Moxie Teenz Wig

  Yesterday I broke down and bought a wig for my Moxie Teenz girl. (I hated to buy a wig for her in a store when I paid almost nothing for her at a yard sale or a thrift store. I was hoping to find a wig the way I found the doll. The wig cost me more than she did!) I have to say, she does look better with hair, but this is just about the worst wig I have ever seen for a doll.

  The hair is cheap looking and thin.

  The hair itself looks greasy and you can see the clear plastic wig cap through the hair!

 

Also,the wig won't stay on her head.
   There's no way a kid could play with this doll and keep the wig on. It would end up being very frustrating and in the end the doll would have to be bald because the wig wouldn't stay on during play. It would be a much better idea if the wig had a little nib that fits into a hole in the doll's head, like the Liv dolls.(Liv doll wigs are much better quality too.)   I don't think Liv wigs would fit on a Moxie Teenz even if I cut the nib off because they'd be too small, otherwise I'd try it.
    My Moxie Teenz girl has found that Barbie dresses fit her ok, even if they are a bit short. (She has chosen this one for the time being, but she's looking for something a little longer.)

  And she can put up with the wig if shes just sitting still so it doesn't fall off.

   However, there is still one problem:

  "What am I going to do about these?!"

  On another subject, I recently found an extra Little Missmatched Uptown Girl coat,purse, and sock at Goodwill. I am ruining the whole idea of the 'mismatched' look, but I was excited she could have matching socks! I got around to changing her sock a couple of days ago,in 90 plus degree weather, and when I did I found I couldn't get her boot back on.

   I think the boot is too warm and soft, so it won't slide up on her heel. Ivy suggested ,"Why don't you put it in the freezer..or put her in the freezer." Evil child! 

Summer Reading Assisgnment #3: Sea View Secret by Elizabeth Kinsey

  I hope everyone is having a chance to get some reading in this summer. We haven't had much of a chance ourselves, but that doesn't mean we can't push others to do so! "Do as I say, not as I do!" My latest 'summer reading with your kids' suggestion happens to be one of Ivy's favourites, Sea View Secret' by Elizabeth Kinsey. Ivy has insisted that we read it every summer for the last few years. This year, even though she's 13 now, she still wants me to read it to her. I am glad to do so, because I know that these days are soon coming to a close.
  "Sea View Secret" was originally published in 1964.

 I'm sure it's out of print. I spent years trying to find a copy. This one is much harder to find than the other two books I have talked about so far. It was always one of my favourite books though, and has turned out to be one of Ivy's too. The story is set one sweltering hot summer, when two kids around 10 years old move to the suburbs with their parents and toddler twin siblings. They befriend the family in the only old house left in the neighborhood and discover a mystery surrounding some valuable rings that have been missing for decades. The rings, it turns out, could be just what's needed to save the old house from destruction by a greedy land developer, so of course they have to find them. My kids have pointed out that alot of my favourite books have to do in some way with saving someone's house. Hmm... I wonder what that means?
  The book is full of mystery, nothing scary though, some humour,and a warm story about friendship and family love. It's a nice old fashioned book, but I think kids will still enjoy it. The kids in the story all have respect for adults and take responsibility for doing chores and helping out, so maybe something like this is just what kids these days need to read! There's nothing inappropriate, and the search for the mysterious missing rings is something I think kids can really get caught up in.
  The only copies of this book I have ever seen are Scholastic paperbacks, but I'm sure it was printed in hardback at some point. As with the other books, the age recommendation depends on your child's attention span and interests. I would say you could possibly read it to them from age 6 to 10. As I said, Ivy still likes to have it read to her, but then, it's one of her special books, and this will probably be her last summer to have me read it to her.
  On another subject, the cake topper in my Beatles post was described as being made by Gay-Gem. While Gay-Gem did indeed make the exact same cake top figures, and the ones I found in my research were mostly by them, mine does in fact say Wilton on it. Just saying.                                         

