Every Girl "Maia" by Paola Reina America

You might remember that about a year ago the Spanish doll company Paola Reina expanded to include a distributor in America.  At that time, I jumped on the opportunity to review two of the new dolls--Marta, a 23.6-inch Las Reinas de Paola beauty, and Amor, a smaller 15.7-inch Soy Tu cutie.  As much fun as I had choosing and reviewing Amor and Marta, I remember wishing that there had been a group of 18-inch dolls to choose from.  I really like collecting 18-inch dolls and making comparisons between the ever-increasing number of options in this popular scale.  Also, with all of the outfits and accessories available for this size of play doll, it makes a lot of strategic sense for a company to have an 18-inch option available--especially a company like Paola Reina that is already manufacturing such an impressive range of doll sizes and styles.

Well, someone at Paola Reina must have had similar thoughts way before I did, because this year a new collection of 18-inch Every Girl dolls was added to the Paola Reina America family.  Right now, the Every Girl collection has five dolls--including a little boy named Unai.  As tempted as I was to have a boy in my 18-inch doll collection, I couldn't resist the redheaded Maia and her nautical-themed dress.  As the weather in Maine gets warmer and warmer, my thoughts turn increasingly to the ocean...and little Maia fits perfectly with this frame of mind:

Every Girl "Maia" doll by Paola Reina, $104.99 CDN (~$85 USD).

"Captain America: The Winter Soldier" Figures by Hot Toys--A Guest Review!

I have collected and reviewed a few action figures in the past year, but am still a huge noob in this arena.  I really like my Walking Dead Daryl Dixon figure, but he's not very articulated.  My Phicen Seamless figure is the most beautifully articulated doll I have ever owned...but she's not super durable.  I'm still on the hunt for a happy medium in the action figure world: realism, articulation and durability all in one.  I've had my eye on the 1:6 scale figures from Hot Toys for a while--especially the gorgeous redheaded Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow.  Despite my growing curiosity, I've had a hard time getting myself to plunk down the funds necessary to look at one of these Hot Toys figures up close.

As luck would have it, I got an email a few months ago from Gwen, who was hoping to review not just one...and not two...but three Hot Toys figures!  Of course I couldn't resist the wonderful opportunity to get another perspective on the quality of these collectibles.  Gwen is primarily an American Girl collector, but her tastes have wandered into the action figure realm.  It's fun for me to encounter someone who appreciates dolls at such different ends of the spectrum.  I used to assume that doll collectors mostly stayed loyal to one particular brand or type.  On the contrary, I'm frequently impressed by the combination of styles and sizes of doll that people enjoy.  This diversity is yet another one of the amazing things about the doll collecting hobby.  Anyway, Gwen is an absolute delight to work with and has done a fantastic job of reviewing three dolls in one post.  She did such a good job, in fact, that about half way through formatting her review, I broke down and pre-ordered my very own Black Widow figure from Hot Toys.  Finally!  Thank you for helping me make this momentous decision, Gwen.  My Black Widow review will have to wait for fall, but let's not wait another second to have Gwen tell us all about her three handsome men.  Over to you, Gwen!

Hello everyone! I'm Gwen, and while I usually spend my time blogging about American Girl, historic food and my attempts to cook it, I'm here today to talk to you about these action figures from Hot Toys that came out in conjunction with Captain America: The Winter Soldier. With the Hot Toys figures for Avengers: Age of Ultron almost all released and available for pre-order, I thought people might be interested in hearing some thoughts about these pricey-but-cool looking figures, and Emily was kind enough to let me take the chance to do so!

The Captain America: The Winter Soldier Captain America and Steve Rogers Set by Hot Toys, $339.99.

The Lollipop Girls by Jan McLean

It's not unusual for me to buy a doll for review and then get distracted by something else.  In fact, this happens quite a lot, and so my reviews are rarely written when they were originally planned.  However, I don't think I have ever procrastinated with a review quite as much as I did with this one.  I bought these Jan McLean Lollipop Girls back in...wait for it...June of 2012.  Three years ago.  Not long after I first started blogging, if you can believe it.

I had a variety of reasons for delaying this review, one of which was simply that the Lollipop Girls are long discontinued.  These dolls were made over a decade ago, during 2002 and 2003.  The 12-inch vinyl dolls that I will show you here are actually miniature versions of Jan McLean's 25-inch porcelain dolls of the same name.  Ms. McLean has not made very many vinyl dolls throughout her career.  This New Zealand artist is better known for her limited edition porcelain creations--a nice assortment of which has been archived for viewing at The Dollery.

Completely by coincidence, the delayed timing of this review might be strangely relevant.  Although Ms. McLean has not made any new dolls since 2009, she premiered a new collection of one-of-a-kind porcelain dolls at the International Doll and Teddy Show...just yesterday.  The dolls sold out within hours.

Jan McLean mini Lollipop Girls "Neena" (left) and "Cassie" (right).

