Doll-A-Day 2023 #120: Friends Forever Club Dolls Iha and Carina

    Emma's home from the hospital, but still having pain and discomfort. I hope she is all better soon.

   I found these dolls at Dollar Tree. Their names are Iha, and Carina.

  They're from a line called Friends Forever Club, which makes them easy to confuse with 4-Ever Best Friends  dolls, and the Friends Forever line of Winx dolls.

   There are actually four dolls in the series. The others are the red haired Viera, and the brown haired Alanis. You would have thought I would have bought the red haired one, (It's actually sort of pink.), but I thought these two were the cutest, so I bought them. So there.

  The theme behind these dolls is that the four met 'on a field trip to the Science Center and...became best friends'. The idea of the Science Center suggests they all have an interest in some form of science.

 Each character has an interest that is her theme. Iha loves fish,(and killing them apparently, because she also loves to fish.), the beach, shells...and baking cookies. (No word on if the cookies have to have a beach theme too, or if they have fish in them.) She wants to be a marine biologist when she grows up. To show her interests, she has a sea shell on her headband. 

  

With her dark hair and headband, there's a little something Snow White-ish about Iha.

 Her eyes are sort of almond shaped, which gives her a bit of a fairy look. Well, I think so. The red haired doll, Viera, looks even more like a fairy than Iha does.

  Carina loves all things space. She likes studying 'astrology', and wants to be an astronaut when she grows up. I think they meant to say she loves studying 'astronomy', not astrology. Just guessing. There's nothing about her appearance to show that she loves space, so to prove she's smart, she wears glasses.

And yes, her glasses are removable. They also don't stay on very well...well, we'll get to that. She also has cute little hair meatballs.

  Both dolls use the same head sculpt. 

Carina modeling the no glasses look.

  These dolls are about 5 inches tall. They could be used as dollhouse dolls, in a dollhouse that's a bit bigger than 1/12 scale if you want them to be children. They'd be about the size an of adult woman in a 1/12 scale dollhouse.

  Their hands look as if they were meant to hold something, but they don't come with accessories. Maybe they were originally intended to. Maybe it's for the larger accessories that are sold separately.

  They have simple articulation, but then, they did only cost $1.25 each. They're jointed at the neck, shoulders, and hips. They can turn their heads, move their arms, and even sit down.

  I did kind of feel like their limbs might break off if I wasn't delicate enough with them. They just feel cheap, but then, again, they were. There is also another problem with them sitting down.

Um. Yes. These dolls do have removable rubber clothing. And when they sit down, it removes itself. The clothes have an interesting latching system in the back. 

I found Iha's skirt hard to force closed over her butt. 

The hooks are weird, and almost have to be hooked from the inside. It's hard to explain. None of the clothes stayed closed very well.

  And Carina can't pull her shorts up all the way.

The sleeves on Carina's hoodie are just her arms, painted. And when she raises her arms, it shows.

On the other hand, they bothered to put some texture on Iha's skirt.

It's like fish scales, to go with her interest.

And their shoes are removable too.

Slits down the back make them easy to remove...and fall off.

And they have one more removable thing.

Their hair! Surprisingly, they can't wear each other's hair, although I did see someone review all 4 dolls who put someone else's hair on one of them. But it was neither of these two. 

It won't sit all the way down on her head.

There are shapes in the hair, and bumps on their heads. They look the same, but they didn't fit both dolls the same.

Carina's hair is marked 2, and Iha's is marked 1.

Then why make it removable? Maybe it isn't meant to be, but it wasn't glued on.

  And that brings us to that other issue. Carina can't keep her glasses on unless they are stuck under her hair...or she doesn't wear her hair at all. but the glasses won't stay over the hair.

  As a side note, the glasses fit Tammy World really well.

    I didn't see them in any of the Dollar Tree stores I went to, but apparently there is a swing you can put together, that is sold in a pack, and a slide for these dolls. There are also cloth outfits for them too, but our Dollar Trees never seemed to get them either. From seeing them online the clothes, although actually made of cloth, look very cheap and like they would probably fall apart with very little play.

  So these dolls are cute, and would survive some play, but I don't know how long they'd last before they start falling apart.

Those are the dolls for today. See you again tomorrow.  

