I'm alive!

Man, I was slacking right?

It's been a month and I haven't posted a single thing.

Honestly, it's not that I haven't bought stuff, it's just the stuff i've bought hasn't felt "special enough" to get a review. I've kinda gone off most playline stuff in stores and i'm saving up for my very first bjd now, which means a lot of hard saving and a lot of passing even on great deals.
It's so hard.
Because I have terrible impulse control.

So i've mostly been selling stuff, rather than buying. Trying to declutter as well as trying to gather together funds for this big splurge. We're coming to the end of the year too, which is the point i'm supposed to stop buying stuff "just in case" someone wants to buy me dolls (nobody does but you gotta pretend right?). It's also the most expensive part of the year for the family with 3 birthdays AND christmas all within 8 weeks. It's exhausting.
Not to mention the fact I really hate christmas anyway so always get super depressed and not wanting to be creative anyway.
The "meh, dun wanna" apathy has hit early this year which makes it a bit tricky to motivate myself to get excited about toys.
Which sucks.

But, I finally have enough stuff to fill a roundup, a way delayed "what I bought since last we spoke" sort of round up.

I'm not meant to be spending, but that doesn't mean I haven't spent.
In fact, the main reason i'm broke this month is because someone on facebook was purging their Living Dead Doll collection for insanely cheap and had a load of dolls I really wanted... so a great deal of my savings went there. oops.
There's that poor impulse control.
We'll get to those.

First up, I actually got Melody the same time I got my DC Superhero Bumblebee, mostly to save on postage. We didn't get her initial release in the UK, just her budget release with the new face.
I admit, I wasn't sure what to feel about her new face when I saw it in person. It's not... pretty... it's kinda impish though. Some days I think she's cute, other days I think she's ugly. It's conflicting.

The budget release retails for £10 and comes with no stand or brush. Surprisingly though, she does have her purse.

Her bio is on the back of the box. She's the daughter of the pied piper of Hamlin, I want to give her loads of little rats lol.

The new slogan for Ever After High is silly. "where princesses are powerful" lol, what does that even mean?

Melody's box is actually very easy to open, which is nice. She didn't have too many tabs in her head either. Phew.

That face... I just can't work out if I like it or hate it. I'm so conflicted man!

This little card promises "story included"

It lies. This is NOT a story, it's a thumbnail sketch of the character, a rough biography if you like. Mattel, go back to school and learn narrative structure you lying douchebags.

Her backing card, which I tore a little opening hte box, is... random. Are the headphones growing on the tree or did someone just like hurl them up there as a prank?

Here's Melody out of her box. I was I admit, quite impressed that she retained most of her accessories in this budget release. She has a bracelet, a belt, a necklace, a handbag and her headphones!

There are some differences between her animated and doll form of course.
Her skirt is a bit shorter in doll form and missing the see through ruffle. She's missing her mesh glove and tights/leggings and most oddly, her eyes are purple not brown. Wth?

Are brown eyes not pretty enough Mattel? Seems a pretty bizarre thing to change.

I kinda wish she came with her flute thing.

Her face is moulded with this little smirk, which certainly gives her character. It's better than those blank moon faces of the original dolls that's for sure.

Her profile is still a bit odd I think. Kinda flat with these duck lips lol.

Her hair is about average. It's a little frizzy, particularly the white parts.

(outfit image)


Her outfit is ALL one piece. Dress, vest and skirt are all connected. It makes it really complicated and hard to get on and off actually. I get the skirt/top being attached, but it seems needlessly complex to sew the vest on as well. The whole thing is just very oddly constructed with layers everywhere. The end result looks great, but how is it any cheaper to do such complicated and no doubt more time consuming sewing than just sewing that teeny vest individually?
Who knows man, who knows.

I'm grateful for the pleat at the bottom of her top, it hides the seam between shirt and skirt really nicely. This is a one piece outfit that actually looks decent, which isn't sadly hugely common. Big middle seams bug the hell outta me. 

Her boots have EAH logos on the underside.

(boots image)

Her boots are mid length wedge heeled boots with a musical motif on the heel.
I like them, they're cute but not too over the top.

She has a funky record bag.

that startlingly, actually OPENS huh?

But it's weirdly designed. The handle makes no sense to me. Is she supposed to hold the disk bit at the top? It looks super awkward on her arm and the disk thing means she can't have it elastic banded to her hand very effectively. It looks weird.

Overall, well worth the £10 I think. But i'm still on the fence about her face mold. Hmmm.

