Tuesday 21 June 2016

The Tea Party

Hi everyone, it's Nikki. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post again. I've tried to get another post ready a few times, but I just haven't had the time and/or energy to finish it. I've had loads to do these past few months, and I've been quite sick most of the time, so it's been busy and difficult. But now I've finished my exams and the show I was rehearsing for, and I'm not really committed to anything else until around September or October, so my only obstacle over the summer should be my health, which is currently teetering between very bad, and not-good-but-possible-to-live-a-semi-normal-life. :P It was very bad in March and April, then it seemed to improve for a while, but now it seems to be going back, so I'm not sure where it's heading. Thank you all for your prayers though - they mean a lot. :) Last weekend, I changed two of my dolls (the poor things had barely been touched since Christmas!) and put together a photostory with them. It hurt my back to bend over for so long, but it was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it. :)


It was Sunday afternoon, Elyssa and Lindsay were bored. School was nearly over, so there weren't really any responsibilities, and they felt like doing something fun. After they'd been thinking for a while, Lindsay had an idea.
"Why don't we have a tea party?" she suggested.
Elyssa liked the sound of that. "What sort of tea party?" she asked.
"One like we used to have when we were little - with the little tea set and teddy bears, except without the bears... I mean, I did that - I don't know if you did but I think most of us do."
"I did," Elyssa said quickly. "In fact I still have the little tea set. I'll go get it!" She got up and trotted out of the room.

She came back in a few minutes later, carrying a picnic basket. "I've got it," she said, smiling. She set the basket down on the floor.
"Great!" said Lindsay.
"I don't actually remember what's in it," said Elyssa, sheepishly.
"That's alright. Let's open it and see!"

They opened the basket between them and looked at everything inside it. There were two cups, two saucers, a sugar bowl, a milk jug, and a teapot. They starting taking things out. Lindsay paused, smiling. "I used to have this exact set!" she said.
"Really? What happened to it?" Elyssa asked as she picked up a saucer.
"I think it got broken. It just lost peices one by one until there weren't any left."
"That happened to me, too, before I got this set. This one was a replacement. I got it for my seventh birthday... Where's the lid for the teapot?"

"Is this it?" Lindsay asked, holding up a lid. "I haven't got anything that fits it."
"Yes, that's it."
Lindsay held it out over the basket, and Elyssa took it.

"Thank you," Elyssa said, and she put it on the teapot in front of her.
"You're welcome," said Lindsay.
Everything was out of the basket now, and they looked over it.

"What she we use for a table?" Elyssa asked.
Lindsay thought for a moment, and then smiled. "Why don't we just close the basket and use that?" she said, putting down the lid.
"That's a great idea!" said Elyssa. "Let's set the table."

The both started putting everything on top of the basket, and it worked very well as a table.
"Have you got an extra saucer?" asked Lindsay. "I don't have one."

"Yes; here it is," said Elyssa, handing it across the "table".
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."

Once everything was on the table, they sat back and looked it over.
"It needs a table cloth," said Lindsay thoughtfully, after a while.
"You're right. Do you have one?"
"I think so. I'll be back in a minute!"
Lindsay jumped up and ran out of the room. While she was gone, Elyssa took everything off of the table.

Lindsay came back soon, carrying a white table cloth.
"That's lovely!" said Elyssa, excitedly.
"I used to use it for my tea parties when I was little," Lindsay smiled. "Help me put it over the table!"

The girls both took hold of two corners each and gently placed the cloth on the table.
After they had arranged it they way they wanted it, they put all of the tea things back on the table.

"It looks perfect now," said Elyssa.
"Yes," Lindsay agreed.

Elyssa smiled. "Would you like some tea?"


I hope you enjoyed the photostory. I have some extra pictures of the dolls' outfits, because I really liked dressing them up. (Sorry about the bad lighting.)

This is Lindsay from the back. I really like how her hair turned out. I was trying to do a hairstyle I'd seen on another blog, but it didn't work out, so I ended up just taking some hair back in twists, and leaving a little out at the front to hang down.

Here she is from the front. The dress she's wearing doesn't actually have a sash - I tied a cream ribbon around it because I thought it looked nice. ;)

This is Elyssa from the back. Her hair is pretty simple, but I like how it turned out. Her dress doesn't really have a sash either - I just tied a big sheer purple ribbon around it to make it look fancier next to Lindsay's dress.

And from the front. I'm sorry about the junk under the unmade bed in the background! :P

I hope you liked the pictures, and I'll try to post again soon. :)
Have you ever held pretend tea parties?

Wednesday 10 February 2016

Updates and The Unknown Bloggers Award!

