July Roundup! - Lol omg, capsule chix, vintage and more

July is a spendy month for me for two reasons. First, it's my birthday month so I end up flush with cash from gifts and second, it's about the time reset starts to happen and new stock begins to trickle onto shelves.

The month isn't over and I still have a few bits incoming but hey, whatever, let's have a look at some of the stuff i've spent my birthday stash on shall we?

Slate came into stock so I ordered him.

I was really curious about the one boy in the Cave Club line and he doesn't disappoint.

He has this crazy hair that's crimped at the front like the girls and sticks up like a troll doll.

He also has paint splotches on his cheeks and comes with a paint palette, a brush and a er... shoulder.. pouch... thing that the brush can slot into. The box actually opens and has a sloppily applied sticker of paints.

The sides of Slate's hair aren't rooted or flocked but rather painted with a molded texture. Ordinarily this would bother me but the addition of the texture makes it feel far more intentional and less "we started and never bothered finishing" like flat paint does.

And at this price point i'm honestly not surprised they forwent flock.

His outfit is the same thin cheap feeling fabric of the other dolls. In Slate's case it's a pair of shorts and an animal print tunic over the top. It's a perfectly servicable outfit but much like the girls, nothing to write home about.

he also comes with a pet. in his case it's a wierd fat chicken thing. I don't know what animal this is supposed to be. It's like.. this wierd dumpy dino chicken lump with broccoli hair.

Lol.

He's the same height as the girls with the same level of articulation, he has broader arms but i'm not sure how different the legs are. I didn't end up doing a nude photo because the house is a bloody mess right now and I can't find a clear spot to take decent photos. (the hazard of having kids at home 24/7)

Argos has been clearancing things recently to make space for their new catalogue but for the first time I can remember we're seeing American style reductions. As in, like 75% OFF. That's unheard of in the UK!

I think Argos are pretty desperate to get rid of old stock.

So it meant they had the Capsule Chix for just under £4 each, down from £15. I figured it was worth the gamble for that.

I have mixed feelings about Capsule chix. I like them as dolls, they're a cute size and their articulation and mix and matching thing is fun but I really really dislike the way they're packaged. Not only is it hugely wasteful and generates a lot of trash but the random mixes of clothing make no damn sense and the chance of duplicates is too high. I'd far rather be able to pick my dolls in store. You could still mix and match them but you wouldn't get duplicates or bits you hate.

I got two sweet circuits and two Ctr Alt Magic. They didn't have any Ram Rock available or Hologlow and the glam one doesn't appeal to me at all.

I got EXACTLY the same doll in my Ctr Alt Magic sets which was very disappointing. I'd have been super pissed had I paid full price for them.

I did however get two different girls in the Sweet Circuits, the only duplicate piece was the head (I got the winking head both times. I swapped it for this photo)

I got both glittery hairs and oh shit they shed glitter everywhere!

I really like some of the sweet circuits pieces though. Those mismatched shoes are so cute and the red buns are adorable.

Unfortunately one of the girls came with an errored hand. I haven't a clue what happened here, looks like it got caught in some machinery or something. Whatever the case, OUCH.

I contacted Moose who were really awesome and told me they'd send me a replacement part asap.

Moose has really good customer service in my experience.

As it was, they didn't actually send me a hand at all but a WHOLE doll instead.

This is, i'm pretty sure, one of the four dolls from the big four pack. They must have a load of them in the office.

But hey, whole doll! score.

She's quite pretty though a bit glam for me. I'll do some mixing and matching later on with her. I like her face. Side glancing eyes and blue lips are two of my weaknesses! How did you know Moose?

I mentioned restock, well the new LOL OMG hit. Phew these are hitting quickly. Seems like every 2 months we get a whole new wave and the previous one goes poof. It certainly makes you feel like you HAVE to buy NOW NOW NOW which I suppose is MGA's whole thing right now huh? But I don't like it much, it's stressful.

As soon as  this wave hit 2 more were revealed and it's like "guys, SLOW DOWN" my poor wallet can't take it!

