PLUSHIE SPOTLIGHT: Squishmallows

I never got wrapped up in the Squishmallow craze, but I do have a few. 

Delfina and Glixa are the huge size. I don't have space for a lot of big ones, but I love these two. (The smaller Delfina I recently gifted to my friend Deneen from the previous post.)

I have no idea what the names of these two are. I got the smaller one on the right in Walgreen's. The larger one on the left with arms is from Target. 

I like this character range. I think they're a very stylized bigfoot. 

Pammy the pig is from the Mystery Squad Easter set. This was a surprise from Deneen in my plushie package that arrived today. Super duper cute!

And finally, the perfectly adorable Perkin the mothman, also from Deneen. I have a lot of cryptid plushies, so he really caught my eye when I first saw him on IG. I'm pleased he's in what I think of as the most common Squish size. It's not the huge size like Delfina and Glixa. This is definitely the size I see the most often, like all the ones at Five Below. 

Squishmallows are the current plushie craze and I think BumBumz will be right there alongside them. There's a wide range of squish with lots of exclusives and price ranges. Definitely something for everyone!

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

I'm so lucky!

I'm super lucky to have such fabulous friends. I did a fun plushie swap with my old LJ friend Deneen and I received my goodies from her today!

I'm thrilled to have Perkin the mothman. I don't collect a lot of Squishmallows, but he was one I fell in love with. 

I'll go into more detail on the BumBumz when I get one more in the mail and have all the ones I want to show in my plushie spotlight for them. 

Stella though. Oh, Stella! She's going to look amazing on my RH shelf in all her autographed glory. 

Now excuse me while I go move that pink hair on the right there. I honestly have no idea where I'm going to display my VIP dogs and cats, because their hair hangs all over. 

PLUSHIE SPOTLIGHT: Jellycat

 I don't have a photo of my first Jellycat. He was the original Bashful Badger and I bought him at one of my favorite vacation gift shops back in the early 2010s. I remember which rental house we were in when I got him, but I've forgotten which year it was. 

But that gift shop is where I discovered Jellycat and I bought a few others from that same shop over the years. 

The Woodland bunny in the middle there is named Oliver. I got him from that shop. The chocolate brown bunny is named Wensley. I got him from ebay. Alan the mammoth also came from ebay, I think, and Dez the small dino was a discounted find from the gift shop because she had a small hole in her that was easily fixed. 

These early JC buys were going to be characters in a children's book I was inspired to write, but I never got that far with it. My writing tone is not made for kids' books. Heh. 

I discovered a local shop that carries them, so I've gotten a few more from there as well as from the official store itself. 

These three dragons were must haves when they came out. 

I love when they do cryptids like Yani Yeti and Bo Bigfoot. 

Nessie.

Wilf Wolf is totally a werewolf. He's my current favorite. 

Jellycats can be a bit pricey, especially if you want a larger size or an older, retired character that was popular. But they're made of quality materials and the designs are always fun. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine. 

VIP Pets Cats

I was surprised to see the VIP Pets Cats on clearance at my work Walmart last night. They never had them for sale at full price. They just appeared for $15 in the clearance aisle. 

I was even more surprised to peek inside the first bottle I picked up and see Stormy! She's the only one I really wanted. 

VIP Cats are an odd set. They're in the same type of bottle as Glam Gems (though not the same shape or style) in that they have the cloudy pink window on the front so you can sort of ID the cat. 

Amazon was the only place to buy them and they only had 3 of the 6 characters, but you could order exactly who you wanted. 

The three they have are:

-Elektra: White cat with pink, red and yellow hair and asymmetrical bangs. 

-Melisa: Light brown cat with a white lower face and rainbow hair. 

-Mistery: Yes, the spelling bothers me. Gray cat with a white blaze and pink and blue hair. Maybe more hair colors in there. I can't tell. 

The other three in the series are:

-Stormy: The one in my pic. 

-Kitty (very original): Light gray with pink hair. 

-Selena: Light pink with white and light blue hair. 

For the longest time, the latter three characters weren't available. They're still not on Amazon. I heard they were on Walmart.com, but you couldn't pick who you got, so I never ordered any. I wasn't even sure all 6 were available, so you can imagine how surprised I was to see Stormy! 

If you're interested in these, do check your Walmarts. You never know what you'll find. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

PLUSHIE SPOTLIGHT: Squishable

Back with more plushie posts! 

This time I'm featuring Squishable. No, not Squishmallows. Squishables were around long before that. 

Squishables come in multiple sizes from 15' huge ones to teeny micros. Most of mine are in the "mini" size. 

Squishable designs are typically pretty round, though they frequently have tails, wings or bigger heads extending. 

Brian (my name for him) the alien here was my first and he's still one of my top two. 

The original pink axolotl was very sought after and was my first axolotl plush.

I love this griffin. 

Squishables often have characters from mythology like Anubis here. 

There are a lot of food ones like this bread. 

These Little Monsters are some of my favorites. There's a third one, too. 

They have some cutesy pastel designs like Starry Bunny. 

And spooky characters like Lich and Jersey Devil. They're doing an awesome scarecrow and the Flatwoods Monster later this year and I'm so excited. 

The Plague Doctor was one of their most popular designs and spawned several different incarnations. He recently donned different costumes in the Alter Ego line. 

These two are the Jester and Demon. 

