Fortunate Furniture Find

Garage sale season is going full swing here in Northeast Ohio. I was thrilled to find Ever After High Apple White's sofa, EAH Raven Queen's vanity, and a 1/6th scale table with two stools.

Doll Show - Strongsville, Ohio - February 27th, 2022

I wouldn't have even known about this doll show, if Tam hadn't emailed me and asked me if I was going. It took place in the same location as the show from last year's post. (I did some posts after that one, showing everything* that I bought at that show.) I wasn't aware that there are doll shows held here twice a year, and not just once. Tam has already put up her post about the show. I was going to work on mine yesterday, but that morning Mr. BTEG got a text from his sister, saying that she and her husband were at the community college only about 15 minutes from our house, to watch their daughter playing volleyball with her travel team. So Mr. BTEG, the Dancer, and I spent the day with my in-laws, ending up down at the lake. There's only a little bit of ice left from the winter.

I didn't take as many pictures at the show as Tam did, but at least mine are all of different things than hers. :)

This is a knock-off Sunshine Family set of three dolls. I didn't know Sunshine Family knock-offs existed until I saw these three.

I felt sorry for the boxed doll on the left. Buy some canned air and get some of that dust off of her! That doll on the right is throwing her some serious side eye.

 

I liked the way the seller had these Japanese dolls arranged on the red steps. It reminded me of the way dolls are displayed for the Japanese doll festival Hinamatsuri, although none of these dolls looked right for the actual festival set-up.

A blast from the past with Pinkie Cooper dolls, plus a Disney Descendants, Monster High, Skipper with tan lines, and what looks like a Miss Revlon doll.

A beautiful Kitty Collier doll in the vinyl. This was probably my favorite Kitty ever produced.

Somebody didn't like Ken's man bun, but then didn't know what to do with him. There were lots and lots of 90s-to-modern Barbie dolls in boxes.

Some My Twinn dolls. I think that's a Tiffany Taylor from the 70s standing behind them.

I loved this felt Lenci doll's felt dress, even though it looks super heavy and thick. I'm not sure if Gene Simmons is showing his approval of the dress, or making a rude gesture. To the right, you can see the Blythe doll Tam showed in her post.

I was interested in the Rub-a-Dub dolly in box, because I had one of my own as a child. Actually, I still do have mine somewhere.

Mine is not in the box, and I don't know if she comes with all of her accessories. She has her hooded towel, and I think her diaper on underneath. My mom made her a flannel bathrobe. I never had the floating vanity and shower.

These dolls are genuine Mattel dolls that use the Sunshine Family Steffie face mold and body for a series of "patriotic" dolls from around 1976.

I loved this group of antique dollhouses, horse stable, and toy fort that I saw all at one table. The first house in this group is marked Gottschalk, which I guessed. I follow someone's blog who collects these older dollhouses, but she hasn't posted in a very long time, and I have forgotten the blog title. Anyway, my thought is that these are all Gottschalk, because they all look similar, except maybe the fort. A couple of the houses also look similar to Gottschalk houses I saw when I was trying to find the blog I'm thinking of.

Lastly are these two pretty Schoenhut girls.

Of course Tam and I had to get a selfie. I could barely see my phone screen because the sun was so blinding.

Tam was kind enough to gift me these three Ever After High dolls, of which I couldn't get a non-blurry picture. There is an Apple White in her original dress and bracelet, an Epic Winter Rosabella Beauty wearing what I think is a Disney Descendants dress, and a nude Cerise Hood. These three are going with the other EAH dolls that I want to customize or re-dress.

I got this Liv Sophie doll for only $2. I have two other Liv dolls, but I'm not sure that I'm going to keep my Liv dolls intact. That's a topic for another blog post, I think. In any case, $2 is a super price just for the clothes, shoes and jewelry.

 

I got this When I Read, I Dream Heidi doll for only $5. She has the same body as the original Barbie's little sister Stacie.

And saving the best for last, is this beautiful reproduction Jumeau doll, with a compo 10.5" body, made by Sylvia Butler. Her slip was made by me. She will be the feature of my next post.

*So I still have a few things from the last doll show that I haven't shown you yet. The main reason is because the vintage Skipper dress that I bought had a slight stain, that I was aware of when I bought the dress. I tried to get the stain out with a couple of things, and then I got busy and distracted by other stuff and moved on from the dress, and you know how it goes. I would like to show the last few things from last doll show soon, even if I can't get the stain out.

You've probably noticed that I've added ads to my blog. I think I have too many, and I'd appreciate some advice on how to place them, so there are fewer, because most blogs I see don't have ads in all the places I'm getting them. If they are taking away too much from your enjoyment of the blog, I'd like to know that, too.

