Disney Descendants - CJ Hook

DESCENDANTS!

Barbie I Can Be Games Designer

Going through old photos I found a bunch of reviews I never wrote. Oops?

so we're doing this one while I edit photos for my next actually recent release review hah.

I bought Games Designer Barbie middle of last year, as a geek gal myself I kinda HAD to support coder Barbie right? And I already have Computer Engineer Barbie (her binary shirt is awesome)

Anyway, this isn't a long review so let's dive right on in without any preamble

Monster High - Ghouls Beast Pet Cleo and Lagoona

Last review I mentioned that I was kinda over Monster High and their reboot, which  may have some of you wondering "But Monk, why are you reviewing more of them then?"
Well truth is, I bought these back in November in Amazon US' black friday sales, with shipping they worked out about £11 each to import and it doesn't look like the UK is ever getting this line. Bummer, because Draculaura has a vampire poodle and it's HILARIOUS and I want that damn poodle so bad.

I had these laying about waiting for me to get off my butt and review em, but other stuff like christmas kept distracting me.

Monster High - Electrified - Silvi Timberwolf

Electrified, the latest movie or something from Mattel. I dunno, the info out there is pretty scarce.
Anyway, Electrified is the newest MH reboot line to hit and it features some pretty 80s inspired fashions and super crimped hair.

Now, these were revealed at toyfair earlier in the year, and were kinda interesting.

Barbie Fashionistas Curvy, Tall, Petite

Yeah I finally got around to this one, i'm a lazy bum okay?

Well actually it was more I was after specific dolls of each body shape and didn't want to buy just any ol' one.
Also the curvy ones have proven the most impossible to get in stores.

I finally ordered the curvy I wanted, and so I finally have one of each body to review. Whoo.

Back at the start of the year Mattel had exciting news, Barbie was getting some body diversity!
Not 1, not 2, but 3 whole new bodies were released alongside her regular 99 body.
Those bodies were Tall, Petite and Curvy.

Of course the doll community were keen to see how they'd done this, how clothing options would work, how the curvy body particularly would LOOK in the wake of Lammily and her potato shaped torso (seriously, she looks like a spud with a head attached, it's not overly easy to dress a doll so shapeless because they don't squish like flesh does.)

It took me a while to get a hold of each of the ones I wanted from the lineup. And as I mentioned, curvy dolls sell out everywhere. I have only ever seen ONE (the blonde barbie one) on a shelf all year. Usually it's a few petites and a couple of generic bodied ones and maybe a tall.
So is curvy super popular? Gotta assume so, which in a way is great.
It IS a pretty hot body.
ahem.

Monthly roundup!

I've been on a dolly diet this month. We're coming up to Christmas which is an extremely crazy time of year for me.
Not only do we have christmas itself, but also 3 birthdays so it's a frenzy of stress and present buying and just... madness.

It's also a point in the year where I get super down, but you're not here to hear about my mental health are you?

Anyway, this all means that November and December are points where generally I try to slow down my purchasing.
But uh..

I have poor impulse control.

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.