So random, March/April '26

We begin this round on the evening of February 28th.  It was warm, I'd spent some time redressing some of my dolls, and these two had spring fever.  Rebecca Madeleine is on the left, and her friend is the one and only Joyita Emilia. 

As fine as the weather was that day, we ALL had spring fever!  I'd just gotten both girls in their spring dresses (seen here and here), and they looked cute together.

March 4th, the first severe day of the season.  I took Lady to work with me, but ultimately nothing happened.

Early March was a time for baby dolls here at Casa Pizarro.  From left to right, these are Lady, a Belly Button Baby that I've chosen to name "Colin," and a Magic Nursery baby that I'm calling "Elias."

Belly Button Baby is one that I saw on Tam's blog.  There were several variants, with one being this little red-haired, brown-eyed boy.  Belly Button Baby is like those collapsing toys (my sister loved them), where you'd push a button and they'd go limp.  Same sort of gimmick with Colin, though I can't show it very well.

Colin is strung pretty tightly so he can't sit, but he can lounge.  He's a ham!

As for Elias, he's got an eye color that I've not seen on a Magic Nursery doll.  They're...hazel or green or a combination of the two.  They look green in the pictures.

I make a big deal about this because Afro-American Cabbage Patch Kids of the early nineties had ZERO variation in eye color.  Their eyes were brown and that was that.  Magic Nursery dolls of color DO have variations in eye color, as Elias and Miss Emily's Shyla show.  Oh, and remember how these dolls have plastic bellybuttons that can vary in shape?  Elias has an outie (remember that all Cabbies have outies too).  So far, Lina is my only Magic Nursery doll with an innie.

March 6th, 8:15 p.m. local time.  All was quiet in the Bootheel, but tornadoes were hitting far to the west and I was keeping a sharp eye on the radar.  March of '26 was moderately stormy, but not as bad as March of '25 was.  Anyway, one of my new dolls offered to keep an eye on two of my smallest dolls.

Like Olivia Hope before her, Audrina is proving to be a natural with babies.  Or she is with Hong Kong Honey and Libra Baby.  Audrina is a Juku Couture doll, by the way, and I do plan on reviewing her soon.  With her joints and inset eyes she's kinda like a tiny LIV doll without wigged hair.  I wonder if her shoes are bigger on the inside, LOL!

March 12.  It's been awhile since I talked about Magic Mixie Pixlings, and the scuttlebutt on Reddit is that Moose Toys has pulled the plug on these.  No time like the present to snap one up...or two.

By pure dumb luck I found both Amber (left) and Catlyn being sold together, unencumbered by those clunky bottles.  The consensus on Reddit is that these dolls could've been a hit without all the gimmicks (just like their cousins the Capsule Chix) and I think that indeed is true.  The bottle is a single-trick pony and takes up a lot of space, and there's a danger of it leaking chemicals everywhere (bleach-water, probably, but still).  The dolls themselves are great!  Oh, and as a bonus, the seller shipped my dolls in a Chewy box.  Mama and I are big Chewy fans.  If y'all have animals and don't want to run to Wal-Mart for everything, Chewy.com's shipping is very prompt and the prices are reasonable.

March 12th was also the night I put my last Monster High post together, and I got an outtake.

Budget dolls or no, Frankie and Draculaura know how to look adorable. 

March 13th.  We were facing another stormy weekend and I was nervous, so I grabbed two of my soft dolls to hug.  My Newborn Nancy and Lady are who I grabbed. 

Still no batteries for My Newborn Nancy yet.  I remember I'd said that I wanted to try her out.

March 17th.  Rockin' redheads.  From left, Joyita Emilia, Hannah Valerie, and Rosanna Claire. 

Hannie loves the camera, LOL!

March 22nd.  I was dying to see how Joyita Emilia looked in blue.

She ended up looking not too shabby!

March 27th.  It was chilly and windy again, not twenty-four hours after parts of the Midwest had tornadoes and hail.  I promptly bundled up my newest arrival. 

Her name is Baby Annabell, and she's by Zapf Creation.  She'll be getting a review in...<pauses to look>...late May, if all goes well.

March 29th.  By the end of the day it was warm enuff for a change of clothes. 

Annabell is a big girl, so finding clothes for her may not be the easiest.  But so far I've lucked out.  And yes, it seriously warmed up that fast.  That's life in the Missouri Bootheel.

April 2nd.  In preparation for Annabell's post I had out My Newborn Nancy and Baby All Gone, or as I call them, Nancy and Mary.

Nancy is a Tyco doll, Mary is a Kenner doll, and they don't look a lot alike, but I'd have happily called them sisters as a kid.  Sisters by different companies, one could say.

