New Items

I'm interrupting my collection photos to show a few new things that I've picked up recently. Two of them are Mattel clothing packs, one from Amazon, and one from a Meijer store. The Amazon pack consists of a checked dress, a striped top, flowered shorts, a beaded hairband and a white bag. While I like the clothes, the waistband of the shorts is a little loose, and also tends to flip over. The legs of the shorts also hang a little bit strangely. But overall, the set is cute. One of my models for this outfit is a doll with the Model Muse body, which I picked up recently. I think she's getting a rebody, but I thought she would look cute here. Her left arm pose should look good, but her hand doesn't come close to touching her body, which doesn't make for a good pose, in my mind.

The next outfit I happened to see in store, and since I'm a Hello Kitty fan, I decided to pick it up, even though I'm not thrilled by all the accessories. The "watch" seems pointless. And I hate the way the glasses look.

However, if you like Hello Kitty, the top alone is adorable. The shorts are usable with other tops, and the hairband fits nicely. The purse with the stylized Hello Kitty, I could take or leave, and a fanny pack? Eh. The necklace also doesn't do much for me, but I've never been a fan of the big, statement necklaces Mattel has been releasing for several years.

I'm happy with these new clothing additions for my Barbie size dolls. Next time, I'll be sharing a new way I've come up with to store some of it. Do your dolls have a whole closet full of clothes, or just a few?

In the meantime, I know Xanadu has been looking for a new photoeditor, so I'd like to recommend one of the ones that I use, which is Paint.Net. It's free, and fairly easy to use for cropping and resizing photos, taking out red eye, and doing some other adjustments and effects.

Barbie Sweet Orchard Farm Fashion Pack

I was in Walmart yesterday and checked out the Barbie aisle, like you do. I found a fashion pack I'd been interested in and decided I didn't want it, when I glanced further down the aisle and saw a large pack in the Sweet Orchard Farm section. Mattel has had some farm dolls and play sets for a while, but they currently produce a whole line of dolls, playsets and vehicles called Sweet Orchard Farm. I couldn't find this pack online on either Amazon or Walmart.com after I got home, but there the pack was in the store, brightly colored and appealing. When I noticed that the two dresses both appeared to also be printed on the back, I leaped over and grabbed a box. They *were* printed on the back, and there was also a t-shirt, a skirt, shorts, a vest, a hat, a purse, and a pair of short boots. The whole set looked decent, for $9.97, so into the cart it went. I'm going to share all the pictures from my photo shoot, and then talk about the pros and cons, at the end.

Pros:
-The only piece that isn't finished in some way is the flowered skirt, and only the hem is unfinished. Since the skirt is made of knit fabric, it shouldn't unravel.
-The pieces are very wearable, for everyday. Although that rose dress *is* a little short. Even the vest, though, looks better on than I thought it would.
-Most of the items were not held on by tags in the package! Maybe Mattel has heard all the complaints about tags tearing holes in clothing? Most of the clothes were merely slipped over cardboard tabs in the box, but they all looked fine in package. The vest was held in by tags, but the fabric is woven, and a little thick, so there was not as much chance of it developing a hole. The hat and purse were also held down by tags, but the tags on the purse went through the "loops" holding the strap to the purse. Once you pulled the tags free, you could slide the tags out because the tags had small ends on the back side of the cardboard.
-The dresses are printed on both sides!! The ribbon belt does not go all the way around the back of the checked dress, but that's not as big of an issue, and happens on real clothes sometimes.

Cons:
- Except for the shorts, all the clothing pieces have no back openings. You have to sliiiiide the dresses and t-shirt on, and those clothes are tight! There is not a lot of give, even though the pieces are knit. I wonder how they fit on a non-MtM Barbie? The Sweet Orchard Farm dolls all have straight arms and legs.
- The hem isn't finished on the flowered skirt. I think the skirt looks not quite right, because of that. It looks unfinished, because of course it is.

If you find this pack at your local Walmart, or another store that happens to carry it, I'd definitely pick it up. The shirt, shorts and vest will all work with other things, and the boots and purse are cute. I definitely want to perk them up with some paint details. The dresses would be nice with jackets and pumps, to make different looks. Even the hat can be worn with other styles. I would have liked to see back openings, but then again, maybe the backs wouldn't match the fronts of the dresses then. The rose dress does not have a front or a back; it's two identical pieces sewn together. Plus, the pack wouldn't have been $9.97 if more of the pieces had closures. I do wonder what it would cost though; I wonder if I would think the price was worth it.

While I was pulling the hay bale from the back of my storage shelf, I saw the set of three rustic metal stars that I picked up at a craft store, and I used one in my photo shoot. I thought it looked nice hanging on the "barn" wall. Here's my secret: those three stars shed rusty pieces like crazy. Here's residual bits in the plastic bag that I store the stars in.