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So we went to Asda the other weekend, which is a bit of a trek for us and a nightmare in terms of their toy aisle. I'm pretty sure i've mentioned that chaos before, but oh god... every time I go I am struck by just how badly organized and maintained that aisle IS. I don't know how you're meant to find anything. There is literally stuff thrown EVERYWHERE. All over the floor, up on top of the shelves, onto the shelves in a completely haphazard manner. You have to dig through shelving to find stuff. It's mental.

Anyway, I came across, rammed behind some barbie dolls, a case of the MH minis. They were labelled £1:50 which was another surprise not just because cheap, but because Asda NEVER has damn pricing labels, nothing is where it's supposed to be so the labels have no connection to anything. To give an example, next to the mh minis label was one for zelfs, the zelfs were at the other end of the aisle, rammed behind some other toys. There was a label for Barbie, but it didn't match ANY of the three barbie lines they had on the shelf or anywhere else in the aisle either.
I don't get it.

Anyway, I spent a while fondling packs and picked out all the ones I could be certain were different. I know there's codes, but I didn't have that list on me and they're not that reliable. It's faster to just fondle.

Here's the back of the bag, which you need to look at to ID the mini inside. There's two methods. Either you use the code which is printed along one side of the pack and really faint and not that easy to see. Or you can look in that little clear diamond next to the 0-3 symbol.

The diamond is clear, so you can see the inside. In this case, it's yellow (blonde) hair, suggesting it's a Lagoona.

This one is pink and teal. I thought it was Rochelle. It turned out to be Abbey.

You can squish them around and try to get a better look at skin colour and stuff, but some of the bags the paper checklists were positioned in a way that pulling the figure up to the window just wasn't possible without some major fondling acrobatics there.

I went through a whole case and only managed to ID 8 for certain different ones. As we were leaving I noticed another near full case, but husband was annoyed by that point so I couldn't stay to fondle all those ones too. Next time... next time.

Anyway, my guesses were as follows:

Lagoona (yellow hair)
Rochelle (purple and blue hair) turned out to be Abbey, not sure how I got that confused. Eh.
Catty (black skin)
Draculaura (pink and black hair. I had to double check these to make sure the catty one was different as the pink/black combo is really similar at first glance)
Frankie (White hair, black streak)
Ari (Purple hair)
Venus (green green and more green with some pink)

I also found a Clawdeen (brown with purple) but I already have her.

Couldn't find any brown and gold ones that might be Cleo.
Or any white ones that could be Catrine.
Rochelle and Moanica eluded me too.

My first two bags, the ones pictured above are as I said, Lagoona (obvious from her hair) and Abbey (Who i forgot was even in the set)

Venus and Draculaura

Catty, Frankie and Ari.

I fondled a lot of bags, I only found one Frankie.
Hmmm.

Here's my 7 Asda blind bag figures together. I'm not sure the bottom row on the 1 labelled checklist have actually been released yet though. I've seen no sign of a Deuce or Robecca mini, or Jinafire. So who knows. I'm pretty sure only the first two rows are easily available here right now.
Of which i'm missing Cleo, Catrine, Rochelle and Moanica.
I'll get em next time I see some bags hopefully.

The little figures are cute. They have a sort of rag doll quality to them and are scaled about right to be dolly dolls heh. They also come in a variety of poses. There's the side leg pose with arm down. Side leg with arm raised (catty), sitting legs apart, arms behind (frankie), legs apart arms raised (Ari), Legs together arms down (venus) and legs apart arms out (Ula)

They also have a few different hair sculpts. Catty and Ari seem to share one, Venus has one that's similar. Abbey and Frankie's are similar if not the same. Draculaura's is totally unique (for now).

I don't know what the markings on the legs mean, but Catty's silver panties cracked me up. The cat girls have sculpted on tails which is cute, and all of them have painted panties hahaha. I was surprised they were painted underneath tbh, most toys don't bother.

For £1:50 these are fun little pocketmoney toys. They're nicely made, the paintwork seemed pretty solid on all the ones I have looked at and they're small enough to amass quite a collection of very easily heh. I like them, I want more.

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Also in Asda Husband dug this Descendants doll out of a shelf. He thought she was pretty and somewhat perfectly, she's the one I wanted of the latest releases.
She was £15 on sale, so he bought her for himself (but i'm totally stealing her)

I already reviewed the Descendants so i'll keep it brief.

Freddie comes in a box much like the first wave. she comes with a purse and... some sort of mask clip thing that I don't know what it's for or where it's meant to go.

She's the daughter of the bad guy from the Princess and the Frog, which neither of us have actually seen. (whoops) but yeah, he's got some voodoo thing going on?
Freddie has those very cool dots around her eyes, a teeny tophat and an outfit that's a nod to that heritage.
She has silver streaks in her pigtailed hair but so little of it that it's actually really hard to see. I think some dolls have different amounts, ours just happened to get mostly black hair.

