatting while Ashleigh got the camera ready.

     Here's Molly and Addie being BFFs.

      And Addie looking pretty.

     Saige and Emily dancing (we were playing music!)

     Emily and Taylor showing off their dresses.

And Emily alone.

Molly's future profile picture?

     Natalie and Taylor's sister picture.

     Saige looking pretty too :)

     Don't forget to tell us which picture is your favorite! Did you ask any questions for us yet? If you didn't, leave a comment at THIS post, or ask in the suggestion box of our survey (you can find that in the "Help Us Improve Our Blog, Please" tab) by February 28th!

     Thanks for looking!
       Emily

One Year Blogiversary!

Hooray!
     Emily and Friends turned one year old on February 12th!!! Sorry that we didn't get to post on the actual day, we may or may not have thought that it was the 28th, not the 12th...... WOW, this year has gone by so quickly! So much amazing stuff has happened here in the past 12 months :D Not only did we get a new member of our doll family, but we now have 17 followers and over 3,100 pageviews. We'd just like to say THANK YOU!!!!! We have had so much fun writing for this blog, and we just want to say THANK YOU AGAIN!!!!
 
 Now our owner wants to say a few words...
     Ashleigh here! I'm actually sort of surprised that my dolls kept this blog running for so long... I really thought that they would forget about it a few weeks after they created it! Anyway, like Emily said above two times, THANK YOU!!! It has to be said multiple times because it's so true! I'm so proud of all of the dolls for doing this! Almost everybody has posted something here, and I hope that they'll all try to post something this year... I'm looking at you, Elizabeth and Kaya. 
     On a less happy note, I just thought that I would put it out there now, but I'm not planning on adding any more American Girl dolls to my collection. I've run out of space in my room, and I don't have anywhere else in my house to store my dolls. I'm also saving up my money for other things, like another reborn doll. I just wanted to tell you that now!

     Back to fun stuff! All of the dolls have decided to say a little something to all of you! You can find the font color guide in the "Meet the Dolls" page, in case you didn't know who was typing :)

     I'm SO SO SO happy that we've been here for a whole year!

     Ditto to Saige! There will be some more interviews here soon... We're re-doing my reporting room, so it might be a while ;)

     Has it really been a year? It sure doesn't seem so! I remember our first post... My hair looked  awful :P And we thought that it would only be the three of us posting! 

     Natalie was right, her hair did look awful there! I'm only kidding, that's just what sisters do! Now that I look at my picture on the "Meet the Dolls"page, I look kinda bad too! Nobody looks amazing there; I should re-take everybody's picture... I guess that that's what I'll be doing this year...

     Even though I haven't done much for this blog, I love it! Thanks so much for being an Emily and Friends reader!

     You've already heard my opinion ;P Elizabeth and Kaya both said thanks, but since they haven't done anything here, they didn't say anything else about this whole thing... But we still included them in this picture :D

It's not the best, some of us didn't focus on the camera; but we had taken so many photos already, we were tired ;)


Thanks so much!
Emily and Friends

P.S.- Don't forget to leave us any questions in the comments of THIS post!!

An Interview With Emily

Molly here!
     Yay! The official start to my interview series! Ashleigh and Addie's interviews were just "prequels" I guess.. Emily writes in black ink, I write in orange.

It's so exciting to finally interview you!
Well, thank you very much! I'm quite flattered that you chose to interview me first for this series, Molly.
You're the owner of this blog, of course I'd interview you first!
What questions do you have for me?
Oh, right. Questions.... Let me just grab them... Okay, let's start.
Go ahead.
What other names did you have in mind for Emily and Friends?
Well, it's been so long, I can't seem to remember any! I think that I just always liked Emily and Friends.
What's your favorite post?
Hmm. Let me think about that for a moment. Oh! Probably Natalie's photostory about when she and Saige returned home from camp. (You can find that HERE)
I like that one! Now for some questions about you! Where did you used to live before you moved to Maple Meadows?
Oh, I lived in London, just like in my books!
How cool! I'd love to go to London someday! Oh wait, I have more blogging questions. What kind of stuff would you like to do with the blog this year? 
Do you mean, like, my goals for the blog? Or stuff that I actually want to do?
Either works; but let's start with goals.
My main goal is for us to reach 30 followers by the end of the year! I know that we can, we already have 16 (Now 17!)! P.S.- thanks to all of you!
How about what you want to do with the blog?
I want to post more often, and I'm pretty sure that Nat, Saige, Taylor, and Addie want to do that too, I know that Addie's working on writing a story! I think that she's going to post a little bit each month or week.
Will Addie's story be a photostory?
No, I don't think so. She said that she isn't really interested in photography, so I'm guessing not.
What kind of posts are coming up soon?
Pretty soon we should have a photoshoot up, I'm not sure when, though.
Ooh! That sounds exciting! Would you like to add anything else? I'm done with my questions.
I don't think so. Oh, but be sure to check out a little tweak that we added to our photos! We added that cool "Pin It" button over all of them. You just have to hover your mouse over the picture that you want to pin, and a button should come up in one of the top corners.
How cool! Alright, I think that we're all done here!
Bye!
Bye! Have a fantastic week!
Molly and Emily

P.S.- We've noticed that our background is taking a really long time to load properly. I don't know if that's been happening to anybody else, but we're working on that anyways!