And the pack that I didn't buy? It's this one:

The flowered print on the right side of the dress looked very dull in the store. The elastic around the neck of the denim shirt was already folded over a bit, and I was afraid that the neckline would fold worse on a doll body. Plus, I had forgotten that the black polkadot piece was shorts and not a skirt. The fact that the purse doesn't look well with either of the outfits is just a plus. Or, a minus.

Autumn is coming soon here, which means farm visits, for pumpkins and apple cider and corn mazes and hay rides! Do you like visiting farms? Do you live on a farm? (I think I know at least one reader does.)

Made to Move Curvy Barbie

In my previous post, I wrote that I had finally managed to grab one of these dolls at retail. When I first looked at her on Amazon several months ago, she was priced at about $45 by scalpers. About a month ago she went down to about $33. Last week I decided to glance at her listing again, and she was finally back at her original retail price! I had to wait for the doll to physically come back into stock so that she could be shipped. Amazon's last quote to me was the 14th to ship, but much to my surprise, I got a notice on the 9th that she had been sent out, and I got her on the 11th. Amazon seems to have been the only place to buy this doll, which I imagine is partially why the scalpers were trying to make a killing with her.

I bought one of the original Curvy dolls in February 2016 (wow, that's longer ago than I thought!) I've been waiting ever since then for a light skinned Made to Move Curvy body to be produced. I do have the the Made to Move Dancer Curvy doll, although purchased pretty late in the game, when I found her at Walmart around late August on clearance. But that first Curvy doll I bought has been waiting for a body since early 2016. Fortunately, I'm not particularly fond of the face that the Basic Made to Move Curvy Barbie comes with, so I only had to buy one. Here are the the two curvy girls standing side by side. More pictures below the fold.

Madame Alexander Travel Friends Dolls Germany and Ireland

Yes, everyone and their aunt have been reviewing these dolls lately, or so it seems. However, I haven't seen a review yet of Germany! And Germany surprised me by having quite a bit to talk about that was different from the reviews that I've seen. Yes, I went with my own heritage and picked the Germany and Ireland dolls, although Ireland's red hair was a bonus. Let's get a little info about these dolls first. They are 7" tall, and made of vinyl. They are part of Madame Alexander's Play line. A visit to MA's website showed me that they are currently dividing their dolls up into three categories: Baby, Play, and Collector. They have quite a variety of baby dolls. Play dolls are mostly represented by their 18" lines. And the Collector line includes their Wendy and Cissette dolls, among others.

This is going to be a very picture heavy review. Actually, since I haven't seen MA's Germany Travel Friend doll reviewed, this post is the first one I'm going to treat like a "real" review and not just an overview. Before the break, I'll show you pictures of the dolls in their boxes. Let me give my standard disclaimer here: the in-the-box pics are poorly lit because I often don't get the mail from the group mail box down the street until later in the day. Thus, the natural lighting is poor, and I'm eager to break the girls free, therefore poorly lit pics.

J-Dolls in Fashion Fever

After so long lamenting that the good old days of Fashion Avenue and Fashion Fever are long gone, imagine my surprise! I bought two Fashion Fever outfits off of ebay, only to find that just one clothing piece actually fit my Fashion Fever Teresa! I have to wonder now if that was often the case. But even though the tops were way too small on Teresa, they did at least fit my J-Dolls, so it wasn't a total loss. And the purses are cute. The outfits also came with sunglasses, but they are not being modeled today.

Here we see Lindsay modeling her new top. It's made to look like a blouse with a v-neck, long-sleeved shirt over it.

I love the purse that goes with it. No, it doesn't open, but the way the handles look vaguely like vines of plants is cool.

Next we have Melanie showing off her new top. It's meant to look like a gold tube top with a peach sleeveless overblouse, or at least I think that's the intended style.

Her purse doesn't open either, but the little zipper pull is a nice touch, even if it's not connected to a zipper. It's nicer than it appeared in the box, anyway.

Here Melanie models the short lacy jacket that goes over her top. I think the two shades of peach look nice together.

And lastly, here are our two models sitting on the bench that seems to be a favorite place for the girls to soak up a little sun on these fall days.

The skirt is an attempt at making a J-Doll skirt that didn't quite work out, and the shorts are from Mattel's original Stacie. They're a little short, but I don't have a lot of pants or skirts for the J-Dolls to wear at the moment.

I'm sure at some point Fashion Fever Teresa, or at least the denim pants that came with the peach tops, will make an appearance. I've ordered a couple of more Fashion Fever pieces, so we'll see if any of that actually works with the belly button body.