Doll-A-Day 2023 #290: Futaba Fisher...man?

    Boy, it is always something! I mentioned yesterday that my camera battery died as I was taking pictures for today's post. Well, I put the battery on charge, and today I tried again. The battery charger had a green light, which means fully charged, but  my camera still won't come on! Ken had my phone because he had meetings with two electricians and a window person at the house today, so I couldn't take pictures with that. So you'll just have to settle for the few pictures I took yesterday. This guy is a Futaba.

   He's a fisherman, I think. I assume that's what the basket is for, and the stick he's holding over his shoulder.

If he were standing up he would be about 8 inches tall.

  The little sticker on the logs he's sitting on says 'Made in Japan'.

  You might have seen the post I did on a Futaba I used to have, (Before somebody on Flickr talked me out of it! It was a really nice one, and I wish I still had it.)  As I learned when researching for that post: Futaba creatures are mythical Japanese water beings, that are half human and half turtle. I think they are also called Kappa or Shibaten. 

  I just noticed that this guy is wearing a very similar shirt to my other one. Both shirts are blue and white plaid, with a brown placket. I know this one doesn't look like he's wearing a white and blue plaid shirt, but that's because he looks like he was probably previously owned by a smoker. If I could get him off those logs I might be brave enough to soak him in Stain Devils. It's worked before on dolls that were completely yellow from ancient cigarette smoke.

  That's today's doll. Sorry I couldn't give you more detailed pictures. My battery...or is it, my camera, went out as I was about to do a close up of that sticker. I'll figure something out for tomorrow's doll. At least I'll have my phone back by then. See you tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #289: Pee Wees Clone Doll

   This post officially catches me up to only ten days behind! Today's girl is this little Pee Wees clone doll.

   She's the size of a Pee Wees doll, and looks like one. I have found pictures of  a doll that looks almost just like this doll, outfit and all. That doll is a Uneeda Pee Wees doll. But there are a few differences between that one and this one. That doll is described as a 1978 Uneeda Pee Wees doll. She has straight blonde hair, the trademark Pee Wees side glance eyes with unpainted sclera, an almost identical outfit, the same weird feet, (Why does it look like she has more than 5 toes?!), and movable arms.

  This doll has a one piece body and limbs, curly blonde hair, and eyes with BLUE sclera, (the whites of the eyes.),

Her head is the only movable part of her being. Uh, sorry about the price sticker!

  She says 'Made in Hong Kong' on her back.

   That's why I think this is a Pee Wees clone, and not an actual Pee Wees. If someone is a Pee Wees expert, leave a comment with your opinion. If anybody wants to adopt this kid, a couple of dollars and shipping and she's yours. Just leave your contact information. 

  To see my previous post on Uneeda Pee Wees go HERE.

  That today's doll. If my camera battery hadn't run out, I'd have tomorrow's ready to go too. It's always something! See you tomorrow.

 

Doll-A-Day 2023 #288: Hong Kong Doll

   Yeah, okay. I missed yesterday. We were gone all day and got back to Emma's fairly late. When we got here I washed the dishes, changed the litter box, and emptied the trash cans. After that I took a shower and didn't even eat a bowl of cereal like I was going to, because I felt lousy. I didn't even feel like doing a post. I hadn't gotten anything photographed during the day anyway. And I even brought some dolls to photograph, which I now have to return to storage. But anyway, I am catching up a little today. I will still be 10 days behind for the year, (And yes, I still intend to catch up before the end of the year.), but I won't be 11! So there will be two posts today. Here's the first one.

  This girl is a mystery doll. I don't know who she is.

She's about 4 or 5 inches tall.

Her only markings are the 'made in Hong Kong' on her back.

She has movable limbs and head.

From her outfit and the style of her eye paint, I would say she's from the 1970's.

Her hair is gathered into two ponytails. Her dress closes in the back, (although not very well!), with a tie at the neck. Her apron is part of her dress. She has a pair of nylon undies, and white boots.

 

She herself is made of cheap plastic, and her boots are too. They aren't squashy, but they aren't hard either. they are sort of medium soft, but have still managed to split. Other than that she's in very nice condition.

  If anybody knows who she is, or who she was made by, please leave a comment. If anybody wants to adopt her, she's yours for a couple of dollars and postage. Leave your contact information and I'll get back to you.

