Doll-A-Day 2017 # 258:My First Disney Princess Merida

  Today we're looking at this girl.

She's Merida of course. 

This particular Merida is the My First Disney Princess Toddler Merida Forest Adventure. (Shew! That's a lot of name for a little girl!)

Here's what she would have looked like in her box

She was made by Tollytots.

This is her original dress. She should also have blue shoes.I found the doll and the bow and arrow at the same time,but I only found out afterward that this isn't her bow and arrow. It goes to some other Merida.

This one has a built in arrow that doesn't detach. 

The bow that came with this Merida had separate arrows that fitted in her quiver.

Her quiver is on a belt,instead of on her back.

 
She has a great head of red hair.

It could do with a tidying up, but I know I'd ruin the curls. As you know if you read the blog, I'm not very good at hair!

She has a sprinkling of freckles.

She doesn't have the smart aleck,quizzical face of the Merida from the movie, or even the Animator's toddler Merida. She's a bit too pretty. Not that Merida wasn't pretty, but she wasn't traditionally pretty.

  I prefer the Disney Animator's Merida, but when I found this girl I hadn't yet found my Animator's Merida. I figured I'd never get one,so this Merida would have to do. Since then I  got my Merida,so I'll probably let this girl go. For the time being though, she's still hanging out here.

See you tomorrow for Shrunken Saturday.

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...

A Review of the Disney Store Merida Doll From Brave

Monday was my oldest daughter Emma's 22nd birthday, so we took a trip to the 'Big City' for shopping and a meal at The Cheesecake Factory. The meal was good, except I confirmed my suspicion that the only vinaigrette dressing I like really is the blueberry vinaigrette on the Bar Harbour salad at Red Lobster. (I love that stuff!) The shopping was mostly for clothes, (Although we did do Barnes and Noble),which is always a bit of a drag for me,since I am too fat and old for the clothes in the stores my daughter's shop in. Not that I don't like the clothes, I just don't like the me I have to put in them. (I like 'me' fine, by the way, just not the look of me. But I'm working on that.) If I fit in any of the clothes I wouldn't be so depressed by clothes shopping.I did some serious dieting last year and lost about 40 pounds. Some of it threatens to come back every now and then, but I have been able to keep it at bay and not gain any permanent pounds back so far.I've set a date (The day after my Dad's 90th birthday, in about 2 weeks),to start my diet up again in earnest. I have a lot more weight to lose and this time I need to gain some muscle too. For the first time ever, losing weight left me somewhat saggy last time. Age is catching up with me!

   Anyway, while we were shopping we came across the Disney Store in the mall. Gone are the days when any of my children actually want to go in the Disney Store I guess. It was only last birthday that it was Emma's idea to go in the Disney Store, and if they had had a cool Muppet, don't think she wouldn't still buy it. But this time it was me who asked to go in. They agreed somewhat reluctantly (time was an issue). I wanted to see if they had any cool Muppets too. Other than that, I really wanted to see the Animator's Collection dolls. I've seen pictures online and they looked really cute. I found out that in person they are still cute, and my favourites were Merida (I love that expression.) and Mulan.Plus I wanted to see what other really good dolls they had, especially the 11" Merida, from Brave. I have been wanting a Merida doll since they came out. (I wouldn't say no to her mother, either.) I wanted a Rapunzel from Tangled too.Then I recently went through a box of dolls I bought last summer but haven't done anything with yet,and found that I had one all along! She has the jointed wrists too, so I'm set. I saw  the 17" talking Merida, and she is nice. In fact, I was looking at her when I noticed the 11" Meridas that were on sale for $8! I totally embarrassed my daughters by suddenly exclaiming, "Eight dollars?! Eight dollars!" My husband started looking at them with me,(as my daughters scolded me for my outburst). Then my daughters said, "Just buy your wife one so she'll shut up." Aren't they sweet? Luckily my husband really is sweet, and for $8 he could almost afford to be. He helped me pick out a good one, and here she is.

  They had varying amounts of blush on various parts of their faces. My youngest, Ivy doesn't approve of my choice. She thinks blush on her forehead is going too far, but I liked the ruddiness on the bridge of her nose.