Hi everyone, it's Nikki. I hope everyone had a good Christmas and New Year. :) I'm sorry the dolls and I have been gone for such a long time. I've been sick for a lot of the time, and in between I've been really busy. Yesterday morning I was diagnosed with M.E. (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis - it's a form of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), which means that while I will get better eventually, I may not improve much for quite a long time. I'm going to try to post as much as I can, but there may not be many "proper" posts (like photostories and things), and I may post a couple times in one week, but then not again for a month. I'm not planning on leaving this blog though - I'm just not well enough to post often. :) I will also create Anna and Elsa's blog as soon as I feel I have the time (either later this month after I've finished with the performances of a show I'm in, or early summer after my GCSE exams :)). Thank you so much understanding my disappearing all the time, and for your prayers. It really means a lot to me to know that you understand when I can't post, and that people are praying for me when I'm sick. :)

Sunny from Everything Fun Under The Sun nominated me for the Unknown Bloggers Award! Thank you!! :)

Here are her questions:

How long have you been blogging for?
Since November 4th, 2013 (I think - it might have been the 2nd). I started with my blog "My Dad, Doctor Who", which I'm not currently posting on anymore (I can't find the time, but I'd love to start it up again). :) A few days later, I made this blog. :)

What’s your favorite part of the blogging experience?
That's quite a hard one, but I think I enjoy being able to share stories and pictures with other people. I love writing, and doing things with my dolls, so it's great to be able to do those things and know that other people are enjoying it too. I also like talking to people in comments and making friends online through blogging! :)

What’s your favorite book genre?
Mystery. :) I love Sherlock Holmes! I also like suspenseful stories, and sweet ones like Anne Of Green Gables, or Swallows And Amazons.

Favorite subject in school?
Drama, if that counts. I don't technically do drama for school, since I'm homeschooled, but I do go to two drama groups, and I would do drama as a subject if I went to an actual school. ;) Otherwise probably Literature, but only if I'm reading something I like. ;) I also love History. :)
Would you rather have 200 followers or 200 comments?
 200 comments. I did have to think about that for a while, but I would definitely prefer the comments - 200 followers doesn't necessarily mean that 200 people are actually reading your blog, but 200 comments means that a lot of people enjoy your blog enough to take the time to say so, and it's really nice to be able to talk to people in the comments! :)


I nominate:

Flourishing By Restful Falls

Treasured Friendships With A Flair

Wack-A-Doodle-Dolls

An American Girl Doll Story

Amazingly Adollable


Here are my questions:

What's your favorite fairytale (any version you like)?
Favorite color?
Have you ever seen a live stage performance?
Do you like climbing trees? ;)
Do you play a musical instrument?

Thanks again for the award, Sunny! :) (And I'm sorry I didn't comment a 'thank you' on the post - I saw it, but I was sick and couldn't think very clearly, so I thought I would leave a comment when I felt a bit better, but I forgot. :P )

I hope everyone enjoyed this post. I try to put up the Christmas pictures as soon as I can! :)

Thursday 26 November 2015

Just To Let You Know

Hello! It's Nikki. I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I've been really busy, and sick for part of the time. I had really bad dizzy spells yesterday and Monday, and in the last few days my weak arm and leg have been getting a lot worse. They were improving, but now they've gotten weaker, and they've started to get really achy, along with my spine and the other leg. I don't really know why it's happening, but it makes it really hard to me to get down to take photos or anything. I've also noticed today that my right leg (the really weak one) is an inch or two shorter than the other one, and it's making it harder to walk. I don't know why it's like that; maybe the muscles have contracted really tightly or something, but because I walk kind of lopsided, it's making the ache worse as well. Because it hurts to bend down and stuff, I may still not be able to do a proper post for a couple of weeks, or until it gets sorted out, but I will post if I can, and if you have any ideas for things I could post without photos, I might be able to do that.:) Thank you all for understanding my not posting a lot though.:)

PS I saw that this blog has a new follow - thank you, Clara!:) (From me and the dolls.;))


Wednesday 11 November 2015

A Review: Disney Animator's Collection Anna and Elsa Dolls

Hello everyone! This is Anna and Elsa. (I'm Anna. Elsa let me write, but she has to help me 'cause I'm littler than her. [Elsa here - I know 'littler' isn't a word, but Anna insisted on saying it.:P] I'm 4, and Elsa's 7. But Elsa's clever. She knows lots!) We came to live with Nikki on her birthday last month! It's really fun here. There's a great big house, and Nikki says it would be normal-sized if we weren't so small, but I think it must be big. We want to explore it, but we haven't seen a lot of it yet. And there's lots of other nice dolls, too! Nikki told us that this is their blog, but we can write a post on it this once. (She says we can't post on it always or even sometimes, because we're a different kind of doll to the others, but we're going to have our own blog soon! Nikki even let us think of a name for it, but we haven't thought of one yet. Elsa's favorite thing is snowflakes, and my favorite thing is chocolate and warm hugs!:) Elsa likes snow and stuff 'cause she's got magic powers. She can make it snow inside, and make pretty ice!) Nikki says we could write the beginning of this post, but then we must let her finish it, so we're going to stop writing now. We'll talk to you again when we have our own blog! Goodbye!:) -Anna and Elsa

