Happy Pi Day!

 I agree with Barbie that math is hard, but I do love some pie!

Hinamatsuri

This post is coming a day late, but yesterday was Hinamatsuri, or Girl's Day, in Japan. An important part of the festival is a display of dolls and doll-sized accessories. The emperor and empress sit at the top of any Hinamatsuri doll set. I bought the set above from Re-ment. I had a hard time putting everything together, and tried to use poster stickies to help keep stuff in place. It wasn't until I looked at the pictures that I realized that the emperor and his wife were tipping slightly as a result. Oh well. I still think it turned out cute. I saw that Re-ment also makes a Hello Kitty themed Hinamatsuri set. I've seen Peanuts themed ones as well.

I sewed the dress that our little Japanese girl is wearing. The hardest part was sewing the sleeves. I think I would sew them first next time, before I sewed the sides of the dress.

And Then There Were Two

Yes, I picked up another Rainbow High doll. Well, technically this doll is part of the Shadow High line. Shadow High is Rainbow High's rival school, and the first dolls in this series varied in skin tones and clothing from mostly all white to mostly all black, with shades of gray in between. Shanelle Onyx is the doll who is mostly all black, except for a white streak in her hair, and she's the doll we're looking at today.

This is the way she came, fresh out of the box. I like her outfit for the most part. Her lace socks and strappy heels with black fur looked cool in the YouTube show, but they look a little odd in real life.

Fortunately, she comes with a change of clothes and shoes. I like her second outfit too. There is no slit or clasp on either of her pairs of shoes, so they have to be worked on and off. I don't like that her clothes mostly fit *very* tightly, meaning you have to really pull the sides together so the Velcro can meet. With the black belt that comes with Shanelle's dress, I feel like I'm not getting it closed all the way; I can't get all the Velcro covered by the other end of the belt. At least her hands can come off, similar to the way Monster High/Ever After High dolls' hands could. It makes it a lot easier to put on things like the jacket with ruffled sleeves in the second picture below.

I like her makeup. Her hair is silky soft, with only a little crunch on the end of some of her hair at the bottom of her ponytail.

Her body has some marks and scratches, but those don't bother me for some reason. Also, these dolls have an "unrealistic" knee hinge, which again, doesn't bother me, but I thought I'd show those of you who don't have one of these dolls. 

These dolls have their own names, with personalities and story lines you get to see in the show on YouTube, but the dolls seem mainly designed to display the clothes. As with Mila's dress, for example, Shanelle can't sit down in the black and silver houndstooth skirt. Of course, lots of kids just hold their dolls in the air and make them "talk." This also reminds me that the dolls do come with color-coordinated stands, and a comb. I talked with Dana about whether these clothes would fit curvy Barbies, and the answer is: no. I have a picture of a curvy Barbie/Shadow High doll under the fold.

I Have Gone to the Dark Side

My first new doll for 2023 is from ...Rainbow High. I've been looking at these dolls a lot; they are everywhere. It's only been the latest series, though, that have induced me to actually buy one. The fact that this doll was on sale for $15.00 absolutely did not hurt, either. Meet Mila Berrymore.

I'm not going to do a proper review with this doll. For one thing, there are pictures all over the Internet of these dolls. For another, in the outfit that she is wearing, she can't sit down, and can barely lift her arms. However, I wanted to see in her second outfit, the one she is wearing now, so much, that I took her first outfit off right out of the box, and put her in this one. Yes, with most of the Rainbow High doll series, the dolls come with a complete second outfit, including shoes. It looks like the newest Rainbow High line that will be released soon, will only have one outfit, but lots of accessories.

Her boots are gorgeous, but they are *work* to put on. There's no slit, zipper, nothing. You just have to slowly work the boots up her legs.

Her hair is mostly soft, except for the ends, which are crunchy. It has some lovely shades in it. And dang, her eyelashes are long!

Her head doesn't have a lot of range of movement. Also, it seems to be tilted back a little too far, and it doesn't go forward.

Here's her second outfit. RH are the same height as Barbie, but with their larger heads, and bigger proportioned, curvy bodies, Rainbow High dolls can use heavier fabrics, and include a lot more details.

To me, the dress that she is wearing, looks like something that would work in a Riverdance production. I don't like her name very much, so I want to change it to something Irish, but I haven't found anything that really seems right to me yet.

I do have my eye on some other dolls from the line, but at the moment the next dolls that I would like to get are from Shadow High. It's a rival high school to Rainbow High, and the dolls are mostly in blacks, whites and grays, including skin tone. It may sound weird, but they look cute to me. I will share any new ones that I buy, of course. 

Since this doll is new, I'm also adding her to my collection tally. I haven't done a My Collection post in almost a year!

Total dolls: 83

Happy Lunar New Year!

Year of the Rabbit is the Dancer's year!

 

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!

Amish Country Vacation

At the end of last month, Mr. BTEG and I were at two completely opposite types of destinations. He had to go to Las Vegas for a work convention, so I decided to take a little vacation while he was gone. I chose to go to Amish Country and do some shopping. This post is only going to have the few pictures that I took of the doll that I brought along, around my hotel. I did some serious shopping for the four days that I was there, and wore myself out, so I didn't take all of the poses with Teresa that I was considering. But I did take several pictures of dolls and toys that I saw in the antique stores there. Those pictures will be my next post.