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Back in the dark days after my husband literally ran away from home and refused to speak to me (except for sending obnoxious emails and texts demanding that we separate as many of our joint accounts as possible by a deadline that he had imposed and he even threatened to sue me if I questioned anything), I became enamoured with a line of Mattel dolls known as Monster High. They had this great concept where all of the students were the children of famous monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy, and many others. I would occasionally buy one. I was more interested in collecting one of each character than every single doll in existence. (I’ve seen videos of other Monster High collectors where they would have multiples of—let’s say—Draculaura because Mattel released a new Draculaura doll wearing a different outfit instead of selling the outfits separately. It’s different from when I was a child where I would have one Barbie but my parents would buy separately-sold clothes that I could dress my Barbie in instead of buying multiple Barbies because that was the only way of getting different clothes.)
I only bought a new Monster High doll if I had extra money. I ended up stopping my purchases of new dolls because of tight finances. Then Mattel decided to discontinue the entire line so I couldn’t buy any new dolls if I wanted to. (I could continue with buying used dolls at the thrift store but they vary in quality depending on how well their previous owners treated them.)
Last year Mattel decided to bring back the line and I was happy even though I still can’t purchase too many of the new dolls because they now cost at least $25 each. (I remember when the original line cost around $15 each.) I recently purchased the Cleo DeNile doll at Target because I missed out on getting her the first time and I’ve always thought that she was cool. She’s been described as the daughter of the Mummy and she has an Egyptian mummy theme.
So I purchased her and I made a video of her unboxing, which I uploaded on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
What’s really wild is that, as of this writing, my unboxing video has gotten over 1.2 thousand views on YouTube, which is pretty phenomenal. In contrast, the same video on TikTok had gotten only a very modest 294 views. I literally can’t explain why that video is more popular on YouTube than on TikTok.
Now that my finances have stabilized for the time being I’m taking a look at my doll collection once again. Here is one of my Monster High dolls. He is named Neighthan Rot and he’s described as being the son of a unicorn and a zombie.
I’m usually not into zombie dolls but this guy is a human unicorn with this cool horn on his head and I couldn’t resist. The details on his face are amazing.
I love the details on his arms and hands. He also wears zombie-themed clothes.
He also has multicolored hair with a matching multicolored tail. I originally purchased this guy when he was briefly on sale at a local Target years ago but it was the only time I had ever seen him on sale. Mattel had put out numerous versions of Draculaura, Frankie Stein, and Lagoona Blue but I’ve only seen one version of Neighthan Rot. I guess he was one of the lesser-known Monster High students.
In any case he’s one of the more unique dolls that I currently have in my collection.
The one thing about this enforced stay-at-home order in an effort to flatten the curve of the Coronavirus pandemic is that I did things that in other years I would have never considered doing.
Each year there is an online art thing where the entire month of June is dubbed Junicorn. The idea is to show off unicorn images between June 1-30. It runs concurrent with Pride Month and I’ve seen overlap between the two in the form of unicorns and rainbows.
Even though I’ve done a variety of unicorn-related things in the past (such as my 1990s online animated The Unicorn With An Attitude series), I’ve never took part in the annual Junicorn before. I was teaching myself how to use TikTok but, due to that platform’s one-minute maximum length, there aren’t too many Unicorn With An Attitude episodes I can actually release on that platform. I also wasn’t up for doing a new unicorn drawing every day because I’m currently decluttering my home and I just don’t want any distractions at the moment.
I decided to just show off the unicorn things I currently own on TikTok. A few times a week I shot short video footage of what I had then uploaded it on TikTok. I didn’t do it every day because I didn’t have enough unicorn stuff that I could film every day. Besides, filming a new video every day is very time-consuming and I really don’t have the time or stamina necessary to make daily videos. (This is why I haven’t taken up daily vlogging, unlike the many YouTube stars who do just that.)
I began the month where I made videos featuring atypical unicorns, starting with a tiny rubber unicorn duck. Then I showed off my tiny Bobobie Sunny doll because he has a tiny unicorn bump in the middle of his forehead. I showed off my Monster High Neightman Rot doll because he’s the son of a zombie and a unicorn (which is a pretty interesting combination). I also showed off my Hairdorables Willow doll from the first series because she wears a unicorn headband.
