Happy New Year!

   Happy New Year all! 

  Tammy World is getting a head start on her New Year's celebration. Have a safe, happy new year, and I'll see you again soon.

  I have actually posted this picture before, but it was 2017, so maybe no one will remember it!

What I did Over Christmas

  Well, you didn't hear from me, or Tammy World over the holidays. I had a lot of projects I was trying to get finished for Christmas. In the end, I had to give up on getting a couple of them done, (I'll save those for other occasions.), one didn't get finished, and I actually did finish two of them. The two I finished were ornaments I was making for Emma and Ivy. I used a couple of the miniature dolls I made, that they had specifically said they liked. Emma had said years ago that her favourite of my little people was my ice skating girl, Sonia, (named after ice skater movie star of the 30's and 40's, Sonja Henie.) She had her own day on Doll-A-Day once. You can see her HERE.  Ivy said she liked the newsboy she helped me with, printing up tiny newspapers for him to carry, and the little boy on a sled. They both had their own Days too. You can see the sled boy HERE, and the newsboy HERE.  The newsboy wasn't wintery, or Christmassy, so I picked the sed boy for her ornament. If there was going to be a problem, I thought it would be because she would have preferred the newsboy over the sled boy.

   I had a bit of trouble figuring out what to use for ice in the skating girl's ornament. It had to be something small that would curve to the bottom of the ornament, otherwise the skater didn't have any headroom in the ball. In the end Ken suggested the clear contact paper I had gotten out for one of the other things I was making that I didn't get finished. It worked perfectly. I also came across some mini trees while looking for something else that I could cut down for the far away trees in the background of the sled boy ornament. So I did finally get the ornaments finished in time for Christmas. They aren't exactly how I envisioned them, but then, what ever is? 

  Here is the skater ornament.

  Originally there was no tree in the front of the bubble. But I decided it was too bare and needed something. So I added the tree. I kind of wish I had left it bare, because the tree is too bushy and she keeps getting her leg caught on it. My intention was for her to dangle from the top of the ornament and sort of look like she was skating, as she would move when the ornament was bumped. But now now she gets her leg caught on the tree, and frequently gets stuck sideways.

  The fishing line she's dangling from is just poked through her hat with a needle, so there is no change to the doll, and she can be removed from the ornament if it's ever wanted. And in case anybody who read her Doll-A-Day post is wondering, I did put her second skate on her before sealing her in the bubble!

  Here's the sled boy ornament.

  He came out pretty much as I wanted, but I would have preferred bigger empty ornament bubbles to put them in. The only bigger empty ornaments I could find wouldn't work though, because they didn't open up. They were just to be filled with things through the little hole at the very top, things like tinsel or glitter.

  Like the skater girl, he's been kept original, and can be removed from the ornament if it's ever wanted. He's sewn to his sled, and his sled is sewn to the snow. So they can be taken out and taken apart. I did this stuff in case the girls ever want to just leave them as dolls, in case the ornament gets broken or damaged otherwise.

  The girl's opened their ornaments at the same time. Remember, I thought the problem might be that Ivy would have preferred the newsboy. Well, it was worse than that. She liked the sled boy ornament, but preferred the skater one! She had never mentioned preferring that one before! Emma offered to trade her, but Ivy said no. She was okay with the sled boy, but she would have preferred the other one. I can't win.

  So there you are. That's why you haven't gotten the post on October's doll show yet! But it's ready to go and will be the next post up, very 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.

So What Show Did I Go To? And a Few Odds and Ends

   In my last post I mentioned that there were two other shows recently, a doll show and a toy show. I have been so tired lately that I debated going to neither, and just staying home and resting. But then I thought that there weren't going to be more than a couple more shows until next Spring. Why not hit the ones I could before then? I thought of going to both, since they were on different days. But in the end, I was too tired and achy to do both. I have been going to the toy show with my sister for the last few years, and it came first. So Ken and I went to her house the day before, so we wouldn't have to get up so early and drive to her house on show day. She's an hour and a half away, and the show is about 15 minutes from her house. 

  We went to the show, which is held at a fairground. It's huge, covering more than half a dozen huge buildings, with all of them being packed full of dealer's tables. There were so many people shopping it was hard to get through the aisles. Worse than that, it also made the buildings like large, toy filled ovens. A few years ago we went to the Fall toy show, and it was so cold we thought we were going to freeze to death. This year my sister was sorry she didn't bring in the little hand held fan she had in her car.

  I think there were slightly fewer tables with dolls this year than the last couple of years. Maybe they found that dolls weren't selling as well as they wanted, so the dealers are bringing more toys than dolls. There were still way more dolls than used to be found at toy shows. Here are some of the more interesting ones I saw.

