Doll-A-Day 2023 #302: Okoye

   I haven't completely disappeared! We went to Ivy's on Wednesday to see her for her birthday, and to take her a bunch of her stuff. If you will recall, we had worked our butts off going through Ivy's room and digging out the stuff she wanted, and carrying it all downstairs and loading the car. You might remember that that meant I went upstairs, for the first time since the fire, the week before. It had to happen sometime. The first time I tried to only look where I had to go. The second time, when we were getting her stuff. I did look around. I have been in my bedroom. Because our door has been closed to keep the cats out, it still smells like smoke in there. The walls have black streaks up them. I didn't give the room a good look over, and I was doing it with only a small lamp for light, because it had already gotten dark. I'll brave it very soon with a decent light. 

  And I actually went in Fuzz's room Monday night. There is still some wall left. The floor will definitely need a refinishing. The trunk Fuzz and I made for The Pirates of Penzance play Fuzz was in is more burned than Ken thought, I think. I opened the lid to look how the contents had fared, and a piece broke off in my fingers. But that part is only  three thin boards I bought to make an edge, so it looked more like a trunk lid. (The rest was made out of old wood I found in Lori's barn, and the hinges I scrounged off an old piece of barn door.) I can replace that, if that's the worst of the damage. The weird thing, as with so much of the stuff in that fire, was the contents of the trunk. Everything I could see inside it looked fine, including an inflatable Captain Underpants THAT WAS STILL INFLATED! Just weird. 

  While I was in there, my light went out. Ken was downstairs, having taken some of Ivy's stuff down. I was trapped in the darkness, and I couldn't even find the doorway in that tiny room. It was pitch black. Fortunately Ken was close enough to hear me and I could hear him, and he came up with a light. I was starting to panic a little, and who knows what level I would have gotten to if Ken hadn't gotten me out of there so quickly. The last time I was trapped in the darkness up there, unable to find Ken or my way out, that room was on fire. I think I did pretty well considering. I got downstairs, and I admit I did have to cry on Ken for a minute. It wasn't being trapped in the darkness, it was how awful everything was.

  But anyway, awful things are our life, because things can never be good, or even easy most of the time. We got to Indiana, got all Ivy's stuff into her apartment. But not before I got to the bottom of her stairs, and fell again. This time I tripped on a rug, or the edge of the staircase, that juts out at the bottom. I'm not sure. This time I also fell on my butt, but managed to bang my arms up a bit on the way down. After we sorted Ivy and her stuff out, so we weren't leaving her with a mess that wasn't put away, we went out for dinner. I was having trouble with both shoulders and getting sleepy, so Ken and I stayed the night at Ivy's. 

  In the morning we went out for breakfast at a place called Wild Eggs. Oh my goodness! If you live near one, or even if you live far away from one, RUN, don't walk, and get the pumpkin pie pancakes! They are AMAZING! I don't know how they get them like pancakes, and yet gooey and like pumpkin pie. I would sell Ken for another one! (Well, maybe not. But they are great!) 

  After breakfast we headed back to Emma's. We hadn't gone too far when we started to over heat. Now we just had that taken care of about a week ago. We had to pull over and Ken added some oil. The coolant level was fine. We went a little further, and had to pull over again. After cooling off we added more oil and started again. It looked like we were going to make it for a minute. Then the needle went from middling, to hot, to the middle again, to cold, to hot. It was all over the place. I thought, there's no way the actual temperature is changing that fast. Maybe our gauge just doesn't work any more. But then I saw the smoke blowing out behind us. We had to pull over again. This time I didn't have a gas station or something to pull off into. I pulled off the highway and drove down the road a little and parked in someone's driveway. There was nothing nearby. Ken had to call off work, because no way were we going to make it in time. After cooling off we got back on the highway, and luckily we weren't too far from actual civilization. We were also about a half hour from my sister's house. We ended up having it towed to the only car place near my sister that could look at it the next day, instead of the next week, and my sister took us to her house for the night. 

  We had to get a new radiator. That's just what we needed with the house to get rewired and all. But we were able to get back to Emma's. At that point, all I wanted to do was take a shower and get my gross hair washed, and put something on that I hadn't had to wear for three days. I ate after my shower, and was just too tired to do anything else. I went to bed around 8:30. So you can see why you haven't seen a new post for days!

