Hodge Podge ~ updates on various dolls

Thrift shop find ~ My Melody Barbie

First up is a My Melody Barbie wearing a pink gown from the Goodwill. This is not her correct outfit, but she still has the My Melody headscarf and two original necklaces.

As she appeared right out of the shopping bag, before her make-over

I love the Steffie facemold so I had to buy this doll, despite the cost and replacement dress, which is not my preferred style. The Goodwill pricer knew this doll was higher quality than the usual playline dolls (correct, it's from the 2008 Barbie Collectibles line), so she had a $6 price tag. $5.99 to be specific, I usually round up when repeating prices. I'll give the pink dress to my nieces, they started playing with Barbies last year and they'll like it.

Part of the packaging was still in her hair (that annoying sewn-in plastic strip), which is a little odd since these dolls were sold 5-6 years ago. The MM charm necklace still has the clear rubber bands holding it in place as well.  

More Monster Aliens!

Allie Lectric is wearing a LaDeeDah fashion with pink Blob CAM shoes. Ari Roma is wearing a dress and shoes from the Vampire & Sea Monster CAM set. The black cage skirt is actually Una Verse's beach hat! It could also be worn under a skirt that needs support to poof out.

I probably won't buy more Novi Stars as they're no longer sold in stores where I live. I'll change my mind if the new dolls from last year show up around here, but I'm not counting on that, they only made it to some parts of the US for a brief period of time. It sounds like they were rounded up and shipped overseas. I really like some of the new characters but I don't care enough to buy them online. The only reason I bought these four Novis is because I found them on deep clearance, around $5 each -- I can't justify paying much more than that when all I want is the head.

Here are all four of my hybrids together. I love them!

The bodies, from left to right:

Mae Tallick (wave 1): Blob from the Blob & Ice CAM set
Allie Lectric (wave 1): Witch from the Cat & Witch CAM set
Una Verse (wave 2, Orbit Beach): Ice from the Blob & Ice CAM set
Ari Roma (wave 1): Vampire from the Vampire & Sea Monster CAM set

CAM = Monster High Create-a-Monster

There are other MH bodies you can use for all four heads. For example the Una Verse head would also look great on an Abbey body.

I want to give credit again to MyDollsareMyModels, he was the first to post photos of his Novi-Monster hybrids on Flickr. My post which explains how to remove the speaker from Mae Talick's robot head is here. That post also links to a video from MyDollsareMyModels showing how to swap heads. Let me emphasize again that you will need a heating pad or some other way to soften the alien heads without damaging the hair. It took me about an hour to soften up the green head with a heating pad. You can break the neck on the donor body if you're not careful.

Pinypon, or Pin y Pon

I think Pinypon mini-dolls, or figurines if you prefer -- they're plastic/vinyl with almost no articulation -- are adorable and would likely appeal to a lot of kids (box says 4+ but most young children will lose the tiny charms quickly). I've been eyeing Pinypon at Fred Meyer and finally picked some up last week when I noticed they were on sale for $2 each -- what a great price!

 

A couple days after buying these four Pinypon I returned to Fred Meyer and bought three more so my nieces would have even more pieces to mix-n-match when they visit. The series with pets were $3 on sale instead of $2 so I only bought one -- the girl with a kitty of course.

These small dolls share outfits and hair and tiny charms/accessories. And you can store unused charms in their hollow heads! Some hairstyles hold on better than others so I put extra charms inside heads with the secure hair.

For size comparison:

Polly Pockets, Cushion the hedgehog, various LPS animals, Pinypon, LPS Blythe, Monster High Venus

Pinypon look very similar to Kawaii Crush dolls/figures but I think Pinypon are cuter.

Each head has two expressions, you simply turn the head around to get a new face. The packaging doesn't show the alternate faces so I was eager to see how the expressions would change. The first doll I opened, Pink Ponytails, has a super cute expression of joy...

...but when I turned her head around... (this IS the same head, I just swapped the hair and clothing on all my Pinypon dolls so now she looks like a completely different doll)

How awesome is that?! I didn't expect a sad face, but it's fantastic! Most of the dolls have happy or pleasant faces, this is the only blatantly upset face out of the seven Pinypon dolls I own. The girl paired with the purple kitty has pink glasses on one side of her head, that was also a fun surprise.

