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. 

Lil McDonald's

 In July, McDonald's had a series of blind box toys for their Happy Meals called Lil McDonald's. Doll collectors and people who collect McDonald's toys went crazy for them. (I did not know there were so many people who collected McDonald's toys.) Fortunately, many restaurants would sell you the toys without having to buy a Happy Meal, although I don't think they suspected how popular these were going to be. Without including duplicates, here is my final haul, posed with vintage Kelly and Stacie sized dolls for size perspective.

I knew most of these would only be suitable for the dolls to use as toys, although the food trays are not a bad size. The red and gold Happy Meals boxes are too big for these dolls. Sadly enough, the pumpkin bucket is too. McDonald's has been offering human size pumpkin, and other Halloween character, buckets for decades, and they are very popular. The bucket did look okay with a Shadow High doll. I think her big head helps offset the bucket proportions.

The register and the drinks dispenser are a fine size for the kid dolls to play "store." The white sign is apparently a place to order your own food, which is definitely too small. It should be as tall as an adult doll. It could work as an ad sign, maybe. The drink dispenser has a button on the top, which when pressed down activates a blue piece of plastic that looks like "water" coming down into the cup.

The miniature McDonald's booth would be a fun place for children to pretend their dolls are eating in the booth. I have some mini Polly Pocket dolls that came with Polly Pocket Janet in the 80s or 90s, that might fit in the booth, if I can find them.

The trays are a little small for actual one sixth scale, but they look good enough with the smaller dolls. Kelly thinks her apples look yummy. Stacie finds the milk mustache on her bottle funny.

I don't really even like McDonald's very much, but I like minis! I remembered after taking this picture that I also got a mini fryer, but it's not that exciting. It might even be a bit small for pretend kitchen play. The only toy I want is the mini restaurant. Facebook is alive right now with people buying, selling and trading Lil McDonald's pieces, so I should grab one soon if I want it. Is there a restaurant or store in your area of the world that you would like to see make mini versions of its products?

Mini Brands Retro and Little Tykes Minis

I've been overthinking photography ideas for the post that I want to make, featuring Barbie Basics Number 4. Mr. BTEG surprised me yesterday with a couple of the mini item balls, so I'm blogging about these, and then I'll settle down to get some good pictures of Number 4.

First is the Little Tikes toys mini ball. I got the dump truck and the recycling truck, in their own boxes.

I could have sworn that I took a picture of Kelly standing next to Barbie, to show another viewpoint of Kelly's size next to the toys, but I couldn't find it when I uploaded the pictures. I was having a difficult time with these tiny pieces. When the little people go in their seats in the trucks, they don't fit in firmly. They still roll around, so when you have one person in the truck, he can still fall out while you're trying to put his friend in. I gave up and laid most of the people flat.

As you can see, these toys are way too small proportional to Kelly, who can still possibly put things in her mouth and swallow them. They're not made to be necessarily one sixth, so it's not an issue. I do have smaller dolls who will love new toys.

The two balls are supposed to stack together with the shelf pieces provided, to make a display center. I can't get the top shelf into the holes to hold the two balls together. :(

 

Next are the Mini Brands Retro line. By retro, it looks like it means mostly the 70s and 80s. You get five mini pieces. I got some Energizer batteries, a floppy disc, a one-time use camera, a can of motor oil, and a box of candy. It seems the box of candy is an Ultra Rare item, which is too bad, as I would have liked other items from the Ultra Rare group better if I was going to find one. (A floppy disc was an 80s version of a thumb drive, kind of.)

The box of Mike and Ike candy is too big. As I remember, the candies themselves aren't much bigger than jellybeans. That would be a lot of candy! I guess it would look okay on a store shelf or at a movie snack bar. The floppy disk is a bit too large, but not as bad. I actually used these, so I have vague memories of how big they were. This kind was smaller than the ones before it, which actually were kind of floppy and could be ruined if you folded them accidentally, but the one I have would still look okay on a desk in an 80s computer lab. Time for a LAN party! (Now get off my lawn.) Everything else looks close enough to one sixth scale, considering we do have big batteries like these, and the camera fits her face reasonable well, although I didn't get a picture of it. To be honest, I don't know how big a old-school can of oil would be, but it looks okay. It would work on a shelf in a garage.

I know these aren't available everywhere. Anyone else out there who likes to collect these mini brands balls?

I've figured out how I want to photograph Barbie Basics Number 4, but then it occurred to me that since she is petite, I should see how other dolls' clothes fit on her, which will take more time. She's next on my list; however I didn't want to wait too much longer to get a post up. Hope you all in Tornado and Dixie Alley, especially RagingMoon, and all my other readers are faring well.

Lots of Doll Sightings

Since there are several antique stores in Amish Country, I knew that I would see some dolls there on my trip. None of them came home with me, although one piece of furniture almost did. Would you have bought any of these three dressers? I was seriously considering the piece on the far right, but in the end I decided it was a little too banged up.