Hi everyone. It's Nikki now.:) I got Anna and Elsa for my birthday, and I thought I would do a review on them. I was finally well enough to take some pictures today, so here it is.:)

 Here are the dolls. I changed their outfits when I got them because I've heard that the clothes often leak their color into the dolls if they're left on for a long time, and sometimes they're stained right after coming out of their boxes (which are horrible to open, by the way - the dolls are really tightly tied in with those little plastic-covered wires, and a few of these little plastic things stuck through their dresses (and one into their heads - blah:P) that you have to cut - it's really hard to do without chopping the dress on the way). Mine weren't stained at all when I opened them, though. I would have put their original outfits back on for the review, but they're very hard to get on and off (except for the shoes). Anna and Elsa with show them to you later on though.;) They both came with little semi-flat Olaf toys, but I didn't photograph those, because they were downstairs when I took the photos. One of the Olafs (Anna's, I think) has no nose.:P Elsa also came with a black headband, but I took it off with her clothes to avoid getting her hair stained. (It was sewn into her hair with two black threads, but they weren't too hard to cut. it did mess up her hair a little when I took it off, because it was threaded into the sides of her french braid, and the velcro on the ends pulls the hair a little when I pulled it through.)
The pictures are also a bit fuzzy, by the way - I think my camera objected to the slightly dim lighting in the room.:P

They are very cute dolls, and I love them! They look almost just like Anna and Elsa as little girls in the movie - there are just a few small differences.:) And I think it's lovely that Elsa is a little taller than Anna - it doesn't show well because of Anna's high pigtails, but there's about an inch's difference. I'm not sure which doll has the usual DAC molds, because I don't have any others, but from other people's pictures, I think it's Elsa. Anna's arms and legs are shorter and adorably chubbier!;)

 They lifted their skirts so you could see their legs.;) (Poor Elsa's showing her underwear!:/) Here you can see the difference in the leg molds: Anna's legs stop just where her dress reaches (if you look carefully, you can just see the green of her panties). They are much more plump than Elsa's, and I think they're just adorable! They looks just a real toddler's.;) 

 And here they are with their sleeves rolled up so you can see the difference in their arms. It's not as obvious as with the legs, but Anna's arm is shorter, and a bit chubbier, which is so cute!;) I never noticed until I looked at this picture, but I think her hand is slightly smaller as well.

Another extra picture.;) 

And here they are with their sleeves rolled down.;)

Anna is adorable. She has the sweetest smile, and (although you can't really see them here) really cute little freckles all across her cheeks. I love the freckles, because they aren't overly obvious, or evenly spaced - I found one on the side of her cheek that I didn't even know was there until today!

The camera wouldn't capture either doll's eye color very well, but Anna's are a sort of dark blue-green (kind of like a blueish sea-green). They're very pretty, but I kind of with they were lighter and bluer, like they are in the movie.
She has the same expression as the movie character though - I think they captured it really well. (That's probably my favorite thing about these dolls.;))
I love her hair - she's my first redheaded doll, and her hair's so cute it makes me want another doll with red hair.;)

I was slightly sad at first that Anna had high pigtails instead of low ones, and fuller bangs than the movie character, but I think the bangs would have been hard to get right, and the pigtails are probably the way they are so that girls who want to take the hair down and play with it can actually style it - I realized that if she had low pigtails, the hairs on the back of her neck would be only an inch or two long.:P
I haven't tried to take the hair down, because I want to keep it the way it is. The hair seems fairly good quality, but not as nearly as good as American Girl or my 23" My Twinn dolls. It's very soft, but has a slightly brittle feel to it, so I don't know how well it would handle being brushed and styled. It looks thickly rooted, but it seems thin when I actually look at the roots, so I'm not sure about that.
My Anna came with a small section of hair pulled into the pigtail on the wrong side of her parting. I pulled it out and tucked it into the edge of the right one, but now she has a slightly messy bit on that side (the left). She also had skew bangs, but I've manged to straighten them out over time.
Also, there was far to much gel-stuff in her pigtails and bangs. I managed to brush most of it out with water and a wire doll brush, but it took a while, and left a lot of little white crumbly bits in her hair, and one of her pigtails is still quite stiff.