  Today we're going to look at one doll, and we'll try to get caught up this week. No promises. We are getting near the end of the year, and there is a lot of catching up to do, so I'll have to get on the ball. For today, we're looking at my sister's Black Panther Wakanda Forever 'Okoye' doll.

She's from the Fresh Fierce Collection by World of Epi.

  I first photographed her when my sister was going to keep her in her box. 

And she does display well in the box.

  I even tried to get my sister to do a guest review and unboxing. She held of unboxing her for a while, but she weakened. However, she forgot to take any unboxing pictures for me. So here is Okoye out of her box.

  She's fashion doll size, and she has lots of articulation.

She has jointed knees and elbows, and jointed swivel wrists.

My sister also has the 6 inh versions of the characters, including Okoye.

I haven't seen the movie, but I am assure she bears a great likeness to actress Danai Gurira, who played Okoye in "Wakanda Forever".

The doll features Okoye's tattooed head.

  Her outfit is very detailed.

  Her boots, which are split in the back for easy on and off, look strangely stumpy. My sister says it's because they made the doll with high heel feet, so the boots are made like this, instead of with a regular foot.

It just looks weird. It seems to be the one big flaw in an otherwise nicely made and pretty screen accurate doll. Pretty dumb. 

  If you like this doll, she's on sale on the Target website right now for $14.99, a far cry from the $50 my sister paid. The other two dolls in the series are also on sale for the same price.

  That's the doll for...today? Wednesday? Whichever you prefer. I'll see you again tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #292: Minnie's Ballet Studio

   Today we're looking at some more $1 buys I got at the bin store. This one is a Sweet Seams set, Minnie's Ballet Studio, made by Moose Toys.

  There were loads of these sets in the millions of bins at that store. Nobody 'seamed', (ha), to want them. I decided to buy one, and do a post and then donate it to a Christmas toy drive.  It includes cute little dolls of Minnie Mouse and a little dog. 

  Minnie is about 6 inches tall. Both dolls are pretty flat, with only their heads and Minnie's skirt being puffy.

Minnie has a very 'anime' appearance, and a ribbon and a rosette on her ear.

Each of the dolls has one hand that's a loop, and one hand that's a knot. That's so they can 'hold hands'. The knot goes through the loop. No Velcro required.

Inside the right side of the package is the ballet studio. 

The box proclaims that there are three play areas: the dressing room, the stage, and the studio.

This is with just the two halves opened up.

This is with the flap on the right folded open.

  As you can see above the set comes with stickers, and a tissue paper wrapped 'surprise. It's not really a surprise, because they tell you on the back of the box that there is a 'mannequin' included. More of a dress dummy really. There's also a tissue paper bundle in the drawer in the bottom of the  middle section.

  It contains Minnie's ballet slippers.

  Not wanting to mess up the packaging, so I can donate it, I didn't want to unwrap the dress dummy. I don't think I could replicate that twist on the top of the paper. But the dummy opens to reveal another pair of ballet slippers.

  The slogan on the front of the box is 'Friends stitched with love'. There's a whole series of Disney characters, mostly the princesses. but also some other characters, like Jessie, from Toy Story. Here's the online description of the set I found:

Small "Rag Doll" style collectable Dolls of your favorite Disney Characters! Six inch soft Dolls with a handmade look and feel with simple yarn details and hand-like painted features. Slide open the Matchbox style box to reveal 2 Dolls, accessories, and Playset to create your own stories! Discover Minnie Mouse and her dog Fifi in this feature filled Deluxe Ballet Studio Pack! Minnie's Playset has 3 play areas and 2 pairs of Ballet Shoes, Mannequin and Stickers!

And then there was this description:

Each story in a box playset embodies a specialty look and feel with homemade, unique handcrafted-inspired details of your favorite Disney characters you know and love.These whimsical "rag doll" style 6-inch soft Dolls are truly special with homespun elements woven throughout! From their hand painted-inspired features, classic yarn hairstyle, elongated dangling arms and legs with knotted limbs and iconic Disney character outfits. 

