REVIEW: Enchantimals Esmeralda Elephant

I was so close to importing this set! I'm glad I waited a little bit longer and got it from the US (Amazon). 

I didn't initially want this set, but Esmeralda won me over.

Art of adorableness.

Here she is! 

Her hair is in pigtails, which I thought about taking down, but I'm leaving it alone for now. 

It's lighter pink at the back. 

I don't care for the repeat baby. Other sets got 3 different babies. But they're all adorable, especially the big one. 

The reason I ended up getting Esmeralda was her resemblance to one of my favorites from the original set: Karina Koala.

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

COLLECTION REVIEW: Dragons & Beasties Gem Dragons

I once reviewed my first figures from the Dragons & Beasties line, but never tackled any other pieces. 

So the three plush in the back are Ember the phoenix, Misty the sea dragon, and Blaze. 

The figures right in front of the plush were reviewed here:

https://venivididolli.blogspot.com/2019/11/review-dragons-beasties-figures.html

Except for DeeBee, who's the light pink one in front of Blaze. 

What I want to focus on though is the Gem Dragons, the ones in the front. 

These figures are blind-packed. I got 5 from HotTopic.com and picked up the rest on ebay. These first ones are Series 1. 

L to R: Merlot, Marigold, Biscotti, Mint and Fern. 

L to R: Skye, Azure, Mauve, Rose and Snow. 

These figures are highly collectible, though I had no idea when I started collecting them. A full set recently sold for $1175 and singles range from $100-$150+ for the regular ones. Snow, who was the rare, goes for over $200 with one selling a week ago for $275. 

Series 2 came out recently and I managed to get them all, though getting the two rare ones wasn't easy. I bought 12 and then another 10 and thankfully managed to get both rares. (And even one extra that I sold.) 

So here we have Sterling and Crystal. This series had some struggles with the figures holding onto the gems. Many would come with them loose in the package. My Sterling on the left was part of a trade gone bad, where the person I was trading with was in Europe and I dealt with their friend in the US. Their friend who blew off sending me my end of the trade for ages and then packaged it so poorly that the gem fell out. But Sterling looks cute without the green gem, so I have him without it and then another with it, as I got him in the second set I bought trying to find Crystal. Yep, Crystal there is one of the two rares. I'd say he's the slightly harder to find and more popular of the two. 

Then we have Lila, Jazzy, Cherry and Cocoa. Cocoa is my fave of this series and Cherry is close second. Then Jazzy and Crystal and Lila.

And finally, Bumble, Jubilee, Dazzle and Gogo. Dazzle is the second rare. 

These guys might become just as rare as the first series eventually, so if you like them, I recommend grabbing some now. 

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

COLLECTION UPDATE: Altaya Strawberry Shortcake

Altaya has been plugging away at the Brazilian SSC dolls. I just got a package of 4 more yesterday and there are 2 more out that are newer. I've seen the designs of those 2 plus the 2 after so I'm probably going to wait until at least 3 if not all 4 are out before I order another batch. I do love what will be the 3rd of the next 4, so I may order once she's out. (It's Little Coffee!)

 This is Little Pineapple, according to a vintage Brazilian SSC site, or Pineapple Tart. A lot of these new ones are _____ Tart with Altaya's naming system. 

I love her because she's got that awesome print headband. She's really cute. 

Here's Little Cherry (Cherry Tart). 

She's the first one I had to do hair work on. These all smell so lovely that I refuse to condition them and possibly alter their scents, so I had to settle for just wetting her hair. It's still a bit crazy, but she's cute anyway. 

Ooh, do I ever love her. She's based on one of the lovely dolls from the first Brazilian party series. They all have fab curly hair and dresses with enormous skirts. 

This girl's name is debatable, as the key word in Portuguese is "limão." It translates a lot as "lemon," but if you look at the doll, she's definitely green. Her hair is green. Rather...limey. And she smells...like lime. Funnily, "limão" also means "lime." So instead of Lemon Sorbet, which seems to be her standard name, I'm calling her Lime Sorbet. It fits better. 

And here's Little Coconut. I think the beads on her headpiece were originally supposed to be tiny coconuts. 

So the next four dolls are: 

Passionfruit Sorbet (from the same party line as Lime)

Little Watermelon

Little Coffee

Little Mint

The mint one they seem to be calling coffee cake or something like that. Why I don't know. She clearly has mint on her. I do like her so I may wait for all 4 to come out before ordering, buuuuuuuut I also have a soft spot for Little Coffee because she's not white so I may order after she comes out. 

