BEARRIVAL

One last Bearrival before vacation! I'm so glad these two made it. My stockist has had some delays thanks to medical issues, so I only have the two instead of three, but Tardy will just be a little more Tardy and that's fine. 

This lovely is Harvest Moon. I adore orange, so I knew she was going to be one of this year's favorites. 

She's a little bit of a grump face, which I don't mind, because the striped fabric on her arms reminds me of Tango and he's absolutely a grump face. 

I wanted one with more of the dark orange on her head and that left me with only two to pick from, as the vast majority had lighter orange there. 

Her colors are so beautiful!

The moon necklace didn't come with her, but my stockist clearly has a great selection of celestial pendants to go with all these moon and planet bears from this year. 

This floofy guy is Bonfire Toffee. He wasn't on my original preorder list, but I added him in my follow up list a few minutes later. That made me fourth to choose, but thankfully, the three people ahead of me were quick, so I was able to get him home in time. 

I'm obsessed with him. 

I love his fur and he's super cuddly. He's thinner than I expected, which works out nicely. He's about the perfect size. 

He's also looking up. I'm not sure if they all do this, but mine sure does. It makes him even more endearing. 

He's definitely coming along on vacation. 

Hopefully I'll have more later in December. I'll have Tardy for sure, but Stompy and Smog are also impending. 

REVIEW: LOL OMG Swag (New)

I've had this girl a few days now, but life gets in the way. 

I was surprised that I wanted one of these updated main four OMG characters, but there's something I really like about the cut of Swag's outfit. 

She comes with a useless comb that can be useless in 3 different ways. I'd rather have a stand than this huge hunk of plastic. 

Her earrings I hate. You know me and being picky about round earrings. 

The glasses...well...

I like the style, but they don't fit right. To cover the bottom of her eyes, they sit below her nose. The lenses should have been a smidge bigger. 

The main thing about this new foursome is that they have transforming outfits. Swag can go from looking awesome to...her boxing match, I guess. 

Much better. 

I'm such a sucker for longer skirts and I love the layered effect.

Her shoes are super cute, too. 

I may have to revisit her hair when I get more free time. I washed the gel but didn't get quite all of it. She didn't have much, but you know MGAE and their need to have gel in at least one place on every doll in existence. 

She's cute and she'll look good with my others. Not sure if I'll get another OMG doll ever again, as I haven't liked anything else they've done with the newer releases, so she's a good one to end on. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

REVIEW: Breyer SeaHearts

I've been wanting to get my hands on some SeaHearts ever since I saw them on IG, and now I've got all twelve!

SeaHearts are an adorable line of seahorses made by Breyer. Each figure comes with a stand, a collector card, and two small sea friends. 

These are found at Five Below. They're $5 each. Not sure if they'll be sold anywhere else. 

The boxes are open in the front. 

The liner comes out and you can see the slot where the two sea friends are hiding. These are completely random from what I can tell. The ones I received don't match up with the ones shown on the promo photos on Five Below's website. 

The seahorse is held down by two ties. One holds the stand and figure to the liner, while the other holds the figure to the stand. 

Between the liner is the collector card. It has character info on one side and seahorse info on the other side. 

This line is very environmental, so expect a lot of that theme. 

So here is Maya. 

Maya is the only one I got that came with the yellow fish. 

Maya is a sea unicorn. There are 5 sea unicorns, 5 regular seahorses, 1 sea dragon, and 1 sea dragon unicorn. 

The figures have details that appear in the cold. I haven't bothered to put any of mine in the freezer because I can sort of see the details as is. The heart has a picture, sometimes a slogan. I know I saw a music note on someone's face. Each collector card has a symbol under the name of the character, so it's possible that symbol appears on the figure.

Corallina is my favorite! I love her colors. 

She's beautiful. 

Many of them have a lot of different colors.

Reed is the other orange one. He's a seahorse. 

He's great colors, too. I'm such a sucker for orange. 

Here are the two orange ones and the more yellow Maya. 

As you can see, there are different mold for the species. Maya and Corallina are both sea unicorns, but they're completely different in shape. 

I'll move on to Pearl next. She's the only white one. 

She's very pretty. 

Cordelia is the lone pink one. 

She's a regular seahorse like Reed and if you scroll back up, you can see that they're two different body shapes. 

Nori is the only one that came with a jellyfish. I liked the jellyfish best, so I was disappointed I didn't get a bunch of them. 

Sadly, this picture is blurry. Argh. But you can still see the cuteness. 

Nori's lovely shades of purple. 

Shelly is the other purple one. 

She's cute but my least favorite. Sorry, Shellly. 

Here are the purple ones. Shelly is darker than Nori. I threw Cordelia in here, too, just for fun. 

Moving on to the blues, this is Aqua.

Super pretty. 

Darker blue Cove is my fave of the blue trio. 

Beautiful colors. 

And Skipper is the lighter blue. 

He's the only one where I got cheated out of a sea friend. Only the crab was in the box. 

You can see the cold effect on his belly heart. I just grabbed these out of the package hub, so he was in the cold a few hours. 

Here are the blue three. 

Laguna is the only sea dragon of the bunch. 

I love her! 

And last but definitely not least, Nixie is the only sea dragon unicorn. 

She is my other fave along with Corallina. I love this darker green. 

And here are the sea dragons together. 

So that does it for Series 1 of the SeaHearts. I think they're super cute and will definitely buy more if they make a Series 2. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

REVIEW: Nebulous Stars ISADORA

FINALLY! Woohoo!

