Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Vintage 1998 Shopko Battat Doll Garage Sale Find

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!


I went to a Garage Sale Saturday and there at a sale, mixed in with like 10 porcelain dolls was an old school Shopko Battat doll new in its box!! She was asking $10 but accepted $8 since it was like 2pm on last day of sale. I knew exactly what I was going to do with the doll!


I bought this fantasy boy wig a while ago with no particular doll in mind... I just thought it was cute and suspect that the Muzi Wigs on Amazon will not be as inexpensive as they are indefinately. After I bought my first one for Sasha I put a review good review on it and the price almost immedately went up. Funny! So I imagine the current prices will last until they get a bit of good feedback and then will all go up. So, I bought a couple of them. Teehee. 


So when I saw this doll, knew the wig would be perfect! 


I honestly had no idea that Battat ever made an 18inch doll for Shopko?! I guess I kind of assumed that all the Battat 18inch dolls had always been sold at Target. So when I found this one that was clearly marked as a Shopko doll, I was intrigued and, of course, Googled it. Apparently there were two sorts of 18" Battat dolls sold at Shopko in the late 1990s. There was this sort, the "Autumn Harvest" kind and there were also some called Collector's Lane . They even, apparently, had Mini Collector's Lane Kids dolls. too. Fun! 




The box was in good shape for being about 20 years old. It was very simple with only illustrations of a vicotrian looking house with a leaf in the middle talking about the dolls. 






See what I mean, not a whole lot to the box.


Here is the doll out of the outer box. The outfit seems very top notch and was probably worth every cent of the $8 I paid for the doll. See why I can never pass them up?? Teehee. 


I could tell strait off that the wig was not good quality. I have found other vintage Battat dolls  and both  I've removed the wig from and they were both dreadful wigs that were nearly impossible to pry off. 


Being as these dolls retailed for about $30 in 1998, if I am reading the information on them correctly, I think they must've put all the money of production into the doll and the outfit. So, naturally they had to scrimp on the wig. Kind of like the Heidi Ott Faithful Friends dolls I have found in the past. I digress...


Interesting note of warning. Eh?


I could tell I was in for the oh-so-fun 'hair sewn to the plastic' like some modern dolls.


I knew I'd planned to remove the wig but since I also wanted to show ya'll the doll as she came out of the box, I went about removing her hair from the plastic like I planned to keep her hair. 



She had this tag on her wrist. Apparently there was a Jill, this Cindy and a Susan in the line. 


See? Right out fo the box the wig looks pretty bad!! See the frizzy tangled mess underneath!


The cute little backpack was sewn to her outfit.


Did I mention the outfit was great? That was before I realized how great. The pockets on the cute little sweater are real, as are the buttons. The little skirt is made of corduroy in red with a perfectly matched mock turtleneck top. Very cute!


I was surprised to see that, under the cute outfit was some pretty well made underwear, both panties and a tank top. Sweet! These little white tops often work well for boy dolls with a pair of shorts or something. So nice to have another one.


Here she is... About to have her wig removed. 


Look at that! The wig was partly stuck to the neck. Very poorly done. Which was nice because it meant that I didn't have a moments pause in removing the wig. 


I just sort of pulled at the edge of the wig to see if it was, like, superglued on the way of all the other vintage wigged Battat dolls have been. I have literally just cut all the hair off all but the first one and haven't even tried to pry them off because they are extremely hard to remove!! I've just glued the wig over the wig cap after I cut off the hair. So I was really surprised when the edge of the wig gave way pretty easily... So I started pulling it off and was able to pull it off without even using nail polish remover or anything. Nice! 


I forgot to get much of a photo of the wig before I put it on. It came packaged in a plastic bag with a carboard sleeve around it to make sure the wig doesn't get squished. Aren't the colors nice!


I loved him right away! I have a few fantasy girls, Prism and Spectrum and so I needed a boy! I haven't decided on a name for him yet... When I look at him I think of anime boy with white hair and it makes me smile. Two of my favorite comic book characters of all time are Cutter and Skywise from Elf Quest and they both have white hair. I realize this little fella has brown eyes and not blue but I think he might be named Skywise Cutter anyway just because I like it. It kind of matches Prism and Spectrum's names.  


I think he's adorable.


Here he is with the old wig. I don't even think I'll save it for a forlorn looking thrift store doll... It just needs to be thrown away!



Here is Skywise with Becky, another vintage Battat I own. She was made after they began to give them plugged hair and it's actually pretty nice. 


I thought I had several of the Autumn Harvest doll's face sculpt already but when I got home to compare, nope. It's a different one than I have ever seen?