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

REVIEW(ish): Itty Bitty Prettys Series 1.5

So I saw in Target awhile ago that the Itty Bitty Pretty cups looked different. I meant to buy one, because that star shows gold versions of 2 of the characters from the big cup playsets and I thought maybe they'd stuck some of the regular versions in the smaller cups. I couldn't find any info about these online, though I didn't look again after seeing them the first time in the store. 

For a refresher, this is the Series 1 cup. It's got the unicorn girl on it, even though she's only in the big cup. 

If you look above, Series 1.5 (as I'm calling them) has Spice on it. 

This was the original checklist. 

8 dolls in the small cups. 

4 dolls in the big cups (2 in the pink lid one and 2 in the blue lid one). 1 gold variant of 1 of those 4 dolls. 

This is the new checklist. I was hoping for something new, but it's mostly the same assortment. 

Same 4 dolls in the 2 big cups. I'm thinking Royal Tea still may only be in the big cups, though I'm not positive. 

Same 8 dolls in the small cups. The only difference I can tell is that now there are gold versions of 8-Tea-8 and Chai Chai with Chai Chai being super rare. 

I'm not sure exactly how this is split up. Gold 8-Tea-8 and Chai Chai must be in the small cups, but are they also in the big? Is Royal Tea in the small, too? Who knows? Has anyone ever even seen a gold one of these?

I ended up with a double of the ballerina, because I'm not lucky enough to get a gold one, but at least I know a little more about what the line is. I need to get those two big cups. I never did and I do love these girls. If you want to spend $10 and get a good doll, get one of these, not a Glam Crush. 

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

REVIEW: Glam Crush

I've got something new to share tonight. I've heard of these before, but this was my first time seeing them at Target. They're $9.99. You have a good idea which one you're getting thanks to the visible hair. I was able to find the one I wanted right away. 

There they all are, so that's very helpful if you're in the store and looking for a certain one. The hair sticking out the top is your clue. 

I wanted Penelope, the only one with darker hair, so she was easy to find. 

Checklist front. 

And back. 

So you push up on the bottom of the makeup brush thingy and the doll comes out. Her hair is stuck up in a barrette and you're instructed to wet it. 

Then there's a compact where the accessory is and a chisel/brush to help you with other gimmicks. 

The compact is filled with tightly-packed powder. You're supposed to dig into it with the chisel and find your doll's accessory. 

This was messy. As it looks like it would be. 

So her accessory is that tiny pink plastic doodad. It's supposed to be a contouring sponge. Sigh. How dull. It ended up in the trash with the rest of the packaging. 

Her hair did lie down easily with water though. No complaints there.

However, big complaint about the makeup effect. 

You're supposed to wet the sponge she came with under cold water and rub it across her face to reveal her makeup. Yeah, did not work. 

This pic on the right I took after a solid five minutes in the freezer. 

They're cute little dolls. Kind of remind me of the old Trollz line meets Sugar Planet. And the hair is really cool. But they're definitely not worth $10, especially because the cool makeup only appears if she's freezing cold. Otherwise, you're left with a bare-faced doll in a line about makeup. Sigh. 

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

CUTETITOS Partyitos CHEAT CODES

Partyitos! I finally got one. I had to order it, because even though it says they're in my Target, they're not. 

I do plan on ordering some more eventually. There are a few I want. 

So this is a small new series of Cutetitos that's exclusive to Target. They're scented and mine smells lightly of birthday cake. It's quite pleasant. I'm not sure if there are multiple scents. 

Same $9.99 price as always. 

So many colors. 

It's the fish! He's cute. 

And the checklist. 

CODES:

Wavito whale: 05321

Splashito fish: 05421, 20821

Flyito flying pig: 05621, 21021, 28721

Mewito cat: 05521, 20921, 28621

Changito chameleon: 05821

Tutoito chihuahua: 05721, 21121

Pinwheelito crab: 06121, 21621, 29221

Dancito flamingo: 06021, 21521

MONTH IN REVIEW: APRIL 2021

 

I have an odd balance of procrastination. On here, I always post these Month in Reviews late. Like it's practically time for May's and here I am posting April's. Meanwhile, over on Flickr, I constantly forget to post a pic with a link back to one of my reviews from here. 

So let's get into April's bears. As always, they're mostly bears because I review almost everything else. 

This guy is Pudding. He's actually got sparkly iridescent strands running through his fur. Pretty awesome! 

Rudolph on the left is my new addition. I've had Satsuma for a while now. But showing them both together illustrates Rudolph's red better than his solo photo, which came out a bit light. 