2014 Year In Review!

Molly McIntire here!
     This is our "Year In Review" post. I'm going to do this at the end of every year, telling you a lot of the interesting stuff that has happened to this blog throughout the year. This is also a good recap post if you're new here and you weren't sure what was happening :)

February

12th- Our first post!

March

16th- Taylor's first post! Emily tries on different outfits for the FIRST TIME EVER!!!!!

23rd- Our first poll

April

20th- Saige's first post!

May

Nothing particularly interesting...

June

12th-Natalie's first post! (A collaboration with Saige)

13th- Saige and Natalie are off to camp!

July

22nd- 1000 pageviews!

25th- We got a Pinterest account! 

August

8th- Natalie and Saige return!

30th- Ashleigh and Taylor's birthdays!

September

7th- Our Suggestion Survey was created! (Take a look! you can find it by clicking on the page titled "Help us improve our blog, please!")

29th- Emily's birthday!

October

6th- 10 followers!!!!

November

22nd ish- We changed our blog's background to the adorable and cheery look that it has today

December

17th- My (Molly's) first post!

25th- Christmas! And, the addition of Addie to our family!!

     

     Now that I look at this, I feel like we didn't do enough stuff...... We are going to try to post a lot more next year! Hopefully there will be more interesting things to put onto our "2015 Year in Review" post!

Happy New Year!

Emily and Friends

Introducing Addie! An Interview

Merry Two Days After Christmas and a Happy new year from Emily and Friends!!
     OUR OWNER GOT ADDY FOR CHRISTMAS!!!!!! WHOOP! OK, so I've calmed down now. Hooray! Addie is such a sweet doll! Molly interviewed Addie so that you could learn all about her, so here they are!

    
      It's Molly here! Well, now that we've kept you waiting for a few days, we'd like to introduce you to Addie Walker! I'm going to interview her for this part. Addie types in red ink. As usual, I'll be typing in orange ink.

 So what's your full name?
Adelaide Maria Walker, but everybody just calls me Addie. 
Why do you spell your name with an "IE" instead of a "Y" like in your books?
Well I needed to add my own spin on it! Our owner said that a lot of other people that have Addy dolls just call them "Addy", and she showed me the "Steampunk Addie" blog and I loved the spelling! So I s'pose that I sorta copied her...
Did you change anything else in your stories?
Yeah, a lot actually. Well I'm not from 1864, so that changes a lot of stuff! My name isn't Aduke like in my books either. 
Anything else?
Um, I'm not from Philadelphia? 
I've noticed that you have a southern accent. Where did you used to live?
Atlanta, in Georgia. 
How old are you? And when's your birthday?
14, and my birthday's on April 9th.
Is there anything in particular that you plan on posting about on the blog?
Hmmm... I'm not too sure yet. 
What kind of stuff do you like to do?
I like reading and sewing. I also love to write stories!
How do you like living in Maple Meadows so far?
Well, y'all are so kind! Also, I've said it before, and I'll say it again. It's so cold here!!
Well, I've gone through all of my questions here, so I think that we're done! Anything else that you'd like to say?
Nope! 

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more posts about -and from- Addie!
Happy New year!
Molly and Addie

An Interview With Ashleigh!

Hi Everybody!

   It's Molly McIntire here, the official interviewer for Emily and Friends! I'm just going to post interviews and news articles that I write from time to time on here. I'm starting a series of interviews of the other dolls that will be happening in 2015, but I'm going to start now with our owner, Ashleigh. Ashleigh posts in black italics, and I post in orange.

Why did you decide to start this blog?
I guess because I like writing stuff, and I love dolls!
What blogs inspired you the most?
Probably Doll Diaries, The Doll Wardrobe, Fun With AG Fan, and a whole bunch of other ones. 
What do you want to be when you grow up?
A NICU nurse.
Which of your American Girl dolls looks the most like you?
Taylor. We both have curly brown hair, and green-brown eyes; but mine are more blue and I have some freckles.
Is there anything that you plan on doing with the blog in the future that you think is worth noting?
Hmmm.... I'd really like to post more, and maybe get a better camera, but other than that, I'm not sure.
What are your favorite hobbies?
Sewing, knitting, crocheting, reading, and some origami. 
When's your birthday?
August 30th, like Taylor!
What is your favorite book?
Uhm, The Fault In Our Stars, probably.
Which AG doll would you like to get next?
Definitely Addy. 
And after that?
If they release a 1950s BeForever doll, I will get her.
What's your favorite color?
Turquoise.
Favorite TV show?
Either The Office or Call the Midwife.
Ok! That's all of my questions! Anything else that you'd like to add?
Yes, actually. We should have a post on -or a few days after- Christmas!

Thanks for reading my FIRST post!!!
Molly and Ashleigh

Welcome to Emily and Friends!

Hi everyone! It's Emily! I created Emily and Friends to show you some cool stuff about dolls and make some fun crafts. We'll mostly have doll crafts here, and maybe a short story here and there (but I'm not the one you should be asking about stories :). Most of this blog will be from my point of view, but the other dolls will probably post a bit, too. We have 7 American Girl dolls here, Emily (that's me!), Saige, Elizabeth, Molly, Kaya, Taylor (MyAG# 44), and Natalie (MyAG# 43). Most of the posting will be done by Saige, Taylor, Natalie, and me.

Natalie, Emily, Saige

Thanks for visiting!

Emily