Every time it rains it rains...in my basement

                                                                                                                                         
  It has been an exhausting couple of weeks. I have The Neighbors From Hell and they have been living up to the name lately.I won't go into detail, but they are taking years off my life.In addition, it has rained every day for almost three weeks. Seriously. Every day. I was about to start building an ark and taking in two of everything (except Demon Neighbors.) After so much rain the ground decided it couldn't drink another drop and started storing it in my basement instead.
  Tuesday morning there was a little water on the basement floor in one room. It was nearly all gone by Tuesday night. Ivy, my thirteen year old, and I were going to get our baths and play some games and watch tv. Around 8:00 I was about to take my shower when I decided to check on the basement one more time. When I went down I screamed. There were two inches of water on the floor and water was pouring in the old chimney flue. I started grabbing things up, trying to save them from the rising water. I had everything up off the floor, which gets damp even at the best of times, but as the water rose it just wasn't high enough. I called Ivy down and we were rescuing everything we could. At some point Fuzzy, my 18 year old, came home and we were all schlepping stuff upstairs. The water was still rising and I was literally rescuing things just before they were engulfed by water. One example is a Victorian velvet and celluloid photo album, with photos, which I grabbed up just as the box filled with water. It survived untouched, luckily.

  Eventually the water was nearly up to my knees, which, ok, that's not that high, but it was high enough that entire tubs, with other tubs on top of them, (So you'd think the weight would hold them down.) were FLOATING.I know one of the kids showed me a box of wooden dollhouse furniture that was taken somewhere to be dried out later, and I have no idea where it went. I only hope it wasn't the box with the vintage wood dollhouse living room set with velvet cushions that my husband paid more than he should have for me at an auction recently.
  The next day we were clearing out some of the wet things we hadn't saved or noticed the night before, and Fuzz found a Pedigree Aunt Sally from Worzel Gummidge, soaking wet, under some things in the back corner of the basement. By now she has been totally dried out and survived her ordeal unscathed.

 

                                             Aunt Sally is relieved that it's all over.
  Ken grew up watching Worzel Gummidge in England and passed his love of it on to Ivy, who owns the whole series on DVD, so it's nice to have Aunt Sally around.
   This array of international ladies all got wet to varying degrees, with Miss India fairing the worst. All are dry now and don't seem to have suffered any lasting damage.

 

  On top of everything else, the pilot light was washed out on the water heater and couldn't be relit. We managed on what was in the tank at 1:00 in the morning when we were finished and the water had started to recede. Ken spent most of the next day drying out the pilot with a hair drier and trying to relight it. It was just too soaked though, so Ken and I took icy showers, while Ivy resorted to a bathtub filled by pans of water heated on the stove. Yesterday a fan on the pilot most of the day finally got it dried out enough that it let itself be relit and we had hot water once again.
  We were able to save almost everything, and what we couldn't save from getting wet we have mostly been able to dry out by now. I suppose we were pretty lucky. I had recently cleared up the basement and had already rescued my father's box of photographs and had gotten things up off the floor, or it would have been much worse. And we were lucky of course that it was only a slight basement flood, and we didn't lose our whole house, which has happened to alot of people all over the world lately. Our town was built on a swamp, so just living here is asking for it anyway. Nature keeps trying to revert it back to a swamp. It hasn't rained for a couple of days now, so maybe the ground will have a chance to dry out and go back to being absorbent again!

Happy Beatles Birthdays!

                                                                                                                                                 7 July, 2013
 Happy birthday Paul,(belated) and Ringo!
  I have had a busy few weeks, as I said last time. I had been planning a two part post covering some of my Beatles dolls and figures, starting on Paul McCartney's 71st birthday on the 18th of last month, and continuing with Ringo Starr's 73rd birthday today. Since I am so far behind, part one is going to be today, and part two will be coming sometime soon...I hope. In any case, happy birthday guys!

 The oldest Beatles toys in my collection  are these two guys.

The short chubby fella was made by Remco in 1964. He's an actual licensed Beatles doll. The little guy is actually a cake decorating figure made by Gay-Gem. He's unlicensed, but is obviously meant to be a Beatle, or at least cash in on their popularity. He has John Lennon's singing stance and seen closeup, if it weren't for the bad paint job, he would actually resemble John. I found some pictures of this set online. The bass drum says Go Go Swingers instead of Beatles, but they have a left handed bass player with a Hofner bass, and two guitarists, one of which is this guy. Similar enough that, these days, they'd get sued.



   I got the Remco Paul in a box of more 'serious' dolls at a doll auction. I promptly sold one of the dolls, which paid for the box, so Paul was free. He's a little discoloured, but he does have his bass. The cake topper came in a bag of vintage cake decorations at a yard sale. Unfortunately none of his band mates were in the bag with him.


  Skipping ahead a lot of years we have these guys. 

