Snow day! Plus, Kidz 'n' Cats news

I live in a part of Alabama where it only snows once a year.  Sometimes it will skip a year.  Anyway, we just got our once-yearly snowfall, so I of course had to take some snow pictures!

These are the Kidz 'n' Cats dolls "Galina" and "Henriette."  It's my first time photographing Henriette for the blog.  She was a special limited edition of 300, and was signed by artist Sonja Hartmann on the back of her neck.  The Henriettes came in three different eye colors and three different hair colors.  My girl has the "mid-brown" hair and the "grey-green" eyes (really more of a turquoise, but very pretty).

Henriette.

Speaking of Kidz 'n' Cats dolls, the artist has just released photos of her new 2014 collection.  You can find pictures of the 2014 dolls here.  The first seven on that page are all new for this year.  Gorgeous!  Jodie, Paulette and Julia all have the same face sculpt as my Henriette.

Galina.

On Feb. 8, Ms. Hartmann will be showing the first pictures of a brand new sculpt for the Kidz line!  The new sculpt will be another limited edition like Henriette.

So excited!  Can't wait to see the new sculpt.  You can find the Hartmanns' web site here.  EDIT: Sorry, it turned out to not be a new sculpt at all, but instead uses the Henriette sculpt.  She is still very cute, though!

By the way, Galina's hair looks redder now because I was trying out a new wig on her.  I love the color, but the quality of the wig is not quite as nice as her original.  It's a bit frizzy and dry.  I think I may put her original wig back on her.  :) 

I probably could have posed these girls better, but I was freezing my butt off and didn't want to stay outside any longer than I had to.  LOL!  So, they're looking in random directions, here.  I'm sure Galina was just wishing I'd had an extra pair of boots to put on her.


Later.

Trying Nu Mood hands on my Deja Vu

Her new look.

I told you I was going to do it, and I did it.  LOL!  I transformed my Deja Vu Emma Basic into a punk chick.  I painted her lips darker and more Gothy, and repainted her fingernails to match.  She already had some bold black eyeliner, so I left her wonderful eye paint alone.  The lips were done with the darkest metallic red acrylic I could find mixed with a touch of black.  

I like her in this white wig.  It's the Monique Gold Collection "Jojo" wig that was in her Christmas picture.   Monique wigs drive me crazy because they have a million flyaway hairs that are nearly impossible to tame for photo shoots.  People attempt to cure these flyaway hairs in various ways.  Sometimes rubbing a dryer sheet over the hair works; other people wet the hair slightly, or even use gel on it.  I'd rather just buy a different brand of wig.  Ha!

The polka-dotted dress is from an old Gene Marshall outfit.  It fits the Deja Vu body perfectly.

Held in the box with string.  A couple of snips, and they're out.

I'd heard Tonner's Nu Mood hands would work on his Deja Vu dolls, so I waited 'til there was a good sale and got a set.  These hands were made for his Tyler Wentworth Nu Mood doll series.  Each set comes with three types of hands:  relaxed hands, curved "holding" hands and a set of fists.  The hands are interchangeable.  I thought this would be a whole lot of fun!  These are the Nu Mood Hands "C" (for Caucasian, I assume).

Original hands.

Original hands.

The Deja Vu dolls have hands that you can pull out. (Gently!)   The Nu Mood hands fit quite well in the arm socket.  Not too loose and not too tight.  The fit was pretty perfect; they fit snugly and won't fall out.  In the photos, the hands that have painted fingernails are her original hands.  The Nu Mood hands don't have painted nails.  I mixed-and-matched the Nu Mood parts a bit so you can see what they look like.  I quite like the curved "holding" hands.  The fists were interesting, but not quite as nice. 

Nu Mood "holding" hand.

Nu Mood holding and fist hands.

Nu Mood holding and relaxed hands.

The only issue I saw was that the Nu Mood hands' skintone was slightly less pink than my Deja Vu Emma.  This was apparent in low light conditions, but in the sunlight, the skintones looked like they matched just fine.  You can probably see the skintone difference in these photos.  The camera always seems to pick up things like this better than the naked eye. 

Nu Mood relaxed hand.

In any case, the hands are still a lot of fun, especially considering how much I love doll photography. 

And here are a couple more pictures, just because I felt like photographing her.  :)

 

Reminder about club deadlines ...

Fashion Royalty "High Point" Vanessa.

Just a reminder:  The deadline to join Integrity Toys' W Club for this year is Jan. 21st!  The last day to join for the year is only nine days away.  If you miss the deadline, you can't join again for an entire year. 

They're giving fans the choice of three different exclusive dolls for joining this year (their "upgrade" dolls).  One of them is a new brunette Vanessa using the same head sculpt you see in my photo, here.  The others are a wonderful mod-style Poppy Parker (you know I love Poppy!) and a doll for their Jem line.  I was never a Jem fan, but a lot of people like her. 



The Barbie Collector Fan Club is also taking new memberships, if you're a Barbie fan.  Both clubs offer exclusive dolls and are a lot of fun.

:)  

Later,

My 2013 Bratz

Here are the pics I wanted to put in my last post, but I couldn't get the pictures feature to work.  I've been getting a lot of error messages whenever I try to post here lately.  I hope it's something that can be fixed. 

Anyway, here are my girls!

These are all Bratz dolls that were released last year.  They have the taller, more articulated bodies that came out in early 2013 ... 2 inches taller than previous Bratz lines, with articulated (jointed) arms. 

These are "Totally Polished Meygan" (striped shirt), "My Passion Yasmin"  (tan skin, bun hair), "Twisty Style Yasmin" (tan skin, bangs, yarn in hair), "Twisty Style Cloe" (pink everything), and a red-haired hybrid I made using a head from a short $5 Bratz doll squished on top of one of the tall bodies.    The heads and necks on the tall bodies are the exact same size as the heads and necks on the short bodies, so you can switch heads from tall to short or visa-versa as much as you want.  The neck holes are the exact same size. 

I have no idea whether MGA Entertainment plans on keeping both sizes of Bratz dolls in 2015, or whether they're planning on ditching one of the sizes, or what.  I'll be curious to find out. 

The two Yasmins.

And then there is this beauty. 

 I adore her.  She's so special and perfect, I haven't even taken her out of the box.  (Unheard of, for me!  I'm always obsessive about deboxing.)  This is "Costume Bash Jade" from last year.  She's on the taller body, too.  There were two other 2013 "Costume Bash" dolls ... one was a cowgirl and one was a '60s-style hippy.  They paled in comparison.  I was insanely lucky to even find this one, in Walmart of all places.  She was the last one in the store, tucked behind some unrelated brand.  I almost missed her.  I only even noticed her because I happened to see the name "Jade" written on the side of the box in big letters, and I wondered if it could be another Bratz.  LOL.

The box is slightly scuffed.  I don't care.  She's wonderful.  :)

As always, click on the pictures to make them bigger.

I kept getting error messages the entire time I was doing this post.  Gah!  I think this blog site must be having some problems right now.  :)

Huge announcement on the future of Bratz

The Bratz/Bratzillaz news site Bratz Boulevard just published a big announcement about the future of the Bratz brand.

They say MGA Entertainment is going to (mostly) take a year off from creating Bratz in order to make a giant comeback with the brand in 2015.  Please click on the Bratz Boulevard link to read the article. 


... I was going to illustrate this news with pics of the few Bratz dolls who live here, but this #%@&*#$* blog isn't letting me post pictures this week, for some reason.  I hope it starts working again, later.  Sorry!