It's Sweater Season Once Again! Shopping for Doll Sized Sweaters

   I hope everybody who celebrates it had a good Thanksgiving Thursday. We celebrated with the kids and my sister. 

  Today it's snowing here in Ohio. That makes it a good day to talk about this year's crop of doll sized sweater ornaments. 

  Target has four different sweater ornaments this year. I wasn't going to let them get away this year, so I nabbed them a couple of weeks ago. I chose these two.

The other two were a white sweater with an actual wreath glued to the chest, (making it impossible to just remove it and have a regular sweater.), and a red sweater with cable knit sleeves and a plaid reindeer on the chest. 

  The sweaters are only lightly glued to the teddy bear hangers they come on, and are easily removed.

  They fit Barbie sized dolls very well, as you can see on Made to Move here.

  Paul McCartney volunteered to pose in the other sweater.

He says it makes him think of a Wonderful Christmastime...

   He's 1/6 scale, and the sleeves are slightly short on him. But I think he has arms that are slightly longer than a Ken type doll. He was much more easy to get the sweater on though, because his hands are removeable! 

All the sweaters are $3.00, just like last year, and are available at your local Target store, or at  Target.com, HERE.

  World Market has sweater ornaments too. As usual though, they are made of very thick, rough yarn, and make for some awkwardly chunky sweaters. They are also a larger scale, and might fit a doll the size of Tonner's Marley/Patience/Agnes Dreary, but definitely not a 1/6 scale doll. They have several different types and a couple of sizes,(both as I described). You can find them at World Market, where there were more styles than I see on their website, and online HERE.

  Christopher and Banks has sweater ornaments again this year. I haven't seen them in person, but I have seen them in previous years. Their sweaters are more expensive than the previous two places I mentioned, but you get what you pay for. The C&B sweaters are made of a finer yarn, and so look way more natural on a doll. They are described as 3 1/2" in length and 3" in height. Huh? Isn't that the same thing in this case? I assume they are like the previous years' sweaters, which were 1/6 scale, or 'Barbie sized'. This year they have six styles. They are normally priced at $7.95, but at the moment they are 30% off if you buy them on line. You can find them at your local Christopher and Banks store, or online HERE.   

  Michael's craft store has Santa and Mrs. Santa jacket ornaments. They are described as measuring at 6.5 and 6 inches. I don't know if they are glued together/closed/on the hanger, or are even 'wearable' but they are cute, and would look cute hanging in a Christmas diorama at least. They sound like they'd fit a male 1/6 scale doll or large action figure of similar or slightly larger size. Unfortunately they are sold out online, so head to your local Michael's store. 

  Michael's also has a really cute vintage style radio ornament that plays a Christmas song. It's described as 4.75 inches. It's an online exclusive. You can fin d the teal one HERE. You can find the pink one HERE.

  Tito's Vodka has a doll sized sweater that comes free with their vodka in some stores. You can also get it online HERE. I saw the sweaters on the way home from Georgia, and they're super nice quality. They will fit a 1/6 'Barbie scale' female doll, but the arms might be too narrow for a male doll. The sweater will be a bit long on a female, but it will look fine. Actually, as I recall, with the last Tito's sweaters I got, they were all relatively 1/6 scale, but were all different sizes and lengths! Some had longer arms and some were shorter in length, so some fit a male better, and some a female. You'd better have a the doll you want it to fit with you and choose accordingly.

  That's it for this year's sweater crop. If you know of any others, please leave the information in the comments. 

My Birthday Gifts at Last!

  Well, Ivy is now home safe and sound. She was supposed to come home before the 20th,and she had planned to come home on the 18th. Then the governor closed all schools and colleges,and she was told she had to be out on Monday,the 16th. We had to rent a van to get all her stuff home in one shot. She brought home an entire houseful of stuff she had in her dorm room,and she left her bike and fridge at the school! Emma went to college in San Fransisco,so she lived on two suitcases. How in the world does Ivy  have or need so much just because she can put her stuff in a car and have it driven home? But at least we are all home now and ready to wait it out. Well,not literally in Ken's case. Ken is a waiter, and all restaurants have been closed except for carry outs. So we'll see how everything goes as far as money. Luckily someone just bought most of my extra Mini Brands, so that's a little help since we'll have no money coming in,or,at least, very little,since Ken might be able to get about half his average income in unemployment. So don't forget to check out the sales page,which you can find a link to in the upper right corner of this page,and buy something already!
  I promised to show you my birthday presents. I'll start today with this stuff.
  First of all, I have to say that Ken started spoiling me at the beginning of the month with a dozen roses. Now we know he shouldn't have spent so much money on me,as we're going to be needing it now.
  I went to an antique store in February and picked out a couple of small things Ken bought for me.

