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!

Shopping

I was going to write about some of the things I've seen in the doll aisles while out shopping, and also about some of the furniture and accessory purchases that I've made recently. I really have been concentrating more on that kind of thing, and not just buying Ever After High dolls! :) However, I realized I have a lot of pictures of things I've bought recently, so I decided for this post, to focus on things I've seen while I've been out, and a head swap I did between two Ashlynn Ella dolls. My post about things I've bought will be my last post for April.

In case you haven't seen her for yourself yet, here's a picture of the new Wonder Woman doll by Mattel. Her face sculpt is great. Honestly, I think Mattel does the best overall job of translating the appearance of real people into doll sculpts. But wow, is she expensive!

At Michael's last week, I saw some items that might be nice if you are planning a garden for your dolls this spring. I especially like the lantern, although I'd want to get it off of the shepherd's crook it's on. And also spray paint it black. Two of those evergreens in pots would look good on either side of the front entrance of a dolly home.

I've been to TRU since last time I talked about the Bratz dolls and verified that everything is on sale except for the new metallic wave. However, no Bratz stuff seemed to be on sale at WalMart or Target. The Bratz section is smaller than it has been before at Target, since the new DC Super Hero Girl line has been added to that aisle. However, the large Customize Your Own Bratz display is still up, although most of it seems to be sold out.

Last time I posted, I talked about a Mirror Beach Ashlynn Ella I'd bought who had a bad case of glue head. Since then, I decided to grab one of budget Ashlynn dolls and try a little head swap. For only $8, I thought just the tiara, necklace and shoes were practically worth that. Budget Ashlynn's hair is not perfect, but it's better than her Mirror Beach counterpart.

Here's budget Ashlynn before she lost her head. :) As you can see, she has a molded-on bathing suit, and straight arms. I forgot to get a picture of her wearing her tiara, but you can see her necklace and shoes. I think I'm going to try to perk up all of those pieces with a little bit of paint.

Mirror Beach Ashlynn's neck post had quite a bit of glue on it, hardly surprising. It was also more "complex" than the budget doll. Budget A's head was on a straight post with no prongs. Please excuse the bad lighting in my bathroom. :)

As you can see, the two Ashlynn heads are pretty much identical. Neither doll is from one of the more deluxe lines. Mirror Beach is on the left; budget on the right. Their heads are wet because I kept both of the dolls in hot water for a brief time, to loosen up the vinyl and make the heads easier to pull off.

I now have an articulated Ashlynn with better hair, so I'm thinking about what I will do with my "spare" head. I'm tempted to try a re-root just for the fun of it, to see if I can actually do it. I'm also wondering if I might find some EAH dolls in less than perfect condition at garage sales this summer, and do some Frankendolly stuff with those. I'm looking forward to seeing what I might get.

Where I Keep My Doll Accessories

D7ana encouraged me to share my pictures of where I keep my little doll treasures, after she showed us where she keeps some of her doll bits and bobs. I ended up really enjoying taking these pictures, as I realized how blessed I am with the extras I have for my doll residents. I'll start with the biggest piece of storage furniture, a dresser. When we bought a second-hand bedroom set for Daughter Number 2, the Dancer, we had an "extra" dresser, that now stores my clothes. My personal dresser with the mirror became a place to display and store dolls; sometime I will show the top of the dresser.

Top drawer:

Extra clothes for my 16" doll world, plus accessories

A box with compartments containing important stuff like shoes, purses and jewelry

Middle drawer:

Extra Barbie clothes, extra Cissy clothes, and a few things for my 18" Miss America dolls

 Bottom drawer:

I have more space in this drawer than I remembered. Barbie hats, Stacie size doll stands, We Three Friends

I also have some similar Sterilite boxes stored under the overhang of our platform bed. But that's not very picture-worthy.

One of my oldest places to store things is a small, basic plastic three-drawer unit. It is useful for storage; what is an issue is finding the flat space to keep it.

Barbie size shoes

Baby items and toys for babies in the Barbie universe

Kelly dolls, and Barbie's baby sister Krissy. I didn't want her in the higher drawer all alone. :-(

Last in the Barbie storage category is a large compartmentalized case. Again, this is a great place to store things, but I like to leave it flat, and it's too tall to slide under most furniture, and too big to use up that oh so elusive flat space. It also sticks out too much to put it under the platform bed. I struggle with where to keep it.

If Barbie gets hungry or needs a glass of wine, she knows where to go

For the 16" dolls, I also have a wardrobe case. It was made for the vinyl Josephine doll series produced by the Franklin Mint. I got it straight from the Franklin Mint, and I'm glad I did, as FM wardrobe cases run a lot on the secondary market. It's holding one Josephine doll that's not on display, plus a dress, a couple of hats, and some FM accessories.