She's fully articulated like the other Descendants dolls, same body, this time in a lovely rich tan colour. She has a really sweet face too.

She manages to look cute but still feisty.
I really like the cartoonish Descendants faces, they have a lot of personality in them.
I also really like their bodies, they're hefty and well constructed and i'm honestly disappointed the Hasbro Disney dolls aren't quite so successful in their construction. They feel a bit cheap, but I guess they ARE marketed at half the price.

Her outfit is all separate pieces (take note Mattel). Her skirt is made from shiny satin-like fabric and all tiered and ruffled up. Her vest is velvety with satin puff sleeves and painted on buttons.
Her leggings have eeeevil faces all over lol.

She has odd earrings. One is a flower I think, the other is feathers and i'm not sure what her wrist cuffs are meant to be.

She's a really sweet doll with nice soft silky hair and a great costume and a really fun face. I like her a lot and £15 is a great price. They're usually closer to £20, which is why I hadn't gotten her yet. I just can't justify that kinda money, particularly not when i'm meant to be saving.

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Now last weekend we went into the "village" (it's a highstreet okay, let's not pretend it's not just a suburban high street lol) an I popped into the charity shops.
I only really ever hit two of them. YMCA for clothing and Chase for toys.

They seem to restock the doll boxes over the weekend, and sitting on the top of the "clothed dolls £2" box was a Sindy. I yanked her out. Oh she was sticky, she was filthy and her legs were chewed to hell, but she had all her hair plugs, all her lashes, her hands were intact and she was a damn 80s Sindy, of COURSE i'm gonna buy her regardless of her condition!

I also grabbed a 4 ever best friend because i've wanted that no boys shirt for AGES. I have a girl Makie who has been demanding that shirt for months now and while 4 ever best friend dolls aren't hugely rare and don't sell for much on ebay, the shipping always makes it a bit much for something I only want the clothes off of. £2 however, yes please.

There was nothing else I wanted in the boxes. A bunch of ratty Bratz, a filthy boyz Cameron all with no feet and a lot of Barbie dolls in various states of bland.

The lady who served me let me have the Sindy for free despite my protests, telling me she shouldn't have been put out for sale in that condition. You can't see it so well in the first picture, but let me go into some detail about the poor girl and you can see.

Something has mangled her legs. They have gouges and nips the WHOLE way up to her hips. She also has a huge gash in one wrist.
Yet, the wierd bit, both knees still click and hold fine (the gashes haven't damaged the mechanism) and all her fingers and her toes are absolutely fine. Now usually nibbled dolls lose their toes and fingers, and these definitely aren't human bites. Husband thinks she looks like she got caught in machinery, I was thinking maybe rodent but anyone else got any ideas?
Either way, poor girl's been in the wars.

She's a hair styling doll so she has a hollow body, this one is missing her back plate but still has her original extra hair, still in the original baggy, stored inside her body compartment.

Her hair was sticky with... god knows what. But all there and uncut (it's meant to be short like this) so I rinsed her under hot water and thankfully the crunchy sticky hardness all melted out. Her hair is a bit dry, but it's brushable and shiny and absolutely fine.
The mess on her face I think is the original "makeup" she came with, it also washed right off.

She took maybe 5 minutes to clean up. I then redressed her in some clothing I also got for 20p a piece in the charity shop (I love doll clothes rummage boxes) and found her a hat to cover the big ol' hole in her head where the hair grow mechanism goes.

The Sindy shoes were also in the rummage box. One of them was covered in glue residue but a magic eraser and some elbow grease sorted it out.

I'm thinking she SHOULD get longer pants and some boots to hide her mangled legs, which are structurally absolutely fine. No point switching them out I feel if they're structurally okay. The poor girl keeps her battle wounds.

Husband calls her Berkeley now because of her hoodie lol.

I'm pleased to have her. I have another of these Cut and Style Sindy dolls upstairs, who actually has her original back plate but no hair piece. Her hair is also a lot blonder so she may be a different release of the same product. She also wears a hat, because I find the hole where the hair comes out really ugly.

Here she is with a Sad face Sindy. Her name is Daphne.
Her hair is blonder and still has a lot of curl, while Berkeley's hair is a dull yellow blonde and only slightly wavy.

Damn i'm a sucker for that face.

Sindy dolls have such cute sulky little faces heheh.

Oh yes, and the dress she was wearing?

