Freaky Fusion "Avea Trotter" by Monster High

I don't have to tell you how excited I am about one of the newest Monster High characters, the Freaky Fusion centaur, Avea Trotter.  I love how so many of you knew that this would be the perfect doll for me, and sent me links and tips when she was released--thank you!

The Freaky Fusion collection is small (so far...), but awesome.  The first releases are three hybrid monsters based on characters from an upcoming DVD.  There is Siren von Boo, who is part mermaid and part ghost, Bonita Femur, a mix of skeleton and moth...and Avea Trotter, who is half centaur and half harpy.   Bonita is my least favorite, just because I couldn't really figure out what she was supposed to be by looking at her.  Siren is gorgeous, with incredible-looking long purple hair, a luminescent torso and a fancy silver tail.  But Avea...she is my easy favorite.

I'll admit that I have been losing some of my interest in Monster High lately.  Many of the newer dolls are great if I look at them individually, but as a group they all blur together.  The Freaky Fusion line is a breath of fresh air.  All three dolls are complicated and interesting to look at, and Avea stands out from the usual Monster High crowd like a neon sign.  She is large, colorful, stylish, freaky, and, in my opinion, exactly the doll Monster High needed to rekindle the magic in this franchise.

Freaky Fusion "Avea Trotter," $24.99.

Our Generation "Jenny and Her Gourmet Kitchen" Set

I am absolutely crazy about kitchen sets, as you know if you've read my Muppet kitchen review, my Li'l Woodzeez bakery review or my Monster High Coffin Bean comparison review.  Oh--and also my Kurhn kitchen set review and my Sylvanian Family bakery review.  Hm.  I didn't realize I had quite so many food-related play sets.  Anyway, I am also on a bit of a 18" play doll kick thanks to my recent introduction to American Girls.  So, my current obsessions certainly make this play set very timely, but I think it is an unequivocally neat kitchen set that might also be the best doll purchase bargain of the year.  If I had younger kids, this set would already be stashed away and ready for a big, wonderful surprise on Christmas morning.  It packs a huge amount of fun into a surprisingly small (yet still impressive) box.  In fact, there are so many pieces with this set, my usual review approach got a little ridiculous.  There are a ton of pictures in this post.  I have tried to make some of them small to save space, but as always, you can click on pictures to make them larger if you want to see more detail.  If you don't want to see pictures that ruin the surprise of what's in the box, just read the first few paragraphs after the jump.  There's a weird marketing thing going on and I don't want anyone to mistakenly buy the wrong set.

There's a lot to see here, so without any more delay, let's look at Our Generation Jenny and her Gourmet Kitchen Set.  Fasten your seat belts.

Our Generation Jenny and her Gourmet Kitchen.

MiM (Make it Mine) Doll Update: Centaurs and Cents

You can read my full review of the relatively new and highly creative MiM dolls here, or visit the fun website here, but I want to tell you a few quick things that have happened in the last couple of weeks regarding MiM.  First of all, I got my replacement centaur body very quickly, as promised, and was able to finish my photo shoot (they gave me that blue halter top as a free gift!):

Centaur MiM

A Review of BFC Ink Pen Pal Doll "Britt" by MGA Entertainment

I have paused in my shopping to look at the BFC (Best Friends Club) Ink dolls on a number of occasions.  I even bought one of the extra outfits to see if it would fit my Lorifina doll (it did...kind-of). It wasn't until I started thinking about the charitable doll series of posts (here and here) that I considered reviewing one of the BFC Ink dolls.  Pondering the questions surrounding how charitable donations might impact a doll's price and quality made me brainstorm a list of 14"-22" play dolls that don't have an association with a charity to use as an outgroup in my investigation.  BFC Ink dolls made this list and appeal to me in particular because of their high level of articulation. The original BFC Ink dolls cost about $30, which would have been comparable to the Hearts 4 Hearts dolls, but I was happy to discover a newer and less expensive version of these dolls to examine.

The Pen Pal line of BFC Ink dolls were released late last year.  These dolls retail for $19.99.  In theory, they can be found at Target, Walmart, K-Mart and Toys R Us, however, as far as I can tell all BFC Ink dolls have disappeared from Toys R Us.  I actually haven't seen any of the Pen Pal dolls at my local Target or Walmart, either, but they can be purchased at Target.com (where they are called "Moxie Pen Pals" for some reason).  *Update 8/26/13: these dolls have been discontinued.

The Pen Pal dolls each represent a different country.  These dolls are meant to be the pen pals of the original club dolls.  There are 5 Pen Pal dolls: Britt (England), Carmen (Mexico), Nicolette (France), Elsa (Sweden) and Lily (South Africa).  I like Britt's combination of dark hair and blue eyes, so I ordered her.

BFC Ink Pen Pal Britt.

MiM Dolls from Make it Mine, LLC

I heard about the brand-new Make it Mine ("MiM") company and their debut doll line back in December on Terri's blog.  The first thing I noticed about these dolls was that they have a centaur body option.  That's not something you see every day.  As a person who likes dolls and horses quite a lot, a centaur doll has always been near the top of my list of things to add to my collection.  There aren't a ton of centaur dolls out there, though.  SOOM of Korea made an exquisite unicorn centaur doll a while ago (gasp!), but if you pile all of the different options and extras for him into your shopping cart (because I would want everything in those pictures!) it gets really pricey.  And he's sold out.  SOOM also had some smaller wood centaur dolls that were less expensive, but also less impressive.  Domadoll has a cute centaur, too, but I am not sure if it is still available for order.  Jpop Dolls has a relatively inexpensive centaur BJD named Elise who has especially nice horse parts.  I think there was one other very well-done BJD centaur on my radar, but I've forgotten where I saw it.  The MiM doll with a centaur body can be yours for about $134, making it the least expensive articulated centaur doll I have seen to date.

After glimpsing those first pictures, I took a look at the MiM website to learn more.   MiM dolls are advertised as 16" plastic ball-jointed dolls.  I guess the term "ball-jointed doll" applies to any doll with ball-and-socket joints.  I agree with Wikipedia, though, when they say that "BJD" usually means a resin doll strung with elastic and made in Asia, which MiM is not.  Oh, well.  The MiM doll has several customizable parts, which definitely fits with my idea of what a BJD should be.  Not only is there a centaur body, but MiM dolls can be mermaids, too.  Cool!  The Make it Mine website is very fun.  I've visited there many times since December, recreationally filling and un-filling my cart.  You can choose between different skin colors, faces, wigs, eye colors and outfit options and the site will show you a picture of approximately what your doll will look like.  It reminds me a lot of the Hasbro Lorifina dolls and their website.  Here what the MiM face looks like:

MiM doll.