A more recent Alter Ego line featured different Christmas trees. There on the left is the Goth Tree. Yep, Love it. 

The frosted one is from last year, I think. 

Squishable really has something for everyone, so go check them out!

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

Kim Part 2!

I did a little more work on Kim. I used a navy hair tie as a hairband to cover the bald spots. And I trimmed up her bangs a bit. They're so choppy, I'm never going to fix them, so I'm going to quit while I'm ahead and just go with this. I do like her more now, but there is no excuse for that hair debacle. 

HQG1C

 

I first heard of HQG1C in 2016 and purchased Genie here. 

Then I never ended up keeping up with releases, which turned into me buying almost everything I ever wanted of theirs in one fell swoop now. 

These two are what sparked my need. I love the Mountain Boys, but I only own Fireball. Baby versions of Lightning and Thundercloud? Sold. 

I'm always impressed by how well made these are. They're just as good as Genie. 

Just so you can see the mixed colors in the manes. 

From the same mold, I also got Bubbly, who is clearly Gametime's brother. 

I no longer have Sugarcake to make the second pairing, so I skipped the yellow boy. 

Li'l Pumpkin. Adorable. 

Lucky Star. 

I almost got these so many times! Childhood Lori wanted a red pony very badly and could never understand why they didn't make one. Spellbound is perfection. (She's the red one.) Lovebound is also lovely. 

I do love the Flutter Pony poses. 

So I also ended up with a full set of the Artistry Ponies. 

Prism and Whirl here are clearly invoking Dabble and Scribbles. At a much lower cost. 

These two are Rhyme and Flow. There was nothing better than Flow? Nothing? She's too pretty to be named Flow. Maybe just Flo. That'll do. She's my third fave of the set. She needs a good name. 

And finally, my favorite two of the Artistry set: Rhythm and Pizzazz. 

Rhythm is easily my favorite of the unique designs. I love the baby Mountain Boys to pieces, so it's hard to fairly compare them with a fully custom design. Her colors are fabulous though. 

I'm glad I finally caught up!

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

REVIEW: Rainbow High Series 5 Kim Nguyen

Oh, Kim, I wanted to love you. 

They really did this poor girl dirty. I knew I wasn't going to like the dress, but so many other issues. Argh. 

Stand and stuff. 

Sewing machine, makeup, and thankfully, a cool phone. I hate when they don't get a phone like poor Olivia. 

I love the R motif. It reminds me of Monique's. 

I also love that her phone shows a post featuring herself. 

I love these. Are they supposed to be two Rs? I think so from squinting at the photos, but RH is so drilled into me that this feels weird. 

UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

This is one of the worst RH pieces ever. And on a doll with no other clothing options. 

They never cut minidresses in a flattering way. They always look like sacks. 

The back with the pockets is a way more interesting look. But maybe just stop using denim in place of blue. It wouldn't have been that hard to have navy pieces. 

So she got her gel washed out and dried with her bangs being held down overnight. The bangs are not even. Surprise surprise. But I'm just letting them go. I'm tired of cutting hair. 

She's wearing her own jacket over Skyler's too-large denim top. I wanted to keep her in dark colors and that was not easy to do. The skirt is Minnie's. 

I really hope other people got better Kims. 

Not only have both of the ones I've seen had lip flaws (this second one was minor so I gave up and kept her) and crappy bangs, the one I opened has very poor rooting. I'm not one to complain about hair thickness very often, but this is bad. Her hair is very thin and it's right up at the front. She needs a headband to cover this. And scooting around other hair to make it better only reveals even more bald spots. Blech. 

Forgot to take a pic of her shoes. Oh, well. They're simple but I like them. 

Overall, I'm not impressed with Kim. I had to give her a completely new outfit, keeping only her jacket and shoes. I had to do hair work on her and she has hair problems that are beyond fixing. She doesn't photograph very well. I wanted to love her, but instead I'm just really disappointed they did such a bad job with her. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine. 

REVIEW: Rainbow High Series 5 Aidan Russell

Well, I hate to say it, but we go from my two pleasant surprises to my two unpleasant disappointments. 

I was here for Aidan. I didn't care when people mocked his outfit, even though they knew what it would be for how many years? But making him shelf presentable was not fun. 

Back of the box. 

I feel like they could have given him a different stand/comb color that was less Shadow High. 

His stuff. 

This is my favorite thing about Aidan. How much he loves his friends. 

So this is my final product, two gel rinses and one haircut later. 

His hair is terrible. It's solid gel, so you have to wash it, but then it wants to go in every possible direction all at once and it's just as many different lengths. It's the worst boy hair they've done. The pastel bits were all over, the tinsel was a hundred flyaways. Ugh. 

My go to for fixing RH boy hair is apparently "comb it to the side." I tried combing it back, but it wasn't having it. I kind of like the swoop of white/tinsel into pastels. 

I want to like this, but the cut of the shirt is too unflattering. Why are the sleeves covering his hands? Why does it look two sizes too big? 

So your choice is either unflattering shirt or him looking really boring without it. I kept it on. 

Absolutely not. 

Aidan is off to sit at Ainsley's feet on my SH shelf. I don't have Avery, so he has to sit with his second friend. 

I'm glad Aidan finally got a doll after being a character since the first episode. I don't hate the final product, but they could have done him so much more justice. If you want him, you are going to have to work with that hair. He's not going to be an easy debox and display. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.