Its from the 60s. It often baffles me how this happens. 80s dolls wearing 60s outfits, I can only assume it's a mother passing down her dolls and clothing or something.

Anyway, the dress is a Mam'selle outfit called "blue Beat" or something. They were cheap alternative outfits produced by Line Bros (who owned Pedigree, the company who made Sindy) for kids or rather, parents to buy instead of forking out for the more expensive Official Sindy branded stuff.

As is often the case, nowadays the cheap outfits are the more expensive ones to find. Yeah, what?
Mam'selle outfits are super retro and really quite iconically 60s, which makes them really desirable. They were also pretty damn well made.

This dress would have had a little ribbon on the front originally and it's ruffled and creased from years of play. It's a bit squished from being caught in the doll's hip mechanism, not damaged, it'll probably iron out, but there's a pretty major crease there.

The old Sindy dolls of course were a lot bigger than the 70s and 80s ones, so the dress doesn't really fit well on Berkeley. It will however fit one of my 60s Sindy dolls beautifully.

Here's that crease I was talking about.

The back does up with a popper. It would have been painted navy blue originally.

And the original, somewhat frayed label. Apparently not all of them had labels.

Well worth the absolutely nothing I paid for her right? I kinda feel bad not paying for her but the lady wouldn't let me. I feel a bit better knowing I saved this poor girl from the trash.

---------------
and finally...

the reason i'm broke this month arrived. But not before Parcelforce got their greedy mitts on it and slapped another £15 on my bill. £8 of which is their "bung a sticky label on it" fee. Bloody crooks.

Still, they got here safe and sound from the US. Maybe not quite so much a bargain as they would have been, but oh well. All in all I paid about £100 for 5 dolls which makes them £20 each. They retail for closer to £30 new and I never do anything with the coffins so why pay for them? 

Can you tell what it is?

Hehehe.
bunny ears.

5 bubblewrap mummies.

Wanna play a game?

The game is, guess the doll.

ready?











1






2





3




okay let's reveal:

Number 1 is Isaac! From series 6, all the way back in 2003.

All the series 6 dolls came with a pet. Isaac's was appropriately, a crow.
It's a funky cartoonish thing with red eyes and a big ol' tongue. Oddly, the legs are moulded in such a way it can't really stand on its own.
Go figure.

Isaac is a little scarecrow boy, with derpy eyes and a stitched up mouth. Lol the derpy eyes, lookatthem!

His hat is stuffed with straw, actual straw, as is his clothing at the collar and sleeves.
The hat is glued to his head, he has no hair underneath, just the straw.

He's wearing a plaid shirt and suspenders with raggedy pants.

He's wearing black boots with a teeny little heel on them.

His outfit is all one piece and velcros up the back.

He has a plush body and I think remains to this day the only living dead doll to be made like this.

It means he's super floppy, just like a real scarecrow.

His hands are these gnarled clawed things. His left hand has 6 fingers, his right has 5 and appears to be left as well... uh... Yeah, he has two left hands. He's doubly sinister?
This is how he's supposed to be, it's an intentional thing. Weird.

I honestly didn't even notice he had 6 fingers till I was looking at photos lol. I'm so unobservant.

So, who's doll #2?



it's....

Lydia the Lobster Girl!

She's from last year's release, which was fairground/freakshow themed.

She has some pretty intense makeup, she looks ill. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes are sunken. Lydia honey, are you okay?

 Her hair is a glorious shade of red and styled.. odd. It's tied into this high bun thing

With a lot loose on one side, giving her a sort of half shaved look from the front.

Her outfit is this absolutely darling little sailor dress. It's made of quite stiff fabric and it's so damn cute. The blue looks amazing against her red hair.

It velcros up the back.

She has little ankle socks and mary jane shoes.

And of course, her "lobster" hands. These are some freaky ass hands man. She has a little nail on each "finger" and little creases on the inside of them, like with regular fingers. Her arms are all pitted and pock marked with this like.. brown grime rubbed in making her arms look dirty and gross.

I can't stop staring at those hands, they're fascinating in a disturbing kind of way.

Doll 3 is easy, because of the bunny ears. No suspense here, it's

Eggzorcist as the White Rabbit!
From the LDD presents Alice in Wonderland set.

I love the Alice set, there's some really cool dolls in it and they sell for stupid money on the second hand market. Maybe the others will come up cheap some day heh.

Who can resist that face?

Eggy here has a striking white face, a red X painted on her forehead, these haunting black eyes with purple pupils and bright blue lips. Against the black hair it's such an attractive combo.

Her hair is cut into an asymetrical bob, longer at the front than the back.