I can't remember how many years ago we first saw Isadora at a toy show. I think at least two years. I would check in every few months, trying to see if she existed yet. I also can't remember the first time I noticed that she was available via the official Nebulous Stars site, which only ships to Canada. I hoped to find her elsewhere and even asked for help from any Canadian readers, but nothing ever worked out. 

I recently decided I wanted to finish my collection of Nebulous Stars plush and ended up finding a Canadian store that would ship to the US. I was able to get Stella, Elana, Paloma, and the super adorable Astria. (I'll have to do a post on the plush sometime soon.) I had picked up Louna, Octavia, Lyria, and Blizzia quite a while ago, and grabbed Lumina off ebay maybe a year or so ago. This store's selection left me only needing Aura. I did a Google search specifically for Aura and found another Canadian store...and this one carried the dolls! 

After all this time, I finally have my Isadora! While not my most wanted, I think Isadora would have been my third choice for the next character turned into a doll. Eclipsia is my fave and I think Hazelia would make a gorgeous doll, but I do love Isadora, too. She's a writer, after all. 

Isadora wears a one-piece romper thingy over leggings. One of the ruffles at the top is attached to the romper, but another is a fully separate piece attached to those brighter purple fabric straps. She has a plastic belt over the top and then her arm warmers. Her boots are simple silver flat boots. 

Isadora has gorgeous multi-colored eyes. Her forehead has bright blue makeup on it that comes around the outer edges of her eyes. Little stars in blue, pink and purple scatter around her forehead and cheeks. 

Her necklace is the only thing I don't like. It's open on the side and has already fallen off once. The design is great, but the execution isn't.

Isadora's hair is silky and lovely. It's mostly a blend of purple and blue, but there are yellow streaks on the top layer. 

She's absolutely my new favorite from the line! Stunning!

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.

LINK: 

https://imaginaire.com/

This is where I bought Isadora. They have the four dolls plus the plush. Their prices are very reasonable. The only trouble I had is that the shipping didn't calculate correctly (I thought it was too cheap) and they followed up with an email letting me know the actual cost. I sent them what I owed with Paypal and they shipped the next day. 

Dolly Insider's "Friday Dolly Questions" Part 8

#43: How did you get into collecting dolls?

I loved them when I was little. I had Barbie, Jem, Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake, Rose Petal, She-Ra, Dream Gazer from Moondreamers, Whisper from the Star Fairies. You know, a pretty standard assortment for a girl growing up in the 80s. The last doll I consider a childhood buy was the 1992 Princess Jasmine by Mattel. After that, I got more into comics and action figures, then switched to My Little Pony. I did a brief dip back into dolls when I learned there were Sailor Moon dolls in the US. I remember finding Sailor Moon and Venus at Toys R Us, and then my mom located Jupiter, Mars and Mercury at Hills. Gah, I miss Hills. Once I had access to computers when I was in undergrad, I got into vintage collecting and Jem was one of the first things I started with. Then I don't remember why exactly I was looking at toys at the time, but in 1999 0r 2000, I stumbled across the Barbie Generation Girl Dance Party line and became instantly smitten with Lara. She was my first adult collection purchase. From there, I bought more Generation Girls, then got into Bratz, Lollipop Girls, My Scene, Pullip, Winx, etc. I was not only buying vintage stuff from childhood, but also modern playline and collector pieces, and that's when I was truly a doll collector.

#44: Do you buy doll clothes, make doll clothes or both?

HA. I cannot sew. Like maybe I could sew a button on. That's it. I used to have a ton of fun buying outfits for my Pullips, Winx and Bratz back when I was doing picfics eons ago, but in more recent years, I've mostly stuck with what the doll comes in or I've delved into my existing collection of clothing. The exception is the Disney ILY outfits, because they're fabulous. 

#45: What 5 dolls would you like to add to your collection?

I'm going to stick with things that are current, not go all grail BJD. I feel like I answered that not long ago anyway. 

I really want the upcoming Pixlings, so I'll name them #1 and #2. 

I'll go to VIP Hair Academy next. #3 is Chloe. #4 is Lexie. 

And I can't wait for G3 Venus, so I'll choose her as my #5. 

REVIEW: Monster High Signature V2 Draculaura

FINALLY.

I kept missing this girl when she'd pop up for sale, but finally managed to order two of them. (To pick a face and return the other.) They projected mid-November to early December, but she ended up arriving on Saturday. I've been struggling with my allergies for over two weeks, but I'm feelng better now, so it's time to get this review done. 

Laura comes with her new backpack with bat charm and you can fill it with her sunscreen, sunglasses, lip gloss, and a magic book. Then she's got a cute little cup with bat detail and a tiny bat purse. 

Here's Count Fab in his hybrid form. He's basically a cat with bat wings. 

I did not have the most fun time deboxing her. There's a stupid plastic ring around her hat that is attached to the two plastic tabs that keep the hat on her head. So I had to clip the plastic ring off without cutting the plastic tabs, as I want the hat left attached to her head. It looks too shallow to sit well on her head without being attached. 

Pretty much the entire reason I bought this doll is that she comes with this hat. I love her makeup, too, but her finally getting her damn hat that she wears all the freakin' time on the show was the main selling point. 

I also love that I can see her ears so well! 

We are the weirdos, mister. 

She's basically perfection except for how she was packaged. My new favorite Laura!

PHOTO CREDIT: Mine.