Unfortunately, I only have the Paul and Ringo of this 2004 series by Macfarlane. I love the look of the animated Beatles. I used to watch the cartoon as a kid and my sister and I had a couple of the inflatable dolls. I think we had Paul and Ringo, but my Mom threw them out years ago, so who knows? (She tended to throw out inflatable toys as soon as the air leaked out, even if it was just natural flattening from the course of time and not a hole.) There was a cool set of the four Beatles with an alligator too. (Sounds weird, but strange things were always chasing them in the cartoon.)
   Then there are these guys.

  

  They were also made by McFarlane. Yellow Submarine isn't my favourite Beatles thing, but these are pretty neat. There are loads of other YS Beatles and other characters from the movie, and I think I have the other two guys in this particular series, but I couldn't possibly buy all of them. I got these for Christmas I believe, from my ever spoiling husband.

  This is a strange little fellow I found recently.

 Apparently he's a redo of a vintage model by Hawk. He's in the same style as Weird-ohs and Rat Finks, which always make me think of Mad Magazine. Here's a close up from the back of the package.

 

 He's obviously meant to be a parody of The Beatles, or at least bands of that era. He is so gruesome that even my Beatles loving oldest daughter wouldn't take the extra I bought for her!
 
These are by Applause.

 

I love the instruments. There is a Sgt. Pepper set too,(also have those),but I wanted these way more. In fact, I have wanted them ever since they first came out in the 80's. A friend drove me an hour to see them because she knew I would love them, but I couldn't justify spending $100.00 on dolls, or on myself! (I'm still that way! Maybe even worse now that I have been an at home mom for years without an income I could wastefully spend with no one but me to answer to!) In a way, I almost wish I had bought them then because they came with a cool cardboard drum kit. I bought a Ringo from this set at a doll show a couple of years ago. He was a bit dingy and the lady didn't know who he was. She charged me $5, so even dingy he was worth it. I washed him carefully and improved him a little. I figured If I was lucky I could find the others to add eventually. I tried to search for the set every now and then. One day I randomly searched online and found a set for an amazing Buy It Now of about $45 with free shipping! I immediately bought it and later sold my lonely Ringo for almost that amount! I think this made the set end up costing me $17.00! (And that's including the $5 I spent on the Ringo in the first place.) Now THAT I can buy and not feel too guilty about. I also told my husband to include them as part of my Christmas gifts, but he refused to wrap them because I bought them myself. (The nerve!)

  
There was also a set of very similar, but slightly smaller dolls made by Sugar Loaf. I think Sugar Loaf supplied toys for claw machines. The only one I have is the John.

  

  These dolls are a bit shorter than the Applause dolls, have no guitars as far as I know, and are made of cheaper fabrics.(Maybe you can't tell, but John's hair has turned a nasty shade of green and his arm has fallen off. No fear. I have it and will repair him sooner or later. As for his boots, they're very like the Applause dolls' boots, and are probably with the arm...) Supposedly this set is pretty hard to find. For some unknown reason John came wearing a red wooden drum on a ribbon around his neck. (I removed that!) Poor guy must have had an identity crisis, or was desperately trying to start a 'John is also Ringo' rumour, to paraphrase "All You Need is Cash". I got him at a thrift store for a quarter I think. He looks a lot like the Applause John. He may actually be a better likeness!

He's smaller though, so maybe he could be young John.

 

Well, that's it for this time. Stayed tuned for part two. If I manage to round up the rest of my figures I'll be posting it soon!
Update: If you're interested in The Beatles check out my post 'Exactly What constitutes a Doll? Happy Birthday Paul McCartney and How to Meet a Beatle'.

Summer Reading Assignment #2: Black and Blue Magic by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

July 6th, 2013
  I hope everyone had a good,safe 4th of July. It rained here so we didn't do our traditional sparklers and smoky snakes after my husband got home from work. In fact, it has rained nearly every day for at least a week and a half. Which is another good time for summer reading! Being stuck inside in the summer makes for perfect reading opportunities!
  I am way behind on a couple of posts I have had planned,but it has been a busy couple of weeks. I will continue with my posts on great summer books to share with your kids. My next suggestion is Black and Blue Magic by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. I read several of her books when I was a kid, but this one, suggested to me by my sister,who also read it, has got to be my all time favourite.