I actually was going to get the Teacher's Pet girl as well (Class Prez?) but I decided to stick to my "one from each wave" rule for now just to save my cash.

I still quite like that one (pink hair and glasses and freckles eeee) and i like chillax too but nghhhh. I dunno if i'll get them.

So I stuck with my absolute favourite, Da Boss.

Dolls with thick tight curls are a big weakness of mine. I LOVE it.

Also she totally looks like a 1920s gangster moll hahaha. 

These retail at about £32, which you know, is steep but pretty standard for modern dolls.

But this is why i'm tending to only buy one per wave rather than multiples. £32 adds up FAST.

Da Boss comes with the typical selection of stuff. A hat box (which doesn't contain a hat as her hat is too big to fit lol), a shoe box and the two clothes bags.

One has dollar signs on, the other is a more busy pattern of glasses, money, phones and dollar signs. it's a bit wierd. Both are gold coloured.

Her shoes are tiger striped with these spikey gold heels. They're kinda cool.

And her handbag is a newspaper! that's cute.

Her undergarment is a one piece with a newsprint motif on it. Over that she wears a pair os stretchy tiger striped pants made of some sort of semi transparent fabric.

She has large hoop earrings that say "boss" in them, a neck choker thing that's really stiff plastic and honestly very difficult to actually get ON and a gold watch.

Her hair is very thick and very curly and a sort of honey brown colour while her skin tone is a light brown. She reminds me of Bratz Yasmin, a LOT. Same colourings.

her hair is pretty mangled out of the box but it fluffs up okay with a little finger combing.

It's tied into a loose ponytail and i'm not sure if it's supposed to be or it's just a packaging thing. I left the tie in because it sort of helps tame the huge mane of hair anyway.

Her final outfit pieces are her big floppy hat that attaches with a little comb thing that is utterly USELESS and a gold coloured coat made of some sort of plasticky feeling material with a scratchy glittery fabric trim.

The belt is VERY long and the buckle is very stiff. it's not an easy garment to cinch tightly and I constantly feared i'd break the rather fragile feeling belt piece.

But once she's dressed she's stunning. I wasn't at all sure about the trousers but in the flesh I actually think they work better than I expected.

Her stand is gold to tie it all together.

I couldn't get a good picture but her makeup is nice too. She has glitter lips which i'm never hugely enthused about but they're a nice deep pinkish red like her nails and her eyeshadow is gold glitter lined with a subtle strip of blue which is unusual.

I'm really pleased with her. After the bummer that was Shadow it's nice to get an OMG that's back to the usual standard of quality I expect. I honestly don't know what to do with Shadow, her flaws bug me too much. I love her hair and I love her outfit but her wonky eye and my attempts to fix her terrible eyeshadow just... eugh. Haven't really worked.

*sigh*

I dunno.

Maybe another doll will claim her outfit.

I also picked up a bundle of random dolls for the two sindy dolls. The seller got a bit confused and accidentally sent me a moxie girl instead of  the sindy which was bewildering but they did send the correct doll eventually.

Butterfly Princess Sindy is one of the 2006 Chad Valley dolls on the wierd spindly body. These dolls are not pretty. It isn't helped by the small eyes on that wierd flat face and the extremely PALE complexion. I refer to these as "corpse sindy" because they look like bloody zombies to me.

And god that dress. It's horrendeous and I hate it so much.

So why you ask would I buy a doll I thought was freaking hideous?

Potential. I really really wanted to have a go at wiping that smug wierd face and seeing if the sculpt could be at all redeemed.

But the 1/6 scale chad valley dolls aren't easy to find, especially not for a price i'm willing to pay for a doll I want to repaint. This bundle was very cheap.

The second Sindy from the bundle was also a Chad Valley Sindy but a later one, not that they made these for very long (like a year at most?)

She has a prettier face. I think it's the same sculpt it's just painted better. She's also a normal colour. She is however on a bizarre gumby body with wires that means she can pose and feels super GROSS to touch (ewww it's rubbery and I hate it)

I haven't repainted a fashion doll in a LONG time and i'm waaaay out of practice. Also the chad valley head was not easy. It's very very blank and featureless with a tiny mouth and a lot of empty space.