  That's it for...yesterday? Don't forget to check for today's second post too.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #287: Fashionistas #192

   I saw this guy at Five Below yesterday. He was tempting.

Officially he's Fashionistas #192.

Unofficially he's probably known as the guy with vitiligo.

Vitiligo is an autoimmune disorder that causes the loss of pigment in patches of skin anywhere on the body.

  There have been two other Fashionistas with vitiligo, but they were both female. You might have seen Emma's #135 HERE.

  Note that in the first picture, to the left you see that they also carry The World's Smallest toys, and at the moment ours has the 1977 Barbie case. Just a few comments about it. For one thing, I love the case. It's slightly big for 1/6 scale, but I can live with that. Second thing: the doll that comes with it is WAY too small for the case! What?! As if that weren't enough, #3, she's totally the wrong doll for the case, and even the wrong decade! She's a 90's Barbie, with long crimped hair. You can see her on the right of the case in the package. I can't remember the name right now, but I know that doll came out when Emma was little, and Emma was born in 1991. So I'd take the case, and the doll, but not together. As for #192, I like him. I think if you want him you should snap him up while Five Below has him for $5.

  And I still haven't seen The Barbie Movie! I saw it for sale on DVD yesterday. For sale already?! Things move fast these days! It used to take at least a year for something to make it t video. I'm old.

  That's today's doll. We're going to the house to work tomorrow, and we should be getting windows put in soon. (Yay!) See you tomorrow for some other doll, even if I haven't decided which one yet!

  

Doll-A-Day 2023 #286: Glam Squad

   Today's dolls are some I saw at Five Below today. They're the Glam Squad.

Fashion doll sized dolls with an extra outfit and a pet or accessory, for $5. Seems the Rockstar is a bit of acheat, because she doesn't have an extra outfit or a pet. I hardly think that guitar takes the place of both!

I don't know if there are more than three in the series, but the store I was in only had three different ones: Mermaid, Ice Princess, and Rockstar. 

The Mermaid and the Ice Princess are obviously the Little Mermaid and Elsa from "Frozen".

The back of their boxes tell about them.

  I liked the face on the Rockstar. I don't usually like odd hair colours, but she looks pretty good.

 

  They are cheap, so they probably aren't very sturdy, but they at least had some thought and care put into them. By the way, Five Below has the articulated BTS dolls again. The store I was in only had three, hanging on pegs, but they did have some.

    Those are today's dolls. See you again tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #285: The Wicked Witch of the West

   Yesterday we saw Glinda, the Good Witch. She got a bit wet during the fire. Well Glinda wasn't alone on that shelf. With her was her arch nemesis, The Wicked Witch of the West. Karma must have been at work, because The Bad Witch fared worse than The Good Witch.

Sorry. I forgot to photograph her with her box lid on.

  We thought for a while that the stuff on that shelf didn't even get wet at all. So it was left while we dealt with other things. When I discovered that it had been doused with water, the witches had already started to mold. Fortunately, their boxes were the worst parts. They are moldy inside and out and between the layers of cardboard they're made of. They're going to have to be thrown away. I don't think Glinda herself even got moldy. But the Wicked Witch, on the other hand...

  The bottom of her dress got a bit moldy. (Once again, she's been sitting here without her box lid, airing out, so sorry for the dust and cat hair.)

  It's a shame too. While she doesn't look anything like Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch...

She's too pretty.

And why is her hair so curly?

... her costume is fairly screen accurate. She has the leg o' mutton sleeves...

...and the lace up bodice.

She even has the little pouch the witch carried.

And of course she ahs her witch hat. Her hat has the long, sheer tail, (or whatever you call it).

One difference from the screen costume though, is that this witch isn't wearing any stockings. As we know from the scene where the Wicked Witch runs down the stairs sneering, "Ring around the rosie, a pocketful of spears...", she was wearing black stockings. 

One really cool item included with the witch is her broom. It's a straw broom, like the real one. You'll have to excuse the look of it. Emma and AJ's cat Arthur, (Our Jimmy, Joey, and Arc's nephew.), stole it out of her box and took it to the living room to play with.

  It's a little skinnier around the part that holds the bristles in, but they got the design right.

        

Even the handle.