April 15th.  Taxes were safely in, my hip was semi-behaving, and a lovely breeze was coming through the storm door's window.  I belong to a Failbook group that goes pretty heavy on the reborn dolls, so I trotted out my iCradle doll, Sandra.

I'd just gotten a new pacifier clip for Sandra, since her magnet doesn't hold her pacifier tightly.  The cord is stiff, but it keeps the binky from falling in the floor, which it did at least twice when I'd move Sandra around.

The next evening I swapped Sandra out for Geneva, my Real Baby.  Mama has named Geneva as a favorite of hers, and I've been pretty open about my fondness for her too.

I really feel my physical limitations when handling Geneva.  She's a big baby and I have to hold onto Barbie Walker with both hands, so I have to drape Geneva awkwardly across Barbie Walker's crosspiece...or ask for help, which I loathe.  Mama is also on a walker and can't carry much more than I can, and I want Uncle Man-Child to keep his lousy mitts off my stuff (don't worry, I leave his crap alone too).  Anyway, springtime and that cute duck dress just beg for a picture of Geneva outside in the sunshine, and without a good carrier I just can't do it.  But then again, there was no sunshine that evening, just rain and some thunder.  The week of the twelfth was very violent in parts of the country, but this time the Bootheel made it out okay.

April 20th, bright, sunny, and breezy.  The Dolly Den (Failbook group) asked for curly hair, and I obliged. 

River Song (left) and Alana.  Alana desperately needs a hair bow.

That same day my Zapf Creation Little Princess doll arrived, after quite a journey from abroad. 

Cinderella's whole mouth is askew, not just her paint!  I can live with that though, since these dolls are out of production and aren't the easiest to find.

April 24th.  I'd received a steroid shot and was feeling good enuff to drag some of the kids outside. 

From left, Martina (Furga), Cassandra (Italocremona), and Ilaria (Furga).

Twice this past week I've been afraid that I'd go flying over the rainbow, but it all came out okay in the end.  Unfortunately I've got a feeling that this summer is going to be long, hot, and dry.  I hope all is well with y'all!

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987

Regarding Sandra, my reborn doll

It's been almost exactly two years since I talked about Sandra, the little reborn doll that I got off Temu.  She's still alive and well, and yesterday I grabbed her from Casa del Luna.  Here she's sitting on my lap, waiting for the carhop to bring us our food (Mama and I ate at Sonic).

While waiting I realized that Sandra has rotating shoulders and hips.  Yep, I've had her two years and I didn't know that, though admittedly I haven't played with Sandra much since I got her.  Anyway, now she can stretch out and look...well, a little more like a real baby.

Unfortunately, while I was monkeying with Sandra I noticed that her eyes have changed color.  They were hazel, and now they're deep blue with a violet ring around the center.

This was my own dumb fault for storing the poor child in an area where A/C can't reach.  Though this eye change would have to be noted and accounted for if I were trying to sell Sandra, I actually like the change.  I can always say that Sandra is a fairy baby or changeling of some stripe.

I have to admit that I like these iCradle babies.  Had I the room and the money I'd have more of them, but I don't so I won't.  These dolls are a good way to begin the reborn hobby though, kinda like Hujoo dolls make good starter ball-jointed dolls.

Ciao,
RagingMoon1987

The Temu baby

Well, I finally did it:  I heeded the call of trendy online shopping site Temu.  Temu offers lots of things for ridiculously cheap, but they also back up their online listings with reviews and owner pics...I think.  Maybe those reviews were done by Temu employees.  But anyway, I ordered a reborn baby doll...sort of (she's mass-produced), and I did this for three reasons.  One, to see if Temu was worth the hype.  Two, her sales pic was cute.  We all know how enticing sales pics can be...and also how misleading they can be.  Three, reviews said she's soft...which is exactly what eBay said about one of my other baby dolls, Mei.

Mei is a Ping Lau sculpt, something I can't resist, but she is definitely NOT soft!  Her vinyl is fairly hard, like that of a Wal-Mart baby doll or a Middleton doll like Adam.  For the record, Adam was not advertised as having soft vinyl...or at least, his Middleton brothers and sisters were not.

I like Adam better than Mei, overall.  He feels like a real baby in my arms, and who could resist that smile?

I will note that while neither Adam nor Mei have squishy vinyl, their cloth bodies are very soft.  With the right tools, both dolls could make superb reborn dolls.  Alas, I don't have the tools, the skills, the space, or the time to get the job done, so that's why I bought my own reborn.  