Vi and Va Dolls by MGA Entertainment

Lately I have been scanning the shelves of the local stores, eagerly looking for any sign of the 2015 Bratz dolls by MGA Entertainment.  While I've yet to see anything new from Bratz, MGA did debut a completely different doll line back in January.  Several of you have been noticing these dolls in the stores and asking if I would write a review.  I am extremely happy to do this review because the newcomers look quite different from most other dolls on the shelves right now--and I am always excited to see something truly new.

The doll brand is called "Vi and Va," which is short for "Viviana and Valentina." The brand name also sounds like the word viva, which means "live" or "long live" in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian.  Viviana and Valentina are a pair of teenaged sisters who are also close friends.  The other dolls in the line are the sisters' two cousins, Roxxi and Felicia--who are also friends.  MGA's website does not have a huge amount of backstory about these characters, but I get the sense that the girls are Latina and that the line is meant to center around close families.

The dolls are only available at Target right now, where they have been relatively easy to find for the past few months.  All four of the characters were in stock (and on sale) when I went shopping.  There were also a few fashion packs and a Birthday Celebration set with both Vi and Va.  I chose the redheaded Vi doll and also her green-eyed, blonde-haired cousin, Felicia.  I thought these two offered a nice contrast and would be fun to review together:

Viviana (left) and Felicia (right) by MGA Entertainment, $16.99 each.

Chelly Wood's Epic Stop-Action "Romeo and Juliet" Film--A Guest Interview!

About a month ago I got an email from a lovely fellow blogger, Chelly Wood, who is working on a special project with her two daughters.  Chelly explained that she and her girls are using a collection of dolls to make a stop-action version of Shakespeare's classic, Romeo and Juliet.  How cool is that?

I was immediately in love with this idea--and not just because I like doll-related things.  I also have a special fondness for stop-action movies.  When I was a kid, my friend and I used to make these elaborate stop-action sagas with my Playmobil figures.  And that was way before laptops and stop-action technology--we just turned the Betamax (yes, Betamax...) camera on and off as we captured our shots.  It was so much fun.  The other thing that I like about Chelly's work is the amount of care and research that is going into her production.  Chelly and her daughters give attention to every little detail--from costumes and hair to scenery and props.  My limited experience with making movie clips for the blog has given me a great amount of respect for the time and effort required to complete this kind of project.  I am not the only one who is impressed: Chelly's endeavor is already getting media attention, with a story in the Chicago Tribune and a doll-craft article in Designer Dolls Magazine.

I thought it would be fun to showcase Chelly's project here on the blog while the film itself is still in production.  I am always interested to learn about the details behind a creative venture like this one.  Knowing the backstory often adds to my anticipation for--and enjoyment of--the final work of art.  In the upcoming months, you can find updates and news about Romeo and Juliet on Chelly's own website.  I hope you guys are as enchanted by this special project as I am!

Juliet relaxing on one of the beautiful handmade sets of Romeo and Juliet.

"Frozen Fever" Anna and Elsa Dolls--A Comparison Review!

After limping along for a few months, my valiant six-year-old computer finally reached the Point of No Return.  It might have--just a thought--had something to do with the 28,000 photographs stored on its hard drive.  Anyway, I have been transitioning to a newer computer over the past few weeks.  I knew this would be a challenge (let's just say I'm not someone who thrives on change...) but it was trickier than I expected.  The biggest hurdle was to move from my ancient iPhoto software to a fancy modern photo processing program.  You might notice a few changes and quirks as I continue to get used to all of these new-fangled things.

I probably should have written a few shorter reviews as I got accustomed to my new set-up, but a side-effect of my aversion to change is that I pretend everything is going to stay the same...and I don't plan ahead.  I just stubbornly do what I would have done in a never-changing world.  Basically, I was really looking forward to writing this Frozen Fever comparison review and didn't want to compromise.  So...it took me a while to finish.

Both Mattel and the Disney Store made Anna and Elsa dolls for the Frozen Fever short film that accompanied the recent Cinderella movie.  I loved this short film--especially when I was watching it in a movie theater full of little kids.  The giggling was contagious.  I really wanted to have a doll souvenir from this cute film--like I do for most Disney movies.  I typically prefer the Disney Store versions of movie-themed dolls, but when I saw that Mattel had changed their Frozen dolls for this release (Anna has a really different face mold) I thought it would be fun to do another comparison.

Mattel's Frozen Fever Elsa (left) and Anna (right), $14.99 each.

Polly Pocket by Mattel

Originally, this article was going to involve a short review of a gift I received from my husband at around Easter time (maybe you can guess what egg-like thing he bought me?).  However, the gift led to some questions, some investigating, a few purchases...and I ended up with these two cuties and a very different review than I started with:

Color change Polly Pocket (left, 2012) and rain coat Polly Pocket (right, 2011).