October Instagram Challenge Day 10: Monster

If I ever wished that I owned a Monster High doll, today was definitely that day. I came up with the idea of having some of the Ever After High girls watching the first Monster High reboot video. This involved making a flat screen TV frame, and getting the image color printed. We don't have a color printer yet, so getting the image done required going to a store. I like this image, but if you lived during the 70s in the US, the paneling is sort of giving me "rumpus room" vibes. :)

Shopping: Tuesday Morning and Target Version

Let's start with Target, as one of the items there is time-limited. It's this doll-size grill. Tam already posted about it, and when I went to Target a couple of days ago, there were only two left, and one of them had come apart into two pieces and was on two different shelving units. However, when I went back today, there were three gleaming brand-new ones, and one of them was pink, which I hadn't seen before, but apparently Tam had. I imagine these will be in stores until after Independence Day, or close to it. In any case, if you want one and you have a Target near you, head in and grab one. They're in the dollar store section in the front. Tam's looks very realistic now that it's gotten a coat of black spray paint.

This Our Generation set caught my eye, because in my mind, I associate those build-a-molecule sets with chemistry, and not biology. Then again, the actual title of the set is Life Science.The Dancer and I had a small discussion about life science, biology, and atoms. According to the Dancer, they did learn about cell membranes, which have to do with things like potassium, in biology. I've only ever known students to get those molecule sets in chemistry classes, though. It doesn't matter too much, as the set is still cute (if you can call seeing someone's insides "cute.") I wonder if that set is structured with a real molecule in mind, or if the design is only to have an attractive grouping of "atoms." I flunked my high school chemistry final, so don't look at me!

These pet sets also appeared to be new. It's fun to see a variety beyond the usual cat and dog.

Speaking of dogs, this scooter set is super cute! It's the kind of clever, outside-the-box thinking that I like to see, that takes a doll product a step higher. Granted, it is easier to add something like this to products for the 6" size dolls. The actual product also makes use of "girly colors" beyond pink, even if the boxes themselves are pink.

And lastly, I took a picture of this science desk set, only because it is still full-price at Target (as far as I could tell) but also available (and marked down) at my local Tuesday Morning. The art desk set was also at Tuesday Morning.

Also, there were a couple of LORI dolls at Tuesday Morning. That surprised me, because I thought Target was the only brick-and-mortar retailer of LORI dolls, and Target generally clearances stuff down until it's gone.

As for what I got, I picked up my second Ever After High Raven and Apple School Spirit set from Tuesday Morning. I got, and reviewed, my first School Spirit two-pack for Mother's Day of 2016. The last time I went to Tuesday Morning, there were two of the packs on the shelf. I had enough self-control to only take one of them home the last time I was there, but for $14.99, I had to grab the other one when I found it still there two days ago. The dolls can always be re-rooted, re-painted, and re-dressed. $7.50 each for a full-dressed and articulated Ever After High doll is nothing to be sneezed since they're pretty much not around anymore. There was also a Budget Apple with straight arms and legs still on the shelf. Hopefully some little girl will find her and be happy with her.

I also picked up the Barbie violinist pack for $2.99, solely for the violin, even if it does say "Barbie" on it.

I passed on an Ever After High Castle Set, marked down to $30.00. You'd better believe I'll be looking to see if it's been marked down some more, though, the next time I go in.

Tuesday Morning has many kinds of products for sale, and I love to cruise some of the other aisles, looking to see if there are any other bargains that I can pick up. I got a cardboard scratcher for cats, and a small make-up type bag for the Dancer, since she's traveling a couple of times this summer. I also found a few great things for dolls, in the craft aisle: three of these three-bag sets of sticky-back white tiles. Each set of three bags was only $1.99! I also picked up one set of pink, as that was all they had of that. Not enough to tile a 1/6 size floor, which would have been fun, but they can be used for mirrors, tabletops, and kitchen/bathroom counters.

Anyone else pick up a good find lately?

Ever After High 2-in-1 Castle Playset Review

This was my big Christmas gift from Mr. BTEG and my daughters. And I do mean big! Fortunately for me, I was able to rearrange doll displays and get this castle onto the top of one of my dressers.

I took a lot of pictures of this, and some of them are not perfect. One of the problems is that I was struggling to find a way to get decent lighting for the pictures. But I'm tired of putting off getting pictures of my great new toy online, so it is what it is. Loads of pictures after the fold!

