Spring has sprung, and apparently it's about to spring right back...

  The weather was sooo nice today! I hung laundry out, and cleared up outside, where winter had deposited everybody else's trash in my yard and then hid it under snow. On my way to drop Ivy off for play practice and back I saw kids on bikes, scooters,and one kid trying to cram all the spring in he could while he had the chance, was eating a Popsicle and roller blading at the same time.There was a long double line at the ice cream place too.This is about the 3rd day of nice-ish weather we've had so far this year. Friday was fairly nice, and then Saturday it snowed again! The last couple of days have been spring-like, but we're due for freezing rain and snow tonight! My garlic doesn't know whether to grow or not. The winter was so bad that for the first time I wasn't able to just brush the snow off and cut fresh garlic all winter.My daffodils are making a brave showing, but my trees aren't budding yet. I actually saw a honey bee today. I hope the poor guy can find shelter tonight!
  If you read my post yesterday you'll know that it was my birthday. Ivy was in school and Fuzz had to work, so it was only me, Emma, and Ken all day. Ken kept after me to do whatever I wanted with my day. I was supposed to have already gotten my birthday presents the day I found the AI dolls and J doll at Tuesday Morning, but Ken gave me a budget for additional birthday shopping on him. I finally decided to go to Tuesday Morning and The Disney Store. I wanted to look for another J Doll, and I have been wanting the Animator's Collection toddler Merida or a Frozen Anna. I knew of course that any chance of finding a Frozen doll was slim. I was right. They had two Hans dolls, but that was all.
  I wavered on the toddler Merida. She was a large chunk of my budget, so I thought I would do better to have a look at some of the other dolls first. I have had my eye on the Gothel doll, and she was on sale for $10: In the stack. They had a couple of the Rapuzels with the short hair. They were also on sale: Stack. I couldn't resist the Snow White. She has such a cute face, and she was on sale too! Stack!
  I checked out the Muppet stuff. I have ALWAYS loved the Muppets.(Emma, Fuzz, and I are gearing up for the new movie, out this month.)They had a great Rowlf, but I have a really good vintage Rowlf. But they had an amazing Swedish Chef. I've never seen a doll of the Swedish Chef.He was a bit of a chunk of the budget too, but we saw the deal with the Disney Visa and he got added to the stack.The Disney Visa deal was, when you sign up for a Disney Visa and make a your first $50 purchase, you get $50 credit. So essentially, all my purchases yesterday were FREE. That means I didn't spend any of my birthday budget! I still have presents coming! I also now have a Visa card with Toy Story on it, (because they didn't have any Muppet cards.)
  I have the rest of this week planned out, so I thought I would do reviews of all my birthday present dolls next week. (I got a couple elsewhere. They aren't all from the Disney Store.) So, lots of reviews next week.
  It's Doll-A-Day again tomorrow.

Play line Disney Store Brave Merida doll review

 First of all, during a trip to Rural King yesterday for dog food I spotted a couple of things I thought I'd mention. They had some things called 'crystal lamps', which look sort of like Lava lamps for 18" dolls, only instead of liquid with a glob floating in it, there are 'crystals' and when the lamp is turned on different coloured lights go on and off inside. They're battery operated, so they could easily be used in a doll setting without a gigantic cord showing. The other thing was a Bratz doll that is slightly larger than normal. (We don't do Bratz in this house generally. They were always too sleazy looking for my tastes, and I didn't want my girls playing with them. There have been two exceptions. One is my Bratzilla with the red hair and realistic eyes, and Ivy's glow in the dark bathing suit girl. That was comparatively recent, so she was older and didn't actually do anything with her except watch her glow, which is her currant obsession. Glow in the dark that is, not watching the doll.) Anyway, these Bratz dolls were probably slightly taller than a Barbie, and the box proudly proclaimed, "I'm taller". I'm not sure what the advantage is supposed to be. They can't wear any of the regular Bratz clothes, so they'll need a whole new wardrobe. And they'll look like giants amongst the other dolls if the child has regular sized 'fashion dolls'. They might hang around with a Moxie Teen I guess. They aren't even extra articulated or anything. They didn't even have jointed elbows. Just saying.
  So, that said, I'll move on to the point of this post. Our anniversary was Monday and one of my gifts was a Merida doll. I had been "pointing out" to Ken that they were on sale for $5 at Meijers and he actually bought one.

 

And here's the back of the box.

That hair looks pretty impressive. I wish it really did hang like it does in the picture.

She's normally $9.99.The box is simpler than the box for the one I got at the Disney store earlier this summer. This one was way easier to get open, and it wasn't necessary to tear the box up either. All I had to  do was slit the tape on the sides and pull the back down.

 

 

Then I was able to get at the various ties and things holding her in place. There weren't as many of those either. And let's face it, why does doll packaging have to be like breaking into Fort Knox these days? I understand that because there are so many more dolls to choose from, and stores are so big that employees can't watch everybody, that they can't do the open shoebox type boxes Barbies, for example, used to come in when I was a kid. People would be stealing things and switching boxes all over the place. But so much paper and plastic is wasted in making impossible to infiltrate packaging, and then it all ends up in land fills. This doll's packaging is a bit better. There were only a couple of those plastic ties holding her head in place, a couple of threads on her hair, which could be cut or untaped on the back of the box, so her hair wasn't in danger. The bottom of her dress was held in place by merely poking it through a couple of slits in the cardboard, and her ankles were held by those clear elastic thingies.So removing her from the box was fairly easy. Parents would be needed to slit the tape on the edges and cut the plastic things in her head, but that's about it.