Once I exhausted all of the atypical unicorns I own, I started to focus on the more traditional depictions of a unicorn. I started with my Fingerlings Gigi the Unicorn robot toy. From there I showed off this electronic unicorn head keyring that I purchased from the Spirit of Halloween store last fall. (The keyring part has since broken off but the electronic head still works.)
I moved on to the Funko Pops figurines based on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, which I collected for a while until financial struggles forced me to stop buying them. I showed off the Great and Powerful Trixie, DJ Pon-3 (a.k.a. Vinyl Scratch), and Lyra Heartstrings. (I have other My Little Pony Funko Pops but they are either Earth or Pegasus ponies.)
From there I moved on to these unicorn themed toys that I purchased from Target recently. They are from Spin Master and they are called Uni-Verse. They are blind box packages that are shaped like emoji clouds. You dip the cloud into water where the cloud melts away, revealing tiny wrapped packages. You unwrap each package, which reveals a card featuring the name of the unicorn you got, the unicorn itself, a tiny non-unicorn friend, and accessories.
I ended up purchasing four of the cloud-shaped packages where I filmed each cloud melting away in water. I got Glamerin’ Cameryn, Moo Moo Molly, Dilly Dolly Dotty, and Sunburst Sydney.
I also decided to make a TikTok video featuring this gouache painting that I did when I took an art class back in the 1990s. It’s currently hanging on my living room wall but I have never got around to writing any blog posts about it until now. The assignment was to do a series of smaller paintings on the same subject where we not only had to emulate the style of a famous artist but also try to morph the paintings from one style to another. And we had to do it using black and white paint. I did a unicorn where I morphed from the style of Joan Miró to Vincent Van Gogh. (I have more to tell about the making of this piece but I’ll have to write about it in a later blog post.)
I finally finished Junicorn off with me modeling a unicorn face mask that I purchased from the annual Greenbelt Green Man Festival about 10 or 15 years ago. It was back when I was still married because these masks were pretty pricey. This mask is made from leather and it is high quality. I consider it to be so artistic that I have this mask hanging on my living room wall when I’m not wearing it (which is most of the time). The 2020 Greenbelt Green Man Festival was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic so I had a chance to wear it, even if it was for only 15 seconds.
I got a lot of views on all of my Junicorn videos (with the My Little Pony and Spin Master Uni-Verse figurines being the most popular) along with plenty of likes, which was pretty cool. Doing these Junicorn videos was a way for me to have some fun since I’m home alone most of the time due to the pandemic.
I don’t know if I’ll do anything like this next June or not. It depends on whether I have purchased new unicorn things for me to show off or if I have created some unicorn art that I want to share online.
I recently compiled my TikTok videos into one longer video and uploaded that one on YouTube, which you can see below.
For today’s Inktober drawing I decided to use today’s prompt word that’s on the Ink-Creature-Tober list that was created by the Instagram user borksartworks. Today’s word is “werecat” so I decided to draw Toralei Stripe of Monster High, who is a werecat. This drawing is based on a Toralei doll that I own.
Tomorrow is the last day of Inktober and it is also Halloween as well. I’ll have something appropriate for both occasions to post here tomorrow so come back and check this blog out! 😉
For today’s Inktober drawing I decided to use today’s prompt word that’s on the Fantasy and Monsters list that was created by the Instagram user carts.reb. Today’s promp word is “gargoyle.” I decided to draw Rochelle Goyle of Monster High, who is the daughter of two gargoyles.
This drawing is based on a Rochelle doll that I own. The one thing I really like about this doll is that even though she is made from vinyl, this doll’s skin is colored in such a way that suggests that she’s made from a large stone or cement. I think that’s a cool touch.
For today’s Inktober drawing I decided to use today’s prompt word that’s on Mab’s Drawlloween Club prompt list that was put online by the Instagram user mabgraves. Today’s word is “werewolf.” I decided to draw Clawdeen Wolf of Monster High, who is the daughter of the werewolf. This drawing is based on a Clawdeen doll that I have where she is dressed up like a punk rocker.
