A Cabbage Patch Doll for even the smallest among us

Among the many things I acquired in the waning days of Toys R Us was a Cabbage Patch doll sized for Brit, who'll be the owner of the farmhouse I started building this past January.

At half-off, a bonanza for dollhouse builders looking for toys.

But wait, you say--Brit? She's another doll that got lost in the blog-slog. It's traditional in my family that I get a present on Christmas Eve to keep me distracted amidst the excitement (and now that "excitement" is no longer "waiting for Santa" but "waiting for dessert to bake," distraction is still equally appreciated). This past year, my Christmas Eve surprise was Brit.

Oh hi, guys.

Brit is a 7" fashion doll with, as you can see, articulation. We didn't initially know who she was meant to be, though she has the air of a doll who's meant to be someone. But wait--she's Britney Spears. (Or, properly, it's Britney, bitch.)

While I've gone through a number of prospective tenants for my planned 1:12 dollhouse, my secret wish (so secret I hadn't discussed it with Mom in any way) was for a 7" fashion doll. So here she is, and Brit is going to live the alternate-universe life in which she plays acoustic guitar and has a home studio in the attic of my work-in-progress Home Depot Imagination Dollhouse (the big Christmas item for this past year).

Let's open up that Cabbage Patch package and see what's inside.

The worst fakie in the history of fakies

We can all go home now -- the worst fakie fashion doll ever was found in San Francisco's Mission District this May. There's nowhere further to go with the concept.

The box was close to being this bad before going in my luggage.

San Francisco was so disappointing this time that I'm not inclined to schedule a day there on future California trips. The Mission's being gentrified, which means delightful hole-in-the-wall shops full of knock-offs and bargains are now boarded up or have been replaced with cocktail bars that don't open until five. During the day, street life feels more dangerous and certainly smells worse than when I last visited that neighborhood in 2015 or when I lived in the city in the early '00s.

The bonanza of fashion doll fakies have been replaced -- where stores still exist -- with 14" American Girl fakies. Since I don't do that size, I didn't get one, but I did score, for $1.99, Trendy here: a Bratz fakie who scrapes the bottom of the fakie barrel and comes away bruised.

Taller Yasmin face-palms at this new arrival.

Even an earlier Bratz fakie (second from left) is appalled. I think technically Trendy is a Megan knock-off, since her hair is reddish, but my only Megan was rebodied, so I'm using Yasmins for comparison, since I have enough Yasmins to found a complete Yasmin Civilization. There's always a Yasmin handy, chez moi.

This is the first Chinese fakie I've seen where nothing on the package admits to where in China the doll was made. Even the factory in Zhejiang or wherever is ashamed to be associated with poor Trendy. She seems to have been made for the Latin American market, or possibly for a straight-to-swap-meet future. (I haven't been to the Park 'n' Swap for over a year, so maybe Trendy is all over the place now.)

Noogie time!

Let's see what we've got here...

Super-duper hero gals

Then there's the moment when you go to write about one new acquisition and realize there are at least two comparable dolls that haven't been blogged yet... and one is from two Christmases ago. OKAY THEN.

The new girl seems a little... cold, somehow.

The newbie is supposed to be DC Superhero Girl "Frost," a.k.a. Caitlin Snow, the gal second from the left in blue, light blue, and more blue. During a random Walmart wallow, Mom spotted her and talked me into rescuing the poor girl. When the doll is marked down to $4, it's hard to make the case against buying.

It looks like Frost has the same head mold as Bumblebee, whom we have seen before (two full years ago). The newbies who may not have shown up until now are Bratz Action Heroez Phoebe (who, in typical Bratz fashion is so over it all), and SpacePOP Juno (our purple punk pal on the far right).

"We are NOT singing 'Ebony and Ivory' at karaoke, Caitlin. I mean it."

We're going to take a closer look at Frost and Juno... and since this is a fashion doll blog, yes, we do have to take our clothes off to have a good time, so that's after the jump.

Twilight of the Blogs

A herd of Fashionistas supervises work on the kitchen fixtures of Meow Manor. I started that project a year ago, and it seems to have stalled out.

Only Kenzo, the skinny Ken with the man-bun, has any idea what's going on here.

The plan was to give the stove an induction cooktop. It went badly, so Kenzo's pride here is premature and misplaced.

Behold!

So back in May, I spent two weeks in California with my parents, while my (rental) bathroom was being rehabbed (shower was installed wrong, years before I moved in), and I squandered a good bit of my birthday money at the Toys R Us going-out-of-business sale and at other stores that also had cheap Fashionistas.

The raiding and hoarding started with the Curvy on the far left, now named Victoria. She was on sale at TRU. It clearly did not stop there.

If you were only going to buy one, why are there five here?

The plan then mutated into one of each body type. Okay, fine. You are now looking at Harper (Tall), Charlotte (Petite), Adele (the very dark gal with burgundy hair), and Isla (dark with white hair). They are still working out their roles in the gang, though Adele has a lock on being the tech wizard and Victoria is the sexy one.

So I swore I wasn't interested in Kens, nosiree, no Kens for me. Well, maybe one little Ken, if a TRU had the Skinny Ken with the man-bun. We went to every TRU in northern California and I finally scored one. That's Kenzo.

It's all about the man-bun.

Then Mom and I were in a Walmart and I dunno, somehow Ken (blond Regular to the left) and Kenton (medium beige Skinny, second from right) jumped into my basket. Kendrick (Bulky to the far right) was a last-minute TRU purchase, and darn, doesn't he look happy to have a home and friends.

These were not my only TRU and Walmart finds because why stop with nine Fashionistas if it's possible to completely fill one's luggage with the weird, cheap, and unusual. In upcoming posts (haha, will there be upcoming posts, or is this a dead blog?), you'll see a TRU clone and what is officially the Worst Fakie Ever (found in San Francisco).

Meanwhile, I got the urge to clean up and work on Meow Manor, which is one of those projects that ought to be simple but there keeps being one more thing and another more thing. I should have started with the upstairs and laid flooring, but here we are.

When you realize, too late, you know who's who by their wigs & outfits

In the midst of a concerted cleaning of display shelves that had gotten dusty. I have space for drying only a few dolls at a time, so this is going to be a protracted project.

Anything homemade that shrinks, I'm just making a new one. Bleh!

Liv and let Liv