I think these dolls resemble Japanese anime characters so I assumed they originated in Asia but they're produced by Famosa, a company in Spain. There isn't much information about them online, probably because they're targeted to young children and all you really need to know is they're inexpensive and cute. I just learned Pinypon have been around for a few decades (with some hibernation time when the dolls weren't being manufactured) but they didn't look like this back in the '80s.

puppy and kitten not included

I thought the dolls were cute in the packages but I like them even more after opening them up and swapping the clothing pieces and charms around. For $2 (sale price) they are a steal. I'll probably buy more if I find any with blue hair (they exist, just not at my local Fred Meyer) and I wouldn't mind getting one of the boys as well (also missing from the selection at FM).

These card backs don't show all the available Pinypon, there are a few more series with themes like sports, flowers, fairies, and mermaids.

Happy Easter!

Looks like I've accumulated a bunch of bunnies from various thrift shop grab bags over the years. :)

TRU clearance & rewards benefits

If you shop at TRU I think it's a good idea to sign up for their rewards program. They send a few emails every week so it could be considered too spammy, but they send a lot of coupons and I learn about clearance sales I'd miss without the email notifications. Every so often they send me a rewards certificate for up to $5 off any purchase (even when I don't spend much in a quarter). I don't chase these rewards so I don't know what it takes to earn them. You can also sign up for eReceipts, which I'll explain in more detail at the end of this post.

Sometimes TRU coupons only apply to items already marked on clearance, which is a bummer if everything on clearance is a dud you don't want. There's a difference between clearance and on sale. Some of their coupons only work with regular price items so it won't stack on a sale price. Check the coupon's fine print to determine if it's worth the ink and drive to the store.

This week TRU sent out a 20% off coupon for clearance toys along with an ad offering Novi Stars dolls for $5. I like it when sales math is simple, that meant a Novi doll cost $4 with the coupon. They sent the email at 6:10 AM on January 8th and the $5 sale was good for one day only: January 8th. This is another reason to check TRU's fine print!

I've been watching the Novi dolls at TRU for several months, waiting for the price to drop. These dolls were clearanced at places like Target last year but my TRU kept them on the shelf at $15 until now. Needless to say I printed the coupon and headed out the door.

Here is the clearance sale notice as it appeared in my inbox:

I added the smilies & captions to this screenshot with Skitch, a free iPad app.

I was waiting for the price to drop but I didn't expect it to get this low at TRU. Sometimes I miss out on a doll if I wait too long but this reminds me why it often pays to wait.

Now I can pop her head off and put it on the green witch Monster High CAM body. My trio of Novi Monsters will soon be complete! (Una Verse and Mae Tallick were found on clearance at Target and Ross last year. They are also using Monster High clothes and CAM bodies.)

Her hair bow is made from hair.

The new clearance price at TRU for these Novi dolls is $7.98, which isn't bad at all. (The $5 price was a one day special but the 20% coupon is good until the 11th -- 20% off $7.98 is still a solid deal for a doll that originally cost $20.) I have the three I want from the 2012 first wave but I might buy some of the cool 2013 Novis for 8 bucks if they ever show up around here -- I'm not expecting that to happen.

Una would also look great with Abbey's blue body

Fashion Pups

Since the 20% off coupon applied to all clearance items in one purchase it made sense to look around and see what else was on clearance. I was tempted by the color changing spa day Alexis, she's the one Liv doll TRU has held at $20 ever since the Liv line was discontinued two years ago. They clearanced all other Liv dolls dirt cheap long ago but this Alexis lingered on the shelves at $20 forever! Kinda funny. She is finally marked down to $8 so I was tempted, but then...

I saw the Cutie Pops Fashion Pups were on clearance, $25 down to $13! (Plus another 20% off with the coupon, so she ended up costing me $10.38 to be specific.)

For some reason the older Cutie Pops weren't even on sale, but the relatively new Fashion Pups were marked to move at a clearance price. OK then! Dalia moved right into my cart.