It was pretty cool drawing that doll—with one major exception. Drawing those black and gold zippers on her clothes did get to be a bit tedious after a while. At least I worked through that tedium and I’m basically happy with the results.
As of today I’m now two-thirds of the way through Inktober. 🙂
As you may know, I did a special event in this blog known as The 12 Drawings of Christmas where each day from December 21, 2018-January 1, 2019 I uploaded a new drawing. It’s similar to what I did for Inktober with a few exceptions: 1) I only did 12 drawings over a 12-day period instead of doing 31 drawings over a 31-day period and 2) unlike Inktober, where the drawings have to be done in ink (pencil can be used as an underdrawing as long as the finished drawing is inked over), I permitted myself to use whatever drawing medium I wanted. It helped that this was something I did on my own instead of an organized event like Inktober so I could control what media I wanted to use. It also helped that I only had to deal with doing 12 drawings instead of 31 drawings.
It was pretty liberating to allow myself to use any media that I wanted, in contrast to Inktober where I am only limited to just ink. I’m financially struggling at the moment so I have to limit myself to using cheap pens that I can find on sale at Target and Five Below. These pens don’t really have a wide variety of shades, especially certain colors like brown (which I can only find in dark brown among the cheap pens). Buying something like Copic markers is just not in my budge at the moment. At least with the more media variety I allowed myself for The 12 Drawings of Christmas, I could switch to colored pencils if I didn’t have an ink pen in a certain shade that I needed (such as light brown).
Working on The 12 Drawings of Christmas was basically a more laid-back experience than Inktober since I only had to worry about 12 days. I did one drawing based on a song lyric and one political drawing but the rest was basically fan art. The only real snag were the two-day period where I drew Elsa from the Disney movie Frozen followed by Abbey Bominable from Mattel’s line of Monster High dolls the next day. I drew both drawings based on the dolls that I currently own in real life. Both dolls wore a piece of clothing that was made from tulle and both tulle clothing had snowflakes on them. It was a bear trying to simulate tulle with my ink pens then trying to draw snowflakes on top of that.
The results were worth it, especially since these two drawings face each other directly in my sketchbook, which created a certain kind of unity between my drawings of these two very different females.
After spending two days in a row on relatively challenging drawings, I spent the rest of that 12-day period doing simple drawings based on free tutorials I found on websites like How to Draw Step by Step Drawing Tutorials and Easy Drawing Tutorials. I find that it doesn’t hurt for a trained artist like myself to use tutorials because I could use a refresher on how to draw something a certain way every now and then.
Unlike Inktober I never approached the feeling of being burned out. That’s because I worked on far fewer drawings than Inktober so I only had to worry about creating 12 drawings instead of 31 drawings.
Like Inktober I wrote blog posts about my drawings and I uploaded them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Jobcase. The main difference is that I also uploaded the drawings in the off-topic section of this political discussion forum that I belong to. I usually don’t do this but I thought that my online friends could use some cheering up after the recent death of a longtime member known as Moomba so close to Christmas. I got some pretty positive response to my drawings in that forum.
I also got some positive responses from my Facebook friends whom I know in real life. One night I went to a local cafe where one of them asked me in person when I was going to upload my next drawing. That was cool.
I also did a video version of The 12 Drawings of Christmas that I uploaded on to YouTube on New Year’s Day (the same day that I did my last drawing in that series). In case you’ve missed all or part of my series, you can view the video below.
You can also look at The 12 Drawings of Christmas blog category to view the original posts.
Ever since Inktober I figured out how to count “Likes” on Twitter (which I wasn’t able to figure out before so I didn’t count any Twitter “Likes” when I tabulated the original Inktober “Likes” a few months ago). So, for this round of counting “Likes” on the 12 Drawings of Christmas, I was able to include Twitter for the first time along with counting “Likes” on Instagram, Flickr, and this blog.