Doll-A-Day 2023 #119: Dollhouse Grandparents

Today's doll is two: this set of dollhouse grandparents.

  They aren't labeled in any way, but after looking at another doll tagged as a Betty Curtis doll, and looking at Betty Curtis dolls online, I'm pretty sure they were made by Betty Curtis.

My stupid autofocus focused on the wrong thing again, so their faces are a bit blurry. But they re so cute, sitting there holding hands, that I had to show you.

  Betty Curtis was a NIADA artist. Niada stands for National Institute of American of Doll Artists. You can see many of her dolls online by Googling her name.

  These two are dollhouse scale, about 6 inches tall. I'm not sure what their faces are made of. It's some stretchy fabric, but there's obviously some form under the fabric, because they have three dimensional features.

The rest of them is covered in something heavier than stockingette, but still stretchy.

Grampa has a beard and mustache.

But he's going bald.

"Them's fightin' words!"

Cool off Gramps. "I'll take ya on right here!"

"Put 'em up!"

While Grampa regains his composure, let's look at Grama. 

I'm not sure what her hair is made of, but it's a natural mix of shades.

  Grama has a pretty little cameo necklace.

She also has some nice vintage lace on her dress.

Under her dress she's wearing a slip, and bloomers, maybe even two layers of bloomers. It kind of looks that way.

   I think their little shoes are made of leather. It looks like leather, but is so thin. It must be kid leather.

Both are bendable. Their arms and legs, and upper bodies can bend. They can't turn their heads though.

They have some nice clothes. I like Grama's dress. The fabric is very thin, and falls naturally on a small figure. 

Grampa has a tie and some very nice suspenders. The metal parts are made of what seems to be foil paper.

  I think the things I was most impressed by were Grampa's beard and mustache, and his glasses. 

They're made of super thin wire. It's twisted on the sides, and at the nose piece. I was least impressed by his stub hands.

"Them's fightin' words..."

Oh give me a break Grampa.

  Those are today's dolls.

  See you tomorrow for another one.

Doll-A-Day 23 #118: Dolly Dingle Doll

   Emma is back on solid foods! She may be coming home tomorrow, although I kind of doubt the doctors will get around to doing that on a Sunday. They actually took more gall stones out of her liver yesterday! She was full of them! Poor girl. But she feels so much better now. Don't ignore your gall bladder symptoms people!

  And a happy coronation day everyone! I like King Charles, and I think he stands for a lot of the right things, like environmental issues, sustainability, and old architecture. Ken's sister sent him some coronation pajamas, which he has been wearing. Well, he's been wearing the bottom half of them. Maybe if he can wear the top as a regular t-shirt it will actually get some wear. 

***UPDATE: Thanks to a reader for the information about the doll's name and maker. I wish you had left your name.*** 

  Today's doll was obtained from a doll show a while back. She looked like brand new. But look at her now.

This poor kid was rescued from the landing of our house after the fire. She arrived here with one bare foot, jaundice in her eyes, and a sooty face and hair bow.

I have no idea how she worked herself out of the shoe and sock that  she was wearing before the fire. The shoe I can see getting dislodged, but the sock? 

I don't know where they went!

  She is still a cute little thing though, even if the whites of her eyes are yellow. She has what are known as 'googly eyes'. Made by Goebel in 1997, she's a modern version of an antique googly eye doll called Dolly Dingle. Dolly Dingle was originally the creation of Grace Drayton, the artist responsible for the Campbell's Soup Kids. (See mine HERE.) This particular version of Dolly was the design of Karen Kennedy. 

 

 She is actually made of vinyl, not bisque. That's a good thing, because I hate bisque. It feels disgusting.

  She's about 9 inches tall, with 5 points of articulation: the neck, shoulders, and hips. When her legs are moved backwards a bit she becomes pigeon toed.

But forward and she's just a walking fool.

She has a head of giant curls. I believe it's a wig, not rooted.

She's wearing a sort of thirties type dress with matching bloomers.

Her hair ribbon matches too. It's still a bit sooty, as is her face.

  And to top her look off she has a 'pearl' necklace.

  If anybody knows this kid's name, let me know in the comments.

  That's the doll for today. Tomorrow will be another doll. See you then.