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.;))

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.;)

Snoopy And Woodstock! (A Photoshoot)

Hi there! This is Lindsay. Nikki tried out the Rainbow Ponytail Veil from American Girl Fan on my hair, and both of us think it worked out quite well.:)

I think it's pretty awesome.:)
Nikki says to excuse her hand.;) Also, she took these photos with her phone Camera, so they're clearer than normal (her usual camera is very cheap, and quite old), but they also have a weird shape, and slightly strange lighting, because her phone camera always grays or shines things too much.:P She's asked for you to please let her know which pictures you prefer (the ones in this post, or our usual ones), because there are good and bad sides to each camera, and Nikki isn't sure which one is better to use.

Nikki took some pictures of me wearing my hair in the ponytail veil, with Snoopy and Woodstock (and Woodstock's friends;)) in the background. She loves Peanuts (Snoopy, Woodstock, and Peppermint Pattie especially), and Elyssa and I think they're really cute.;)

 I'm going to keep putting these pictures up two at a time, because they look really tall on their own.:P

 

 The one on the bottom right shows Snoopy properly.:)

I think that from father away, the phone camera is possibly more blurry than Nikki's normal one.:P

This one was taken with the light on in the room as well as the natural light from the window. It came out a bit yellow-y, bit I think it may have been better than the others... What do you think?:)

 These two were taken as I was turning.:)

And this is the last one. I think there was a better version of it, but I can't get it off of Nikki's phone right now.:P

Sorry about all the comments on the camera.:P Please do let us know which pictures you prefer though.:)

Also, I thought I would update you on Nellie, and Kit's cousin, Cherry. Cherry has arrived, and she's very sweet. We'll introduce her to you shortly, and she may even introduce herself!;)
As for Nellie, she's having a hard time. Her surgery has been postponed again (the doctors found out she was anaemic, and they didn't want to operate until she was stronger), and I think she's starting to lose her hope. Samantha isn't feeling responsible anymore, but she's very sad, and every time I've visited Nellie with her, I can see she's trying not to cry. But we know Nellie will recover. And Cindy is still even more optimistic than the rest of us.;) We will let you know when Nellie does have her surgery though.

I hope you enjoyed the photos, and have a good rest-of-the-day!:)

Do you like Snoopy and the Peanuts cartoons?:)