While I was working on The 12 Drawings of Christmas, I tried to predict which of my drawings would get the most “Likes”. I thought that my drawing of Elsa from Frozen would be the winner because that film still continues to be popular plus I’m still seeing new Frozen spin-off products in the stores (especially toys) years after Disney released that film. I also thought that my drawing of Kizuna Ai would also have a chance at the number one slot mainly because she is a virtual YouTube star who has gained a huge cult following plus I had her along with Santa and Mrs. Claus attempt to emulate that distracted guy meme that has been passed around the Internet for the past year.
I was wrong on both counts. I found out that the first place winner by a landslide was my drawing of Wysa the penguin mascot of the Wysa smartphone app. My drawing of Kizuna Ai and the Clauses ended up in second place but it was a very distant second since Wysa got 90 “Likes” while Kizuna Ai and the Clauses only got 28 “Likes.” (Remember, the counts were based the reactions on three different social media sites and this blog.)
Here’s the complete list of the drawings in my 12 Drawings of Christmas series ranging from the most popular (or most “Likes”) to the least popular (or fewest “Likes”).
First Place: Wysa the penguin.
Second Place: Santa, Mrs. Claus, and Kizuna Ai.
Third Place: Partridge in a pear tree.
Fourth Place: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Fifth Place: The Grinch.
Sixth Place: Abbey Bominable from Monster High.
Seventh Place (Tied): Krampus taking Donald Trump away and Olaf the talking snowman from the Disney movie Frozen.
Eighth Place: Elsa from the Disney movie Frozen.
Ninth Place: Christkind.
Tenth Place: Baby New Year.
Eleventh Place: Nutcracker.
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Since today is New Year’s Day, which ushers in a brand new year, I’d thought I would write about what I recently did for myself on Christmas Day.
I haven’t opened a wrapped gift on Christmas Day since 2011. It was three months after I underwent hip surgery. For my birthday on December 15 my husband surprised me with a new iPod Touch. Ten days later on Christmas Day, I opened a wrapped gift and found that he gave me a new iPad. With a new iPod Touch and a new iPad, I felt really blessed to have two new Apple devices on top of my ability to walk slowly improving after my hip surgery.
It all came crashing down just three days later when my husband came home from work, announced that he was moving out, then ran out the door before I could even respond. My iPad stopped working altogether just three years later. My iPod Touch still works even though it has older software (I can’t install the newest version of the iOS software because the hardware is now considered old).
Over the last several years, before my marriage fell apart, my mother would send me a $200 check for my birthday and a $200 check for Christmas but that was it for gifts. (She also used to send my husband checks as birthday and Christmas presents until he left me.) At least I could treat myself to a nice meal or some nice clothes for myself. The checks stopped in 2016 when my mother’s health deteriorated (she’s currently struggling with multiple sclerosis and it’s gotten to the point where I can only talk to her on the phone for no more than 2 or 3 minutes because she gets tired).
After my marriage ended I usually went to my support group’s annual post-Christmas party where we have a white elephant gift exchange. If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t even get a wrapped gift.
There were times when I miss getting a wrapped gift that i would open and I would be surprised with what I got. I finally decided to rectify that situation.
For the past few years there have been the rise in popularity of blind boxes which housed some kind of a collectible item. One can find them in comic book stores, Target, Five Below, Walmart, and other similar stores. Two years ago I purchased a cheap blind blister package that had a Hatsune Miku keychain inside. The outer pack showed photos of six possible designs that I could get and I didn’t know which one I got until after I brought it home and opened it. I only purchased one keychain because I wasn’t very comfortable with the idea of possibly getting a duplicate because I couldn’t see what I was really purchasing until after I purchased it.
I used to collect Wacky Packages as a kid and they were in blind packages. The difference was that Wacky Packages were basically flat stickers. If you ended up getting a duplicate it was no big deal. You could trade it with a friend but if you couldn’t find any friends willing to trade with you, you could always use that duplicate as a sticker. I remember plastering my notebooks and other items with my duplicate Wacky Packages stickers. When it came time to clear out my childhood home after my mother decided to sell it, I found an old 45 r.p.m. record case that had a Wacky Packages sticker on the bottom for Neveready Batteries (a parody of Eveready Batteries).