Bloviating over, my package came wrapped in orange Temu plastic and copious tape, but I was able to get it all cut off with no fuss.  The baby came in this box, entitled iCradle.  Never heard of it...<pauses to consult Google>...yep, they're mass-produced!  Wal-Mart and Amazon carry these, for about the same price (forty to fifty bucks American) that I paid for my doll.  Here's the box.

The box was not fastened shut, so I flipped it open and was mildly chagrined to see that this baby had zero padding.  She does have a plastic bag holding her together, but nothing else to protect her from scuffs.

As it turned out, I didn't need to worry about scuffs too much, but we'll see why in a bit.  Are y'all ready to see her?  Here she is!

Well...her hair certainly looks mass-produced!  See how it's painted like Mei's?

Wait a minute, I forgot to show y'all how the new baby compares in size to Adam and Mei!

Adam and Mei look like bigger dolls, but that's largely because the new doll's legs are molded in a bent position.  My Real Baby, Geneva, genuinely is bigger than the new girl. 

Geneva is just a big doll, period.  She would be a lapful for Sandy McCall, even more so than Salome was.  Anyway, the new doll has visible sutures in her skull.  See her soft spot?

I don't know beans from bull's foot about babies, but I do know that the sutures only tend to be visible when the baby is very small.  I remember Miss Emily musing about this when she was reborning Saskia, because Saskia was clearly an older baby...but she still had sutures visible.  But anyway...my mama calls this baby "Sandra," so I guess that's what I'll call her, but regardless Sandra has visible sutures.  She's also got visible veins in places (Mei, Adam, and Geneva do not, nor were they meant to).  I knew that reborn dolls sometimes have this (one of Miss Emily's dolls did), but with Sandra being mass-produced I wasn't expecting it.  Maybe someone did take the time to reborn this gal a little before I got her.  I had a hard time photographing the veins, but if you look closely you can see one right in front of her ear.  It looks like a little red lighting bolt.

She even has manicured nails!

Pretty cool!  Some folks don't like this level of realism on their dolls, and for other folks a few painted veins wouldn't be realistic enuff.  I'm not picky, so Sandra does me just fine.  She does have more blushing than I'd like in places, though.  Her wrists and her ankles are the pinkest.

I wonder why the joints are the most blushed here?  Babies don't crawl on their wrists and ankles!

Odd blushing aside, sometimes reborn dolls come with accessories and sometimes they don't.  I was delighted to see that Sandra did indeed come with several little freebies.  She's got her own headband, binky, bottle, and birth certificate, and I retained the tag for the sake of future reference.

Here's what the back of the tag says.  It's got a couple of examples of Engrish.

CHOCKING hazard!  LOL, it gets the point across, but I can't help giggling at that.  I love translation foibles!  I want to point out the binky, because...well, because even though it LOOKS like a real binky...

...it's not.  Adam and Geneva won't be using this bad boy!

It's got a magnet in it, as does Sandra's mouth.  Sandra can thus look like she's sucking on it, AND I can turn it any ol' way I want!

Usually babies get the binky oriented in their mouths correctly, but not always.  This comes off easily, by the way.  The magnet holds, but it only takes a gentle tug to separate doll from binky.  I make note of this because we all know how magnets can cling, and how babies can be stubborn!  

I'll also touch on the headband, even though it's just a soft piece of elastic with a lace bow attached.  

It stretches to fit and looks very becoming on Sandra.  It would probably fit Mei and Geneva too, but I'm leaving it on Sandra.

If Sandra is like all the babies I've known, then she probably HATES "having that ol' thing on her head," as my grandmother would've put it.  If Sandra were a real baby I wouldn't force the issue, but since she isn't real I'm having my way, LOL.

Overall Sandra is about what I expected from Temu.  She's a nice doll, but not on equal footing with the ridiculously priced uber-reborn dolls one can find on eBay.  She reminds me a bit of Adley and Annabelle, the two little semi-reborns that visited me at the library last fall, except that like Adam and Mei they were bigger than Sandra.  Even though Sandra isn't super-duper detailed she IS a nice little doll, one that could stand up to gentle play from a child and a fair amount of cuddling from an adult collector, just as Adley and Annabelle could.  She's also a good doll for a newbie to the reborn world, like I kinda, sorta am.  She is soft, just as advertised, and I've never, repeat, EVER had a doll that could hang on to her own binky.  I am curious about what iCradle's other products are like now; do they all come with little veins, or did someone legit work Sandra over a little before sending her to me?  I don't know, and I have no intention to find out since I don't need another baby in this size.  Adam, Sandra, and Mei are quite enuff for me!  Oh yeah, and Geneva, but she's kinda in a class of her own.  For some reason I'm extremely fond of Geneva, and I may do a post just for her one day.  

Baby Love,

RagingMoon1987