Sad toy news

Some people say that 2018 was a bad doll year, I don´t know abut that. While my collection was kind of put on hold due to a lack of money, I don´t feel like that have been a bad thing. I have been delighted to see the new Barbie made to move dolls and I allso think some of the new dolls this years like hairdorables and boxigirls are quite cute. I have allso discovered a great (danish) company that make wonderfull doll furniture and accessories, but I will talk more about that in another post. 

It was late last year that the bad new started rolling in. In december, Top toys, the company that own Toys R us in scandinavia, went bankrupt. They allso owened the danish toy chain Fætter BR. I have been trying not to let it get to me, but it was a big blow to my toy loving heart. There were a Toys R us close by, that I loved going to, it was something that would allways make me happy. The whole closing down of the stores have been pretty abruptly, and I allready miss going there to look at their big selection of toys. As a kid I used to go to the Fætter BR toy stores very often, on vaccation at my grandparents, I went there alot with my brother. The stores are alot smaller than Toys R us but they have a lot of charm and still nice selection of toys. When I started collecting toys as an adult, it was Fætter Br stores I went to the most, I spend a lot of time looking at the wall of dolls, I never bought any thought. I should not despair about the cloosing of these stores, there are other toy stores I enjoy, and there are other smaller toy chains that might exspand now that the big guys are gone. But I am sad about it, and I really hope Fætter Br will make a comback in some way. The good news is that the Fætter Br brand was bought by another company, now I just have to wait and see what they will do with it.
A few years ago a toy store i liked, located in the city, closed down. It was the store where I bought my fist and second Paola Reina dolls, and I contiued buying clothes for the dolsl in that store. I was a bit sad but allso okay with the stor closing because I had other toy stores I enjoyed going to. It allso turned out that another toy store had bought the place, and I like that store as much as the other even though they don´t sell Paola Reina dolls, they do sell some other nice stuff. 
But that store is small, if I want to go to a bigger store, there is one half a hour away. Driving half an hour is not too bad, but my boyfriend and I don´t really have any other buisness in that town, so we don´t go there often. I allso worry that there are too much I wan´t to buy when we get there, since I have experienced before that they have a nice selecting of stuff not in Toys R us that I wan´t. I really have to be careful not to spend too much money on toys, and I feel like I shoudl be ready to spend when I go to that store, and I am not allways ready to spend. Last time I wanted to go there and talke dwith my boyfriend about it, we ended up not going, which I am a bit dissapointed about. I kept feeling unsure if it was ok for me to spend money, and I was allso a bit busy at the time so it was difficult for me to actually put off time to go there - and I am pretty sure my boyfriend forgot about it. This is something I really hope to chnage in the future, I might have missed some great stuff and nice moments in that store just because I could not put myself together to go there. 

Then Tonner dolls announced that they were closing, and I was dissapointed. I am not a big collector of Tonner dolls, I only have two. But I have been admiring their dolls for years, and I was really hoping they would make new dolls I would want to buy. I was very optimistic with their Outlander and Fantatsic beast line,  it is a bit difficult for me to swallow that there won´t be any more dolls. Maybe I should be relived that I won´t be spending money on exspensive dolls, but I was dreaming of having just a few more collectors dolls to display in a pretty glass cabinet in the living room. Now I wonder if the glass cabinet I am planning on buying for my Tonner dolls will look empty. I might look for some Deja Vu Lady Arabella dolls on Ebay, maybe the Lord of the rings dolls as well, but it won´t be the same as falling in love with a new doll. I will keep an eye on Robert Tonners new company, Phyn and Aero, some of the dolls look interresting but noting I really like. I am a very picky doll collector so I don´t really think they will make any dolls I will fall in love with. 

On another note my favorite doll blogger quitted blogging. I followed The Toybox philosopher since I started collecting, she have allways had the best reviewsa and I loved learning about and falling in love with new dolls thought her posts - I will greatly miss her post. I love reading doll blogs, but a lot of thosed I used to follow don´t blog annymore, and I have less energi to read blogs these days. On youtube some of the people I follow for toy videos have allso stopped posting and it is very difficullt for me to find new people that I wan´t to follow.   

Despite all of this sadness, I am actually pretty positive that I will have a nice doll year in 2019, but I will talk more about that in another post. 

Jurassic World Owen

I got  my first Ken doll!! 
I bought the Jurassic world owen doll for myslef as a christmas gift. I tink he is quite the handsome guy, he has some nice articulation and he has rotted hair. I will probably have to buy collectors dolls such as him to get ken dolls I like, since playline ken is stiff and has mouled hair, which I do not like at all. 

