A Few Random Dolls and Another Car

   I don't get on the computer very often these days, so I get ideas for posts, and then they get outdated before I ever get around to them. I still haven't posted the Christmas gifts that reader Treesa sent me year before last! I also have a gift Ken got me for Valentine's Day, and a birthday gift to show you. But here's a quick post in the meantime.

  For those of you who are following the continuing story of our vehicle problems, here's the latest. For those of you only interested in the dolls, and bored with my life, (And who can blame you?), skip ahead to the dolls.

  So our recently purchased van died, and we were left without a vehicle again. My sister had a brainstorm. Her friend had been complaining of having too many cars for years. (Oh, to have those sorts of problems!) She wanted to give my sister one of her cars that she didn't drive very often. My sister had been refusing, saying "You can't give me a car!" But it occurred to her that if her friend gave her that car, then she could give us her car. So she proposed the idea. I, having not much choice, agreed. So she took her car in to have the oil changed. After that some of the warning lights on the dashboard came on. She took it in to have that checked. It was found that the car needed a new battery. Then they discovered some other problems. The free car ended up costing about $1000. But we got $400 for the van we paid $800 for, from the salvage guy, and the person we bought the van from is giving us back $300. That means the free car was only really $300...sort of. That's not bad. We basically paid $100 to drive the van for 3 weeks. So we finally got everything fixed on my sister's car, and we brought it home. So far so good.

  Ken goes to have his other stents put in soon. Don't forget to send him all your good vibes and prayers, or whatever you have. We'll take all the good stuff. Now, on to the dolls. 

  I spotted some dolls I hadn't seen before at a few places lately. Some were interesting, so I thought I'd share them with you. First of all, there are these Harry Potter dolls.

  I hadn't seen the ones with accessories before. There were also these Diagonally Collectible Shops sets. I hadn't seen these either. They're pretty nice, with some cool minis in them. My favourite is the one with the chess game.

  I spotted those at Jungle Jim's in Cincinnati. You might remember my post on Smiskis, and all the Smiskis they had at Jungle Jim's.. Well they got rid of all those displays, but they have new ones, and loads more Smiski options, including lamps, zipper pulls, plush dolls and plush purses.

  I think this house is a Robotime mini room collection, but they used it to display the Smiskis.

  A lot of you might not be old enough to remember the Alligator King cartoon on Sesame Street. Emma didn't, so they must have stopped using it by the time she came along. But I remember it very well. Not too long ago I spotted this figure.

    As a kid it took me a while to figure out what that mustache was supposed to be.

  The line of retro toys has been expanded.

  These little Tote-ily dolls are cute. They each comes with a mini backpack that can be used for storing the doll, as a purse, or as a mini backpack for a larger doll.

 

    So that's it for right now. As I said, I still have some ideas for posts that I need to get around to. If  I do: see you soon.

The Holidays are Here Again, and With Them Come Dolls

   I have a doll show post nearly ready for you. Until then, I thought I'd talk about some interesting dolls I have seen lately. The holidays are coming up, and the toys are screaming for attention in the stores. The toy catalogs from the stores arrived ages ago.

Of course, it's not so close to Christmas that Kroger should  have been selling cut Christmas trees for WEEKS now, but they have been! 

  In any case, here are some dolls that have found my attention.

  The My Life As line has Willy Wonka themed dolls, and they come with a tiny plush Oompa Loompa.

  And there are the 18" Harry Potter themed toys from My Life As.

  

The success of "Wicked" has brought The Wizard of Oz to the forefront again. Walmart has these costumes, costume pieces, and these small dolls. The dolls are about the size of the Disney Store small versions of the Animator's dolls.

And then there are the Oz dolls from My Life As.

Wow. Toto looks more like a Chow than a terrier!

    

Walmart.

A couple of years ago I posted about the Best Friends Forever dolls sold at Dollar Tree. They're still being sold there, and now they have a couple of new characters. Our Dollar Tree also finally got the wig sets and clothing sets. 

  The Christmas dolls are coming out. I think this is the first time there has been a Holiday Ken. The Barbie movie has given Ken new life.

  The Holiday Barbies are out. You have a choice of three this year. There's also an 80th anniversary Barbie. It's Mattel's 80th anniversary, not Barbie's.

  And speaking of "Wicked", the new "Wicked" movie is out, or about to be, and the new dolls are out too. There are new versions of Elphaba and Glinda...

Meijer has small Wicked dolls in balloons, and a singing Glinda doll.

Walmart.