But 3D objects in blind packages were another matter. If you ended up with a duplicate 3D object, chances are that you will have a harder time with getting rid of it. Most stores will not accept returns for purchasing a duplicate. You could sell it on eBay but you may or may not get anyone willing to buy it. If you’re lucky enough to have a fellow collector willing to trade with you, you might unload your duplicate that way. Or you could wrap it and give it to someone as a birthday or Christmas present. Or even donate it to Goodwill or the Salvation Army.
Yet I could see the allure of buying a blind package an opening it on Christmas as a substitute for opening a wrapped present. There weren’t too many blind packages that really excited me enough to consider doing this until I learned of a new line of dolls that were released by Just Play a few months ago called Hairdorables. Hairdorables are a series of small dolls with huge amounts of hair that is as big as they are. Not only did the dolls skin and hair come in a variety of colors but I found their faces to be totally cute—complete with impish smiles. Each doll and her accessories comes in a blind box where you don’t know which doll you get until after you buy it and take it home.
The dolls were released in August but, for some reason, the local Target in my area didn’t start getting them until mid-December. Meanwhile I kept on reading about these dolls online until I finally saw the boxes in real life. I purchased a Hairdorables box from Target on Christmas Eve. (The local mall was far less crowded on Christmas Eve this year than in previous years.)
I brought the package home and waited until the following day to open it. Here’s the Christmas tree along with the box still in its plastic Target bag.
Here is what the package looks like. As you can see, you literally don’t know which doll you’ve actually purchased until after you open the box.
The back of the box shows a list of 36 possible dolls that could be in that box.
Here’s a close-up of that box where you can see the Hairdorables available in a variety of hair and skin colors.
One of the side panels of the box tells the story of Hairdorables.
The story goes like this:
Hello influencers!
It’s your time to SHINE!
Meet Noah and the #Hairdorables!
Noah is a super sweet girl with a talent for styling hair. When she posted her front braid tutorial for fun, she never imagined it would go viral!
Since then, Noah has loads of inspiring friends who love to share their passions, so when she asked them to contribute to her channel, they all yelled out a resounding YAAAAAS! Check out the Hairdorables channel on YouTube!
They are dolls for the Internet age that are packaged in such a way as to make filming an unboxing doll video very easy. I chose to shoot a series of still photos instead of making an unboxing video because there are already so many unboxing Hairdorables videos out there and I wasn’t in the mood to make a new video. You open the box a certain way, starting with the yellow pull tab at the top of the box.
Once I pulled down the pull tab I found that the box reveals two compartments that you pull slightly apart.
As you pull the compartments apart you see that there’s a piece of paper in the middle being flanked by the two compartments where the doll and her accessories are held. Basically you are instructed to open the box in a certain order where you open the side containing the doll last. It’s designed to build up suspense to the ultimate surprise—which doll you received.
As for the paper in the middle, one side has a promo drawing of the Hairdorables.
The other side has a checklist of all of the Hairdorables dolls that are available in its first series (while implying that there will be a second series along with more subsequent series).
I didn’t look too closely at the checklist because I’ve read other people’s accounts about unboxing the Hairdorables and I learned that if you study the checklist too much, you will figure out which doll you received while you’re unboxing the accessories. I really wanted the whole experience to be a surprise so I only glanced at it quickly.
I also want to take the time to say that even though the Hairdorables checklist (which you can view online here) says that there are 36 dolls to collect, it doesn’t mean that there are 36 different characters. There are actually 12 different characters with each character having three different variations where each variation will wear a different outfit and have different accessories.
Getting back to the box, once I removed the checklist I found that there is actually a little backdrop where you can pose your Hairdorable doll. I like the idea of reusing the box for play since it would generate less trash than a typical doll box.
The box instructed me to open the left compartment of the box first. The compartment have four smaller sections that are in exact numbered order.
I opened the door marked with the number one and I got a small plastic bin with a top wrapper that had this pun: “Hair we go!”
I got a pink hair comb and a tiny square of tiny stickers.
So I opened the door marked with the number 2 and got a bin with this pun, “You go curl!”