Elsa is beautiful, and has a sort of elegant and playful look about her at the same time - just how the Crown Princess of Arendelle can be expected to look.;)

 She looks almost identical to her movie character, except that her eyes a slightly too dark, and she has a few tiny, but very dark freckles. The movie character does has some freckles, but they are very light. The doll's freckles aren't particularly distracting though, and she has a lovely face.:) (Her skin tone is perfect, too.)

 I love Elsa's hair - it's beautiful, and very soft. It is in a very simple french braid, and while I don't want to take it out, I think it would be easy to redo if it was taken down. The ends of the hair look a bit uneven at the bottom (mostly on the side that is touch Elsa's back), and she also had a lot of gel in her bangs, but I know some is needed to keep them from bouncing up off her forehead. I managed to brush out most of the gel, and now there is about the right amount.;)


 
(The bit sticking out on the right wasn't there when I got her - I left her on the dining table downstairs for the days I was in hospital and someone in my family tried to put her braid over her shoulder like adult Elsa. I think that bit of hair got caught on something and ended up bent like that.:P) 
She does have a strange dark-gray streak at the top of her braid (on the right). I'm not sure what it is. it isn't from her headband. I thought it was a sort of dark dust in her hair for a while, but now it doesn't look so much like it. It might be though. If not, her hair is stained.:P It's not too bad, but it is noticeable.

Elsa posing for another picture.;)

Elsa playing with ice when we were supposed to be taking other pictures.;)

She felt bad when I told her to stop.;)

The dolls are have nice posability - nothing very special, but they look quite natural. They can be posed to walk.;)

They can stand unaided, but it's very hard to position them for it. You kind of have to balance them. They can move in lots of different ways, but I think it's better to have them against a wall or something, because otherwise they fall over for nothing.

And raise their arms (they can't do a handstand, I don't think). (Anna wanted to show that she could touch her pigtails!;))

 They can also move their arms out to the side a bit - this is them stretched out as far as they will go.

 Reaching forward.:)

Hugging!;)

They can also move their arms backwards (and in a complete circle). They can turn their heads well too, but I didn't take a picture of that specifically because it shows in other pictures in the review.:)

(Sorry the pictures is yellow - the next two are as well.:/) They can tilt their heads down (Anna seems a little better at it than Elsa),

And up (Elsa seems slightly better at this one),

And to the side, which I think is just really cute when they're looking at each other.;) (I love that their eyes are looking different ways so that they can always look at each other if they're in the same picture.;))

They can kind of do the splits, but not too well, and only side-to-side. (Anna thought I was really funny for wanting to take this picture, and starting giggling to Elsa about it while I got the photograph!;))

They can sit up on their own, but their legs have to go quite far out sideways. I'm not someone who minds that much, but I know many people do.

They sit a lot better if they lean on their hands behind them.:)

Here are their shoes. I'm sorry the picture is so blurry.:P They are black rubbery-plastic, but very cute. Elsa's have a light blue snowflake-like pattern on the toe, and a light brown edging at the top. Anna's have an olive green edging, and a little dark green and pick leaf-and-flower pattern on the toe (it's the same pattern that's on her dress). They fit the dolls very well, and seem well made.

Here are the tights that come with their outfits. They're fairly well-made, but not very stretchy (a very nylon-y material), and only just big enough to fit the dolls, so they're quite hard to get on. They're pretty colors though.:)


(The first picture is very yellowy, so I added the second one to show the colors, even though it's blurry.:P) Here they are, holding up their dresses - Anna holding hers in front of her face.;) The dresses are nice. They are quite well-made, and I can't find anything skew or badly cut on them. They are made out a fairly cheap satin-y material, with velcro in the back, and the blouse parts are sewn into the dresses.

The backs of the dresses. With Anna holding her dress even higher this time!;)
Pictures I've seen of these same dolls bought a couple years ago seems to have better quality dresses - the sleeves had proper cuffs, whereas my dolls' dresses just have elastic on the inner edge, and the sash came into a bow at the back; my dolls' dresses just have the ribbon around the waist, and no bow.

Overall, I think these are lovely dolls. They have a few faults, and their quality isn't nearly as good as American Girl, but they are very good for their price, and really sweet, and in general they look very close to their movie-selves. I'm really glad I got them for my birthday, and I definitely recommend them, although you would have to expect a few small faults.;)

Anna and Elsa say goodbye.;)
I hope you enjoyed reading this post, and I'll let you know when Anna and Elsa get their blog - Anna may beg to let you know herself.;)