New Super Heroines and Super Villains in Three Sizes!

   Ken gets his other stents tomorrow. Any good vibes, prayers, good wishes, whatever you believe in, would be appreciated. But now, what you're here for: dolls. I saw some really great brand new dolls last night. Walmart had a huge display, filled with beautiful dolls based on DC characters.

Around the side the featured dolls were Walmart's own My Life As dolls as Supergirl.

But the front of the display was filled with beautiful 1/6 scale DC heroines. There were four characters. Let's look at them one by one. 

First up: Supergirl.

  She looks a bit cross eyed, but she's very pretty.

  I'm not sure when Supergirl started wearing a sweater, but she has a sweater, a cheerleader skirt, and knee socks under her boots. She also has a double belt, and her dog, Krypto. (Why would you name your dog after your biggest fear and danger?)

  She has some articulation beyond the standard shoulders and hips too. I don't know about her ankles, but she also has jointed elbows, wrists, and knees. It looks like her waist might possibly have a joint too. Her hands have long, pointy fingernails.

  Next we have Harley Quinn, not a heroine. Harley Quinn is a villain, being The Joker's babe. She's popular though, even though she's been played as pretty crazy.

  She has the same pretty face as Supergirl, but she has HQ's smeary scary make up, and coloured streaks in her hair.

That is one big zipper pull.

  On one hand she has a molded fingerless glove, and both hands have the same long, pointy nails as Supergirl.

  Next we have another villain, Catwoman. She's my second favourite of the bunch.



  She has the same face as the others, but she has a mask, (I'm not sure if it's part of her face mold or not. Looks like it might be.), and her eyes are two different colours. 

  She has a cool black pleather top, a black tulle skirt, net stockings, and, like the others, boots. On each wrist she has a pearl bracelet. She also has the same long nails as the others.

  And now on to my favourite. I'm sure you guessed which was probably going to be my favourite from the beginning. If you guessed Poison Ivy, you're right.

    Daughter Ivy always hates being called Poison Ivy. I still do it occasionally....  

  As I've said, I wasn't particularly crazy about my own red hair, but I like red haired dolls. She has the same pretty face as the others, and some twisty hair horns, and big, plant based eyebrows.  

  I love her collar of leaves, and the leaves on her outfit. There are leaves printed all over it, plus there are some three dimensional leaves sewn to the top of the neckline. 

  She's wearing sheer, green tights, which also have a leave print. Unlike the other three, she isn't wearing boots. She's wearing her little leafy booties. 

  I guess we can tell now that there is no ankle joint.

  She has a cool purse too. 

  There's a hinge on the bottom, so I guess it even really opens too! And, you can see that she has the same long pointy nails as the others. She's my favourite! Want!

  The right side had the 18 inch My Life As dolls as Supergirl, but what was on the left side? The exact opposite of 18 inch dolls: Tiny Kelly/Chelsea sized dolls!



  They're actually bag charms, and called 'Charming Bag Charms', so they have a hook thing coming out of their heads. I hope it's removeable, because they are so pretty it would be a shame to have a giant hook on their head ruining their looks. They also come with a bunch of other smaller charms and a bow.

  They have '10+ pieces'.

  I have the same two favourites in this bunch.  Look how cute little Catwoman, (Catgirl?), is.

Her mask definitely looks like a separate piece.

  And my favourite is, again, Poison Ivy.

She even has the little leave booties! Want!

  Something else I saw was the Ryan Gosling head sculpt Ken. I'm not sure if I remember seeing this one before.

Mattel is still riding high on the Barbie movie.

  It really does look like Ryan Gosling.

  If somebody with more talent than I have repainted him, he would really look like Ryan Gosling.

  And that's it for this post. I keep forgetting to post these on the blog's Facebook page. I'm thinking of it now though, so I better do it before I forget. See you soon.

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 Spring Toy Show, and What I Bought There, and What's Up With Ken

    I haven't been around for a while. I think the last time you heard from me our car had died. We were without a car for a while, and then some people we've known for a long time offered us a van for a really great price. They got a lot of things fixed on it, using their own money, because they knew we really needed a car and were low on funds. It was a nice van, and had cool stuff like heated seats, and a CD and cassette player, and even a DVD player and tv for the back seats! I doubted we would ever use that, since we don't often have anybody in our back seat these days. It was still kind of cool to have though. We might have taken a trip at some point, and pulled over to enjoy a little TV while we ate lunch or something. I say 'might have', because three weeks into having the van, on the way to a doll show in fact, it became hard to break on the highway, in the rain no less, and the weird noises the van had been making: clunks, pops, etc., and the weird things it had been doing: juddering when reaching 55, listing to the left, having super tight steering, became worse. Before we reached our destination the van was feeling very scary. We did actually get to the doll show. It was a Saturday afternoon, so we weren't sure how we were going to get home. I actually took Ken into the venue where the show was being held, while my sister checked around for somewhere that might be open and able to take us on such short notice, and so close to closing time. When I came back out to park the van, she had found somewhere. I went back in to get Ken, and reloaded Ken and wheelchair back in the van  We carefully drove to Midas. The manager was going to take the van for a test drive, but ran back in saying, "I was going to take it for a test drive, but noooo! I'm going to run it in here and check it out." So he did, and was back in seconds. The subframe had broken. He said he was surprised we even made it into Midas. He said it would take at least $2000 to even start fixing what was wrong with it. With the miles on the vehicle and all the other things he said would probably come up next, the only thing that made sense was junking the van. Midas Man also said he couldn't see how anybody could have been under there working on the van recently and not seen that this was about to happen. 

