Babi a Fi

This line from Moose Toys is based on an intriguing idea - make your gymnast doll perform tricks with the help of a special magnetic ring. Unfortunately the execution, reading the reviews for them, can be difficult for kids to master and without a strong brand presence behind them the impetus to stick with it seems to be lacking.  The dolls were originally released in August 2019. ★  Ruby - box front / contents / back. ★  Jade - box front / contents / back. ★  Saffie - box front / contents / back. ★  Amy - box front / contents / back. ★  Balance Beam and Amber - box front / doll / back. ★  Gemazing Gymanasium and Luna - box front / doll / back.   For more like this, please click the image below:

Another week that was, eh? We had the first virtual full council on Tuesday so I went up to the civic centre to chair from there as my internet connection has not been great at home. The thought of 50+ people all on this call waiting on me as I dealt with IT issue #2763 was seriously stressing me out! Luckily it all went fine and we provisionally scheduled another for July, depending on what decisions are taken between now and then. I popped into school on Friday to sign the health and safety risk assessment for reopening. I feel reassured that schools are doing everything they can to prevent transmission, but I still think Welsh Govt are being foolhardy in going for such a wide return. My first choice would have been an expansion of the keyworker childcare hubs. Anyway, I'm not sending Marianna in - not so much because I fear it will be unsafe, but because the disruption to her routine / upset of having to social distance from her friends, etc, for three days of contact time ju

Five members of Barbie's family we no longer talk about... #5. Jazzie Jazzie, introduced in 1988, was Barbie's cousin. When she wasn't hanging out with the big B at the Big B, Jazzie and her friends (Chelsie and Stacie, no relation, and boyfriend Dude) spent their days committing some of the most atrociously eye searing crimes against fashion. Until they disappeared off the face of the earth in 1992 that is. Unlike previous modern cousin of choice, Francie Fairchild, Jazzie has yet to be resurrected for a repro though she has managed to live on in my 1/6 scale doll house at least, rebodied on one of Mattel's Creatable World dolls. #4. Tutti Barbie's nightmare fodder of a little sister, Tutti, was introduced in 1965. By 1971 she had disappeared from the US market, though lingered on in parts of Europe until 1980. #3. Krissy Baby 'Krissy' Kristine was introduced in 1998. By 2001 she was gone, never to be spoken of again. I don't wanna cas

Supplier:  Little Shop In Lee Website:   Etsy Store Products: 1/6 scale books and comics, plus full scale stickers, badges and art. I bought a cute set of two vintage style fairy tale books for £4, and three Life is Strange comics for £3.50. The latter are especially nicely done and came with a bonus temporary tattoo as a little freebie. :) I took a couple of quick pics with my Creatable World #GGG55 doll to show the scale. Post and Packing:  £1.20 for two items. For more like this, please click the image below:

Supplier:  Abels 3D Models Website:   Etsy Store Products: 3D printed furniture and other items in a mix of scales. The 1/12 scale IKEA Trofast caught my eye and set me back £12 including postage. For best effect it really needs some hand finishing to buff out the printing lines, but the quality is great and the sizing is spot on. In the pics you can see it paired up with my Heidi Ott younger lady and a 1/12 scale standard male body from MC Toys.  Ultimately I sold this piece on because it wasn't a good fit for the 1970s theme in my 1/12 scale house. But I do have my eye on their 1/6 scale A4 letter trays... Post and Packing:  Most products come with free delivery within the UK. For more like this, please click the image below:

Dougie's Diary - a series of books chronicling the day to day life of a super cute pre-school dinosaur - is the creation of Mandy Khaira, director of Little Me Day Nurseries . They currently have three locations in England, with the kind of central ethos that everyone should get behind: It's what I aspire to, at least, even if home schooling has been a challenge on just about every front. The email asking if I'd like to review the series arrived after a particularly trying day of tantrums, tears, and the crushing sense of inadequacy only a belligerent five year old can bestow. Going back to basics to learn about 'kindness, diversity and thankfulness' had never seemed so appealing! When the books arrived they totally surpassed my expectations. They're bright, colourful, have the blessing of wipe clean pages, and even managed to win a sulky Marianna over.  Right now there are five books in the series: ☆ Hello, I'm Dougie! ☆ D

