Disney Fairytale Designer Collection: Heroes vs Villains... Amazing Dolls!

  As you might have read here, we visited The Disney Store on our anniversary on the 16th. I saw the most amazing bunch of dolls while we were there. They're the new Fairytale Designer Heroes vs Villains sets. They follow the couples sets, the princesses, and the villains.They are totally unobtainable for me, and since they are so limited,(They are limited to 6000 sets of each type,worldwide.) to most other people too. But they are so amazing. If you get a chance, go to a Disney Store so you can see them in person. (They have examples at the store, but they aren't for sale in the regular way.A different set is available every Tuesday for the next few weeks. You have to go to the Disney Store and get a ticket which then allows you to have a chance to buy a set. Each store has 'no fewer than 8 sets' to sell.)They are available on the Disney Store site the following day.) The first set, which is actually called 'Snow White and Hag', was released to Disney Stores yesterday, and is still available on the Disney Store website now. You can check it out HERE. There are a bunch of other items with artwork to match the dolls.
 I thought the prices might go completely out of control on the secondary market, but I had a look at what the original series, the  Princess couples, were going for. Some of them have sold for semi reasonable prices recently. Looks like they're going up now that the villains have been released though. Beware: the new set is selling for crazy prices on Ebay, but is STILL AVAILABLE ON THE DISNEY STORE SITE FOR $129.
  These dolls are really wonderful. They seem to have the same articulated bodies as the classic dolls. (I hope they have something better than the rubbery bow legs those dolls have though.) The face paint is much more detailed and artistic, the females have rooted eyelashes,and the clothes are definitely more detailed and made with quality fabrics.
  My favourites were Peter Pan and Hook, (There's even a tiny Tinkerbell.), and Rapunzel and Mother Gothel.

The Snow White set is very nice too.

I didn't like the Little Mermaid set or the Frozen set. The dolls faces were painted with pearlized paint and looked weird.

I loved the Peter Pan though. I'd love to have him!

If you're at all into Disney, make sure you see these dolls in person.

Doll-A-Day 77: Review Week: Disney Store Tangled Mother Gothel

  Well, Ivy is off on her Washington D.C. trip with the eighth grade. They left early this morning and stopped at Gettysburg this afternoon. They will soon arrive at their hotel.
  My dad, who is 90, gave us all a scare yesterday and this morning. He is in the hospital but appears to be doing better now. I know he's 90, but it didn't help that he was taken off his Lasix and had pneumonia recently because of it. Tomorrow I'll be going to see him,but it was hard today with all the dropping off, picking up, and more dropping off that had to be done.He has a bit of an irregular heart beat, but all his vital signs are good and his heart rate is fine. (I was confused as to how he could have an irregular heart beat and still have the proper heart rate. Apparently he has the right number of beats per minute, but they aren't regular.)
I don't feel much like it, but I'm going to continue with my regular routine for now. What else can I do? This post was already written, so I'll add the pictures. In truth, once Dad is back on his lasix he may be the same as before: 90. It's always a case of 'treasure every day' at this age.
 
Today's doll is sort of a companion to yesterday's. (Not by Rapunzel's choice, but...) It's Mother Gothel.

This doll is from the Disney Store too.She has exactly the same box as Rapunzel, so I won't waste my time and yours going over that again. If you're curious, please see yesterday's review for details on the box.

The usual conglomeration of twist ties, thread, and forty million of those little plastic thingies with the t-shaped end, most of which were in her cape,and left holes in it.

There were two versions of this doll at the Disney Store. The boxes were exactly the same except for this sticker in the bottom left corner.

The most noticeable difference between the dolls seemed to be that the dolls with the sticker had shorter, but 'bigger' hair.
.

"If I could turn back time..."

 I chose the puffier hair.She would have been very popular in the eighties!She has that Cher hair.

Her cape was hooked down with about 6 of the little plastic things. I thought that was a bit excessive. And as I said, they left holes in the cape.
 She had the tissue paper to puff her dress out too, like Rapunzel. 

She has jointed legs, as opposed to Rapunzel's weird rubber legs, so that may be another difference. I don't know what kind of legs the other version of Gothel has.Here's a look at those legs.

Looks like she's had a hard day on her feet.

She can't really sit down properly. She doesn't bend enough at the waist and her knees don't bend enough.She can only slouch, and she doesn't do that very well.
She just has regular high heel shoes. She has joints at the hip (just the regular back and forth kind.),knees, and ankles.

 
 And then of course there's this problem. She's bow legged, and she has a stain on each leg.
She's also jointed at the shoulders, elbows, and wrists.

Her cape has a Velcro closure and is easy to remove.She also has painted on undies.
  I love her face. She is a pretty good recreation of the movie character.

Another problem is her hair. Here's what it looked like fresh out of the box:

I messed with it a bit, and it eventually looked pretty good.

But by the time I got finished photographing her it was working it's way back to the bald spot again.

So, she has some flaws, mostly the legs and the bald spot. I imagine kids would get pretty frustrated trying to keep her in a chair too. She wouldn't be much good for hair play. Just trying to fill her bald spot I nearly frizzed out her hair and one side turned out longer than the other.
Tomorrow is the last of my Disney Store articulated dolls.

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.

Fantastic finds of the week!

  What was that I said a few posts back about not being able to top the Larry the Lion find the rest of the summer? Well, this may not top Larry, since he was a life long yearning, but it's pretty good!Get comfortable. This may take a while!
  I went yard saling Friday and found some nice dolls.