  This is a Moni doll.

  I recognized immediately that this doll looked like a tiny Sasha doll. Sure enough, the internet describes them as 8 inch mini Sasha dolls, of lower quality than Sasha dolls, and made in Hong Kong. They are supposedly rare because there were copyright problems, and they stopped production I guess. I can see why. They look so much like Sasha dolls. She doesn't have the scary eyes or the weird hands though.

  This was a beautiful Teeny Tiny Tears doll, in her case, with almost all of her things. 

  I had never heard of a Barbie PTMI Birthday doll. I liked the look of this one, so I took her picture. In writing this post I looked it up, and PTMI Birthday Barbies are given to employees at the Mattel factory in Indonesia on their birthdays, and have been since the 90's. That's the only way to get one, so they are pretty rare.

  I found this doll, on the left, kind of interesting. She looks like Tressy, but she's small. You can gauge her small size by comparing her to the 70's Charlie's Angel's doll to her right. (Assuming, of course, that you are familiar with the Charlie's Angel's dolls...)

She also doesn't have Tressy's grow hair feature. The tag she had said only that she was a Japan rubber doll with painted on shoes.

I recognize that jacket. In fact, I think I have one. I can't remember who it came on, but it wasn't this doll, unless there were two dolls who came wearing it. I have no idea why she's wearing a bunch of plastic discs around her neck. Completing her ensemble is the ever popular sock dress.

  I have a small collection of... shall we use the term? Hillbilly dolls. You can see mine HERE, HERE, and HERE. There were quite a few...such dolls at the show. In fact, there were more of them at this show than I have ever seen at a single show, and they were not all at the same dealer's tables. Strange. I didn't photograph all of them, but here's one of them.

  I also have a weakness for sad dolls, and dolls you're meant to feel sorry for. This Poor Pitiful Pearl was mint in her mint box. Check out her original clearance price.

  I am familiar with Brooke Shields dolls, but not with this one in an evening gown.

  At the last doll show I was proud of myself for not buying anything. This time I did buy something, but it wasn't for me. I spotted two old dolls with definate limb problems in a box under the dealer's table. At a previous show I got a Pippi Longstocking doll from the same dealer. She was complete and nearly perfect, and only needed a minimal wipe down and her ponytails put back in. The dealer considered her too far gone to fiddle with though, and sold her to me for $5! She must not deal with anything she has to spend any time on making presentable, because the two girls in the box were the same situation. They were very nice, but doll number one, which is a vintage 1950's flirty eye Saucy Walker, with teeth, brunette braids, and her entire original outfit, including onesie, dress, socks, and shoes, and even hair ribbons, needed her head and arms out back on. 

Doll number two, a vintage Uneeda Susan Stroller, needed her arms put back on. 

I got these two dolls at an amazing price. I didn't need them, and promised Ken I wouldn't keep them, but I figured somebody would love them, and they needed rescued.

   The dressed one is definitely a Saucy Walker, because she's marked Ideal, and, as I said, has her original dress, with her original onesie underneath, socks, and shoes. (Even her shoes are marked 'Ideal'.) The other doll is marked Eegee, and is almost certainly a Susan Stroller. They are in really nice condition, other than just needing restrung. Saucy has flirty eyes that work well, and their sleep eyes work too  Unfortunately the crier box doesn't work in either. I think I should be able to restring them. I have put the arms back on a Susan Stroller, but I didn't have to put her head back on. There are kits you can buy with the rubber bands and S hooks to fix them. When I have them fixed they'll go up for sale. If anybody is interested in them, leave a comment with some contact information, and I'll get back to you.

  I didn't take many pictures at the show, so here are a few stray pictures I took at some of the places we went lately. 

  This pretty girl is roughing it outside at a local antique mall.

  The place has a habit of putting a lot of cool stuff outside, including dolls that I suppose it thinks aren't good enough for them to sell inside the actual building. This girl is in some rough shape, but I think she deserves better treatment than this, especially if they are still asking $45 for her! She isn't going to be worth anything before too long. I wish I could rescue her before she's completely ruined, but I can't afford to do that.

  We went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame while Ken's sister and brother-in-law were here a few weeks ago. You might not be expecting to find dolls there, but I did see this guy...

Okay. This marionette of Beck that was part of the Saturday Night Live exhibit, (which I highly recommend,), isn't officially a doll, he comes close enough.

  And if you saw my last post you will have seen these original 60's Beatles bobbleheads.

  And that's it for this post. You got two fairly close together this time! I am proud of myself. There  was another doll show yesterday, the last this year. Did I go? We'll see next time