The doll is suppose to look like Chris Pratt, but I dont really think he does. I am going to name the doll Chris though, because I like that name and I like Christ as an actor. 

He stand very well on his own. I really like his outfit, it is very casual with jeans and a shirt, but the vest gives it something extra - I like how outddorsy it make him look. 

he comes with a nice collectors stand, but I am probably not going to use it since he stand so well on his own. 

His hair is very gelled, i think it looks kind of like Chris Pratts hairstile in the movie even thougt the dolls hair is longer. I really like his face paint, with those realistic blue eyes, glossy lips and beard stubble. His eyebrows make his expression quite serious, and I have been worried that he looked a bit too angry, but I am getting used to his epression and I just think it is part of his peronality. 

I paired him up with some of my girls to see how he looks with them, here he is with Aisha. His face is much more realistic than their, and his expression quite a bit more serious. But the fit is not terrible, I think I just need ti get used to the fact that he does have a bit of a different style than the girls. 

Here he is with Rory, he is a good hugger. Fron certain angles he doesn´t only look serious, but he also look quite caring. 

I brushed out his gelled hair and I really prefer how his hair looks now, soft and lively, I think the cut suits him, like he is styish but allso a bit messy. 

While Chris looked very nice with Aisha, I don´t think their personlities match that well, and Aisha allredy have a romantic partner. I do think however that his personality match with Cassie, they are similiair yet different enough for them to be good friends.. 

and later romantic partners. He is going to be a runner like Cassie is and they both really love nture. 

I am really happy about this doll, I hope to add more guys to my Barbie dolls collection, but since I am not buying very many dolls, I don´t know how realistic that dream really is. 

Customization

This post is about the small costomizations of 3 different dolls. 
The first costomization is one I did more than a year ago, but I just kept putting off blogging about it. 

I have changed the color of the lips on my Liv doll Emily before, but being unhappy with the result, i decided to try again. 

I had tryed to give her lips a neutral/natural color, I had succed in doing so but the color was too light for her skin. 

After half a year I sat down, ready to try again. I removed her lip paint, and dicovered that under that paint, her lips were a color that looked pale peach. I thought that color looked quite natural for her, so I decided not to paint her lips again. She is such a pretty doll, while I don´t focus all that much on my liv dolls lately, I do still fidn them very pretty. 

My next project was to do something about my Barbie doll Michelles smile, as I have a hard tim about how much teeth she is showing. I saw a video on youtube that showed how to just cut out the teeth part with a knife and glue the mouth shut, so i decided to try that.  

I did not wan´t to mess up on my beautiful and loved doll, so I first tryed it on a doll that I got with the design studio I bought some years back. 

Cutting out her teeth went well, but gluing her mouth shut didn´t. I coulden´t get the glue properly in her mouth and I ended up having glue all over her lips. I used nailpolish remover to remove the glue, which also removed her lip paint. 

I decided to only cut out her teeth, and not glu he mouth shut, so she would have a bit of nd open mouth, but not really a tooth smile. While I did hurt he rlip paint a bit when I cut out her teeth, I am happy with the result. While she had a nice smile, it did not fit the way I do storytelling with my dolls, it is imforpant for me that they can embody a wide range of emotions. 

My latest idea was to remove the freckles on my redhead Rory. While I love freckles I do not like hera at all, they are way to unnatural looking the way they are perefctly round dots, symmetrically placed on her cheeks. 

I did not remove all the paint on her cheeks, there is still a faint trace of her freckles. I am very happy with the result, I think she looked a bit goofy before, now she looks more mature and elegant. 

I really like making small changes like this to my dolls, it can make a big difference.

Lego Friends Advent Calendar

I thought I woulden't have an advent calendar this year. The lastb couplke of years I have had Schleich bayla calendars, which I have loved. But this year Scheleich did not make a Bayala calendar, and even if they did, I don't think I would have bought it, since they changed the style of the Bayala figures. I LOVE Lego but I do't buy their advent calendars becaus ethey usually set of a scene for a theme that I don't collect - I don't collect Lego Friends and thefore I am not interessted in a calendar with a scene that corrosponbd with the Friends world. 

But then I watched a youtube video and found out that this years Friends calendar is all about building christmas ornament. I really like that idea, I love building small Lego figures and the figures work well outside of the Friends world. I bought the calendar on december 4, for half off. 

