Tiny Tuesday - My Mini Mixie Qs

This is an accidental collection. How do you get an accidental collection? Well, when these were first released I bought a couple of the blindbag packs. I was happy with them. I liked them. But they didn't really do anything for me, so I had no intention of buying more. But because I had them, the Giant Husband bought me some more, and more, and more. I was actually quite surprised to see how many I've accumulated.

Mini Mixie Qs are Mattel's contribution to the blingbag toy plague. They're tiny (seriously minuscule) blocky figures and accessories that look kind of pixelated. They're sold in blingbag packs of two, or in packs of several figures sometimes with extra clothes and hair pieces, or in sets with playsets. They have hard plastic wigs and clothing that can be removed and swapped around.

Figure with hair and dress

Some of the outfits are quite plain

Others have tiny attached accessories

And some are even fancier

The multi packs either have one or two figures with lots of extra outfits and hair or a few themed dolls with maybe an accessory or two

Some of the playsets fold up into cubes, others are stackable. 

I have a candy store

And a toy store. The toy store came with more accessories than actually fit inside the store. It also came with extra clothes and wigs (That I didn't photograph because I forgot about them until just now.)

These are actually really cute. (My camera didn't agree! I had a hard time getting it to focus on them at all.) But I think they're more of a novelty than a toy. They're just too small to comfortably play with and once you have the playsets are set up, if anyone so much as breathes near them, all of the teeny tiny accessories fall over and are lost forever!

My favourites are definitely the pink ninja girl and the little dog figure.

Tiny Tuesday - Baby Secrets

 These dolls turned up in our supermarket last week. Little blind bag babies, that come packed in bathtubs. For some reason I felt compelled to check them out. The display they're in, in the store, has a couple of shelves of the bathtubs (each with one doll) and larger packs with two visible dolls, one blind bag doll in a bath, and an accessory. Initially I planned on getting one bathtub and one of the accessory packs. But the only accessory packs left in stock had a highchair which, frankly looked like something from the two dollar shop. I couldn't bring myself to spend sixteen dollars on it, so I got two of the blind bags instead.

 The name Baby Secrets unreasonably irritates me. When I was a kid, I had this doll. . .

named Baby Secrets. And in my head, that doll will always be Baby Secrets and the nine year old that lives in the back of my head is annoyed at her doll's name being stolen.

Anyway, the cover art on the packages, shows extremely cute babies but from the ones I saw in the accessory sets, I had a feeling these dolls weren't going to be as cute. To be honest, lately there is such a proliferation of blind bag toys on the market, that sometimes I wonder if A) The toys that get blind bagged would sell at all if people could see what they were getting (I have an inkling most wouldn't), and B) Whether toy companies think they can sell any piece of rubbish they like by putting it in a blind bag. (I'm pretty sure they do.)

 The first thing you get when you unwrap the bathtub is the obligatory checklist. Dolls on one side. Accessory packs on the other. The checklist makes a big deal about there being 50 dolls. Strictly speaking there are 25. 15 standard blind bag dolls. 1 limited edition furry blind bag doll (That is a total Twosies rip-off). 8 dolls that are exclusive to the accessory packs. And 1 Sparkle blind bag doll, that you can only get in the accessory packs. But each of the dolls has a nappy that changes from white to pink or blue in cold water, so if you have one of each doll in each gender, that's 50 dolls. Except I only ever seem to get girls in things like this, and I can't picture parents being willing to shell out for multiples of each accessory set on the off chance of maybe getting a boy.

Next there's a "Birth Certificate" to fill out. Being an adult, I'm not overly interested in this but it's exactly the sort of thing I would've eaten up with a spoon as a child.

Finally there's a baby in a plastic bag. And wow, they're a lot creepier in real life, than they are in the cartoon artwork! Here are the two I got.

I have to say, I much prefer the one in the ski goggles. Partly because the idea of going skiing in just a nappy, woollen hat, and goggles is just bizarre. I've never been skiing but I'm guessing that if it's cold enough to snow, you probably want to be wearing clothes. But I mostly prefer that one because the goggles cover the face.

