Friday, May 31, 2013

Summer


This has been a difficult week.  Both baby and I got sick with a meanie nasty cold.  There is nothing much sadder than a sick baby :'(  Hopefully we'll get over that soon so I can take her to visit the grandparents and family again.

And so we can enjoy our summer too.  The warm weather is already here.  With summer comes beautiful flowers and sunny lazy weekends by the pool or playful cool afternoons inside our home.

I usually take baby with me for a morning walk during my weekends since I don't have to work during those two days.  One thing I like very much about my neighborhood is the amount of people who love gardening.  There are so many pretty flowers and their lively colors never fail to cheer me up.  There are also little trees like this tiny apple tree (it's barely taller than me).

I wish you all have a lovely and restful weekend!





 
 

Friday, May 24, 2013

Océano


My darling friend Madmoiselle Laura from Formule Blonde sent me this incredible book from France.  It arrived this week and I have been trying to take photos to show you how fantastic it is but it's nearly impossible to do because it's a pop-up book and I need a third hand (and probably a fourth hand too) to hold the book in a certain way to be able to take a picture.  After many attempts, I gave up because it was just not possible.

But thank goodness I found a video that does just that :)
 
The book is Océano from Anouck Boisrobert and Louis Rigaud.


It is a fabulous book! Even if you cannot read French, it is worth getting just to look at the pop-up wonders inside!  My son is a huge fan of oceans and sea animals so he was mesmerized by this.

The same authors have previously published another great pop-up book entitled POPVILLE.


It's such an ingenious concept! A city growing in front of your very eyes at each turn of page.  The vibrant colors are plentiful but not overwhelming. All combined together they create the illusion of a lively city. I will probably try to get my hands on that book as well :D
For now I'll be happy with my Océano book.  Plus, it gives me an occasion to read some French to the kids as well and teach them new vocabulary!
 
Thank you Madmoiselle Laura for sending me this beautiful book! ♥

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Lego Expo

We had a Lego Expo last weekend.  In MY city! Can you believe it?  Usually I don't see many exhibitions here that I would like to attend so I was really happy when I heard about them coming to town.   

Glad they came because I just found out about Lego Friends!  I can't believe I never heard about it before.  To be honest, I am not sold on the whole concept of dolls with Lego but there were many nice items.

Let me share with you some of the photos from the expo.


I need those giant Lazy Susan at home too! It would be an awesome way to display my toys!


Of course, my favorite item was the dollhouse : Olivia's House :D (Are you even surprised?)



I admit the City Park Cafe looks very cute too.  I like the red and pink combination and I like cafés in general so if I were to get something from this collection, it would be this one.


I don't have any miniature pool yet and this City Pool looks really cute and perfect for my Mini dolls!


And look! A giant Friend figure made entirely of Lego blocks!


The collection looks even more tempting when you watch their commercial *_*. It somehow reminds me of Strawberry Shortcake with each doll having a building... except Lego actually does create the buildings to make them into toys (I am looking at you Hasbro *cough*) ...


Do you have toys from the Lego Friends serie?  If yes, do you like it? Which one do you prefer?

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Strawberry Shortcake Mini Dolls and Sylvanian Families

In my previous post, I wrote about how little space I have in the Strawberry Shortcake houses from Hasbro and how little furniture it had.

Well I found a solution by using dollhouses from the Sylvanian Families collection (aka Calico Critters in the USA).  I apologize in advance for the state of the houses.  I bought them used and they show wear with stained walls and scratched floors. I could easily remedy this with wallpaper, some rugs, curtains, etc, but I haven't got a chance to beautify the houses yet.  So please bear with my ugly houses for the mean time :)
 
The little cottage models (aka Starter House) fit perfectly the size of the Strawberry Shortcake Mini Dolls.  Here below is Rose Cottage furnished with Re-ment items mixed with furniture from Strawberry Shortcake collection as well.  Don't you think it is much better now?


I especially like the pink Re-ment wardrobe.  Shaped like a strawberry, with doors you can open and hangers with clothes, this item is probably my favorite in the Re-ment serie.

 
The furniture from the Sylvanian Families collection also fit the Strawberry Shortcake Mini Dolls but not all of them. I took a few pictures to illustrate this.  Below is the same Rose Cottage with furniture from a Living Room Set and a Kitchen Set.


In the kitchen, you can see the oven, sink, pantry and fridge (which came from a different kitchen set) are the right size but the teapot and cooking pot are obviously too big for little Cherry Jam!  The bowls and canisters (with the red trim) are however the right size and so are the plants.


The Living Room Set fits perfectly! Lemon Meringue and Plum Pudding can enjoy a cup of tea while sitting in pretty and comfortable chairs :) 


The bathroom is also to scale.  The bath tub is spacious without being gigantic.  There is a hole in the bath tub though so don't fill it with water until you plug the hole!  The bedroom furniture are good too but the bed that fits the Mini Dolls the best is the one for the children (bunk bed serie).


Here below is a photo showing the different size of beds in the Sylvanian Families collection.  
 
Lemon Meringue sleeps in a bed from the Country Bedroom Set which is much too big.  
Cherry Jam sleep in the Sister's Bedroom Set and the bed is a little too big for her.
Orange Marmelade sleeps in one of the Children's Bunk Bed and it fits just right.
Raspberry Torte sleeps in the Baby's Bunk Bed and it is much too small for her.