I think they're pushing that 'homemade look' a bit too much. They don't look home made at all. And what's with 'hand painted inspired'?! What does that even mean?! They don't look hand painted at all, and stop trying to make them sound hand made. THEY ARE MASS PRODUCED! There must have been more than one series of toys too, because I also found this:

• Discover 12 of your favorite Disney Characters over Series 2 including Rare, Ultra Rare and Limited Edition Dolls to find.

Minnie wasn't amongst the 12 they were referring to either.

  That's today's doll. See you again tomorrow with another $1 bin store find.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #263: Bo-Katan Kryze

   First of all, I will warn you that I got a new lens for our anniversary, but I'm still having autofocus trouble. If you find that annoying, that's nothing to how I felt after I looked at the pictures I took at Emma's wedding!!

  Today's doll is a new one of Emma's. She's Bo-Katan Kryze.

She looks great in her box. Nice presentation and all her stuff is staying where it should...except that one knee pad is already traveling South.

  She is a special edition Star Wars doll from Disney Parks.

 The character is from the TV series The Mandalorian, as well as the animated series The Clone Wars. She is a Mandalorian herself.

She's about 12 inches tall, maybe 11 1/2. 

Emma thinks the doll is a really good likeness of Katee Sackhoff, the actress who plays Bo-Katan. I think the doll looks like somebody, but I don't think it looks like Katee Sackhoff.

She's very pretty, and well painted. Her eyebrows are detailed, and her lips have a light coloured highlight on the lower lip. The eyes themselves are a bit basic and cartoon like though.

The doll has quite a few accessories: two guns...

...that fit into two thigh holsters. But they fit very loosely, and fall out REALLY easily. I've already lost one of them twice...and found it once. (It has to be here somewhere! I swear there's a black hole under this couch!)

The blue things are knee pads.

And if you have guns, you need ammo, right? So she has an ammo belt.

They did a good job of making it look dirty and worn.

...a helmet...

...which looks great, but upon closer inspection, is just a rubber toy, that doesn't even have a head hole in it.

She has that headband thing. I'm sure it has some other purpose, but I haven't watched Clone Wars, and I haven't seen her in The Mandalorian yet. We're way behind.

As you can see, she has rooted hair.

She has leg armour, and heavy shoes.

Pretty sure they aren't removable.

She also has a jet pack or something on her back.

One of her thigh holsters has slipped down. That was a problem with her knee pads too. They either moved down, or turned around. They didn't stay in place. I think they should have been made as part of the suit, so they would stay in place. They also keep her knees from bending, so that's not good either, for a jointed doll that should be posable.

The pack is supposed to look worn, but it kind of looks like somebody coloured it with pencil.

The back looks worse, but it isn't supposed to show.

There is a place on her back to attach it, but it doesn't clip on because the backpack thingy is soft rubber, and when you try to press is on, it just squashes in a bit. So it falls off really easily.

  She does have some armour that's stitched to her body suit.

Like the chest and abdomen plates and the shoulder pieces.

She has some wrist thingies that look like they might be for communication? Weapons?

Her hands are made in a gun holding position. The guns probably stay in her hand better than they stay in her holsters!

Here's a blurry shot of her armour.

  As I said, she has a pretty, and an interesting face, and rooted hair.

Red hair and brown eyes.

  I mentioned that she's articulated. She's jointed at the neck, shoulders, (but her arms can only move back and forth, not outward.), elbows, wrists, hips, knees, and ankles.

  She can't really hold her helmet the way it looked when she was still in the box. Her arms won't curl around it enough. And her gun toting hand pose means she can't hold her helmet.

Her legs bend at the knees and ankles, which means she can tilt her foot.

She can't sit down very much though. This squat pose is about the best she can do.

I'm not sure why she can't bend enough to actually sit. I don't know if it's her outfit, or her articulation that's holding her back.

She can get her hand on her holster at least.

  She's pretty nice. Her accessories are fairly well done. She looks good, but I'm disappointed with her articulation. But oh well. She's not mine. And she's pretty expensive, so I'm not going to have one.

  That's today's doll. Also have a look at today's other post, the Doll Book of the Month Club.