Ever After High Tri-Castle-On Lizzie Hearts, and Pet Hedgehog Shuffle

Wow, November was a tough month. Despite my light box and Vitamin D, I'm having a hard time coping with the gloomy weather. I'm trying to get back on track for December.

On the Ever After High (Monster High) message board that I read, I saw that the EAH Tri-Castle-On set was on sale at Target. This was a three-doll Target exclusive set, based on the webisode where EAH students compete in the Tri-Castle-On competition. The Apple White/Raven Queen School Spirit two-doll set is related to this set; Apple and Raven cheer on fellow students at the Tri-Castle-On events. I blogged about Apple and Raven back in May. I wasn't really interested in getting the Tri-Castle-on doll set originally; however, with the sale, each doll ended up costing just over $7 each. At that price, I decided to buy it.

I was going to blog about the whole set at once, but there will be close to 30 pictures, considering there are three dolls and accessories, so I decided to blog about each doll individually. I'll try to get all three doll reviews up reasonably close in time. Today I'm going to start with Lizzie Hearts.

In keeping with her lineage, being the daughter of Wonderland's Queen of Hearts, Lizzie is the winner in Hextreme Croquet. Lizzie comes dressed in her croquet outfit, which she also wears in a different webisode where she encourages Apple and Raven to settle their differences with a croquet match. The doll also comes with her croquet mallet, which resembles the flamingo from the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland story, but is gold, with a black beak. Unlike any other EAH dolls (that I'm aware of), Lizzie has unusual eyes in that there is a white heart highlight in each pupil. Fellow Wonderlandian Kitty Cheshire does have eyes that look like cat eyes, but that is because of her cat lineage.

Lizzie comes with earrings, but they're not very impressive. A little paint would probably perk them up. She also has a large gold ruff around her neck, and ruffs around her wrists, with her hands painted black to resemble black gloves.

Her shoes are the usual mile-high heels, but they do resemble tennis shoes. These could also use some paint to bring out some of the details. The heel appears to be a heart, if it was really squashed.

I never planned on getting a Lizzie Hearts doll, because for me, she never measured up to her webisode character. On screen, the heart around Lizzie's left eye is a scarlet red, which contrasts beautifully with pale skin and what look like bright green eyes.

On the doll, both the heart and her eyes are more subdued colors, and she just doesn't look as pretty. I'd be tempted to try to paint that heart a darker red, except I'm not sure I could manage to successfully paint around (or repaint over) her eyebrow and eyelashes. Still, I'm not sorry to inexpensively add her to my collection.

I realize that I haven't mentioned her hair. She has a large piece of red hair coming from the middle front of her head, which is twisted around her face, and joined into a rubber band in back with the rest of her hair. I plan on removing the croquet visor and redoing her hair a little, now that I've reviewed her.

This is a good place to review Lizzie's pet hedgehog, Shuffle. Shuffle is for sale individually, along with a few other EAH pets, like Apple's pet fox, Gala, and Maddie's mouse, Earl Gray. The packaging for the Tri-Castle-On set shows a hedgehog being used as a croquet ball, as in the Alice book, although the hedgehog just looks like it's taking a fun slide on its back.

Rest assured that real hedgehogs are not used in the Ever After High webisodes, nor are real flamingos used. Lizzie's mallet does look like the one her doll comes with, but regular hard croquet balls are used for all the matches.

For Dragon Games, Mattel came out with a small line of baby dragons that matched up with several of the girls. Unlike those dragons, the various pets that were produced next are bobbleheads, including Shuffle. They're still cute, if not exactly all true to size (Earl Gray is as big as the other pets.)

Aren't I sweet?

I managed to pose Lizzie holding Shuffle in her arms.

A girl and her hedgehog

The Tri-Castle-On dolls are a weird mix. The outfits are not very elaborate, since they're for participating in sport. Lizzie's dress does have two prints, and faux princess style seams. Her plastic accessories all have a nice amount of detail, even if they could use some paint to bring out some of those details. Lastly, the three dolls all came with stands! I believe the three-doll set originally cost $50, and though the dolls may have been worth it from the point of view of how much they cost to produce, their outfits aren't exciting. I found it hard to get good lighting on the big box that the set came in, but would you have paid $50 for this? Not meaning any sarcasm here.

As a comparison, Disney Descendants currently has a four pack of dolls out that retails for $60, and is on sale right now for $50. They don't look anywhere as detailed as our EAH trio. I'd love to see sales figures on the four-pack, and a previously released DD four-pack. I personally prefer EAH. :) Do you have any thoughts on Lizzie, multiple packs of dolls, or Disney Descendants versus EAH?