Among all the furniture sets, I think the Living Room set was the best fit.  And the print with tiny little flowers is just adorable.  The coffee table resembles more a dining table due to its height.


The Dining Room Table and Chairs were unfortunately too big for the Mini Dolls.   But since the Strawberry Shortcake houses usually come with dining table and chairs, it wasn't much of a big deal.  Plus the children didn't really care that the table was too high.  They were just happy to get more furniture ;-)


Apart from furniture, the Sylvanian Families Collection has many more items that could fit the Strawberry Shortcake Mini Dolls. For example they have a bicycle that I though was darling! Strawberry Shortcake is  a little small but you can hardly notice it.   And Custard her cat fits perfectly in the front basket.   The one in the photo below is for an adult but there is also a model for children which I think could possibly suit the Mini Dolls better.  


All in all, I think most of the Sylvanian Families are to scale with Strawberry Shortcake, especially items from the Children's collection.  They are more expensive than the toys from Hasbro but they are also better made and there is a variety that you can't find within the Hasbro line of toys for Strawberry Shortcake. 

If you want to buy Sylvanian Families, I would suggest waiting for the sales.  There are a few sales throughout the year by Amazon, Toys R Us and other toys websites.  There is also the possibility to buy used (or new) toys on Ebay.  Sometimes houses and many furniture sets are sold in a lot.  But just a word of advice : don't bid higher than you are willing to pay.  Just remember there will be other auctions and the prices may be lower. So be patient and wait if you don't want to pay full price :)

Monday, May 20, 2013

Re-ment with Strawberry Shortcake Minis

You probably know by now that I am a big fan of Hasbro Strawberry Shortcake Mini Dolls :P
 
Apart from the dolls, I also bought a few of their buildings.  I deplore the fact that Hasbro creates houses mostly for Strawberry Shortcake and not many for the other dolls. Apart from Raspberry Torte's Fashion Boutique (which I have and discussed here) and Lemon Meringue's Berry Fruity Salon (which strangely come with one Strawberry Shortcake Mini Doll only and not Raspberry Torte nor Lemon Meringue), the other buildings are all for Strawberry Shortcake.  What about Plum Pudding's Dance Studio, Blueberry Muffin's Library, etc.? 
 
Hopefully the other houses will be released in the future.  The buildings I have for now are very cute but they are however flawed because they are so small and they don't come with many furniture.
 
Then I found out about the Re-ment Merry Strawberry Miniature collection! Most of the items from that collection will fit (well most will fit) the scale of the Hasbro minis. 
 
I tried putting them in Strawberry Shortcake Berry Bitty Market so you can see how it looks. I wished the Hasbro houses were bigger because there is not much space inside.  The photos don't even show half of the Re-ment Merry Strawberry Collection but already there is no more space.
 
I will tell you in my next post about what I did to house all the collection and how I created a house for the other dolls :)

 
 
 

 
 

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Strawberry Shortcake Mini Dolls Clothes

My home renovation is almost completed so I can finally start to get my things out of storage and place them on shelves.  I still have lots to do though and it's going snail pace.  Caring for baby and my little boy takes most of my time so it's not easy fitting time for anything else. 
 
But I am happy to see the place come to shape and have a play area for the kids!  And now I have bookshelves and space to display toys, dolls, etc.
 
As I rummaged through my boxed goods, I saw this little package : Berry Princess Fashions from the Hasbro line of Strawberry Shortcake toys.  It's a mini Plum Pudding doll with an array of clothes and handbags.  There is also a Strawberry Shortcake Berry Princess Fashions if you prefer to have that doll instead.

She comes with 6 dresses, 2 handbags, 2 pair of shoes, 1 brush,  and you can re-use the packaged box by cutting out the mirror and display. 

I already had the plastic hair version of the Plum Pudding Mini Doll and here below is a picture of the two versions if you want to compare them.

 
The doll with the brushable hair is a little bit bigger than her plastic counterpart, but clothes for the Mini Dolls fit both models.  However, the shoes will only fit the newer Hasbro line of Mini Dolls because the older version dolls don't have removable shoes.


In the older version, you can see a hole in the shoe itself whereas in the more recent model, you have to remove the shoe to see the hole.

I noticed the newer Mini Dolls collection had removable shoes when I bought the Sun Lovin Garden with Cherry Jam and Lemon Meringue. Once you remove the shoes, you can see there is a hole in one of the feet so the doll can be placed on pegs (that are part of most of Strawberry Shortcake collection such as the Fresh Fashion Boutique below) to allow the doll to stand up-right.  That boutique is really neat by the way and is totally adorable with the hats display!


I was very happy to get this package of outfits because the Mini Dolls usually only come with one outfit and although I had many other dresses, they were all for Strawberry Shortcake in all imaginable shades of pink.  These dresses were super cute but didn't fit the other dolls color-wise.   


So now I have many colorful outfits for my little dolls.  See below they are wearing their old outfit ..... 


And now TA-DAAAAAAAAAAA! New dresses :D (well except for Cherry Jam and Lemon Meringue because these are my new dolls and I absolutely adore their dresses).


I can't wait to display all the toys and dolls so I can show you the great miniature house I have set up for them!