Check out the cute puppy pops on her hair bows

New shoe style, I like it

Her closed eyes are black with dark pink rainbow hearts

Something seems different about the art and the actual doll, hmmmmm...
I complained about the color change a few months ago, I still like the doll.

On the way home I remembered the Crown Cuties still haven't shown up at my TRU. The Toybox Philosopher reviewed these dolls last September so they've been available for at least 5 months.

Missing from all local stores!

The other stores in town stopped carrying Cutie Pops last summer, only TRU had the Hattitude and Fashion Pups dolls (Fall 2013). The two Crown Cuties didn't even make it to my TRU. This isn't a good sign and I wanted the blue haired doll. They're available for $17 on Target.com with a "not sold in stores" tag. I'm reluctant to buy these dolls online due to problems with quality control (I can be picky) so I'll probably go without the blue princess. Maybe someday the Crown Cuties will show up at discount stores like Ross or Tuesday Morning.

eReceipts from TRU

TRU offers eReceipts, which you sign up for by logging into your TRU Rewards account online. I digitally erased some info from this eReceipt, the original eReceipt shows store location, total paid, rewards ID number, etc. It can be used to return anything to the store. 

The receipt is emailed minutes after purchase, it looks like it landed in my inbox before I left the parking lot. I hope in the future more stores offer eReceipts. I'm pretty careful with receipts but every so often I throw one out and then later realize I need it to return something. As a little bonus, TRU included a coupon for 15% off any regular price item with the receipt. I probably won't use it this time but it's appreciated.

Thrift stores have been a dead zone as far as dolls are concerned, just a lot of junk -- or some stuff that's decent but overpriced in my opinion. I think over the last few months I found just one thrift doll, a Liv Alexis in a pretty light blue dress (no wig or shoes or any other accessories). She still needs a bath and her dress could use a cleaning as well.

So that's my dolly news, thanks for stopping by. :)

Novi Monster High-brids

I posted Part 1 a couple days ago, you can read that first if you'd like. In a nutshell:

• Novi Stars might be cancelled if sales don't pick up.
• I bought robot-alien Mae Tallick to put her head on a Monster High body.
• Then I learned Mae "won't work" as a hybrid head donor due to the voice box in her robot head. 
• I decided to open up Mae's head anyway and see if I could make it work.

Spoiler alert:

After buying Mae Tallick I googled for hybrid tutorials and quickly learned Mae is not a good candidate for a body swap due to the voice box in her head. Oops! This is what you see once her head pops off:

ACCESS DENIED

The other Novi dolls don't have a barrier preventing access to the inside of their heads. Most neck knobs I tried DO fit in this cavity, but they can't be pushed up further inside the head, so on certain bodies the neck looks unnaturally long. 

Here's an example of Mae's head on a Monster High body:

apple neck (pre-surgery)

OK, Mae Tallick is an alien, maybe aliens have long lumpy necks, who can say? I think it looks like she swallowed an apple and it stuck in her throat, so I'll refer to it as apple neck in this tutorial. 

If you don't mind Mae's apple neck then you don't have to open up Mae's head! Her head pops off the original robot body with very little effort, so remove her head and then place her head on a Monster High body. Pop off, pop on, couldn't be easier. I'm using the Blob Girl's body from the Ice & Blob Girl Create-a-Monster pack but you can use any Monster High body, CAM or regular. 

Here she is on the same Monster High body post-surgery, no more apple neck:

post-surgery

I put the Monster High roller skates on Mae because her original robot body has molded on roller skates. Now her wheels work. :) 

Keep reading to learn how to perform the head surgery.

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"I don't have Mae, what if I want to make a hybrid doll using a different Novi head?"

Heat the heads with a heating pad or hair dryer (be sure to protect the hair) and then adjust how much neck is visible by moving the Monster High neck knob inside the Novi head. You want to move the neck until the 'stuck apple' is hidden just inside the head, that looks the most natural. It feels and looks right, you'll know when it's in the correct position.

Here's a video showing this simple process, made by MyDollsareMyModels -- he's the collector who first posted his Novi-Monster hybrids on Flickr and inspired many people to do the same:

http://youtu.be/es2Q0J1BefA -- The tutorial video will open in a new window, I can't embed it due to Blogger being fussy.