I got a pair of winged sneakers (which looked really intriguing because it reminded me of the winged sandals of the god known as Hermes or Mercury in the Greco-Roman myths) and another sticker.
The stickers could be peeled then folded in half in order to create a tiny smartphone for the doll.
The idea was pretty neat in theory but it turned out to be impractical in reality after I unboxed the doll because her hands were unable to hold the tiny smartphone.
It was time to open the door that was marked with number 3. I got a bin with this message: “[heart] UR Style!”
I got a pair of white angel wings along with another sticker featuring two of the Hairdorables dolls and the hashtag #BraidsRule.
Then it was time for me to open the door with the number 4. I got the bin with this pun: “Sheer Genius.”
I got another sticker with two of the dolls and the hashtag #VacayAllDay. But it was the hairband that really thrilled me. It’s a mint green hairband with a unicorn horn! It brought back memories of when I unsuccessfully tried to market myself with my 1990s Unicorn With An Attitude animation series. I was also intrigued because I once read a series of books by Anne McCaffrey and Margaret Ball about the adventures of Acorna, a humanoid girl born with a unicorn horn.
After opening the first four compartments it was time to unbox the doll herself.
I opened the door and I got another plastic bin.
Removing the plastic bin reveals more box graphics that suggests a clothes closet.
The bin wrapper had yet another pun: “Let’s see what’s in hair!”
Here is my new doll as she was packaged in that bin as shown from the front and back.
I removed the doll from the bin and found that there was also a small card that reveals which doll I received. One side of the card mentions that her name is Willow, her favorite color is mint green, and her motto is “Style is a state of mind!” The other side shows a cute drawing of Willow.
Once I removed the doll from her bin I put on her winged sneakers, angel wings, and unicorn hairband. Willow has an oversized head on a small, thin body. Here is my new Willow doll placed against her backdrop. I found that the doll can’t stand on her own but I could lean her against the backdrop to make it look like she’s standing. I ended up having to use the flash for the next two photos because the area was a bit too dark (even though I had turned on all the lights on the Christmas tree and opened the blinds on a nearby window to let natural light in).
After that last photo I decided to move everything outdoors. It was sunny outside but the temperatures were in the low 40s. At least I could take better photos of the doll and her background. According to the checklist I got the Willow Wings variation doll and it’s also supposed to be her signature look. (I learned that the dolls designated to be “signature looks” tend to be more common to find than the other variants.)
Willow is incredibly cute with a very impish smile. Her brown skin and pastel rainbow color scheme kind of reminds me of the Studio Mucci Instagram account. Of course her unicorn headband is to die for!
Willow is among the smaller dolls I’ve purchased. Here is how she stands against the 1/6 scale dolls. In this photo she is flanked by Clawdeen Wolf of Monster High and Barbie. As you can see, Willow looks like a toddler compared to those dolls.
Willow and the other Hairdorables are definitely 1/12 scale dolls. Here is how she stands against my other tiny dolls. From left to right: Dollcena Disney Hawaiian Harmonies, Little Pullip Alice Fanatica, Willow, and a Bobobie Sunny Asian ball-jointed doll.
Willow has a mass of long hair that reaches to her feet. I’ve dealt with doll hair over the years but I have to say that her hair is the softest doll hair I’ve ever felt. I really love her pastel highlights that make her hair resemble cotton candy.
I really loved the doll that I received even though getting a unicorn girl was definitely the luck of the draw. The most controversial part of Hairdorables is the fact that you literally don’t know which doll you’ll get while the package costs nearly $13 per box. (Most blind box packages cost anywhere from $3-8 depending on the size of the item inside.) I’ve read reviews online from parents who purchased multiple Hairdorables boxes for their children only to get duplicates.
I’ll admit that I’m still pretty ambivalent about blind boxes in general. While it was fun finding out which doll I got, I had also only purchased just one box. If I had purchased two or more boxes and I ended up getting an exact duplicate, I don’t think I would have been as enamored with the concept. I think just limiting yourself to only one box is the best way to get maximum enjoyment from opening a blind box.
