Asian Lantern Festival at Cleveland Zoo, with Asian Babysitting Skipper

My daughter The Dancer usually works on Sundays, but since she had off, I suggested that we go to the Asian Lantern Festival currently on at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, as we both wanted to check it out. A mutual friend of Mr. BTEG and the Dancer also joined us.

There were so many incredibly beautiful scenes set up, and we had a great time. Fortunately for us the weather was bearable, because we walked around the zoo twice, once during daylight, and once after the sun had set. For anybody familiar with the Cleveland Zoo, we didn't walk around the whole zoo, as a good bit of it was shut down, including the Australian Adventure section. I would have loved sharing pictures with my Aussie readers. :) Of course, we didn't have much time for extensive picture taking. We were at the zoo over three hours as it was, although we did see a show between our two walks, and also took a breather a couple of times.

I didn't take a lot of pictures with my doll, now named Mingmei. There weren't a lot of places to get her into the picture in an interactive way, since the lanterns were usually well behind fences. Also, as I said, I was with two other people, so I didn't want to take forever setting up shots. The Dancer did hold Mingmei for me while I took pictures. Here are the shots that I took. There will be more shots from the event, without Mingmei, below the fold, if you are interested. And although this event was called the Asian Lantern Festival, everything there was focused on Chinese culture and history.

In front of a parasol, which was one of several. I got a good shot of some other ones from the set-up at night, below the fold. I want to make a blog header out of this, but Google is not letting me at the moment.

A goldfish and bubbles. According to a sign, goldfish are symbols of wealth and prosperity in China.

Narcissus flowers.

A blue ball. There was also a pink one, and they both looked like giant Christmas ornament balls.

By the beautiful archway that stood at the entrance/exit of the zoo.

Browsing at Target, Shopping at Pat Catan's. LORI Adds On, EAH Takes a Dive. Outdoor Furniture!

I've had a cold for over a week. Ugh. While I've not been feeling too awful, I really didn't feel like sitting in front of a computer and composing a blog post, either. But I'm slowly returning to feeling like a human being again, so today I'm sharing some pictures of things I looked at when I was at Target picking up a few things, and also some stuff I actually bought at one of our local craft stores a bit over a week ago.

If you want to get back at a sibling or an in-law for something, nothing says "Ha ha!" quite like giving your niece or grandchild or whomever, the Barbie Sparkle Style Salon, with a comb full of glitter, and a real working sink. Wet glitter everywhere!

Target seems to think there's a new Trolls movie coming out that's going to be a thing. Shrugs.

Jaye reviewed the set below. Apparently most of the pieces work with 12" dolls, so that's positive. I've heard there's another set of little accessories like this one, which I'm hoping my Target will get in before Christmas. In a positive note, my Target has wrapped the LORI section so it still has an endcap, and also is partially stocked into the Our Generation section. Hopefully they're going to rectify the mistakes of Christmas Past and have enough merchandise available on the shelves this Christmas.

Plus, your 6" dolls will be able to have horse riding adventures with new horses, a barn, and a horse trailer. This also gives the already-released LORI car something new to tow. I was ready to head home at this point, so I only took a picture of the horses that were there. I don't know if there will be any other horses released. These horses might at least be able to become ponies for taller dolls.

Also, Mattel has re-released some of the signature Ever After High dolls. I can see the appeal to Mattel of having some dolls of popular characters available in stores, that aren't currently represented in the latest theme lines, like Ballet or Epic Winter. But I'm giving the execution a big fat F. I've talked about this before, but the new Signatures just aren't up to the quality of the old dolls, and yet they're asking just about as much money. When I saw Cerise Hood at Target, I just had to gripe about this.

So here we have Cerise Hood. Less packaging than the original dolls. You don't get the thick diary entry from the character anymore, just that flat card in the right hand corner.

What disturbed me so much was the purse. The picture below shows the purse you get with the current Signature doll.

This purse below? This was the purse you got with the original Signature Cerise Hood. With the lovely checked detail on the top of the basket that made EAH the stand-out line that it was. Seriously, Mattel? It's not like the original dolls and accessories are NOT STILL AVAILABLE second hand and at places like Amazon. It's so obvious the shortcuts you took this time around. Cerise also doesn't come with the ring and chunky bracelet she was wearing before, in this incarnation either. I don't have pictures of my own of those, though.

Honestly, this makes me worry about Mattel's future. Even if I give them the benefit of the doubt and say the quality is going down because of a poor economy, it still doesn't bode well that Mattel had to cut these corners to keep them at a price where people will buy them. Yeah, Mattel lost the Disney Princesses, which was a big indicator of issues in itself, but Hasbro hasn't proven yet that there's huge profitability in that market either. There are two things I know for certain though. 1. Adult collectors alone can't keep a playline doll line afloat. 2. Mr. BTEG informed me that a short while back, LEGO almost went under. Yeah, that LEGO. Which, by the way, has a huge market of adult collectors.

On a happier note, I stopped by a local hobby store called Pat Catan's. It's a local chain; I don't know quite how many stores it has or where. I found a few really great deals!

Back in May, I posted about some mini garden type decorations I saw at a Michael's craft store. Michael's had lanterns on a short shepherd's hook type stand. For $1.19 each, I found just lanterns at Pat Catan's. I'm just not sure why they're described as "sleeping cats" in French and Spanish. I didn't realize that was a term for a lantern.

I also had to snatch up these wooden pieces of furniture which are much larger than the general 1/12 scale that you find at craft stores. The chairs were $3.95 each, the table $1.27. I haven't measured them, but Cerise's picnic basket is still in the picture to give you an idea of what a nice size these items are.

Don't worry, Mr. BTEG. These things will be off of the robotics table by the time that you get home.

You may have noticed that the items above are all Darice brand. Darice is an inexpensive local line of craft items which Pat Catan carries. Apparently, Michael's recently bought out Pat Catan's just to get the rights to sell Darice items; at least, that's the rumor that I heard. Now I wonder if Pat Catan's will disappear as a chain, and if Michael's will jack up the price on Darice stuff. Michael's has a reputation for being more expensive than other local craft stores. I'm kind of hoping that Michael's wanted to acquire Darice items as a way to also appeal to the crafter with the smaller budget, and we'll still get Darice's wide line of items, plus the same good prices.

So do you have any thoughts about new items on the shelves? Crafting? Mattel, for better or worse? I'd especially love to hear thoughts on Mattel, or even any good dirt you have. :)