In the video he recommends heating the Novi head longer if you can't get the neck knob through the smaller second hole inside the head. Other customizers say they heat the head and then, while the vinyl is still soft, use a big knitting needle (or similar object) to temporarily open up the smaller hole so the neck knob will pass through it.

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"I have Mae and don't want the apple neck, how do I fix it?"

Warning: This surgery will remove (and possibly destroy) Mae's voice box. If you don't want to lose her voice then skip to the next section.

In this section I will show how to make Mae's head fit on a Monster High body. It doesn't matter if you want to use a Create-A-Monster body or a regular Monster High body. If you use a regular body you'll need to remove the ghoul's head with a heating pad or hair dryer. Watch this video (it's the same one linked in the previous section), he shows how to remove Spectra's head with a heating pad. You can also dunk the Monster High head in a mug of very hot water. 

Mae's head does not require heat (and definitely not water! No water!) to remove. Give it a tug and it will pop right off her robot body.

Now, on to the simple head surgery. This is rather easy but kids should ask an adult to do it for them.

Click on a photo to make it bigger.

8-Bit says, "Use a regular Phillips screwdriver."

1) Remove the two recessed screws and the battery pack screw in the middle. I recommend you remove the batteries. Be careful, Mae's ears will fall off their pegs when her head is open. Remove the heart-shaped ear pieces and put them in a safe place with the screws. 

2) Set the front half of the head aside, you won't change anything about it -- unless you want to change the eyes. 

3) Remove the neck hole barrier piece, it slides out easily. You can see I was living dangerously and hadn't removed the ear pieces yet. Do this ASAP, they are tiny and would be easy to lose without you noticing when and where they fell off.

4) Remove the voice box. The main parts will slide out but you'll see two wires connected to metal tabs hiding behind plastic (I took this photo after the wires had been removed). Remove the plastic circular piece in the middle, it lifts off.

5) Now you can see the metal tabs (I took this photo after the wires had been removed). The two wires will need to be pulled off the metal tabs at the solder points. A firm tug will do it. 

6) I sanded the U-shaped opening in the circular plastic piece just a bit. I was afraid of doing it too much and then having to fix it. You might be able to improve Mae's up-down head mobility by experimenting with the size of this opening, but I can't promise anything. (Her head twists sideways just fine.) I'm happy with her as she is right now so at this point I won't open her head again to experiment.

7) Place the neck inside the head as shown, the neck knob will be cradled in the U-shaped opening. Return Mae's ears to the pegs and then put the face plate on. 

8) Screw the two sides back together and you're done! This is an extreme angle shot from Mae's feet. You won't see this square opening when she's on display, unless you're trying to look up her skirt.

Mae with her pet 8-Bit, post-surgery

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"I have Mae and don't want to perform surgery on her, but I don't like the apple neck!"

If you want to keep the voice box but you don't like the apple neck then you will need to find a donor body with a short neck. This means Monster High bodies won't work for you.

The size of the neck knob isn't too important -- if it's too small you can build it up with tape, if it's too big you can file it down. 

If surgery doesn't appeal to you then I think Mae's head as-is out of the box looks best (among the spare bodies I have on hand) on a Moxie Girlz body, thanks to its short neck. 

Moxie Girl

Last year I cut up a Moxie Girl to use with Monster High CAM limbs, so this gives me the shorter neck of a Moxie Girl with the limbs of a MH doll -- just what Mae needs. 

We'll get back to the Moxie Girlz later, I'll discuss these bodies in order of the line-up photo below:

Some body options for Novi Stars heads

A - Polly Pocket (pointy neck knob)
B - Polly Pocket (rounded neck knob)
C - Littlest Pet Shop Blythe
D - Kelly clone (Barbie's toddler sister, before Chelsea era)
E - Mae Tallick Novi Star
F - Bratz, articulated
G - Moxie Girlz torso with Monster High limbs
H - Monster High (Blob Girl) 

How does Mae's head fit on these bodies?

small body options - click pic to make huge

A & B - Polly Pocket: No photos because Mae's head doesn't fit at all. The neck knobs are too small, but they could be built up with tape or epoxy. Athletic tape works great.

