Barbie Dream House Competition

This kind of went under the radar. Mattel is having a design competition for Barbie's Dream House.

It will be interesting to see what this leads to. The Barbie career contest resulted in real, purchasable dolls. The Genuine Ken competition, on the other hand, seems to have gone nowhere.

I hope the designers are creative, and avoid the glitter-encrusted, all-pink junk the in-house designers have been so fixated on since 2009.

Jem dolls have the best hair fiber.

As long as nobody has ever ripped at the hair, a comb and boiling water will make it as good as new.

Here's a very played-with Aja I bought.

A surprise found while cleaning Jem.

I hope this works...

Found under my sewing machine table

A whole box of dolls! I wondered where these got off to. I stacked them under some boxes of books, for some reason. these are mostly dirty and secondhand dolls I never got around to cleaning up.

Angelic Dreamz has real pics of S.I.S. "Locks of Looks" doll sets.

From Flickr

• Grace and Courtney full
• Grace and Courtney close-up
• Kara and Kianna full
• Kara and Kianna close-up
• Trichelle and Janessa full
• Trichelle and Janessa close-up
  

These seem more like regular Barbie line to me. I think I can pass on all of them. The dolls are so identical, and not even articulated any more.

ETA 05/29/11
The 2nd wave Pastry dolls.
They're a bit better, but I'm not a sweatpants person.

Rain, rain, go away...

I'm so tired of this rainy, cloudy weather. I can't take a good picture of anything, it's dark and dreary all the time.

Taishan Barbie Museum and Meining

This just popped up on YouTube a few days ago.

Remember the Taishan Barbie Museum?

Former Mattel factory workers now have their own original doll to dress, Meining. It looks like her promotion started in late 2010, and the dolls are all OOAK.

There are other video reports.
2011-04-23-民視異言堂-3-台灣芭比 美寧娃娃.avi
2011-04-23-民視異言堂-4-台灣芭比 美寧娃娃.avi
They have their own YouTube channel.

Articles with pictures.
泰山美寧娃娃嘉年華
台灣版芭比“美寧娃娃”
為什麼是C CUP的美寧姑娘
泰山美寧工坊 台灣娃娃故鄉

Meining Workshop is the official website.

Jenny News

This is old news, but it's new to me.

Takaratomy did a collaboration with idol pop group SUPER☆GiRLS. At least one of the March release Jenny fashions is the result of this. Check out pics in two articles.
Article 1
Article 2
That fashion always bugged me, because it's so off-style compared to the others. Now I know why.

There's a music video with the fashion in it. It's on the covers of the single, released in five variations. 1 2 3 4 5

Wait, there's more!

SUPER☆GiRLS did the ending theme for a cartoon spawned from a Takaratomy arcade game, card game, and comic. Takaratomy has partnered with Sonokong to release a flood of girl toys.

I hope there will be dolls.

Barbie A Fairy Secret Deja Vu

It's even more deja vu than normal. I think the boxed versions were meant to be cheap Easter basket stuffers.

Jenny in the garden

More on Bratz

Here are two more Bratz I resisted the urge to buy. The first is Tyla. I don't care for the fashion, but the doll has a nice color combination.

The second, Yasmin, I love the fashion, don't really care for the doll.

Fashionistas Fashion Packs Artsy and Cutie.

I don't know if these are 2010 or 2011 releases. They never showed up near me, so I ordered them from the Mattel shop. Most of Artsy's pack is headed for eBay, but I really love those boots.

It feels really good to have some new doll clothes that didn't come off of a full price doll.

Fashionistas Sassy dress

I bought it for the accessories, especially the belt. The dress itself is kind of underwhelming to me.

A repainter who works magic on playline.

John Nguyen on Flickr does great repaints, everybody should see them.

Draculaura with Licca eyes.
Lagoona Blue with pose doll eyes.
Even a Ghoulia.
America's Next Top Model

There are so many and they're all great.
Momoko My Scene
A Momoko Ken!
Even a Steffie with Licca eyes.