TY Li'l ones

TY girls, I remember TY Girlz. Back when Moxie Teenz were still in stores someone realised they could fit into TY Girlz clothing, so i'm sure there was a random surge in sales of those strange plushie fashion dolls.

The TY Girlz (Who the hell decided a Z was edgy and cool?) were a line of  14 inch tall plush dolls with removable fashions (but sewn on shoes... kinda defeating the point but there ya go). They had rooted brushable hair, stitched on eyes and no noses.

They had internal wires so they could be posed, but honestly these things kinda freaked me out and I thought they were super ugly.

However, they did have some nice clothes. And at the time Moxie Teenz came out, TY Girlz were hitting the clearance bargain bins. A couple of quid for a full outfit seemed a good deal to me, and so a lot of these things came home with me.

(For the record, the shirts fit Moxie Teenz pretty well but Teenz have narrower waists, meaning a lot of pants and skirts are a bit loose. Nothing some alterations couldn't fix i'm sure though, and given the crappy selection of Moxie outfits, these tops were a great help. The shirts also fit, albeit baggily on barbie sized dolls.)

Anyway,

for some reason TY decided to move away from creepy plushie fashion rag dolls and instead turn these characters into small plastic toddler dolls, similar to Barbie's little sister Chelsea.

These are the TY Li'l ones.

I love VIP Pets - Nyla

A little change of pace, as usually I only really review dolls.
But the VIP pets have been out a while and their faces keep attracting my attention in stores.

however, their full retail price of between £7:99 and £9:99 I think is a bit too much, so i've passed on them on multiple occassions thinking "what would I do with one anyway?"

For those who have no clue what i'm on about, the VIP pets are a line of giant headed dog figures produced by a company called IMC toys (who i've never heard of.) A look online reveals they're the company behind a lot of licensed "random tat", like the Monster High walkie talkies, the Barbie branded toy guitars and electronic diaries. Pens, watches, musical lockers, board games... basically all that "non doll" branded junk that finds it's way into TK Maxx on a regular basis.

Now the VIP pets are marketed as "hair play" toys, which explains the giant head and rooted hair.
I've never been one for hair play I have to admit, I couldn't even plait till I was in my 20s! I'm flat out useless with hair, it's just not my "thing". So the hair element of these dogs really isn't what attracted me.
Instead, it was the vibrant colours and their kinda cute faces.

They all use the same mould, but come in a wide variety of colours and styles. Some more fantastical than others (there's a purple one, a pink one but most of them are actually sort of beige.)

Each doll has a character and a mini bio that gives them some personality.
there's the party girl, the writer, the photographer, the pop star... and so on.
Some are uh.. more interesting than others.

So, wandering around the shops on Saturday we popped into the Entertainer and I happened to spot two of these toys on the shelf, marked down to £5 each.
With only two to chose from, my selection was pretty limited but for £5 I decided to take the plunge.
I picked out Nyla, the brown haired, brown skinned/furred dog with the funky beads.

Look at that adorable smiley doggy face!