Did You Miss Me?

 I went to a wedding in Kansas.  Visited family and did the tourist thing on the way to and from.

I'm 60 years old now.

Got a Superhero Girls bus from Goodwill but the biggest keeper was this:

(Picture from internet.)  

The bus's driver can detach from the bus and zoom off after bad guys!  

Not sure what or where this will be.  Expect a future post or series on this project.

 

This is the sticker on the back.  There's also a serial number, but Google keeps finding me not-quite-this dollhouses.  Y'all know how it bugs me when I can't track down the origins.

The cast for my sequel to FRIENDS.  Can you guess who they are?

My second ily doll.  This one's a Hocus Pocus fangirl.  Loves the Sanderson sisters, so I'm calling her Sandy.  Did I mention in my post about Sally that the side-of-the-box art makes for good bookmarks?  Sandy's got some wild hair, but no worse than Willa or Belltrix.   

Please see the post titled "ily Forever" for the detailed review of Sally.  

Camper and Dollhouse Update

 I've not done much recently with the dolls.  I am still toying with a couple of story telling ideas, but the current political climate is playing hell with my psyche.  I think my muse may have run for the hills.  I am working around my stories, but not on my stories, if you can understand that.

You'll remember this camper. Those white sides, with indentations for stickers, bothered me.  So bland.

Peel and stick wallpaper to the rescue.

I've fallen in love with the Masterpieces from Zuru Mini Brands.  I'm not even sharing with the dolls!  This is my art gallery on the side of a bookshelf.  I don't care for the silly versions (like Mona Lisa in baseball gear) and I end up with doubles, like with any blind bag.

I have a plethora of easels and magnifying glasses.

And balls.  So many balls.

I'd like to get the dollhouse off the floor.  They could have a basement garage.

Ideally, I could set this up in the center of my Doll Room... it would be fun to have 360 degrees of play.  But I still haven't inherited a two bedroom house from long-lost Uncle Pennybags.

Anybody got a 62 inch long coffee table and a teleportation machine?

Horsies!

 I found another good example of how using things meant for 18 inch dolls sometimes works better than using the things meant for my dolls' actual size (12 inch/Barbie/1:6).  I've mentioned this before, most recently in my review of the Hogwarts Express playset. 

Image from Internet.

According to this and my clumsy math, a regular Barbie-scale horse is technically a pony. 

The average (using measurements on Angus and Khan) height of a Barbie horse, to scale, is only 12 hands.  I don't take issue with my dolls having ponies instead of horses.  It's just an interesting point.

Both Angus (hairy feet) and Khan (funny tail) are based on real horse breeds.  Angus should be 17 to 19 hands.  Gage should have of trouble looking over his spine! Khan is smaller, about 14 hands, but his spine still should be chest high on Gage.  Remember, I'm using my own math skills here, so estimates and bad calculation are both possible.

Bullet: thanks for giving up your spot for me.

Khan: Jeanie made me.

Like Khan before him, Bullet jumped into my hands at a local flea market.  He fit all my criteria for a doll horse: reasonably realistic eyes and a dynamic pose. He is a horse, not a pony, on my scale.  Roughly fifteen hands.

Bullet was heftier even before I noticed his long legs.  Turns out, he is a Our Generation horse.  Our Generation are 18 inch dolls similar to American Girl dolls. Thus this blog post.

Some of you may remember I had a few more horses.  All but Angus went in the post-soap-opera purge, for various reasons.  One of them wasn't walking or anything, just standing there, and originally had human looking eyes that I tried to fix.  Most of them were too small to be anything but babies.

When I found Khan a few weeks  ago, he had some kind of wiggly stirrup thing that was meant for the doll to (I assume) stand while riding.  It stuck out of his belly and was purple to match his saddle and bridle.  I sawed most of it off and used black nail polish to hide the rest.

Bullet needed a scrubbing and a brushing.  My friend suggested naming him Silver Bullet.  Once cleaned up, he isn't as silver as we thought, so he's just Bullet.  

Angus fits nicely in the horse trailer.

Khan also fits nicely in the horse trailer.  He is skinny enough to share the space, but neither of his buddies are!  

Bullet looks like he can step over with just a little effort.  While we're at it, let's try on the tack! 

 Khan's saddle and bridle almost fit Bullet.

Pink set does not even come close.

Pink saddle number two almost fits.

 

Angus's saddle has been repaired with elastic so I didn't even try to wiggle it over Bullet's big ole hips.  Ignore the water.  He forgot to stand on his head for proper drainage after his bath.