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C - LPS Blythe: As you can see in the line-up photo above, Blythe's neck knob is just about the same size as the knob on Mae's original robot body. So as you might expect, her head fits great on Blythe's body! 

It does look a little silly but at the same time I think it's cute. Silly-cute. :)

Blythe looks skeptical. As usual.

Imagine this body painted to match Mae's head.

Blythe's head pops off with a strong tug, there's no need to warm it up first.

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D - Kelly clone: Mae's head fits great. It reminds me of this photo -- click that to see weirdly adorable panda and cat hybrids made with painted Kelly bodies and LPS pet heads.

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E - Mae's original robot body obviously fits perfectly, no photo.

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regular size body options - click pic to make huge

F - Bratz (articulated): The end result is not perfect but it works for display purposes. Painting the neck to match the head would make it look even better. The length might not bother you, especially if you have a shirt or jacket that helps hide the neck length, like the collar on this vest.

Notice when I pull the collar off the neck the length is more noticeable:

You can see a little separation between the head and neck where the neck knob narrows but this isn't obvious when the doll is on display -- this is like all minor flaws that melt away when you're admiring dolls on display and not examining a doll in a photograph. I think you might be able to hide this gap inside the head if you file off say the top half of the neck knob, but that's an experiment I'll leave to someone else.

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G - Moxie Girlz: This is a Moxie Girl torso with Monster High arms and legs (instructions here). Of course you can use an unmodified Moxie Girl body. 

The Moxie neck length is great. Mae's head fits on the neck knob but the knob is wobbly so I wrapped two tiny clear elastics (package of 100+ purchased at the dollar store) around the knob to stabilize it. 

The weight of the wig pulls her head back on this neck

2 mini hair elastics wrapped around neck knob base

The clear rubber bands will be visible from lower angles, especially if you know to look for them. If you want to make this a dedicated body for Mae you could stabilize the neck knob with something like air dry clay or epoxy and then paint the new body (at least the neck and upper chest) to match her head. 

Another option would be the same experiment I suggested with the Bratz body: I think that making the neck knob smaller (file off the top half) would allow you to hide the gap inside the head, where it belongs. No guarantees, I haven't tried it myself! 


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H - Monster High: The fit on the neck knob is great but the exposed neck is too long and it looks like Mae has an apple stuck in her throat. Scroll back if you skipped the photos at the beginning of this post to see the apple neck. This can be fixed by altering Mae's head (which requires removing the voice box, instructions in this post), and it's not a problem for the other Novi Stars.

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You may have a body in your collection that works better, please leave a comment if you have a suggestion. I recommend trying a neck that looks short even after the head is removed. 

Be careful when removing heads, just yanking them off could tear the vinyl and ruin the head or neck knob. The safest method requires a heating pad to soften the vinyl, this is shown in the tutorial video I linked to earlier in this post. OK, here it is again: http://youtu.be/es2Q0J1BefA (video by MyDollsAreMyModels, not me)

A++, would try again

I like the Novi-Monster hybrid so much, it's tempting to buy a Novi Star at TRU for $15 so Mae will have an alien friend -- but I'll hold strong! TRU will someday put them on sale and I saw a report on Tumblr yesterday confirming a 2013 Novi Star was spotted at Ross (overstock discount store). They'll eventually show up at thrift stores for $1-$3 too. 

If Mae turns up at the Goodwill then I'll experiment with spray painting her head, I saw a custom silver Mae on Tumblr so I already know it looks great. She'd be easy to spray paint because her head is hard plastic, her removable wig means there's no hair in the way, and you can open her head to remove the eyes -- no masking required. You can even change her ears since they're removable too. I think this makes Mae the ideal Novi head to customize so if I find one then I'll definitely buy another Mae at the thrift shop.

Update: I went to Ross today and they had one Novi Star in stock, the Beach Orbit Una Verse for $7.50. This is the only doll in the beach wave I want (LOVE her hat and hair style) so I was OK with spending 3 bucks more for her than I spent on Mae at Target. Not ideal but still a good discount. I'll pass on any other first wave or beach dolls at that price, but I'd seriously consider a few of the 2013 Novis for $7.50. Ross hasn't seen the last of me yet!