I was trying to emulate the style of the original Sindy dolls with the big side glancing eyes but honestly i'm not sure I succeeded. The head is just so BIG and FLAT and wierd and my skills aren't high enough to give her the face she deserves. I'm sure someone more talented than I could do something really good with this blank canvas but yeah.. i'm not that person.

Still, at least she doesn't look like a zombie anymore.

Her eyes are actually purple but my camera hates me.

They're smaller than regular Sindy dolls so they fit Creatable World stuff pretty well.

Also this lot came home to live.

Sindy is a 70s double cup Ballerina who I picked up for about £10 on Ebay BIN. She has no hands right now. This is common of the ballerinas of this era, their hands weren't very well engineered and sorta just.. fall off. But there's a seller on etsy who makes reproduction replacements, they just aren't cheap so i'm waiting to have a couple to make it worth the £8 postage.

She is gorgeous though. She has a very high coloured face and thick spikey lashes. She's a lovely example of a 70s era Sindy doll with a semi hard head and a lot of blush.

Her clothing is from the big bundle of 70s goodness I got from Oxfam several months back.

I think it's an 80s outfit but eh, it's cool.

The four other vintage dolls came in a bundle today from Scope.

They were listed as "action man" which is... kinda wierd, and I put in a cheeky offer and they made a counter and I was all "heck yeah."

cost me £30 for the four of them.

They were FILTHY but they all cleaned up pretty good.

Todd has a blue mark from his inner wires. I'm actually surprised he hasn't got more but it's just this one blue bleed around his heart (ahahah)

The stern looking gent is a Fighting Yank doll. He was an Action Man/GI Joe knockoff but seems to use a head more like pedigree's Tommy Gunn for this version. His body has bending knees and ankles but static arms and Action Man cloned hands lol. It's wierd.

He has one damaged ankle which i'm seeing if glue helps to fix.

This is a Skipper Clone. The freckles are, wierdly, kinda blue. Wth? But the freckles suggest she's probably Miss Kitty. Real Skippers from this period don't have freckles. She's interesting because she's a near exact copy of a Mattel Skipper. Her head even has a really smeared up "hong kong" marking on the back of it that looks like it's been through several recast and repoured molds as it's barely legible.

Her legs have discoloured over the years and her arms have wierd patterns etched into them like she was laying against something with sharp edges but she's okay. Her hair is dry but all present and she has residual green thread in her head which I assume is from this hat which was in the bundle. It's the only green hat and it matches the thread pretty much exactly.

wiiiierd.

I think her dress is home made, the felt collar is pretty poorly tacked in place but it's a cute dress.

This is a legit bendy leg made in Japan Ken. He has a little eyebrow rub but otherwise he's in really pretty good condition. He was so dirty but he cleaned up well.

He comes with a complete outfit called Town Turtle (what?) which is missing two tiny buttons. His trousers have a real zipper fly which is AMAZING. And he even has teensy little socks.

God I love 60s doll fashions. They're so ridiculously detailed.

Todd is also complete, he also has little socks eeeek.

He has a wierd gumby body with wires inside so he's super bendy and it's freaky and wierd.

Also he looks like a chucky doll.

or does chucky look like him?

Either way, Todd is a creepy little fella.

I don't fully understand WHY Mattel elected to make Tutti and Todd with this strange bendy body while all their other dolls are hard plastic. it's very very odd. And it means they don't really age well as the wires often poke through and are quite stabby.

By some miracle Todd doesn't actually have any wires poking through so it seems i'm safe from 60 year old wire wounds. for now...

I am though, delighted to have another vintage Ken in my collection. I love 60s Ken and Allen, they're adorable.

And Kitty is quite cute for a clone. She might get to stay and hang with my other vintage skippers.

there's also a bunch of clothes in the bundle. Most of it looks home made but some is factory, just not labelled. I'll need to try to ID it at some point.

Quite a lot of it looks to be various action man clone outfits.