Since I like having my dolls displayed in dioramas with furniture and props, I've tried to stock up on doll sized armoires for their display bedrooms, and I want them to actually store clothes and things like hats and shoes. I have almost all the armoires/wardrobes that I need; now I need to invest in hangers. Here's one example: a plastic wardrobe from the 8" Madeline doll line, produced by Eden and based on the children's books by Ludwig Bemelmans. Extra Madeline outfits came with hangers, but I don't have any extra clothes at the moment for these girls! However, I do have their hats and some gloves, socks, and shoes.

For my American Girl Samantha, I have a human-sized (on the small side) cedar chest for her clothes, dishes, extra shoes and stockings, etc. The chest itself is not very elaborately built, and probably cost less originally than Josephine's wardrobe case. But it does give Samantha's things a lovely cedar scent.

If you have the dolly money and a little bit of time, sometimes it's good just to scroll through interesting doll categories on eBay and see what you come up with. It's how I found that dresser for my Mary Englebreit dolls (which does store things like Ann's glasses), and also how I found this last piece, which stores jewelry for my 21" Cissy dolls, and other little items (Coca-Cola Cissy comes with a Coke bottle, for example.) This furniture item stands about 21" tall and has a real glass mirror, and two drawers lined with velvet. It was bought from a seller right here in the greater Cleveland area and the seller allowed Mr. BTEG to pick it up. Not only did it save me a lot on shipping, but it was a relief to the seller not to have to worry about packing it up safely enough for the mail. I vaguely remember it being made for some sort of doll club gathering, and it was made by someone who lived at the time only about 10 miles from my current home, going by the writing on the bottom of the chest. But there's so little information that I haven't been able to track down any other furniture this person might have made. Too bad, as this is beautifully made, like a human sized piece of furniture quality.

The main thing you can see in the mirror is my bookcase, with my dolly Christmas tree on top

My family will tell you that I adore buying all sorts of things to use for storage, from rolling carts to little plastic boxes like what you see above. Someday I'd love to go on a shopping spree in a Container Store. I'm always looking to store the maximum amount in a minimum space. Unless I bought another rolling cart (that I don't have floor space for) and filled it with trays for things like my Barbie shoes, Kelly dolls, etc., I think my storage system is about as good as could be, except I ought to get some of my doll clothes out of the plastic storage. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little tour. Do you have any clever storage tricks?

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

After a Christmas tree, very few things say "Christmas," like a fireplace. Madame Alexander agrees, as a fireplace was front and center in the Santa Baby Set for the 16" Alex doll. This Christmas, I made it a priority to find a light bulb for the Sindy fireplace I bought from ebay several years ago. I didn't get stockings or lights on the fireplace, but there is a nice array of Christmas cards on the mantel. Please excuse the dimness of the picture; I wanted to show off the cozy glow of the fireplace to its best effect.

I want to paint the fireplace white; the years have left this piece rather yellowed.

Did any of you get any doll goodies for Christmas? I got a J-Doll. I think next I am going to post, however, on how I picked up the light bulb. It's a fun little story, and it will feature some photos of the little shopping area in Olmsted Falls that I promised to post about a long time ago.

Thanksgiving Props

I have neither the space to set up an elaborate Thanksgiving scene at a dining room table, nor the time to set all that up. But before we leave to drive to my in-laws' for the Thanksgiving meal, here are some props I've acquired over the years for a Thanksgiving meal.

We start with veggies being cut up to put into the salad.

The traditional mashed potatoes are being forgone this year. Instead waffle fries are being created. Why not try something different?

My husband insists that can-shaped cranberry sauce is the only true and righteous kind to have for Thanksgiving. Regardless, this is what my doll people have.

Our hostess helps herself to a glass of wine to fortify herself after her hard work. And to possibly help her survive dealing with family. :)

 

I have two kinds of Playscale turkey. This one was made by Mattel, and comes pre-sliced for the carving convenience of our host. It also came with a turkey baster. That was used earlier.

 

I won this much more realistic looking one on eBay. It comes with cooked onions and carrots. I believe at one time I also had the slice that has been taken off of this turkey, but it has disappeared.

White meat or dark?

Nothing finishes off a Thanksgiving meal like a slice of pie.

And lastly, my sister-in-law likes to end the day by having the children of the family each make a gingerbread house. This one looks good enough to eat.

I wish all of you a happy and blessed Thanksgiving!