2012 W Club registration starts now

Registration for Integrity Toys' 2012 W Club starts now and goes until Jan. 18.  I am THRILLED with the upgrade dolls this year ... the dolls you can order with your membership.  This year they are Poppy Parker and Natalia. ... two sculpts I love, and the face paint on each looks beautifully done.  Ordering the dolls is optional and you can actually just order the base membership without the dolls if you prefer.  To see more photos, you can see the W Club ordering information, here. (Click on "W Club 2012 Brochure" to see everything.)

Natalia ...

 and Poppy.

Happy holidays!

Hearts for Hearts dolls

Consuelo and Dell, right outa da box.

I don't mean to make my blog all about play dolls, but I had to post these here.  I learned that these Hearts for Hearts Girls dolls were on sale at Costco.com for only $10 each (regularly $29!), so I had to get two for my little girl.  I posted about the sale on one of the doll forums and of course the two most popular dolls they had -- these two in my photos - sold out that very day.  I was lucky I was able to grab two of them!




They are a line of 14-inch tall international dolls.  The two I got represent the United States and Mexico.  I'm very pleased with the quality of the hair, eyes, vinyl and clothing.  The hair is silky soft, and a better quality than the hair on the BFC Ink dolls I posted about below. 

Hearts for Hearts doll, left, poses next to a BFC Ink doll. 

The articulation is bad and very behind-the-times.  They can only sit in a splayed-leg position like old fashioned baby dolls, and their elbows and knees do not bend.  The clothing, on the other hand, is quite a good quality for a play-line doll, and uses better, nicer fabrics than most other play-line dollies I've seen.  Like the BFC Ink girls, they also have separate outfits available.

Despite being made by a different company, they actually make perfect little sisters for the 18-inch BFC Ink dolls.  I've pictured the two types of doll at right so you can see them together.  I think any little girl would LOVE to have these as sisters.

I've been eyeing these girls at Target for the past year ...

I've been eyeballing these BFC Ink. dolls by MGA Entertainment for a good while now.  I think they're just darling.  (Yes, it's spelled "Ink," not "Inc." I don't know why. ... It's not like they come with colored pens or anything!)

The quality is fairly good for a play-line doll, and unlike most child dolls, they have bending elbows, wrists, knees and ankles!  The high-priced American Girl dolls don't even have that. It was a selling point for me, because these dolls are meant to be played with by little girls, who like to pose and play with their dolls, not just stare at them.

So, I had to get two of them.  One is mine and one is my daughter's, but I have a feeling my doll is destined to live in my daughter's bedroom forever.  Transfer of ownership is inevitable!  That's the problem when both moms and kids like dolls.  Hee hee.

It turns out the company is right now in the process of coming out with five new ones. They are already for sale through Target.com and Amazon.com (when they aren't sold out). I expect they'll be in stores in a few months. The new BFC girls represent different countries, and are from England, Sweden, Mexico, France and South Africa.

My only beef with them is they are afflicted with the trendy "big-head syndrome."  Why is it you can't buy child dolls any more unless their heads are disproportionately large for their bodies?  People shopping for dolls for their daughters don't even have a choice any more. ... If they want a child doll, it's going to have a big head because that's all that's available.

With that said, though, these dolls really are quite cute and fun.  They even have a few separate outfits available.  Nice.  The red dress in my photos is actually one of the separate outfits I found for them.

Here's the official company promo pic of four of the new BFC Ink girls coming out.  Cuteness! 

Plastic cuteness

Plastic cuteness.  Aaahhh.

These domos are the 2" tall versions.  There are also plastic domos in 5.5" and 8" sizes; fuzzy plush domos in 6", 10" and 18" heights, domo T-shirts, domo backpacks, and domo bedroom slippers.   A search for "domo" on e-Bay brought up 66 pages of fun, crazy, Japanese-flavored domo goodness.

When I took my new domos out of their plastic wrapping, one of the arms on the snowflake guy fell off immediately.  Poor, sad domo.  An application of superglue later ... and the domo could rival a kitten wearing a hat for "cute."  I don't feel the need to buy any more of them, but I'm not sorry I got these.  Mostly they sit near my computer and look adorable in a --"Look at that hamster trying to bite me.  ... Isn't he precious?" --kind of way.

Another little cute plastic thing I keep near my computer are the mini Lalaloopsies.

There are so many new Mini Lalaloopsies coming out now, I can no longer keep track of them all.  I got a few of the new ones.  My 4-year-old absolutely loves them.  I love their simplistic but sweet faces.  These four are "Marina Anchors" (two of them in different outfits), "Sahara Mirage" (a genie), and "Swirly Figure Eight" (an ice skater).

More Monograms ... I'm now obsessed

Monogram Envied, redressed.

ML's Dolls has a buy 2, get 1 free sale on Monograms this week, and I couldn't resist it. I got the set of three in the checkered dresses.  I'd been wanting them all year, and couldn't resist the discounted price.

I love the dresses they come with, but I think I'd like to see the dresses on my Poppy Parkers even more.  Monograms and Poppy Parkers share the same torso and bust size, although Monograms are a bit longer in the leg.  As a result, they can wear most of the same clothing.  (I did come across some pants made for Poppy that were a bit too tight for the Monograms.)

Anyway, I when these girls arrived I had an immediate photo session in my backyard. They are SO MUCH PRETTIER than they'd seemed in their original promo pics. 

Monogram Bemused

Monogram Passionate

The girls in their original clothing.