All that glitters...

...is often made of vinyl and comes in a cardboard box!  I got bitten by the glitzy toddler doll bug, LOL.

Yeah, glitzy toddler dolls, the ones that dominated the early part of the nineties and then vanished into thin air.  I admit that I like these dolls a lot, though I might feel differently if I were a mama (just like with the Bratz).  I'd say that the biggest beef I have with these dolls is that they're ALL.  BLONDE.  AND BLUE-EYED.  And all in pink!  Sort of, anyway; Alexis/Pretty Crazy Curls has lilac eyes that I love.

Granted, Tiffany and Mary did come in Afro-American versions, and Mary could be a cute little brunette as well, but...well, you get what you get and you don't throw a fit.  Mary was a gift so I won't complain, and the black version of Tiffany is apparently hard to find (there weren't any when I looked on eBay the first time).  As for Alexis and Susie...well, if I'd been a bit more patient I could've gotten a black Pretty Crazy Curls doll MIB instead of the beat-up doll that I swiped off of Etsy.  Ghost of the Doll implies that the black variant is hard to find, so if you like her, better get her now.  Sixty bucks is a fair price for a doll like that.  Surprise Hat Susie (bottom right) also came as a black doll, so a little diversity can be had if one looks hard enuff.  It all comes back to that patient thing, and as I've said and heard before, patience is for wimps.

In other news Alexis's glow-up is slow but steady.  I don't know how to fix her mangled bangs without removing her head, but I did add a little piece of frippery to her dress.

That came as a freebie in an Etsy order, so I hooked it to the mesh part of Alexis's dress, kinda like Chloe Charms might've done.  I haven't tried Alexis's curlers on her hair yet, but I did try Twist 'n' Style Tiffany's styling gun on her and it worked...pretty well.  Alexis's hair isn't as slippery as Tiffany's is, but it worked okay.

The star of this post, though, is Flower Magic Mary's "sister," Surprise Hat Susie.  I touched on this doll in this post, since she's one of so many that I know named "Susie."  I wanted a doll that still had her hair concealed, so I got one MIB.

These dolls could have one of four different highlights in their hair, pink, blue, and two shades of purple, and I wanted that to be a surprise, thus why she's still in her box.

The box also shows the doll with twisted little braids like what Twist 'n' Style Tiffany has, but as far as I know Susie doesn't come with a tool that does that.  She can use Tiffany's styling gun, but still...would that count as false advertising???

Since I have Tiffany and her accoutrements with me it's not such a big deal, but keep that in mind if you have Susie and NOT Tiffany.  So here's how Susie looks fresh out of her box.

In order to be a surprise hat doll Susie's hat had to be fastened to her head, and look how Tyco went about it!  A plastic tie!

Yikes, reminds me of the time I lashed myself to my bed with a ball of yarn!  Daddy had to cut me loose with a pocketknife!  I don't know what in flaming purple hell I was thinking, doing that.  Speaking of purple, part of me wonders if the decorations on Susie's clothes don't give some sort of hint to her secret hair color.  The bow on her hat is purple...

...as is the bow around her waist.

Indeed, when I finally took Susie's hat off she had a purple streak hiding amongst the blonde, kinda like Luciana Vega does.

Again, I'd have taken what I'd got and been happy, but I'm VERY happy with the purple.  Glitzy toddler dolls go WAAAAY too heavy on the pink, and pink was an option for this highlight so I'm pleased with purple.  Al-right, hold tight, I'M-YOUR-HIGH-WAY-STARRRRR!!!!!!  LOL, Deep Purple for the win!  Ghost of the Doll implies that there should be two highlights (purple was always paired with a shade of pink), but so far all I see is purple.

It should be noted that while Susie's box shows her hair accessories spilling out of her hat like confetti, the initial box-opening is not that messy.  The items are indeed tucked into Susie's hair, but they're wrapped in little baggies like so.

Susie came with a set of instructions, and they suggest that a mama or a daddy dump all that into Susie's hat, put it back on her head, and then let the child pull off the hat so everything goes scattering everywhere...no thanks, I appreciate the baggies.  She's got beads, some flat sequins, bits of ribbon, and what the package calls a honeycomb headband (the pink sparkly thing).  Oh yes, and hair extensions; those are in the longer package.  Susie's tools include a hairbrush (which I will not be using), a large-eye needle, and a blade thing for curling the ribbon bits.

Like Tiffany's stuff, Susie's hair baubles can be shared among the other dolls, and...well, maybe I'll let 'em share.  Mary doesn't need much more frippery and Tiffany has her own stuff, but Alexis might benefit from some of those beads.

I'm not gonna do a full review of Susie since she's a pretty simple little doll (and I don't like her dress much), but for the say-so of it here she is with fellow Tyco doll Flower Magic Mary.