Not sure where this came from, but it will fit with a bit of effort.  Most of my barn stuff came from thrift store assortment bags and I think this was in one of them.  

Too small.

Khan can wear it.  Almost.

Angus is not amused. 

 

Angus can share this one with Bullet.  Khan prefers his purple halter with the gold reins. 

My other barn stuff, usually stored in either the horse trailer or the sleigh.  The lanterns and signs were Christmas tree ornaments.  The buckets were probably in the previously mentioned assortment bags.  I did get a rooster once but he had a speaker and the speaker holes looked like violence had occurred.

Everything together to be put away.  Eventually.  My excuse this time?  Gotta let Bullet stand on his head for a while and drain that bathwater.  That fashionista bag used to hold the tack... but now I have too much tack... 

 

Winter Projects: Part Six

 

Sour Flush candy in a lid bowl, waiting for The Boy to come eat it.

I went with green (sour apple) even thought it doesn't match the bathroom.  Because that's the only flavor they had and I ain't running all over the place looking for blue or pink.

My Zoe/Chelsea hybrids are a bit tall for the Chelsea bed but it's doable.  Bigger kids and adults can fight over the rear seat and roof top.  The tots have a cot!

 Bright green toilet.  I'll be pretending there's retractable walls or privacy screen.

And off Camper Van goes into the parking lot! 

Goodwill today had a plane.  It was nearly the size of the Star Traveler and only sat four dolls, so I passed on it.  My dolls have a helicopter if they need to fly.

Winter Projects: Part Four

 You didn't think there would be a part four, did you?  I sure didn't! 

I was beginning to wonder if the snow and cold would ever pass.

At least my neighbors had some fun with it.  

But Goodwill came through for me again.  This is a Barbie 3 in 1 Dream Camper.  

Normally, I turn my nose up at the newer Barbie campers because... yeah, lets go camping and fold down all the walls and stick the kindergartener up in the sky.  But I figure this one was like five bucks and it can just be a van if I want.

Like this.  That's meant to be Chelsea's bed.  Someone else is meant to sleep below it, on the roof, presumably to catch the poor kid when she rolls over.

 The headlight and tail light stickers were reasonably intact.  A few drops of Krazy Glue fixed the curled corners on one of them and one of the rear view mirrors.  The rest of the stickers needed to go.

It did come with some of its accessories like this hidden boat.

The cab pops off so Barbie doesn't have to pack up the whole campsite just to hike a trail.  We already saw where the boat is stored.  The wading pool goes in the big window and the kitchenette just was crammed in the back.  All of these are intact and usable.

I also found a couple tubes of something in the rear bathroom.  A blue drinking glass and a orphan boot were rattling around under the driver's seat.  No picture of them since they weren't bravely clinging to their proper spot!

Here's the rear bathroom.  Missing toilet means I gotta buy some Sour Flush candy.  I really like the cute lil shower but I'll have to pretend they have something to protect their privacy in here.  Maybe like a folding room divider... hmmm...  

The cardboard insert between rooms is good.

On that side, anyway.  I've deeply offended at the idea of an entire entertainment center in a camper. The TV and radio in my 1970's camper are smaller and more suited for roughing it.  There is none in the Star Traveler.  Well, maybe a radio on the dashboard.

Out comes the contact paper.

After a liberal use of rubbing alcohol in hope of removing sticker residue, it's drying off.  I used the black-and-white roses to cover the entertainment center side of the cardboard insert.  If I have to cover the sticker areas on the exterior, I'll use the same.  

 

Winter Projects: Part Three

 

Didn't even make to February.  I was outta food and climbing the walls, so I braved the cold.

Ambulance is done and patio almost there.

This is what I'm dealing with.  Ugly.

Dollar Tree to the rescue!  This small sheet of peel-and-stick wallpaper (aka contact paper) and roll of duct tape are more than enough to finish the job.

Oven door now looks like an oven door.  I might replace it later with something reflective.

I forgot to point out last time that I found a bit of cardboard to put behind the shelf.  

That pink is a perfect match!

I really wanted to focus on the pink flowers. It was challenging to work around the birds, but I managed.  There is one spot, but I doubt anyone will notice.

I covered the last remaining bit of the other wallpaper.

Iris is trying to get Jimin or Sally to give her a drink out of the minifridge.

This will work great with my picnic stuff! 

Ambulance is retired to the dolly parking lot. 

Patio is too tall for my folding-set shelf. 

But not as tall as the Hogwarts Express Diner!

Who made this mess on my project table?