The regular line of Merida dolls sold elsewhere are always  super pale, which I also like. (I told my husband that I still want one of those Meridas too, and if I find one at a yard sale I still won't hesitate to buy it.) These Merida dolls have a more natural complexion, but still not as Ruddy as the character was animated in the movie. The eyes look slightly crossed, but she looks that way in the movie too.

 

I like that she has a bow and arrow, but why is the bow sort of flesh coloured? Look at it compared to her hand.

 

Ivy also complained that she has only one arrow. "Who only has one arrow?"

 

Maybe she has been shooting? Maybe she lost them. It's not going to be very much fun for the child who gets this doll and tries to fire the arrow. How long before they lose that one and have nothing to shoot? I know when I was a kid I would have been making her shoot that arrow. (Ivy says, "Who are you kidding? You were trying to do it now.") At least if they had given her more arrows there would be more of a chance she'd have some left. It wouldn't have added more than a couple of pennies to the cost of making the doll.So that's a thought.
  Here are some points:
  She has jointed wrists, so she can be posed as if she were shooting the arrow. Or whatever...

   Her dress is very similar to the dress she wore in the movie, although I see it more as wool, or maybe velvet, but it definitely shouldn't be shiny. I know the toy companies think little girls want everything to be shiny and pretty, but even as a kid I wanted things to be as realistic as possible. There must be kids like that out there too.And there are beautiful things that aren't shiny and tacky. They could have put some fake laces at the bust where her dress laced up too. Come on.Make it like the real one!

 

Her cape is pretty cool. Love the little clasp detail.

 

Her hair is darker than in the movie, and darker than most of the regular line of Merida dolls. I love Merida's hair. I used to have Merida's hair. 

Here I am in the 80's with my big Merida hair. Please try to ignore the unfortunate patch of sunshine on my nose! (And mouth, and chin...)

Apart from the colour, they don't make it curly all over like it should be. In the movie the curls  are smaller and all over her head, but the dolls just have big curls about halfway down. And I just know this hair is going to be stiff and probably parted in the back semi permanently, from the way they have it all pulled to the front to make it look full in the box.

   They make it almost impossible to get her out of the box. In order to take out all the stitches and twisties and tape to take her out you have to take the whole box apart. This is why very few kids will still have the box to this one!


 

And here she is out of the box, looking slightly perplexed.

 

Her hair isn't quite as stiff as it looked. It did have that part in the middle though. With some careful combing I managed to get it to join together, but it still wants to part there.

Kids would probably ruin the curls trying to fill that hole. With all the stiffness in the hair combing is probably going to create a frizzed out mess

  She's more jointed than I thought she'd be. Besides her neck, shoulders, and hips, she's also jointed at the elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles. Her head is on sort of a ball joint, because she can look up, down, and around a bit, and not just side to side. I forgot to take pictures of this, but it's only my second post. I'll get better.
  For being so jointed she's not as poseable as she could have been. She can't get her hands very near her face for example.

  

I read somewhere that you can file down the inside edges of the joints (where they rub together when the joints are bent) so that the joints can bend further. It looked like it worked pretty well on the before and after pictures they showed of the doll they tried it on. I haven't tried it, but I might experiment on a Liv doll.  
  She could also have done with a waist joint, like a Liv doll for example. And when she sits her legs go out to the sides. (Not a very ladylike pose.)
 

Her bow is just strung with string, not elastic, so you really can't shoot the arrow. I'm very disappointed!
  Just for the heck of it, here's a doll I'm making that my husband keeps calling "The 'Brave' girl". She's not very pretty, but she has personality...and some awesome hair.

  You can't really tell in these pictures, but her eyes are glossed so they look wet like real eyes, and her mouth is actually open, not just painted that way.

 I gripe about the inaccuracies of the Merida doll, but I realize no one is ever going to make a doll exactly like the character looked in a movie. Usually you would have to combine the qualities of a lot of doll versions of the character to get one that came really close. Toy companies seem to spread the accurate points around; one doll with the right hair, one with the right dress, one with the right face, etc. This is why collectors took the head from the Audrey Hepburn doll and used it to replace the head of the Barbie as Eliza Doolittle dolls. The same thing happened with the Mattel Scarlett O'Hara doll head, and the Barbie as Scarlett  costumes. All in all I really like this Merida doll. I think kids who love the movie character will think she comes pretty close to the animated version. I just still wish I could shoot that arrow...