Amish Country has people who sell new doll clothes and make new doll furniture, but I haven't found anything that isn't for 18" dolls, and most of the furniture is for the little ones who play with 18" dolls. Clothes and accessories are a mix between handmade and factory made, "plain" style and modern everyday. I found the juxtaposition of plain black hats and starched bonnets, with sparkly shoes above, humorous.

There was a glass case filled with true antique dolls, but I didn't get a picture of it. There were some older dolls like Terri Lee, and a xylophone player. I presume at one time the musician used to have something looking more like mallets, on top of the springs she holds in her hands.

There were also a vintage Barbie, Alan and Skipper.

The little blond Ginny Sasson doll in this case caught my eye, but there is quite a variety of dolls inside.

And in the "Wait, how can these dolls be that old?" category are Gene Marshall, and a friend in the Alexandra Fairchild Ford 16" doll line by Madame Alexander.

I found this Knitting for Barbie canister, but since I wasn't planning on buying it, I didn't want to open and root around to see what was inside.

If you grew up playing with Fisher-Price toys, like I did, this section of vintage Fisher-Price might have enchanted you as it did me. Some of these toys pictured are older than me.

And although this large area of craft wood supplies didn't have doll crafting in mind, there were a *lot* of very nice pieces of wood that could be used to make doll items. I'm picturing only one part here

I did pick up a few things for my dolls. Two were for the 18" girls, sunglasses and a pair of faux Crocs.

Then there was this guitar, which I bought in a store that sells Christmas ornaments and decor year round. There were lots of other musical instruments, but I only felt seriously drawn to the guitar.

Last thing, big news! The Dancer is ready to move out and be on her own, so there will be lots going on here. Right now, the living room is crowded because the Dancer is working on repairing bunny chew marks in a couple of stools that she got from friends, along with a matching table. Mr. BTEG and I are of course talking about what we will do with the extra space. Stay tuned!

Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Twelve: Mini American Girl Samantha

Here we are at the last day of Christmas, and Samantha is showing off her Christmas sled. I wanted to show the Christmas tree lights to their best effect, but also the glowing embers in the Sindy fireplace. I bought the fireplace off eBay, and there's a bit of a story here telling how I got the light inside working again.

It is my dream to someday make a doll-size Victorian Christmas tree, with ornaments that look authentic to the period. That may very well end up being 18" Samantha size, as it would certainly be the easiest scale to work with, I think. I certainly enjoyed having all of you around for these last twelve days, so thanks for stopping by, and especially commenting!

In the Toy Aisle

I ran into some difficulties that left me without energy or interest in blogging, so although I have been reading what other people are writing, I haven't been up to posting anything of my own. I'm going to slide back into this with a quick overview of what is popping up in the toy aisles of my local Target.

First is a playset for the 11 1/2" Frozen dolls. Half of this is the castle, and half is Elsa's ice palace. Of course it comes with an Olaf. Is that dressing screen integral to the movie? It showed up in Elsa's miniature wardrobe playset, and now here. Frankly, I think these type of playsets are always overpriced. $89.99 is the sale price, and even that I feel is too much money for what you get, which is a couple of plastic facades and some furniture pieces.

There were lots of Monster High dolls, mostly the Freaky Fusion and candy nightmare ones. I'm not particularly interested in the dolls, but I did see they are branching out with a Monster High styling head and cloth Monster High dolls. Cloth dolls seem to be a trend at the moment. I think the Mooshka line was one of the first to start this.

 

In Ever After High, there was a large selection of dolls, from the originally basic dolls to the Hat-Tastic Party line. There is also a furniture set for you to use when your dolls throw a Hat-Tastic party, that includes a Madeline Hatter doll. The other set appeared to me to be Briar Beauty's Thronecoming book, but my one picture it happened to be in doesn't seem to match the pictures from Dollsville USA's review. Maybe I'll take another look the next time I go through Target.

The LEGO Friends line has come out with a outdoor adventure set, which seems to have a rescue theme. There is also a Friends Advent calendar, which I was happy to see. Mainline LEGO always comes out with an Advent calendar. I didn't check the LEGO aisle to see if Target carries that one.

Lastly, I thought there was someone whose blog I read, who likes the three good fairies from Sleeping Beauty. Apparently Flora, Fauna and Merriweather now teach at Sofia the First's Royal Prep school. There was a good selection of Sofia dolls in various types and sizes. $39.99 seems like a lot for Princess Sofia and 13 small friends. At least the dolls seem to have a variety of dress styles.

The Barbie section seemed an indication of how far the plastic princess has fallen in sales; it was fairly small but also pretty boring. I'm not sure which came first, the decreased sales or the decreased quality in the Barbie line. Mattel doesn't seem to be trying hard to bring her back this Christmas season, though. There was nothing new except the holiday Barbie and an expensive Barbie townhouse not very different from the generations of townhouses before it.

A Place to See Toy Fair Pics!

For years, I've been depending on pictures from the guys at ASM. While they're mostly interested in more traditionally boy toys like Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they provide lots of photos of other toy offerings as well. Right now they have the latest LEGO Friends and Princesses lineup, My Little Pony, Monster High and Hearts 4 Hearts. Check them out here.