Because there have been so few releases from Charlie Bears this year so far, it's been the perfect time for me to grab some older ones and my luck has been quite good with them popping up. 

Tiny little Samantha...she's only 10"!...is another older bear. I've gotten so many from this awesome fellow collector on Facebook. Samantha, Pudding up at the top and Larry, who I'm showing next, are all from her. 

Larry! Great name. He's one of those that I'm picky about, because I fell for one that looked a little doofy and fun. This guy is neither of those things, but I liked his gruffness, too. It's also great when you can buy an older bear from within the US, since so many of them only pop up as imports. 

Then we've got Aurora. We've only gotten a couple shipments of 2021 bears here in the US so far, but we finally got Aurora in. She's one a lot of people have been waiting for, me included. Like Pudding, she's got sparkles running through her fur! 

I'm hoping the next month or so will see a lot more new bear arrivals. I'm still waiting on one from the first quarter and the rest of the world is starting to get second quarter stuff, even though the second quarter is actually ending next month already. At least we're all somewhat behind, even if it is the worst here. 

I bought Moon here on ebay. There are still 3 bears from 2020 that I've been waiting on. Moon was one of them. I still have her on pre-order from my stockist and will buy her from there if there's an especially cute one. I don't like cancelling my pre-orders, but it's been so long waiting for some of these that I feel like if I don't take the opportunity to buy them when I can, I may miss out. What if we never get them? I recently got Foster, a 2020 Secret Collection, that also never came over here and he's got A LOT of people waiting on him. He'll be in the May Month in Review. So that just leaves one more I'm still missing. 

But back to Moon. She's a silvery delight. I'm not always into the long-haired bears, but sometimes they do just the right one.

Then I've got one thing that isn't CBs. I finally got the last two neon Cave Club dinos I needed! I hate that two of the set always seem to be impossible to find. I got these in a trade with a fellow collector from Canada. Not a cheap trade, but a good one nonetheless.

And for fun, here are my faves from both pet series. Mostly from the neon set, but the rock from Series 1 had to be included. 

I'm leaving out the new Dragons & Beasties gem series because I never took a photo after I got the last two I needed. I might do a review post on them with individual pics for each. 

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.

REVIEW: Aaru Garden

Here's something a little different, yet still decidedly up my alley. 

Aaru Garden is a set of Egyptian deity blind box figures meant to depict the gods in kindergarten. (Aaru Garden...Garten.) They're from ToysComic x Blackbox. Blackbox is one of those BJD companies that makes Egyptian BJDs, so turning them into figures likely wasn't hard but it's not something I've seen done before.

Each boxed figure is about $14. A case of 6 cost me about $113 shipped. What I'm not sure of is the packing. Most sites say the cases are packed at random, but I know one site said a case of 6 will contain the basic set of 5 figures and then 1 more, which MIGHT be a rare or might be a double of the basic. I got the full set of 5 basics plus 1 rare, so this seems feasible. 

These guys are pretty big. I've seen them listed as 3.15 inches/8 cm. I think that's without the ears in Anubis and Seth's cases.

Love the gold-tipped tail on Anubis. This is the basic one.

The ultra rare is an Anubis with a set of scales, and he's made of sterling silver with some gold-plated bits!

Here's Bast. (Or Bastet.)

I adore the cat ears on the sistrum. 

One of the three regular rares is a white Bast that's just lovely. 

Here's Ra.

And Horus. 

Together. 

And from the back. 

This is my only real complaint about this set. Why have two falcon deities? Why? Sure, Ra and Horus are important, but there are only 5 characters in this set. Use Thoth if you want another bird. Or Sobek with his crocodile head. And then they made them both white, too. Meh.

Here's my boy, Seth. 

Well, Anubis is also my boy, but Seth is REALLY my boy since so many people get the wrong idea of him. 

Eee! The forked tail!

I love his little clawed feets, too. So cute. 

Another reason Seth is my boy. 

This is an official Aaru Garden promo. See the first tan picture in the middle there where Seth is lying down?

That's MY photo. It's my Facebook header and my profile photo in a lot of places. If it's online anywhere, it was either put there by me or stolen from me and put up. It was taken for me by the two girls from the Canary Islands that I worked with in Egypt in 2004/2005. They saw him and took his picture for me in case I didn't see that particular one and shoot it myself. (And I didn't, so I'm grateful.) 

So it makes even more sense that the sixth figure was...IRON BONE SETH. 

He is so badass! I'm in love.

*eternal squealing*

And that's Aaru Garden. I adore these. So happy they made them! I'm always after more cool Egyptian stuff and this is some of the coolest. 

PHOTO CREDITS: Mine.