  So once again, after three weeks, we were without a vehicle again. And by the time we got everything straightened out and a van rented  to get home before the car rental place closed for the day, it was too late to bother going to the doll show. There was less than an hour of the show left, and it costs $10 to get in now anyway.

  Last week Ken went in for a heart catheterization to have stents put in. He'd been in the week before, when they went in through his wrist. They decided he had more to do than they wanted to do through the wrist, so he had to come back. I was very scared, but he did fine. We were supposed to go home after it was finished, but they ended up keeping him a couple of nights so they could flush his kidneys out with IV fluids. Turns out, the contrast dye they use for the procedure can damage the kidneys, and Ken already has kidney damage from his diabetes. They did one side of his heart, but he was starting to have to move because his back and leg were hurting from laying on his back so long, so they had to stop. Now he has to go back in a couple of weeks to have the other side done. I'll be terrified again. If any of you want to do a few prayers, or send some positive vibes or thoughts Ken's way, it would all be appreciated.

  But before all that happened Ken and I went to the toy show with my sister. It's the Xenia, Ohio toy show, and it supposedly one of the biggest in the county. It may or may not be, but it sure is huge. It's held at a fairground, and it encompasses many buildings. We have always gone to every single building...except this time. It was supposed to be very cold, but turned out to not be too bad. But I have been having a lot of hip and back pain the last few months, and my sister recently had surgery to correct her botched double mastectomy, so she was tired, and not feeling her best. Only Ken was doing fine, although he was getting wheeled around. I could have done better from a wheelchair too. So we called it quits a bit  early. There were lots of dolls, as has become usual with this show. For once I didn't buy anything from the dealer I bought the Saucy Walker and lookalike from at the last show. I did buy a couple of things though, which I'll show you in a minute.

  First I'll show you a few interesting things I spotted. 

  I'm not sure if I have shown this same doll in a previous post. She looks familiar, and I know I photographed some of the same dealer's dolls before. This is a Lisa doll by Takara.    

There was this boxed set of Cousins dolls at another dealer.

  The Cousins were baby sitters to go with the Quints dolls by Tyco. (Why weren't there 5 of them? Somebody got off easy, watching only one kid.) I am familiar with the Quints dolls, but I never heard of the Cousins before. I knew they had to be connected with the Quints though, from the look of the packaging. Apparently they were supposed to be teenagers. There were several sets. Their gimmick was that when they stood close together their outfits formed a picture. How weird.

  I also saw something I've never seen, even in ads.

Can you spot which thing it is? It's Casper, in a box! I always wanted my cousin's Casper doll, and I finally got one as an adult. I've never seen his box though.

  Another thing I saw that I had never seen was this Liddle Kiddles Talking Townhouse.

I've had the Kiddle Klubhouse before, but I don't think I'd even heard of the Talking Townhouse. Apparently it had a pullstring talk feature. If this house was in good shape, $30 was a good price for it.

 

 There was also a dealer with Monster High dolls, including the giant sized 17" ones.

  I also saw this Strawberry Shortcake house.

  I didn't take many pictures this time. It was dark in the buildings, and most of the stuff wasn't displayed in a way that made it easy to get good pictures of. And I was in pain that day and just not feeling it. As I said though, I did buy something. It was near the end of our stay at the show. What did I get? 

  

  I spotted some Barbie and Skipper dolls at one table. Most of the dolls weren't in great shape. One of them was my favourite Skipper, the Mod Era, red haired, eyelash Skipper. I have a few of these Skippers, but  one has a reddish face and is missing most of her lashes, and one is paled out a bit.  One is nearly perfect but for a piece chopped out of her bangs. This girl has thin hair, and her lashes are there, but short. But you know what? I can fix that. Her face colour is pretty good.

She was marked $35. I asked the dealer what the least she would take was. She said $25! There was another Skipper I considered, a sausage curl. She was marked $25.While I was on a roll, I asked the dealer what she would take for both. She said $40, so I said okay. 

Her head is great, including her lashes.

 Unfortunately, her feet and ankles aren't in very good shape. 

 I can always switch her head to another sausage curl body that has a bad head. I probably have one.

  I might try to sell the sausage curl girl, or at least her head. 

I really can't afford to spend that kind of money any more. I hadn't bought a Skipper for myself in a long time. (I did buy a 'Sample', or Test Market Skipper at a show, but she was to sell. I have to pay for going to shows somehow. They are quite a drive, and the doll shows cost $8 to $10 each to get into, and the toy show costs $5.And now Ken has to go with me, because I can't leave him on his own, so it costs twice as much.)

  I also missed the other Spring doll show because Ken had only just come home from the hospital and had to take it easy for a week or so. So the next doll shows are this Fall. We'll see what happens then.