...as well as new characters like Dorothy.  In spite of the fact that the blue and white gingham dress is MGM's version of Dorothy, and has nothing to do with the original book description or illustrations, and that "Wicked" is a Universal release, and that Warner Brothers owns the rights to the MGM "Wizard of Oz", (I always have to think of the original studio rivalries and imagine how Louis B. Mayor must be absolutely turning, nay, spinning, in his grave to think that Warner Brothers now owns the rights to all his movies now!), the "Wicked" Dorothy comes pretty close to the MGM version.

  But my favourite new doll is the Wizard, played by Jeff Goldblum. The doll is a Walmart exclusive, and he is great. He really looks like Jeff Goldblum.

  The Kawaii Hi line is newish.

  They aren't new, but the line seems to be expanding, and I think they're cute, so I'm including the Hey Bestie dolls here.

  They're about 6 inches tall, with cute, actually+

 removeable cloth clothes and loads of accessory sets. They're cute, and have jointed knees and elbows.

They have a bunk bed set.

They have cars.

There's a cafe.

There's a hair salon.

So they only have a bedroom to live in, but they can get their hair done and eat out, and drive to the places to do it. Really, can a house be far behind?

  And there are loads of characters.

  My favourites are the red head...

...and the short haired girl on the right in this picture.

  They all have the same face though.

  Oh! I like the girl in orange too.

  And of course, there's always Barbie.

This is Meijer.

  Wednesday and Monster High are still popular.

Meijer

Walmart

  Meijer has an 18" doll line called Wonderfully You, which has the old Madame Alexander My Life As head sculpt.

  So there you are. That's only a start on the dolls that are available. There will hopefully be a lot of fun stuff out there for the holidays. And even better, it might get clearanced afterward!

  See you soon with the last doll show post of the year.

Ken, But Wait, There's More: Dolls

  Finally, a post that isn't  all about Ken, although my life is right now. He is home, and  keeping Fuzzy and me very busy. It's  been super hot, so he has been sapped by the heat, as have I. We were under a heat advisory all week, so we went to Emma's house to  hang out  in her air conditioning a couple of days. He has his first real outpatient therapy this week. Temperatures are supposed to drop a bit, so hopefully he will be feeling more up to it. We did some stuff at home, but generally it was just so hot that he was weak, and I didn't want to put a drain on him. Today we did a bit more, as it's a little cooler.

  But, what you're really here for is dolls. I was out shopping for a  blood pressure cuff, etc. this week, and walked through the clearance and toy aisles at Walmart. Normally I don't like to encourage Walmart shopping, but there were a few good clearance things, and some nice dolls.

  As for the dolls, I saw that Walmart now has Naturalistas dolls. I showed you some from Target in a post last year. 

They also had the fashion packs.

I love the nightie.

  They also had a line called Latinistas, which I assume are by the same company. 

They are also very pretty dolls, and worth checking out. Both series of dolls were priced at $12.97 each. They also had the Naturalistas clothing packs.

  I also saw a couple of very articulated Fresh dolls.

 Both were good looking dolls, one being male and the other female. The articulation looked good, and they had nice faces. 

  There was a line called Fresh. Not sure if they're related. The hair on the blonde one is great.

 

  There was also a line of dolls I've never seen called Luv, which stands for Limitless, Unique, Vibrant, and their accompanying fashion packs.. They were interesting looking dolls. I'm not sure if they have any extra some articulation. I liked them though. 

  

There is a Ron in the currant line of Harry Potter dolls! Yay! 

Ron was always my favoutire character, and he gets the short end of the stick. I'm glad to see him making an appearance.

The VIP dolls looked a little cheap and ugly.

But the current line of Disney Descendants are pretty cool

The selection of Mini Brands was great. They had the books, shoes, purses, make sets, and what seemed an endless selection of others. I think at least half of one side of the aisle was Mini Brands. There were so many I'd love to buy, but they are so expensive. And of course, we've had no income for 7 weeks now.

 

 

  

  There were some great Mini Verse sets. Have I mentioned that I love tiny stuff?

  The Harry Potter Mini Verse sets were great too. Some of the stuff was so detailed. I love this stuff!

In the clearance aisle they had Rainbow High shoes and purse singles for only $2.00, and Mini Bratz for only $4.00. I had to go back today. The Rainbow High stuff was all gone, but the Mini Bratz were only $1 each!

  Yeah. Okay. That one display doll fell off while I was looking at them. Honestly. It really fell off on it's own.

 Which is not to say I didn't take it home with me.

   That's it. Ken keeps Fuzz and I busy, so I don't have much time any more. This post took three writing sessions.