All that was left, was to find out if they were girls or boys. The checklist says to dip them in cold water. Whenever anything says to dip something in cold water, I always try putting it in the freezer first. Usually works better and I'm less likely to spill anything. But the freezer didn't work on these two. At all. So I did dip them in cold water and surprise, surprise, they were both girls.

These babies are jointed at the arms and legs and neck. But the heads are difficult to turn and don't turn very far. And after bending and straightening the baby's leg a few times, it started to look like this. . .

I don't know if you can see the little crumbs around the joint of her left leg, but that's plastic, not paint. And given I had only worked that joint maybe three times, that's some pretty shoddy workmanship.

Overall, these dolls seem to me more like a product that would've been for sale in a two dollar shop twenty years ago, than something that would be sold now. They're not very cute at all, their paint is sloppy, their construction is shoddy and the overall impression that I get is that these have been thrown into the market in an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Li'l Outrageous Littles and Twosies. Except they completely lack the charm of the other two. And given that the company that makes these is actually the Australian distributor for a lot of MGA toys (including the LOLs), these would really annoy me if I was MGA. Surely developing a product that's in direct competition to a product that you distribute is at best a pretty jerky thing to do!

 It's toys like these that make me sick of blind bag toys.

And now the bad news . . .

The Giant Baby had his hearing test. Leading up to it, I didn't think about it too much. I kept thinking back to a year ago when he discovered that he could see trains from our backyard if someone picked him up. As soon as the boom gates started making noise, he would ask to be picked up, even though half the time I couldn't even hear them. I didn't realise he hasn't done that in a very long time or that now he only asks to watch the trains if one toots.

 He did not do well on the hearing test at all. But they couldn't draw any conclusions from it either, because it turned out he had an ear infection when they did the test. He has to do a second test but not until the end of July.
 I finally looked up some information on hearing problems in toddlers and now I feel terrible. So many things we just took for granted as being cute or even clever are actually more likely signs he hasn't been hearing properly for a while now.
 For the last few months he's been developing his own sign language. Nothing ridiculously sophisticated. In fact it's pretty basic stuff. If he's thirsty, he'll bring me a book open to a picture of a drink and point to it, then point to the kitchen. If he wants to watch something on television, he will bring me a toy or book from the show he wants and then point to the dvd player. That kind of thing.
 We thought he was so very clever because he could tell us what he wanted without even trying to verbalise it. (Unless we say no, he verbalises his displeasure with that pretty darn effectively.) It didn't even occur to us that the fact that he wasn't even trying out new words was probably a bad sign.
 I also feel particularly terrible because after seeing the audiologist, we went tothe doctor and it turns out his ear infection is so bad, he has blisters on his ear drum! That sounds incredibly painful to me, but I didn't even know that he had an ear infection. Although in all fairness, I've been watching him like a hawk since then and I swear that he has shown absolutely no sign of having an ear infection.
 So, he's on the waiting list for speech therapy, and he has another hearing test booked. At this point we're fairly certain there is going to be an issue with his hearing and are praying that it's something that can be solved with ear tubes or grommets. Yes, that will require surgery but it's also temporary and fixable so definitely preferable to something permanent or unfixable.

Because of all this, I've been having far too much fun making various appointments and beating myself up about this to do anything doll related this last week. And on top of that, one of the ladies that I work with had emergency surgery on Monday and now I'm covering a lot of her shifts. So for the forseeable future, I am working every night until I have a complete breakdown, then probably sobbing in a corner for a few days at least, before I can even think about doing anything worth posting about.

 To make things even more fun, I also messed up the other day and the baby finally got his Shirley Temple curls cut off. Basically, since the weather has turned cold  (so very bloody cold!) his curls have been fairly limp and frizzy and tangly and his fringe has been in his eyes most of the time. I decided to trim his fringe which I've done heaps of times. Except he wouldn't sit still and it was uneven and looked funny. So he finally got the haircut his dad has been begging for. Now he looks like a little blonde Ginnifer Goodwin. I'm hoping I'll be able to talk his dad into letting his curls grow back for next Summer but that may be beyond my powers.

Tiny Tuesday - Chelsea Cheeseburger. Shopkins get really creepy.