Dolly World is there for scale,but I couldn't get her and the things in focus at the same time.

I'm guessing they're salt dips, but the one on the left makes a good planter or something,and the one on the right looks like a soup tureen to me. I can imagine it with a ladle in it. I may have to make one.

  You can see Dolly is wearing one of my other gifts in the first picture.

  Ken and I spotted these Tito's Vodka sweaters ages ago, in Indiana, the last time we took Ivy back to college. They came on bottles of  vodka. I don't drink,so I didn't much care for the Vodka logo,but the sweater itself is great. It's soft, so it seems more to scale than a lot of the Christmas ornament sweaters and other mini sweaters. It lays properly. The sleeves are also more close fitting and a more appropriate length. That is, some of them are. Ken managed to scrounge up three for me,(without buying a single vodka!), and they're all a different size! Dolly got the smallest one.

These are the two larger ones. They aren't the same size either.

This Flavas guy was handy to model one of the larger ones.

There is a hood, with draw strings, that really draw the hood up. There's also a real front pocket. I forgot to pose somebody with their hands in it!

There are a lot of snaggy threads inside, so I put tape on Dolly's hands to get them through the sleeves without them grabbing threads. Plastic wrap works better.

Ken also gave me this sweater.

It's a Christmas ornament from World Market. He'd been saving it I guess.

The day before my birthday Ken and I went to a small town where there are three antique stores and a thrift store. I got these three butter pats that match my Friendly Village dishes. I already had one,and it's different!

  I'll show you what else I got that day in another post. The next day was my birthday. Emma joined us and we returned to go to the third antique store, which closed before we got to it the day before. I made a massive mini haul.

The vase and the fire extinguisher were still in their packages.

The fire extinguisher is probably going in the World's garage, if I ever get it made.

The tiny blue container is a souvenir from Germany,I think.

The vase is 1/12 scale. I also got this little ceramic container with a lid. I think it works for 1/6 scale.

No?

 Somebody had made this little candle wall sconce out of  a small latch. I took it apart, because what I saw was a door knob and scratch plate.

I'll need to put a bigger door knob on it though.

Plus I still got a candle out of it. And all for $1.

I got a little bag full of tiny road signs and traffic cones. They're probably model railroad things. But I thought they'd be great toys for somebody Gareth World's size.

There were a few broken signs in the bag,but not enough bases to go with them. 

I'm not sure they can be fixed either. That's a very tiny area to glue.
  Emma spotted these tiny Beatrix Potter books.

There are seven in all.

They were $20,which I thought was too much. But then Emma pointed out that they were all printed inside! They're real tiny books!

Being printed makes all the difference to me! I still didn't want to spend that much, since I didn't know what else Ken had already bought for me. But Emma said I HAD to,and Ken said get them. They made me buy them.

I couldn't resist these two little guys, who were still in their packaging.

  That's it for the miniature haul. As for my other presents, Emma got me this set of Little People Beatles! I actually had these in my Ebay 'watching' as ideas for Ken at Christmas, but she had already bought them ages ago,when they first came out.

Emma also got me cool socks and a really nice cozy sweater,and Ken got me an antique glass like my grama gave me when I was a kid, (My original got broken years ago.), the latest Kate Bush rarities CD,and a couple of things you'll see in an upcoming post.
  This wasn't for my birthday,but I wanted to show you this little shelf unit I got at the thrift store a few weeks ago.

It's like a tiny Ikea shelf. I know Ikea does sell doll sized ones,but I thought they were in colours.

  So I'll see you soon with my other gifts.

It's Sweater Season Again:Great Miniature Finds at Target and World Market

  There will be a regular Shrunken Saturday post today, but this is an extra post. Recently someone left a comment on last year's Sweater Season post and I promised them I would let them know about any sweater finds this year. Well, I found some sweaters! These are 1/6 scale sweaters that are meant to be Christmas ornaments. The first one is from Target.

It's being modeled by Fashion Fever Teresa. This sweater is a perfect fit on Barbie and friends,as long as they don't have the large heads some of them have,as the neck hole is fairly small, and not really stretchy. All the sweaters I saw at Target were the same colour and pattern,but they were only $3.00

As you can see, the sleeves may be considered a little short, but it works. These sweaters came on a hanger, and luckily weren't glued to it,only sewn with a couple of stitches. The hanger was such soft wire that it bent all out of shape with the effort of removing it from the sweater.
  The next batch of sweaters was found at World Market.

These sweaters were not a consistent size. Some were slightly bigger than the others. I think all of them were a little bigger than the Target sweater. I can't be sure though, because they were more expensive then the Target sweaters,(and no hanger!),so I didn't buy one. They were a thicker,and so stiffer,knit than the Target sweaters,but they came in three different colours. You'll notice there were also doll sized stockings too.