             

 

After that all there was to do was lift the backing up and there she was.

 

Freedom!  She comes with a little gold comb, but no other accessories.

Her hair is nice and full in back. I didn't even have to recomb it to fill a space from being hooked in the box.

Her hair is full, with no bald spots. Its also super soft, not stiff from hair spray. I'm not sure how long the curl would last after a child has combed it a few times, but I would think it would look better after combing than the Disney Store girl's hair. She has loads of hairspray, and combing the hair would ruin the 'do I think.

You look vaguely familiar. Do I know your mother?

Speaking of the Disney Store doll, here they are together for comparison. New girl is slightly shorter. Her hair is slightly lighter. Her face is WAY different too. D.S. Merida looks a lot more like the animated version, with that attitude on her face and the...uhh, unusual eyes. New Merida is also a lot paler than D.S. Merida. She's almost ghostly white, in fact. She has a more traditional 'pretty' look about her, with her little rose petal mouth and softer eyes with long painted lashes.

You know what? I like D.S. Merida better!

 

New girl is also less poseable than D.S. Merida. She's jointed at the shoulders, neck, and hips only. So she can tilt her head a little, and her swivel shoulder joints allow her to do slightly different arm poses.

One palm up and one palm down.

Other than the lack of jointing I was also disappointed that her knees don't even bend. They're hard plastic like the legs on the ballerina Barbies with the coloured plastic legs. She has less joints to break all around, which does make her a good doll for a younger child.

At least she can sit in a more ladylike way than D.S. Merida.

She does have some cool shoes though. Ivy likes them too. Here's a close up.

 

And the back.

They're open in the back so they're easier to slip on and off. But the rubber belt could have been better.

 Why couldn't it have been cloth? That certainly couldn't have added to the cost much? Think how much better that would have looked.

  All in all I like her, but I prefer the Disney Store Merida. I wish D.S.'s hair was as soft as this one's hair. But I like the face and clothes better on D.S. Merida, and the fact that she has a lot more poseability. This doll is a better choice for a younger child, or a child who is harder on dolls.

That's it. Bye for now.

Anniversary Presents

  So Monday was our anniversary. One of my gifts to Ken was agreeing to eat out for lunch and dinner. After my lunch of a grilled cheese sandwich, tomato soup and garlic mashed potatoes at Applebees I was ready to pop. I'm really only good for one decent sized meal a day, and he knows it. So when I ate a dinner of a salad,Parmesan asparagus, some bread,and about three little stuffed mushrooms for dinner I was really about to explode. Absolutely miserable. Ken wanted everybody to share a brownie sundae so we could all have at least a taste of dessert, but the girls were too full to have any, and I couldn't eat more than three small bites. You KNOW I was full when I leave a brownie behind! For a fat lady it doesn't take much to fill me up. I'm like a reverse Tardis. I'm bigger on the outside.
  Ken's gifts to me included this Merida.

  I had been hinting...ok. Outright saying that the Merida dolls were on sale for $5 at Meijers, (and then having to again explain, "The 'Brave' girl!") so he bought me one...and promptly left it out where I found it.So I actually had it early, but I didn't open it until the day had passed. I also wanted to compare this one to the Disney Store one I got in June. So I'll be posting a full review of her tomorrow.
  If you read this blog last week you'll remember that I left an absentee bid on an Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra doll. Well, I didn't win her. Neither did I win the box of 1920's German dollhouse dolls,or the 1930's doll. But I did win the box containing this girl.

Tessie Talk. Her shoes make her feet look invisible, but they are in fact black.

  She's not everybody's cup of tea, but I think she's so cute! She is, as her collar says, a Tessie Talk ventriloquist doll, made by Horsman. I've always had an infatuation with puppets and ventriloquist dummies anyway,and red haired dolls,and I love Tessie Talk. This is actually my third. They all have different original outfits, which makes me think there must have been a lot of combinations of hair and clothes available.My first has a brown  version of this girl's hair, and my second has long red hair. When I bought her it was in what I always call a 'country singer hairdo', since I grew up in the era when lady 'country and western' singers, as they were called then, had big hair. Like Loretta Lynn...

 ...and Dolly Parton...

Dolly seems to be a pretty nice lady, but that hair! Please! Can you imagine poor Tessie Talk with that hair?! That 'do came down as soon as I got home from the toy show!
    Ken also indulged my love of treasure hunting and we stopped at several thrift shops while we were in the Big City waiting for Emma to get off work and join us for dinner. I found these girls for .59 cents each!

Nancy Ann Storybook dolls. These are the later, plastic ones. They could do with a trip to the hairdresser, but they're pretty nice.

  Ken also bought me this pumpkin headed fellow made by  Gathered Traditions, and designed by  Joe Spencer.     .

There is a girl to match, and bigger size. This reminds me that I need to haul out the Halloween decorations soon. Until next time...