  One line of dialogue in the movie that always gets me is where Dorothy asks the Winkie guard if they can have the witch's broomstick, and the Winkie says, "Yes. And take it with you." What? You give it to them, but they have to leave it there? Of course they're going to take it with them. Another thing we always think of when we watch it is my fault. I made a joke when the kids were little and to this day they still repeat it. The heroes are escaping and the witch screams to her guards to chase them: "Half of you go that way, and half of you go this way!' I said, "And the rest of you follow me." (Three 'halves', get it?) 

  Poor Maragret Hamilton. Her agent called her to tell her she had a part in The Wizard of Oz. Hamilton, a former kindergarten teacher who was then 37 years old, and the mother of a little boy, excitedly asked which role. Her agent replied, "The Wicked Witch of course." That's rough, guy. She's your client. Be nice! And when she and her son saw the movie, he was scared of the Wicked Witch!

The particular line this doll is from contained dolls of most of the movie's characters.

  That's the doll for today. Unfortunately I don't have the other characters. But we'll see some other doll tomorrow. See you then.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #284: Glinda the Good Witch

  This isn't the first Glinda the Good Witch I've shown you. (See the other one HERE.) It's not even the first one Mattel has made. But she's a good one. (Well, obviously...)

  

  She could look a lot better though She was on the first landing at the house...not the one the fire was directly off of. This one was down a flight of stairs from that one. But unbeknownst to us, a shelf down there got more of the water than we thought. I found this doll, and a couple of others down there on a shelf, which I had been told didn't get wet. Guess again. They had gotten wet and were molding. This one isn't too bad. The lid and top of her box are the worst parts. Inside the box doesn't seem too bad though. I've had them sitting open getting dry adn hoping the mold would die, which I think it has. She'll still need washed, at least the bottom of her dress. And of course, while she was airing out she has collected some cat hair.

  She is part of the Barbie Collector Pink Label line.

  Here she is without the lid of her box. I only put it back on for the picture. I need to take her out of the box and clean the bottom half of her. The rest of her is fine. They did a pretty good job on her dress. It's a lot more screen accurate than the Hollywood Legends Barbie as Glinda that was made in 1996, or the singing play line Glinda Barbie doll that was made in 1999.

  

  And believe me, I know, because I spent hours with the video frozen on Glinda when I made my second Glinda, costume for Ivy, when she was Glinda for Halloween one year. Emma was Glinda one year too, but I was newer at sewing then, and didn't realize how much fabric it took to make  a really puffy skirt. By the time I made Ivy's dress, I was much better at sewing, and had figured out the volume thing. I also had come across yards and yards of tulle at a yard sale, which I washed up and used for Ivy's costume. (Somewhere on this blog there's picture of Ivy in that dress, when she used it for playing dress up, and had almost outgrown it.) There's a lot to that costume when you really look at it. There's the butterfly thing at her throat, and the one on the bodice, and the one at her hip. 

Butterfly on the sleeve too.

  Her wand isn't accurate, because the shaft was silver, and not glittery.

  Then there is also that awesome crown. I have to admit, there were certain aspects of Ivy's crown that were better than Emma's. For one thing, I thought to use fishing line to make the things the stars float on above the crown. I bought 4th of July decorations and cut the little silver foil stars off and glued them to the fishing line. But overall, Emma's crown was better. I used clear vinyl that comes on huge bolt rolls at the fabric store, and made it a few layers thick so it would stand up. I made the designs out of glue and sprinkled silver glitter on. If I redid it now I would use silver glitter hot glue, because the way I did it, it flaked off over time. Mind you, it lasted through Halloween and Emma wearing it to school for Crazy Hat Day. For one or both of the crowns I sewed rhinestone stuff along the bottom. I don't know what it's called, but it's rhinestone stuff you buy by the yard at the fabric store. I know that on Ivy's I also sewed it along the part where the bodice joins the skirt. If you really look at the movie, there are rhinestones there.

They didn't do as good a job on her hair though. The real Glinda, played by Billie Burke, had thick waves that curled at the bottom.

 

  And honestly, Billie Burke was prettier too.

   In 2014 Mattel produced a Glinda doll for the 75th anniversary of the movie. She had a Billie Burke head sculpt that wasn't too bad. She also had jointed elbows, and her dress and want were a lot like this one, if not a little less screen accurate.

 For this line of dolls they made most of the other characters from the movie. The Winkie guard and flying monkey were great!

  That's today's doll. Come back tomorrow, (as the Wizard said.), and see what doll we're looking at then.