Here is Becky, Vito, Skywise and Mike. They are all vintage Battat dolls. 


I also have this fella Hector who is also an older Battat but again, a different face sculpt. So, it's fun to have the new one in my collection

Better run! 
Have a fantastic day!
XXOO
Heather 














Monday, August 28, 2017

My Life As Doll Mini Doll Drawing Giveaway and Clothes Set Review!

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!

As I mentioned in a recent post, I was lucky enough to find some My Life As Doll Mini Dolls for only $2.50 each recently! So I bought four! Why four? Well, two for here at the Doll House because I have a lot of dolls who need doll friends! Then of course I bought one for my sister friend Frann because she and I love to have twinsy things. The fourth? Well, to give away in a drawing here on the blog!! 

That's right! The little School Girl Mini Doll will be given away in a drawing! How do you enter drawing? Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!! You just go and 'like' the PCR American Doll House Facebook Page and share the post there about the contest on your own Facebook page. That's it, super easy!

 I will draw the name of the contest winner on Sunday September 3, 2017 at  6PM Central Standard Time.*Contest only open to people in the United States or APO addresses due to postage costs!!*
(Sorry international readers, I only have so much money to devote to my little blog here)


One other reason I bought two of the mini dolls for the Doll House was that I wanted to be able to change clothes between them and the two American Girl Doll Mini Dolls I own. I don't need a ton of clothes for them but an outfit change here and there might be fun. I actually bought one of the new My Life As Doll Mini Doll clothing sets the same day I got the mini dolls for same reason. 


This is the set I picked. I love the little horse shirt and the boots! So cute!


Here are my two American Girl Doll Mini's alongside one of the two Mini's I bought for the Doll House. One thing I've never really understood about the MLA Mini's is why they decided to make them an inch taller than the American Girl Mini's and the Our Generation Minis? It's one of the reasons I never bought one before. I've decided to think of them like Karito Kids of which I have one in my own collection. They are a smidge taller than 18inches so it makes total sense. Right? Hahaha. I am such a dork sometimes. How I have to have 'stories' for all my Doll House residents. Teehee. 


However, even though they are a smidge taller, I thought they would likely still be able to share clothes. 


So I went to changing the clothes one of the new dolls I'd opened (the second will be opened by Heather Doll in an upcoming blog post!) and the American Girl Mini's. 

Not before I took a bunch of photos of the four Mini Dolls. They are just so cute!







Here is the back of the boxes. 


And here are the dolls all changed into different clothes. I was super sad to realize that the red shirt my Julie Mini had been wearing had stained her arms red. Boohoo. I hate it when that happens. The clothes fit pretty well despite them being a bit different in height. However, the shoes were not a perfect fit fot the American Girl Minis. The MLA Doll Mini shoes are too big. As you can see, I put the boots on Julie anyway and they look pretty cute and you can't tell they are too big. The slip on shoes though won't work at all for the AG Mini's. Bummer! Oh well... The good news being that the school girlie I am having the drawing for comes with black boots! So, if you have an AG mini and are the winner, you'll be able to share the boots on that doll with your AG Mini. How fun! One of my favorite parts of doll collecting is the fun of having them share clothes and accessories. So it'll be fun to make a scene of Heather Doll and Frann Doll playing dolls and changing out their dollies outfits. Of course that'll be a future blog post...

Well, I better run. Good luck in the drawing!
Have a great week!
XXOO
Heather





Sunday, August 27, 2017

Our Generation Diner Sets From Target!

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!

As you may recall, last Saturday I went on a bit of a Doll Shopping Spree!! One of the things I purchased was two Our Generation Diner Accessories Set. I bought two because I feel like you kind of need at least two tables or it's not that much of a diner, you know what I mean? I really think the Our Generation Diner is super cute but also that it's way too huge an item for me to every really own. Just not practical because it's not like it breaks down to store away. So my idea was to just buy the accessories sets and make a diner of my own. So here are some photos from the diner I created with the two sets. 


I had Kylee and Meredith be the models!


Here are the sets in their boxes.



Out of the box but still in plastic...




These accessories are so so cute!!


I love all of it but I think my favorite parts are the napkin dispenser and the condiment holder. So adorbs!




Since I had two sets and the menus were printed in both English and Spanish, I hung one on each side on the wall. I used two cards behind them to make them pop and the little pictures of the gal from the set as photos for the diner. Cute I thought...!




See, here are the menus above the juke box.



So, you can make a whole diner with just two accessory sets if you have tables and chairs... Pretty nifty! Out of time! Better run!

Till Next Time!
XXOO
Heather