Cute Miniature Toys from Five Below

There are lots of cute characters that I love besides dolls, and I couldn't resist buying these cute little figures from Five Below at various times. It's nice that they can be posed with my dolls too. I chose Teen Skipper and Stacie sized dolls to model. They're about the right age/size to have these cuties on their bed or in the toy box. The fuzzy ones are cute as snot, but they have a tendency to look dusty. I'll have to keep on top of keeping them clean.

I've liked Strawberry Shortcake since since she first came out. The original Strawberry Shortcake is popular again, with her image on clothes, bags, hair clips, stickers, and of course toys. I think I still like her original iteration the best. This group of four appear to be Strawberry, Lemon Meringue, Blueberry Muffin, and I think Raspberry Tart.

Then there is a group of Winnie the Pooh characters. They were sold in sets of three, so I ended up with two Winnie the Pooh figurines.

Lastly I got these two stuffed Sanrio animals quite a while ago. One of course is Hello Kitty and the other is Cinnamoroll. These are more like actual stuffed animals, but they're rather big. Kind of like the ones that you win at a fair.

Even though these figurines aren't articulated, a child could still play with them like dolls. I'm going to either display these by themselves, or with my dolls as props. 

Real Littles Hello Kitty Backpacks

I love the brands like Real Littles and Zuru 5 Surprise that are producing mini items. When I saw these two Hello Kitty backpacks at Aldi, I had to buy them. They won't work with Barbie, but I decided that they were just about right for Ann Estelle and her friends. Ann and Dotty are today's models. One of the backpacks features just Hello Kitty, and the other has her and several of her Sanrio friends. 

Here's what came inside each of the backpacks: a notebook with blank pages, a pencil case, a pencil, a ruler, two sheets of stickers, a carabiner (not made for climbing) and an eraser in Hello Kitty's iconic head shape with bow.

Everything in these sets is just so nice and well thought-out. All the zippers and sliders open. The pink backpack doesn't have the zippered pouch in front, but the top part of Hello Kitty's head in the front is open, to allow for more carrying space.

Here Ann thinks about what she wants to write in her new notebook.

And here she is walking off to school with her new backpack. She's so adorable in these pictures, if I do say so myself. :)

And now I think they need at least two school desks! It's not a normal time here to be posting school items, since schools here are almost out for the summer. I just bought these, though, so of course I wanted to share. What minis are your favorites of all the new stuff being made? I think I like all the mini Fisher-Price toys. They're on my wishlist.

Cleveland Asian Festival 2022

This past weekend was the annual Asian Festival, that was held in the part of Cleveland known as Asian Town. Mr. BTEG, the Dancer and I all visited it on Sunday. Mr. BTEG has been to Asian Town often before, as he used to go lunch there with some of his co-workers of Asian descent. The Dancer and I had never been before.

Of course, I always look for doll things. I was afraid that I wouldn't see anything this time, until we checked out the stores in the small Asian mall, that also had the restaurant where we ate lunch.

There was a store that carried Chinese style dresses for American Girl and Wellie Wishers dolls. They also had a variety of little porcelain Chinese style tea sets. I didn't buy anything, but of course, the shop will be there while the Festival booths won't.

I did buy a pair of Hello Kitty earrings.

There were some performances from local organizations. We only managed to catch several acts from Hawaiian dancers

and some dancers from a school that teaches "Bollywood style."

I'm glad that I caught the girl dressed in Chinese style clothes in the picture. I saw her around the festival all day. Very few other people were dressed in traditional Asian styles, but I did see one woman wearing tabi (Japanese split-toe socks) with geta (wooden shoes with two wooden supports underneath.) I had to wonder how uncomfortable she was, because it had poured rain the night before, and had rained a little that morning, so there were puddles, and also some muddy spots. Sure, the geta kept her feet off the ground, but I don't know if the tabi got wet.

There was an enormous outdoor food court set up for the festival, but the lines for food stretched all the way down the food court, so we went into the mall to have lunch in the permanent restaurant there. We had to wait for a table there, but it was probably actually less time than the food court, with the advantage of sitting down! Mr. BTEG has eaten there before, although he prefers a little hole-in-the-wall dim sum restaurant in the area, but that was too far for tired people to walk.