 I haven't mentioned my Shopkins Happy Places house in a while. I've been waiting until I get my hands on all the new furniture sets, so I can get it done all at once. Unfortunately there is still one set I haven't been able to find anywhere and I'm still not quite desperate enough to spend forty dollars for it on ebay. Part of the problem seems to be every shop seems to still have a million of the bathroom sets from the first season, so they're not restocking. That's a slight exaggeration but we were recently at a Target that had three of last season's bedroom set, one of last season's kitchen set and FORTY-FIVE of last season's bathroom! When I first got the bathroom set, I did not like the doll that came with it. She was wearing a robe and had yellow bubbles in her hair. Why yellow? I don't know. The yellow bubbles really bug me. But now seeing how many of that set, with that doll are still in shops, probably never to be sold, I feel bad for that doll instead. My husband says that's weird.

Anyway, I couldn't wait to show this little doll. Chelsea Cheeseburger. She's one of the individually packaged dolls that comes with two accessories and she's super cute.

There is nothing to not like here! It's all wins! Brightly coloured, burger themed, sailorish dress - cute! Adorable hamburger hair accessory - cute! Screaming, red hair - cute! Pigtails - cute! Bright, red shoes - cute! The cold, dead eyes of a killer - Wait! What!? Ah, it seems Chelsea isn't so cute after all. Let's take a look at the back of her packaging . . .

It seems Chelsea Cheeseburger is off to the Puppy Parlour (aka loungeroom) to smile as she shares some tasty grilled treats with her Petkins (sentient furniture) friends! And what tasty treat is she sharing with her demonic coffee table and couch? Why that perky little cheeseburger that's smiling at her so trustingly in the photo above! Yay! Cannibalism!

Not quite so cute now!
Don't get me wrong, I still think these are absolutely adorable but there are so many details that just make me shake my head and wonder how they happened. Like how did anyone make up the story of Chelsea bringing a new friend along as a sacrifice to be eaten alive by her and her friends wasn't just disturbing?
It is funny though.

Finally, we get some good news!

The Giant Baby has been on the waiting list for an Early Intervention Test. That's a test where experts run tests disguised as games in order to diagnose children who may have developmental issues, and decide what services are appropriate for them.

I've had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I've been 99.9% sure that there's absolutely nothing wrong with him, except that he can't talk. On the other hand, I'm not a doctologist, and so I have wondered if maybe I've been in denial. At the end of the day, I've figured that if there's nothing wrong, we don't lose anything by having him take the test, but if we are in denial, it's probably better that he takes the test sooner rather than later. But I've also looked at the whole thing as a massive bother, and a pain in the neck.

Part of the issue, was the preliminary test he had to do to see if he qualified for the big test. Half of the test, you can't pass if you can't talk. And the lady that did it, did that bit first. By the time she was halfway through, the Giant Baby had decided he didn't like her, and had his hands over his ears. By the time she moved onto other things, she was getting pretty impatient, and  he really didn't like her, so he insisted on not only ignoring her, but also standing with his back to her. He did not do well on that test. Part of me wanted to say the result wasn't fair. Another part of me felt that doing that would make me sound like one of those parents that blame all of their kids issues on their teacher.

They got back to us about the next test today. He won't be taking it. The people that do the test have reveiwed the application, and his earlier test results, and spoken to his daycare centre, and they've rejected the entire application. From the information they have, they've decided that clearly the only issue is that he can't speak, and since he's only just turned two, they don't find that overly concerning, so the test isn't necessary. Instead, they've referred us to a speech therapist.

This is the result that I was expecting to have, but after he took the test. To have this result already, feels like a huge relief and a small victory. He still has to have a hearing test next week, but I really don't think there's anything wrong with his hearing. Sure, he often appears not to hear me when I say something he doesn't want to hear, but he can hear a fridge doir opening, or an offer of juice, from three streets away.

 It's really unsettling to hear, that there may be something wrong with your child. But, it's really nice to hear proper experts saying he's absolutely normal and basically backing up what I've been saying all along!

Tiny Tuesday - Phoenix Models Tea Caddy and Cruet set

 This week for Tiny Tuesday I have two dollhouse items by Warwick Miniatures. Warwick Miniatures are made by Phoenix Model Developments who specialise in white metal miniatures. Some of their stuff is amazing in it's detail and historical accuracy. Much of it comes as kits of cast pewter pieces that require painting and assembly. The two items I have today are polished white metal that look rather like silver (but are probably pewter) so they didn't require painting.