 
  The next find at World Market were these 1/6 scale walking sticks.

Aren't they great? They're pens. You could remove the ink part and they would be flat on the bottom. I have to credit Ivy for finding these.
  Next is this 1/6 scale old fashioned typewriter.

It's made of resin I think.It was in the 2 for $5 section with this 1/6 scale sushi.

...and this 1/6 scale sewing machine.

And mirror balls for your 1/12 scale disco

And a 1/6 scale stand mixer.

Elsewhere, near the walking sticks, there was this battery operated campfire that is the perfect size for 18" dolls.
 

There were also  these 1/6 scale bonsai trees.

Keep in mind if you live near a Meijer store that they seem to have sweater ornaments every year, but they go fast and are hard to nab. You have been forewarned!
  Don't forget to check out today's Shrunken Saturday post.

Happy Sweater Season!

  Inspired by Vanessa's post about the sale on doll sized sweater ornaments from Christopher &  Banks, I actually went to a Christopher & Banks the other day to check them out.I was hoping to save myself the postage of ordering them online. Of course it had to be the next to last store at the far end of the mall, and upstairs too. Of course, it's not like I don't need the exercise.
   I was surprised that the display of them was so small: just one tiny little display tree on a table. I was very pleased with the quality though. Most doll sized sweater ornaments are rather stiff, with arms that stick straight out when they aren't on a doll, and bunch up in stiffish folds when they are. These sweaters were super soft and the arms actually hung down like sweater arms should. The weave wasn't so out of proportion, like most are, either. Most of the 5 styles were properly proportionate in the body as well. The blue sweater with the penguins and,one of my favourites, the aqua sweater with the cardinals, seemed a little short and stubby.

It looks ok here, but in person it looked too short in the body. I didn't care much for the attached scarf, and the mittens were not very mitten shaped on most of the sweaters. The positive side was, they do have an opening in the tops, so you really could put them on a doll. It might make you want to buy them in person though, so you can pick a sweater with good mittens.

Surprisingly, I think my very favourite was the pink  sweater with the striped sleeves.

 It just looked so much like a real sweater. The proportions were perfect, and it was super soft.

  To my surprise, the sweaters were NOT on sale. Not in the store, at least.So much for getting them at the store and saving myself the shipping.  But in the store the sweaters cost $7.95. Online they are still on sale for 2 for $6, plus shipping. With shipping they are still cheaper,but not cheap enough for me. With such a tiny display they will probably sell out before they get marked down,so I most likely will not be getting any. But if you're interested, you can see the sweaters and buy them on sale HERE at Christopher & Banks.
   But, if you're as cheap as I am, you might want to check out Walgreen's. I stopped in there the other night to make sure I wasn't missing any cool ornaments, like the Beatles lunchbox ornament I missed last year. No lunchboxes or Beatles of any kind, but I did find what seemed to be the last one of these.

You might notice that the collar is coming loose at the front. The seam missed catching it. Might be a weakness, so if you're getting one, check it over carefully.

The hanger came out pretty easily. Unlike with  a lot of sweater ornaments, it wasn't glued to the sweater. It didn't even seem to be sewn to it.

   Unlike the Christopher & Banks sweaters, this one is like I described earlier: stiffer, with arms that stick out. It has a smaller weave than a lot of sweater ornaments though, so it's quite soft and looks proportional.

It's also more the size for a Ken than a Barbie.

But even he could do with having his sleeves rolled up a cuff.

 And you want to know the other really good part? It cost $1.99! You can also turn it around if you'd rather not have the year displayed. That's handy for next year.

It was a pain getting it on him though. His fingers, thumbs, and even his elbow joints keep getting caught  on the threads inside the sweater. In the end I resorted to wrapping his arms in some plastic off a roll of wrapping paper I had close by.

It made it so much easier!

"Score!"

I highly recommend wrapping the arms in plastic first. It avoids a lot of frustration!
  The yarn loop to hang the ornament by is easily removed. I just clipped it and it pulled out. It's not woven in, just sewn through the sweater. It pulls out like a loose thread.

 Walgreen's  also had these Nightmare Before Christmas Tsum Tsum's on sale at 90% off!

They're a Christmas gift pack and a Walgreen's exclusive. Jack and Zero even glow in the dark! They are $16.99 at full price! Why are they 90% off?  They had a bunch of Nightmare stuff, like Santa hats, stockings, etc., and most of it was on sale, but not 90% off!
  For Star Wars enthusiasts there was a great BB8 filled candy dispenser that is perfect for 1/6 scale. It looked pretty realistic too. Sorry I didn't take a picture of it. If you have a 12" doll from the Force Awakens, the BB8 candy dispenser would look great with it. (Just don't look at the back of it. That's where the dispenser hole is.)
  I have several posts coming up soon. Stay tuned!