Notice that their shoes are the same mold, further attesting that they are from the same company.  Indeed, of my four glitzy toddler dolls, only Tiffany has separate shoes.

Other than molded shoes and the blonde hair/blue eyes thing, Mary and Susie don't have a lot in common.  Their faces can be told apart with ease, and Mary has shorter hair that's cut in a winged style that I like.

During my Google searches I got results for both Surprise Hat Susie and So Surprised Suzie, so for the helluvit here my two are together.  They have nothing in common except for...you guessed it!  Blonde hair and blue eyes!

They're cute.  I can get over a glut of platinum hair and blue eyes if they're cute.  And sometimes that combo is the one I like the best.  Case in point.

Camille is my favorite Wellie Wisher, hands down.  All six of 'em are cute, but Camille's my favorite Wellie.  Her short, straight, low-maintenance hairstyle trumped the color...oh, and she was wearing green and blue.  My favorite colors.

Y'know, I think ALL the dolls I shared in this particular post were blonde and blue-eyed!  LOL, thank goodness Dawn's friends weren't stuck in that rut.  I'll have that post put together sometime next week.

Much love,
RagingMoon1987

Happy Independence Day, every day!

"Sriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit...POP!"  I never have understood the allure of bottle rockets.  This Independence Day looks to be a little more festive than the last, since fewer heads are exploding over the coronavirus crap.  For my family the holiday hasn't been the same since Daddy died, but we manage.  It does mean a day off from work if the holiday falls on any day but Sunday, but today just happens to be Sunday.  So what did I decide to do?  Putter around with my dolls, of course!  Zoe, Camille, and Kyle all got their red, white, and blue on for the occasion.  

I would've liked to have taken them outside, but the weather has been extremely contrary lately.  Hence my trio is inside, perched on a shoebox instead.  I'm not really certain what else to say, except that all three of the outfits (and Zoe's shoes) were gifts, and as usual I have my mother to thank for them.  She likes to joke "If I can't have grandchildren, I'll have grand-dolls!"  I need to think of something to do for her in return.

That's all for today.  I'm gonna pull the covers over my head and debate whether or not to go see fireworks tonight.  I like fireworks...but I also like my bed!

Happy Fourth,
RagingMoon1987

A different clove of seasons

I referred to the clove of seasons years ago, when summer was over and fall hadn't started yet.  Well, the junction between winter and spring is very similar; it's still chilly, but the plants are starting to grow and get pretty.  Thus is the case today.  The wind is high, the sun is shining, Second Uncle has old vintage commercials turned up to eleven and won't turn the noise down, so what's a fat thirty-something to do?  Take Camille out for pictures, of course!  Camille is my new Wellie Wisher (why I have her will be discussed on St. Patrick's Day), and she was as sick of the noise as I was, so out and around Grandma's house we went, looking for the spots that I used to play in.  First stop was here, where some flowers are starting to grow.  I don't know what kind.

Just adjacent to the plants is this tall but slender evergreen tree, complete with a foot-deep mass of dead needles.  Camille thinks it would be a good bird's nest.

I agree, Camille!  That WOULD make a good bird's nest!  Once when I was a little kid I did indeed use a wad of sticks and pine needles as a nest.  I set there in a crouch for a good two hours, convinced that if I sat there long enough I'd lay an egg.  It didn't go too well; I didn't have the sticks distributed very well, and this one stick kept jabbing me right in the rear.  I was a bizarre kid.

Right then!  Stumps are at a premium in my yard and in Grandma's yard, but Camille managed to find one.

This used to be Grandma's apple tree.  Her handyman cut it too close and killed it.  When I was little I'd jump off stumps in attempts to fly, but this stump would've been too short for me to do that.  It's the perfect size for Camille, though!

In the front yard there's a young maple tree.  Camille had to get close to that, too.

To our delight, it has some new growth on it!

This tree is a little over ten years old, and it has a rather sad backstory behind it.  When I was little there was a crab apple tree here.  It was the perfect tree for climbing, and that was exactly what I did.  I climbed it when I was little and I admired it when I was older...and in early 2008 an ice storm split it down the middle and destroyed it.  It was the first and only time I've cried over a tree, though I do like the maple tree.  It's made for some good photo ops in the past (see here, here, and here).

Camille also is fond of looking at the sky, just as I am.

I'd lie here and watch for biplanes when I was small.  Back in those days things like ants in one's hair and sun in one's eyes didn't matter much.  Camille isn't heavy enough to really look realistic, but...who wants to be realistic???

Camille is not my only new addition to the American Girl league, by the way.  Let's just say that the past couple'a months have been a mite enjoyable for Mama and me and keep the rest of y'all in suspense!  Now that Second Uncle has turned his stupid commercials off I can go back inside!

Much love,
RagingMoon1987