 First is this tea caddy. It's TINY! The engraving looks a little crude in this picture but in real life it looks extremely delicate because it's so very small.

The lid is removable and has further engraving. The only fault I can find with this is that I wish the interior was enamelled white. In all honesty, I have no idea if tea caddies were commonly enamelled white on the inside, I just remember that my grandmother's was. I need to look that up and if it turns out that that was indeed how they were made, paint the inside white.

Next is this cruet set. I was determined that my dollhouse family needed a cruet set. Realistically while not every house has a special fancy matching cruet set, it's probably fair to say that a selection of condiments for the dinner table is something you would expect to see in most houses in most eras. And once upon a time (long before I was born) one of my family members always gave people cruet sets as wedding presents, so as a child whenever we visited our older relatives, they always had beautiful cruet sets on their dining tables. Some were used, some were purely decorative, all made excellent makeshift dolls if the adults were being boring. When I wanted one for my dollhouse I discovered they were pretty thin on the ground in dollhouse land but this one is so beautiful, it makes up for all the ones that don't exist.

 There's a decorative stand and six tiny bottles. The bottles are made in pairs, two of each shape. Tall, thin oil bottles, medium sized salt and pepper shaker, and two little pots for pickle or mustard. These are so tiny that when I dropped them on the floor by accident, while taking pictures, I actually found them by closing my eyes and running my hand over the carpet rather than looking for them!

To me it's the little touches like this, that real people would actually have had in their houses, that are often overlooked because they're such a part of day to day life, that take a dollhouse from being a toy or plaything to actually being a miniature representation of life at a moment in time.

And here's another picture of the cruet set with a Lego minifigure for scale.

Adventures in Deconstructing Barbie

 Wow. I did a lot of research into removing Barbie's head and it scared me. Article after article, blog post after blog post pointed out how hard it is to remove her head. How fragile her neck is. How careful you have to be if you don't want to break her. How doing it successfully is a matter of luck not skill. In the end I was nearly too scared to try.

 But I did try and honestly I have no idea what all the fuss is about. It's not hard. They can't break that easily since I pulled off eight heads without being gentle at all and not one body broke.

 I filled a plastic container with hot tap water and left the dolls heads soaking in it for about five minutes then with the help of a mini screwdriver from an eyeglass repair kit, the heads came right off. A couple were more difficult, but I found by putting them back in the hot water for another minute or two, the vinyl softened up enough to make it a piece of cake.

 On the other hand the neck pegs were all gross with globs of glue and the mini screwdriver I used is now absolutely disgusting from the horrible glue their heads are filled with. (Actually at the moment it's soaking in white vinegar to hopefully melt the glue.) I am already filled with hatred for that glue! It got everywhere! It's disgusting and spreading and too bloody awful for words!

 After I'd done some decapitating I decided to rip the hair out of one of the Barbies that I'm thinking of rerooting. That particular game has changed. My old method for that was to cut the hair short, pull as much as I could out from the outside of the head using tweezers, then pull the rest out from the inside. It took a while but it wasn't at all taxing. Now! I found I couldn't pull ANY hair out from the outside because the inside was so chunky with glue and to pull it out from the inside I was having to soften the glue in hot water and then almost gouge at the hair plugs inside the head! The glue would go soft and runny whenever it was warm, then resolidify as soon as it cooled. As I said before it got EVERYWHERE! I feel weird about the idea of kids playing with these dolls if their heads are going to be leaking sticky, gross, glue whenever they get warm.

 Only one of the Barbies has her new head so far. I ran out of time. But this was the doll that inspired the whole project. I loved her face but her weird transparent pink and glittery body, with flesh coloured knees for some ungodly reason, made her unusable in my eyes. Now she has a tall body and even though the colour match isn't perfect, she still looks a million times better.

I just wish Mattel would stop ruining perfectly good toys. Finally they stop woth the gross sticky plastisizer leaking legs on everything and immediately introduce heads filled with super gross, hopefully not extremely toxic, glue. What is wrong with them?