  These days, as I have found from reading her books to my kids, Miss Snyder's books seem like there is going to be magic involved, but there usually turns out to be a reasonable explanation for things in the end. Black and Blue Magic on the other hand, has REAL magic in it. I have always been the type who longs to fall down a rabbit hole into wonderland, or drive through a toy tollbooth and enter another world. I love that this book has magical happenings, with no chance to explain it away. It's pure imagination (No Wonka pun intended.),and I think it's good for kids to pretend and imagine.
  Black and Blue Magic takes place over summer vacation and concerns 12 year old Harry Houdini Marco, a clutzy kid whose widowed mother runs a boarding house. Harry's late stage magician father wanted him to be a magician too, and was encouraged by the fortune they were given by an old fortune teller when Harry was a baby: that  Harry would have great magic. Harry doesn't think he's meant for magic of any kind, until an act of kindness introduces him to a strange little man named Tarzak Mazeek. Mr. Mazeek comes to stay at the boarding house and when he leaves he gives Harry a magical gift which will change Harry's life, and through Harry, the lives of many other people.
  Harry's story is funny and magical, mysterious, and touching. There's nothing terribly scary, but there are exciting moments.The book was originally published in 1966, but I think it's still in print. If not, it can be found online, and in second hand book stores. I can't find an official age recommendation for this book, but most of the people reviewing it online seem to have first read it in fourth grade. I would say if you are reading it to your child, depending on their attention span and interests you could read it earlier. Eight to 12 would be a good age range. My children are years apart, (22, 18, and 13.) so I have reread the book at least twice over the years to cover all of them. They all liked it, although maybe not as much as I did! I highly recommend Black and Blue Magic. Some of my other favourite books by Zilpha Keatly Snyder  are The Velvet Room (very hard to find, but worth it. Both my girls loved it.), and The Egypt Game. Snuggle down on a rainy summer day (or night) with your kids and become friends with Harry.I think you'll all enjoy it. 

Summer Reading Assignment #1, 11 June, 2013: Henry Reed's Jouney by Keith Robertson

Summer is here, and while it's great to be outside doing things in the fresh air,it's also a great time to enjoy a good summer book! (Of course, you can do that outside in the fresh air too!) Over the summer months I'm going to talk about great 'summer' books to read with your kids.These are books set during the summer, so you'll feel part of the story. I'm in my 50's, so these are mostly books I read as a kid that I read to my kids when they were little. Some of them may be out of print, but they can be found at libraries,second hand bookstores,(Let's not forget to keep real stores alive.), on Amazon, Ebay, or your favourite auction site.

   First up is a book from a whole series of 'summer' books. Henry Reed's Journey by Keith Robertson is one of the Henry Reed series that also includes Henry Reed, Inc.,Henry Reed's Babysitting Service,Henry Reed's Big Show,and Henry Reed's Think Tank. They're all great books, and you may want to start with the first one, but this is my favourite. 

Henry starts out the first book as a 13 year old, son of a diplomat, who has travelled the world. Because he has never spent time in the U.S. Henry's father thinks it would be a good idea for Henry to spend the summer with his aunt and uncle in Grover's Corner,New Jersey, where Henry's mother grew up. Grover's Corner is a very small 'hole in the road' town of only a few houses, but Henry still manages to have adventures, even if they are unintentional.(Henry's uncle often chuckles and shakes his head, noting how something always seems to happen when Henry is around.) Henry Reed's Journey finds Henry flying into California, having been invited to travel across country with a family he befriended in Grover's Corner the previous summer. Henry spends a lot of his time searching for fireworks to buy, but he and his friend Midge still find time to start a gold rush, become honorary Native Americans, win an art competition,take in a parakeet and some horned toads, and create a commotion of one kind or another nearly everywhere they go. Remember that these books were written between 1958 and 1986, so a few references may not be familiar to your kids---or even to you! (For instance, at one point Midge is sure she has spotted movie star Tab Hunter.) But usually it doesn't matter, and if it does,that's what the internet is for, right?! Also, some things are outdated or politically incorrect these days:Native Americans are referred to as Indians, and Henry is a chauvinist. But you can use these as points to discuss the cultural differences of the times. Besides, Henry's chauvinist ideas are supposed to sound ridiculous. (It's very obvious that Henry's friend Midge is quite a match for him,intellectually, creatively,and otherwise.) The books are funny and clever and easily enjoyed by both kids and parents. The target age range for the books is supposedly 9 to 11,but depending on your child's interest I think you could start them a bit younger, and of course, I still enjoy rereading Henry every now and then! And what better way to kill some time on a hot, sweaty, summer car trip than to read about one?

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...