Fashion Angels

So I periodically find myself browsing ebay (dangerous I know) and sometimes odd things pop up that I find interesting.

Like these.
They're Fashion Angels... apparently.
I'd never heard of them till I stumbled upon an ebay listing for them.

They were I think made about the same year as TY Girlz, Groovy Girlz, This is Me and all those other plushie fashion dolls.
it was a real THING in the mid 2000s evidently.

I thought they were fascinating and their outfits looked to be really well made so I took the plunge and placed some 99p bids on a few of the listings the seller had.

I won 2 full dolls and a pile of clothing and shoes.

Pre Christmas roundup

It's nearly Christmas, I hate this time of year.
I find it extremely stressful and very very depressing. See, most of my family live on the opposite side of the planet, I haven't even seen my own sister in a good 8 years, it's been 10 years since I last went back to my home country and saw the rest of the family.
In the nearly 20 years since my parents had the bright idea to emigrate to the UK (for only two years, they promised.) many of my relatives have died, marriages have fallen apart, kids have been born and i've missed it all.
I've never even MET my younger niece, there's a whole generation of cousins i've not met and probably never will. I didn't even get to attend the funerals of my grandparents.

So all the Christmas time "family family FAMILY" crap that's rammed down our throats during this part of the year does little more than highlight to me how much i've missed and how much I will continue to miss.
It's very unlikely i'll ever go home for anything more than a brief holiday and that sucks.

Suffice to say, around November I start to sink into crippling depression and spend a lot of time trying not to just cry.

The kids help a little, their excitement makes an otherwise really dreary time of year at least half way tolerable but I still find the whole thing really very isolating and upsetting.
So I tend to go a little mad with buying myself things to fill the void.
I know this is precisely why I buy so much stuff during November and December, but I claim they're "christmas presents to myself". The reality is, they're not really. They're a foolish attempt to distract myself with shiny new things rather than think about how much i'm dreading the festive bullshit and how much I want to punch things every time I see an advert about family getting together or whatever.
Bah humbug.

But that does mean I bought a load of random stuff to share with you guys.

I know i've been doing a lot of these sort of mishmash blogs rather than proper reviews lately, the reason is there's very very little in stores I actually want to buy. It's all either too overpriced and not going onto clearance, freaking BORING or made by Mattel who can bite me.
I do have a few things scheduled though.

And I DO need to finish that retrospective but I found that depressing too. Given i'm already feeling crap this time of year, I think that's gonna have to wait till the new year when i'm a little less mentally fragile and prone to bursting into tears over nothing.
It's so embarrassing.

Charity shop and Ebay roundup

I'm not dead! PROMISE!

It's been a stressful few weeks. This time of year is always chaos for me. I have three birthdays and christmas to organise, and it's just ARGHGHHHH from november all the way into new year.

Also I freaking hate christmas time anyway so it's stress coupled with massive depression because it's cold, it's dark and it's fricken christmas time makes me grumpy and not wanting to go out and do stuff.

But i'm not dead and I am still doing stuff, honest!

This is a break from my retrospective which I still have to finish but ran out of steam on. Finding all that info and trawling back through memories is a lot of effort and I kinda burned out so i'm taking a break. I'll get back to it at some point soon.

So this is a "what other stuff i've been doing doll/toy wise" sort of entry.

Let's get into it.

Monster High retrospective - Part 3

This is getting a bit emotional for me, damnit.

I just, I keep remembering how happy the whole toy hunt was. Sure it was frustrating at times, but the excitement when new stuff was revealed, the anticipation and then the joy when you finally found the doll you'd been searching for.
These were happy times, and I miss them.
I really do miss them.

I miss enjoying the hunt, before it became just a chore.
I miss being excited to get my hands on new stuff and feeling like it would be worth the money.
I miss how special it was. Not just Monster High but toys/dolls in general.

I used to walk into toys r us and be able to spend hours browsing, come out with a huge pile of stuff and I wouldn't feel guilty, i'd feel HAPPY.

Now? I'm lucky to even come away with a single item and if I do, I usually feel horribly guilty about it because I feel like i've spent too much on crap.

The products aren't worth the money any more, nothing leaps out and screams "Buy me" and i'm left feeling rather underwhelmed and honestly pretty bummed out by it all.

I miss getting excited about dolls.
I really do.

I miss Argos' new catalogue day being this event you looked forward to, more than christmas even (to be fair I absolutely hate christmas but that's a whoooole other story), it was the day they got all the new toys. Pages upon pages of new toys to browse and buy. Now? now they barely have a page of dolls and seldom have anything actually in stock on new catalogue day. There's no point going in. the magic is gone. One of the parts of the year I most looked forward to is gone.
and has been for a few years now.

It's sad. it's depressing. And i'm not sure if i've just outgrown dolls, or if it's just that the market is SO freaking boring now.
I don't know, but I still remember getting so many of these dolls like it was yesterday.

Was it really 6 years ago? Where did the time go?

I also got this far and remembered I totally took actual photos of my collection during my purge. *headdesk* they're all saved on my harddrive!

So yeah, I may actually be able to include proper photos in this one.

So here we go!

Monster High retrospective - Part 2

So, it's 2011 (roll with it), the dolly  market is awesome, MH is doing well... and I was in the throws of a terrible obsession.

Oooo eee.

The 2011-2012 season saw the release of a great number of lines and the introduction of store exclusives.

there were more lines released this year, including 2 deluxe formal lines. 6 new characters were introduced as well. - Spectra, Abbey, Clawd, Cupid, Gil and Toralei

So let's start.

Monster High - A retrospective in multiple parts - 2010, where it all began.

So i'm kinda on spend embargo for a while, saving up for something pricey on top of nothing in stores really motivating me to part with cash.

This means it's time to look back and actually appreciate dolls I already own, dolls I used to own and generally look back on a franchise that has meant a lot to me and really was the last straw in sucking me into the doll collecting world.

Monthly.. ish... roundup

I dunno, I lost track.

I haven't been buying as much recently partly because we just don't have much money and I feel guilty about it and partially because i've been saving for bigger things rather than splurging on like 20 playline dolls at a time.
And also because playline is boring the snot out of me, i'm fed up and just kinda... not feeling the dolly vibe so much these days.

I mean don't get me wrong, I still love toys.
I still love dolls. but nothing new is really exciting me.
It's all so... cutesy or so overpriced and inferior in quality that I just can't justify it.
Mattel's churning out crap. Hasbro's churning out the same thing ad nauseum, MGA are just big on this blind bag fad and i'm just not interested in paying £10 for something I can't even see, and the others are just.. gone.
UK toy aisles have shrunk, I mean it's getting hard to even find BARBIE here.
Supermarkets have given up on stocking anything except pocket money junk, even stores like Argos have a really small doll section of their catalogue for the second season running.
It's disappointing and it's uninspiring and it's just hard to get excited when there's nothing to get excited about.

But there is some older stuff.

and Toys R Us had BOGOF on Monster High so I went to see what they had.

it's a really long bus trip, takes about an hour to get there and then another hour back so yeah, it's a trek.

and of course i'm still saving money aside for bigger purchases like bjds and pullips and stuff like that.

but I dunno. I'm in a funk and part of that may be related to the fact that coming home from toys r us I was struck down with a massive headache that lasted SIX DAYS and wouldn't shift.
I can't help but think it's karma for buying Monster High when I said I wouldn't.
*sigh*

Anyway, here's what I bought.