Ear Piercing

Ear Piercing is a modification to American Girl dolls of making holes in the vinyl of an American Girl Doll near the ears to allow the doll to wear earrings.

Through American Girl
As of 2008, any My American Girl doll can get her ears pierced--if ordered off the website, this must be done at purchase. Otherwise the doll must be taken to a store or shipped to American Girl directly and pierced for a fee of $14. The holes are drilled with a dremel and are permanent.

The resulting holes are sized for American Girl earrings and so are bigger than standard human earring posts.

Self-Piercing
Some collectors prefer to pierce ears themselves. In this way, they are not limited to American Girl earrings only; before ear piercing was offered this was the only way to have pierced ears. This is generally done with a large needle or pushpin, or the earring post directly. The vinyl can be warmed up with a heat source such as a blow dryer to prevent cracking; the needle or pushpin is then gently pushed into the vinyl to make a hole. The hole, while permanent, is much more discreet than the piercing holes made by American Girl and allow any regular human earrings to be placed into the piercing.

A person can also make earring holes the same size as the American Girl sizes using a hand drill and bits (initially a thumb tack and then a 5/84 bit to make them the correct size - you may have to ream the hole a bit with the drill bit on high speed if too snug). A video of this can be seen here:

Dolls with Earrings
Addy Walker and Josefina Montoya both come with permanent gold loop earrings. Just Like You 27 came with permanent silver loops with star charms until 2008.

Ivy Ling and Elizabeth Cole come with pierced ears and can wear standard American Girl Earrings.