I have written before - at length - about my aversion to slime. It's sticky, it's icky, and it gets absolutely everywhere! Marianna, on the other hand, is a big fan of the stuff. The upshot is that a while back I was super psyched to get an email proposing a solution to the problem. Slime washing machines. The idea is simple but genius. You put your slime and your dye into the drum of a little play washing machine, watch as the drum turns and mixes the colour in, then you take the slime out and it's ready to use - without staining your skin bright green / pink / blue / delete as appropriate.  These are produced by Canal Toys as part of their So Slime DIY brand. We reviewed one of their regular Slimelicious kits  (RRP £9.99) back in March. It was fun and Marianna enjoyed it, but the slime consistency was difficult to get right which is all too likely to mean sticky grossness smeared across your furniture.  Mess Free! Squeeze a little drop of dye into

Supplier:  Feel Toys Website:   feeltoys.co Products: Feel Toys are a Chinese company specialising in 'sexy' outfits and shoes for female action figures, particularly the Phicen TBLeague seamless variety. I'd never really paid them any attention before because, well, there is no shortage of 1/6 scale shoe makers and I'd never needed to.  But. Over the last couple of years ever more action figure companies, including Phicen, have been dipping their toe into the world of 1/12 which means a) doll house hobbyists can finally get realistic jointed figures for a reasonable price, and b) all kinds of companies are making awesome 1/12 scale stuff now. (I could whinge about why it's only a scale worth investing in when men are collecting it, but it would only make me sound salty...) Anyway, attractive 1/12 scale shoes have always been kind of difficult to come by. There are some amazing artisans, don't get me wrong, but I just can't justify spending that kind o

Peter Andre is a British/Australian pop star who conquered the UK charts in the mid 90s with tracks like 'Mysterious Girl' and 'Flava', then disappeared from the scene for a bit before appearing on series three of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in 2004. (AKA the only season I ever saw any of.) As a result of meeting on the show he eventually married fellow contestant Katie Price (Jordan) and wherever you looked in the mid-2000s, one, other, or both of them seemed to be there. Their star was always destined to fade - who could forget their 2006 covers album? - but Andre remains a regular fixture in UK media. Vivid Imaginations released a lookalike doll in 1997. ★ Doll -  box front / box back . Check out the Museum of Design in Plastics dedicated page! For more like this, please click the image below:

To anyone reading this - sorry for going MIA for, eep, over a month. I've kind of been having that breakdown I was heading straight for before coronavirus reached our sunny shores. I'm still not 100% but I'm definitely in a better place than I was. I'm just trying to take it one day at a time right now and make sure Marianna is fed, watered and educated. Anything else accomplished on top of that is a bonus. I had a trial run on MS Teams for full council this week which ended in the decision I'll go into the civic centre and chair from there. I don't know if it's my internet connection or my laptop - I suspect a bit of both - but trying to use Teams is like using a webcam c. 1996. So very slow and so very glitchy. Of course it's a total open secret that I was stepping down from all chairing at the AGM, but coronavirus had other ideas. Everything but essential business has been postponed so my dreams of quiet backbencherdom will have to wait a little l

Anthony's year suggestion was 1995, so here are my top ten favourite tracks of the year... Common People - Pulp "You will never understand / How it feels to live your life / With no meaning or control / And with nowhere left to go."  - Pulp providing the anthem for poor kids everywhere. I used to worry that I was going to end up living out the verse: " Never live like common people / Never do what common people do / Never fail like common people / Never watch your life slide out of view / And then dance and drink and screw / Because there's nothing else to do. " Now I just wish I had! Kiss From a Rose - Seal Like a lot of the songs on this list, 1995's Kiss From a Rose was actually a re-release. It had hit #20 in 1994 but, with the boost of inclusion on the Batman Forever soundtrack, in '95 it peaked at #4 in the UK as well as making #1 in the USA and Australia. Sunshine After The Rain - Berri It wasn't until I st