  I'd been wanting a Flynn from "Tangled". I don't like this Rapunzel as much as the other two I have, but I didn't want to break up a couple! Two more Moxie Girls, and they both have feet!I have also wanted the new Stacie and Skipper, but I didn't want to pay store prices. These two have all their original clothes too, which was great.And yes, that's a like new Twilight Jacob in his original stuff. He'll either help pay for the stuff I'm keeping, or he'll don a shirt and be somebody else.A My Scene guy, fully clothed and with shoes!The guys from Mulan and Pocahantas:you never come across them. And two Monster High girls in their original stuff too. If anybody knows who the short doll in the blue and white dress is, let me know. She's marked 2001 Mattel.

These came from three different places in groups of 10,2, and 5.I think my total was $17.00, but I got some other stuff in with them. I also got these cute girls for a dollar a piece. They need some rehabilitation, but I couldn't resist rescuing them.Their bodies are oil cloth, I think.

 I think they look like the old actress Nanette Fabray.




 

  On Saturday I was heading to a big 'community sale' at a housing development just outside of town. On the way I stopped at some sales that were being held on the grounds of the high school and found this.

  I REALLY wanted one of these, but they are so expensive.The guy selling it cut it down from $15 to $10 for me,so I let myself have it! It's 1/6 scale.(And cast iron and weighs a ton!) It's missing one lid, but it has the coal shovel,and the thing to lift the lids with, as well as a skillet, a pan,and the coal scuttle.
  From there I went on to the community sales.I got some doll stuff, a CD, and some other things. I was there for two or three hours and decided to head for home. But the real find of the weekend still awaited me.I went home by a route I don't normally take. I don't know why. I was on the far end of the street I actually live on when I passed a yard sale with what I though were Miss Revlon feet sticking up out of a box. I whipped into a parking space and went to check it out. When I walked up to the sale I forgot all about Miss Revlon. There spread out before me were four old doll cases, filled with clothes and dolls. One of the first things I spotted was a pink skinned Ricky doll. I wanted a pink skinned Ricky and Ken (My husband Ken, not the doll.)bought me one online a few years ago. He was affordable because he has a barely noticeable nose nip. This guy was nice,and no nose nip. The guy running the sale said he would take "$100 for all the doll stuff." I neither had $100, nor wanted to pay that much. The dolls were mildewy and dirty and might not clean up very well. There was a nasty faced Midge wearing the Floating Gardens dress though, and the cape was in one of the cases. I thought if I could get the stuff for a reasonable price I could sell the Floating Gardens so I could afford to keep what I wanted. After some haggling I got some of the stuff for $40 and went home. After fortifying myself with a soy 'chicken' sandwich and rounding up the troops, we went out for ice cream. The guy still had his sale on so I stopped back and offered him "the grand total of everything I have left in my purse", which was $16. He insisted he had to have at least $25, so I said ok and left. Before I could get back to my van he called me back and relented. So here is what I got for my $56.Those of you who are offended by non-anatomically correct naked plastic, beware...

A Barbie only body, Skipper and a spare body,the Miss Barbie swing canopy,clothes,and Allan, in desperate need of medical attention for those arms. At least they were both there!

Ricky, TNT Barbie (wearing the Suzy Goose rug as a dress,Midge in Floating Gardens, Senior Prom,Trailblazers,Pak clothing,Francie's Fresh as a Daisy,FQ wig, and more!

Some paper dolls, including Scooter and...Jane? How did she get in there? (I wanted one though, and she even has her shoes.)

Some of the same, plus Francie,her Concert in the Park dress and hat and It's a Date dress,a bubble cut, Fashion Queen head and a wig, and the unfortunate legless girl. Unlike Allan's arms, her legs were nowhere to be found.

                                                         

A suspicious looking Allan (Maybe she ripped his arms off...)with the girl who started it all. She turned out to be a nobody.

Tiny Thumbelina (with knob--and she works!), her original dress,slip,and one bootie, her pink corduroy outfit with hat,Chatty Cathy's flannel PJ's and blue dress with over blouse and crinoline, plus more clothes and a couple of Pee Wees.If anybody can identify any of the other clothes, I'd love to hear from you.

More Barbie clothes, a Tressy dress, the Suzy Goose vanity, and a very nasty Tammy doll in Barbie's Pak playsuit. (And yes, I had a Tammy as a kid. For some reason my mom threw her away when I was very small. I still have her gym suit and shoes though.)

Poor Tammy.

   Luckily, they cleaned up pretty well. Here they are after their initial trip to the Tam Spa.

  Turns out Tammy has lovely strawberry blonde hair and a high colour face. Midge and Francie will need eyebrows, but I can do that. Francie's had a haircut, but it kind of looks like an American Girl Barbie cut. Twist and Turn looks pretty good. Allan's arms went back on (and in the case of the one, out) easily after putting him in very hot water. They aren't even swingy.

Beautiful Ricky!

And Midge looks pretty good in Senior Prom.Actually, I'm going to put it on a red haired Midge,but shh. Don't tell her...

Here's what she looked like before. She looks like she's been in a fight.(Maybe that's what happened to Allan's arms...)

   The cases were a couple of generic cases,a common blue Skipper case, and the Barbie case with Sophisticated Lady on the lid.
 So the moral of the story is,don't overlook mangy looking dolls. Sometimes they can clean up to be beautiful. I'm pretty tickled with these guys. My family is unimpressed,especially Ken, who can't get over that I spent $56.
  Oh, I forgot.On Friday I got this girl. She doesn't have any markings.Does anybody know who she is?

  She needs her arms restrung, but she has teeth!Aww!

  Ok, that's it. I've done my happy rant. Thanks for listening.