Unlike a lot of American restaurants that have coffee carafes and coffee cups on the table, this restaurant of course had a tea pot full of hot tea, and traditional tea cups. Mr. BTEG and the Dancer drank some.

I had sweet and sour chicken, which I was just able to pick up using chopsticks. Meanwhile, the Dancer easily ate rice with her chopsticks. I was jealous, but she's been to Chinese restaurants a lot more often than I have. (Admission: I don't like Asian food. I like sweet and sour chicken without the sweet and sour sauce, though; it's just chicken fried in tempura batter.)

Spring ushers in a long season of fairs and festivals here, which doesn't end until after Halloween. Maybe we'll get out to more this year, now that they're back. And of course, I'll always be on the hunt for doll things! Do you like to go to festivals like these?

New Mattel Sanrio Clothes, J-Dolls, Re-Ment Little Twin Stars

A lot of people have been buying and reviewing the new Hello Kitty, Little Twin Stars, and Chococat outfits made by Mattel. They looked great, so I had my daughter pick up as many as she could find on her last run to Walmart. Unfortunately, one of the things not there was the Little Twin Stars two-piece top and skirt set, but I did get the Little Twin Stars blouse, which was good enough for this photo shoot! Back in May of 2017, I reviewed a Re-Ment Little Twin Stars set which featured a pink shoe, a blue shoe, a LTS purse, and a tiny LTS stool which really doesn't fit in anywhere. The shoes ended up fitting my J-Dolls beautifully, so I bought a second set, so I'd have two pink shoes and two blue shoes. I decided the LTS shirt/purse combo was too perfect to pass up, so here is Melanie wearing the Mattel top, with the Re-Ment purse and shoes. Adelheid is also modeling, wearing the Chococat dress and cat ears, carrying the purse, and wearing the blue Re-Ment shoes.

I really love this new line of clothes Mattel has put out. It's certainly a step up for them quality-wise, and I hope we see more of it in 2018. Now that I have the Chococat dress in hand, I suspect the reason the dress is not printed on the back, is because the back is a completely different material to the rest of the dress. The printed part of the dress is a very stiff cotton, while the back is a stretch material. You notice that the ruffle, which is the same fabric as the front, does go all the way around and has the same pattern. I'm guessing it was a fitting design choice here to make the dress out of different materials? Anyway, there might actually be a reason there isn't printed material on the back of the dress, while on other things like the red Hello Kitty shirt, there is.

Somehow I missed that the Chococat dress and purse set also comes with black cat ears! How cute! And they fit the J-Doll head, although I have the two ends tucked into Adelheid's hair, which might help.

I also love the pique material that the Little Twin Stars shirt is made out of. And the blanket stitch is a pretty alternative to the ubiquitous serged edge, but you still don't need to fold and sew down the edges. The Little Twin Stars print on this shirt is a far darker shade than the Re-Ment items, but I think the purse still really looks cute with the top. Melanie finishes off the outfit with a tulle skirt from the Shibajuku Girls line. It's not a perfect fit with the top, but the pink looks cute with the other pinks.

The purse also came with the Little Twin Stars charm, which is removable, not exactly surprising considering how detailed Re-Ment can make things.

For you J-Doll owners who might want to hunt up this Re-Ment set on eBay or elsewhere, here's a picture of the shoes, purse and stool. Seriously, what was the point of the stool? It's too small for anything, except maybe a footstool for a Kelly doll. Again, please remember you have to buy two sets to get a pink pair and a blue pair of shoes. You'll also get two purses that way, at least.

The Little Twin Stars items were fun to pair up here, but the real story is these great new clothes by Mattel. Is Mattel signaling that the company wants to create better quality clothes again as a whole? I really hope so. Also, there are a lot of blogging Barbie doll owners out there snatching up these clothes, and I hope a lot of parents are buying them too. Hopefully, sales will convince Mattel that better quality will still sell.