The Two Dorothys Meet- at the Emerald City Cafe

This has been a diorama that has been on the back burner for a while, and since I have some other dolls coming to expand it out, I thought I would get a move on with it and have some fun. 

I love Wizard of Oz, it is one of my favorite cult classic movies. I still have my 2000  Wizard of Oz talking Dorothy Barbie intact. I cannot find her darling ruby red slippers- (which I took off and put somewhere 'safe' so i wouldn't lose them) I remember purchasing her for myself and feeling embarrassed when I did it as I had bought the entire set for my stepdaughter when she was small and we would watch the movie on the weekends. I so wanted this doll so much- this was way before I got into dolls and doll collecting and felt so guilty for wanting her! 

I now have the Integrity Toys Poppy Parker version of Over the Rainbow! and she is darling. I found the Tin man at a really good price on Mercari and he is on his way as well as the entire set of the wizard of oz kelly/tommy Dorothy, Tin Man, Scarecrow, and cowardly lion coming to me. They are hard to find affordable- I found them on Mercari with free shipping. 

My diorama encompasses both Dorothy's  meeting for tea at the Emerald City cafe . 

My Vintage talking Mattel Dorothy is wearing a pair of Poppy Parker shoes, to replace for her slippers that I have misplaced. Hopefully I will find them in the mountains of shoes that I have. I still have the original Toto and her basket! As well as her socks! Her hair is still in its original braids with bows too. 

My Integrity toys Poppy Dorothy has her shoes and socks on too. I have never put on her jewelry or gloved hands, which I think I might do for another photo session. One of my disappointments with this doll is it did not come with a Toto dog. I really thought they let us down with that. So I have used a Jewel Secrets Barbie pug dog that I have customized with a jeweled beribboned collar for my Poppy's Toto dog on her lap. 

     Here you can see pugdog Toto better on Poppy Dorothy's lap

         Closeup of the Tea table with green plates, tea cake and orange iris flower
        arrangement on the back table to remind us of the Poppys in the movie

I hope you have enjoyed the preview of the photos of The two Dorothys meeting. It has been good to be more creative which has been difficult for me lately. Enjoy!

Real Littles Shopkins & Zuru Mini Brands Miniatures

May has come and almost gone and I haven't even posted a blog post yet! 
I have many things I wanted to blog about but one of the things I am a day late and (many dollars short) on posting about is the Real Littles Shopkins and the Mini Brands (Zuru) that My Froggy Stuff on YouTube has posted about as well as Barbie Gets Real on Youtube too. They both have done de-boxing on these unique miniatures that are playscale. MiniBrands and Shopkins are sometimes slightly larger than 1:6 but work for the dolls, especially Integrity dolls, and the larger items can work for Tonner dolls and even American Girl dolls. 

So where DO you find them? Good question! 

Your best best is Target. They advertise on locations as having them at Walmart, but I have not found MiniBrands at Walmart. Target is the best location I have found. 

Below is a photo of the two items - I purchased two Mini Brands and one Shopkinds item.

  As you can see, the Mini Shopping brands come in round plastic ball shaped plastic packages, with LOTS of waste packaging. My Froggy stuff shows how to use the plastic tubes in one of her videos as shelving in a shop. 

These come with six items as well as a catalog showing items to collect. The shopkins above comes with two, and a catalog, and is cheaper, but was sloppy. I had to put it under water! which caused a mess in my sink and it was still in plastic cube. I had to clean my sink before opening the packaging. So a heads up - it makes a huge blue slop that might stop up your sink. ick. 

                                                                        

Here are the two items I got out of the Shopkins after I cleaned up the packaging.  They are in more plastic after I got rid of the plastic cubing. 

Shopkins catalog insert

    On the interior of each shopkins, the little character was wrapped in this packaging. You will need scissors to open this or an exacto knife. 

                                                                                              Cherry Vanilla Shopkins

                                                                                           Scribblers shopkins 

 These two were extremely cute. The Breyer's ice cream carton is very large, and so is the Scribblers container, but will work for playscale. 

                                  

Opening the Mini Brands egg

LOTS of waste packaging material. 

Mini Brands Zuru catalog shows the rare brands and all the brands that you can tick off as you collect.

I received two of these Butter items

Of course, my Poppy cannot choose which one she likes the most. I think she likes the Moonpies and the donnettes the best since she has the sweet tooth. My Sheldon will have to have those Moonpies. I will need to do a scene with him and Amy arguing about Me-Maw coming to visit and calling him Moonpie. lol 

The other Minibrands and shopkins in the background are older ones I picked up in a larger set from Walmart a few months ago. I can say now I am hooked and want to create a grocery store now or a convenience store. 

Friend or Foe Poppy Parker/ Ginger Gilroy giftset de-boxed

Since yesterday was Sunday, I had a goal to finish de-boxing the Poppy Parker/Ginger Gilroy Friend or Foe giftset and get some photos. Getting the jewelry and shoes are some of the most 'fiddly' parts of assembling these dolls as my fingers are not as adept with tiny things as they used to be. Inevitably, I am always distracted by minor domestic family disasters in the form of the hubcap needing something, looking for something that it seems only I, the domestic goddess can find for him...when I am having doll time. Which is now rare. So I informed the man of the place that I didn't want to be disturbed and sent him outside on the lovely sunny day while I completed my list of dolly to do's...lol.

The only thing I ABSOLUTELY hated about this set was Poppy's lavender ankle strap shoes. Those fu&$king shoes are incredibly hard to unstrap, restrap and why on earth would you create ankle straps that could be broken and have to be glued and stay on the damn doll when you gave us a darling pair of bow pump heels for Ginger?? Why David Why?? In the end I had to tuck in the ankle straps as I could not guarantee once unbuckled I could get them rebuckled around her damn ankles. Forgive my french but Integrity ticks me off. Just give us a pair of stiletto heeled pumps and let's be done with the fancy dancy ankle straps. It would be more cost effective. I could get the darn shoes on these dolls and they would look smashing. (Besides, I hate ankle strap shoes. ) And this is mainly my arthritis talking. It was hard enough to get their necklaces on. 

Otherwise, the dolls were gorgeous. They looked like they stepped out the late 1950's early 1960's with those lovely dresses and jewelry and the little stoles. Sort of like the little dresses Hayley Mills wore in Parent Trap. Oh I would love a twin Poppy Parker of her in her flower girl dress and her camp outfit. These dresses reminded me of that era,

So let's get on with the photos.

Poppy and Ginger , arriving at the Spa...

In their box..so lovely.  And now, Poppy and Ginger are waiting for the suite reservation to open up at the spa. The maid is handling the luggage. They have settled down at the arboretum at the hotel to wait for their room confirmation for a spot of tea but are overwhelmed by the male admirers .....Ginger casually asks for a light on her cigarette and Poppy speaks to one of the gentlemen while Ginger listens to flattery that will get these gentlemen nowhere...

Enjoy!