The artwork on the box is different from previous yeqars, usually the box show the Lego scene you can build, but this year it shows a drawing of the friends hanging ornament on a christmas tree. 

This is how it look once it is opened, it is a nice purple color with lots of cute drawings, I was wondering if the drawings on each door coresponds with the figure you can build. 

They don't: the first door had a gingerbreadman on it, and behind the door was  pieces to build a lovely heart. I think it is good that the doors doesn't give away what is behind it, the calendar have allready given too much away by showing what figures can be build on the fornt of teh box. 

I don't have a tree where I can hang my ornament, so I hang them in my window instead, I think they look pretty decorative. I am hoping to have a tree where I can hang them next year. 

I don't like all of the ornament so far, but with 24 ornament that is bound to happend, and they are still fun to build. 

Doll kitchen

Earlier this year I found some amazing doll, furniture. The furniture is made by the danish brand Maileg, and the furniture is meant for some plush rabbits in various sizes. 
I feel in love with the the furnitures vintage style and good quality. I quickly spotted that the furniture would fit some of my dolls, and I feel in love with their amazing kitchen.
I bought the kitchen i yellow, but it comes in two other colors, white+grey and baby pink + baby blue. 

The kitchen came in a simple box that fit their theme very well. 

It had a list of all the things it came with on the back, I am so glad it comes with all those kitchen utensils. 

It was nicely packaged in the box.

I was surpriced that the kitchen came in two parts. The backboard was easy to slide in place though. The white box contains the kitchen utensils. 

Oh I love it! It is made completely out of metal and is very realistic looking. I love how some of the kitchen utensils can hang, the shelves are great to have, and I like the details with the rills besides the sink. 

The  oven and cabinets open, which is great. They were a bit tight, and were making creaking noices. Bit efter I opened them  completly they open and close very smooth.

A close Look at the top, I put some spices I alleredy had  on the shelves.

Here is how the kitchen look with my dolls, size wise. I bought the kitchen for my cat dolls, so I was pretty dissapointed to realise that they are too small to fit it propperly. My liv and barbie dolls on the otehr hand, seem to be in perfect scale with the kitchen. 

My Barbie dolls looks really good with this kitchen. But I did not buy the kitchen with the intention of giving it to them. 

My boyfriend suggested that if we raised the cat dolls with a podium, then they woulden't be too small for the kitchen. I tried it out with a book that was big enough to lift up the cats, but small enough as not to cover the owen and cabinets, so they ca still open. I think the cats look quite good with the kitchen this way. 

I really hope to get more furniture from this brand, maybe even for my Barbie and Liv dolls. The brand allso make clothes for their plush bunnies, I think some of it might fit my cat dolls, so I would like to try that as well. 

LEGO House

A month, ago I went to LEGO House in Billund Denmark with my boyfriend. LEGO House is a big play experience with a lot of different building activities. 

 An area designed to build frogs. Frogs are my favorite animals so I was pretty excited about this activity.

The frogs my boyfriend and I build. I build the very happy looking orange and red frog, he build the very cute frog with its tongue out.

Next we build some insects.

 My boyfriend build a very hungry looking caterpillar.

I build a very cute beetle.

Me, being very focused on finding the right parts for the minifugures I was making, in this big building container. 

And here are the minifigures (dolls) I build. 

My boyfriend allso build some, I thought they were quite silly looking.

I build this fish while my boyfriend was goofing around, building something that was NOT a fish, he allso build the red heart in this picture. 

We ending up building the heart into the fish.

The fish ending up on a monitor, after we scanned in, it looked like it was swimming around in a virtuel aquarium, much to the deligh of all the kids building their own fish. 

A big waterfall og lego, here we could build whatever we wanted. 

I didn't know what to build, but my boyfriend started building this purple house, which I helped him with, I especially helped with the decorations.

We allso build flowers and made a very short stop motion video, there were so much to do.

I considered buying the LEGO tree in this picture, but I thought it was too exspensive, and I really have no nice way of displaying it. 

The tree in the store is a smaller version of this large LEGO tree in the middle of LEGO house . it is very impressive. 

Instead I bought this small and very cheap set of flowers. The flowers remind me of our building experience because of buing flowers and insects, and I was able to find room for them on my dest after a big of rearranging. 

We had so much fun in LEGO House, I would love to come back soon, and play around some more. I feel very lucky that I live so close by the birthplace of LEGo.