It's a bit choppy and VERY messy, but that's because her hood is honestly nearly impossible to get back ON once you take it off.
Oh my god the hood. It's not at all elasticated, and it's very tight.

She has quite thinly rooted hair in parts with huge bald patches. her scalp is painted black which hides it, but it's not great. still, thicker hair would make the hood even harder to get on again...

Her outfit is awesome, it's all individual pieces. The bunny onesie is so stinking cute.

Over that she wears a gold waistcoat, a little matching bow tie, a velvety jacket and a pocketwatch on a thread.

Lookat the bunny tail ehehehehe floofy!

Ahem.

doll #4

who could it be? with that red shirt...

Why it must be

Edgrr variant!

I actually bought the original Edgrr a while back and never opened him. I wanted to love him more than I did. the face is amazing, but something about him having this yellow puke stuff running from his mouth was just extremely offputting.

So variant Edgrr has blood instead, which is way cooler than puke.

Also the red accents pop against the black.

Here's his original doll. His eyes are blue and he's like.. puking down his face. Gross.

He's from the same series as Lydia, series 30 which was released last year. Some stores may actually still be carrying the original versions. The variants pop up a bit less commonly. 

Variant Edgrr has red eyes, well.. one red eye, one black eye with a red pupil and one totally white eye.
His faces... the more I stare the more I see, it's so striking.

He's sculpted in this really sort of organic manner, with big bulges and nodules all over. He has two big bulges on his forehead almost like horns, ridged brows and the whole surface isn't smooth. His head honestly feels like it was half crafted from something like air dry clay, not cast in plastic. It's got quite a different texture to the usual heads. It feels more hollow, almost brittle? It's weird and hard to describe.

He has this long soft hair in an intense widow's peak and even his ears have shading inside them. It almost looks like bruising.

It's such a strangely sculpted thing, I could stare at it for hours.

The more I look at it, the more I appreciate the artistry. First glance it's like "eek what's that?" but then you look closer and the different faces start to emerge and all those little details start to become clearer. It's bizarre.

Edgrr's outfit is this vintage looking suit with a big cumberbund and a bow tie.

His jacket has tails.

And his whole outfit is two pieces, just like a Ken doll suit. A sort of sleeveless shirt and pants onsie, and then a jacket over the top. It's an effective way to do suits, so much so doll companies have been doing it since the 70s.

He has little black dress shoes. I didn't check for socks, sorry.


And so, the final doll. doll #5

it's...

She who walks the night, from series 29.

Look at that haunting little face! I love when LDDs make their dolls cute, but creepy at the same time. I think less is often more and the very simple dolls are often the most effectively spooky.
I'm no great fan of their screaming faces, and this girl is imo a great example of the simple but effective mantra.

She's a white skinned doll, with these HUGE black eyes with yellow irises. There's pink airbrushed around the eyes and she has light pink lips. Her face also has some very subtle streaking which is impossible to capture in a photo, almost like weathering? It's odd.

Her hair is this sort of strawberry blonde colour and cut into a bob with overlong bangs. She has a little white bow in her hair. 

She has no eyebrows, there's the hint of what might be one on one side but it's just the weathering effect of her face paint.

Her face is SO simple, and yet it's absolutely adorable while being chilling at the same time.
Her eyes man, they bore into you.

Her dress is a white nightgown, with lace trim. It's a really beautiful little dress, very china doll actually. Which I think is why I find her spooky. Her hair style, the bow and the frilly lacey white nightgown remind me very much of the porcelain dolls my mother had when I was growing up, and those things are creepy as all hell man. And not in a good way.

Her dress velcros up the back and is really nicely put together. The lace is so sweet and ruffly.

I laughed when I realised that despite being white, they still bothered to paint the standard white LDD panties on her ahahaha. How redundant is that?
White on white, lol.

So here's my little haul. A couple of them did actually come with their death certificates, Edgrr and Isaac also came with their chipboards. I prefer buying deboxed dolls though, particularly when there's a big culture of keeping MIB within the community. I feel guilty opening them and like i'm "devaluing" them by doing so. I'd rather buy for less opened, because i'm just gonna open anyway.

My customs fee made these a little more than perhaps they should have been deboxed like this, but i'm still glad to have them. I've wanted this lot for a while, particularly Isaac and the rabbit.

Now my LDD shelf is looking a little bit crowded. But my wishlist is nearly finished. If I could, i'd have shelves on every wall man.

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So that's what i've been doing this month. I've also been selling a lot of stuff on ebay. Mostly MIB stuff I never got around to opening because.. impulse control man. I have a terrible habit of buying stuff on clearance or because I see it and want it, and then putting it away and forgetting about it.
Oops?