While there are other blind boxes who put codes on their packages that hint at what’s inside (such as the Lego Minifigs blind packages), so far Just Play has not released any hints on how people can avoid inadvertently purchasing duplicate dolls.
I’ve read about some people saying that the best way of telling the boxes apart is to weigh them. Apparently different boxes have different accessories so it affects the weights. Then you somehow sneak a scale into the store and weigh each box to discover which doll that box may have. This method only works if you have purchased at least three or four Hairdorables boxes (while hoping and praying that you didn’t purchase any duplicates) so you can weigh them at home and write down the weight of each doll box with a certain doll inside. Then you would take your scale and list to the store, weigh each box, and compare that weight with what you have on your list. The big problem with that method is that not everyone can afford to use this method, especially since the boxes cost $13 a pop. On top of that, you would have to carry a scale into a store and weigh each box while hoping that a store employee doesn’t decide to confront you while you are doing it.
There is an alternate method is to see the imprinted lot number that’s located next to the bar code of the box.
Next peek at the back of the box to see what the background looks like. You may need to use a flashlight or use the flashlight that’s on your smartphone for this step.
The theory is that if the lot number and background matches, chances are that it’s a duplicate doll and you shouldn’t buy it. This video from the Up and Play YouTube channel demonstrates both the scale and the peeking at the background methods.
There is one major limitation with the idea that a different background means a different doll: That theory doesn’t always work. This blog post on the Toy Box Philosopher site mentions buying two Hairdorables packages with the same background but with different dolls and accessories.
I had thought about testing that idea out by buying a second Hairdorables box, which I would open on Little Christmas (January 6). I was thinking about replicating my childhood when my family used to celebrate that holiday by refilling the stocking with candy, small toys, and practical items (such as a pair of socks or underwear). Some years I would get a small package while other years I only got my stocking refilled.
But then I decided to ditch that idea when I learned that the second series of Hairdorables will be officially released later this month. I decided to just wait for the second series and bypass the dilemma of whether to buy a second Hairdorables Series 1 box and risk getting a duplicate doll. I just only hope that the Target store in my area can get the new dolls much sooner than the four months it took before that store even received its first shipment of the Series 1 Hairdorables.
The YouTube channel My Froggy Stuff managed to received advance copies of the new Series 2 dolls and made this video.
Based on the video, it looks like the biggest improvement is that this new series of dolls will each come with a doll stand. That is a great idea since my own doll can’t really stand on her own. Like the previous series, the new Series 2 doll boxes will also have backgrounds that can be used for displaying the dolls or playing with them.
Like I wrote earlier, I think it’s a good idea to have the boxes double as a display area for the dolls. The only disadvantage is that the boxes tend to take up space, especially if you own more than two dolls and you don’t have much space in your home. I found this tutorial on the American Girl Outsider blog on how to break down the backdrop so it won’t take up as much space in your home. You’ll need to scroll down to the bottom of that blog post in order to get to the tutorial.
I have to admit that it was pretty fun to once again unwrap something that I didn’t know what was inside until after I finished opening the box.
To learn more about Hairdorables you can either check out the official site or you can visit this site that was set up by a fan called the Absolute Hairdorables Wiki.
Here is some fan art I did of Abbey Bominable of Monster High fame. I drew her mostly in ink with the exception of her pupils, which I did in colored pencil.
Abbey Bominable is described as the teenage daughter of the Yeti (a.k.a. the Abominable Snowman) who is originally from the Himalayas. And nothing says winter like the Yeti/Abominable Snowman. Ditto for the snow-capped mountains of the Himalayas (which also includes the tallest mountain in the world, Mount Everest). You can read more about Abbey Bominable right here. I purchased this doll for only $5 at a toy show that took place in Timonium last year. I have a few other Monster High dolls but this one is among the prettier ones that I currently own. I thought she would be perfect to draw for my 12 Drawings of Christmas series.
On the Friday before the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend I had to go shopping for food and underwear (which wasn’t totally exciting) so I went to a local shopping mall. Between shopping for what I really needed I went to Five Below where I noticed that the store started to sell Fingerlings products.
These Fingerlings are the stuffed clip-on versions that have no electronics inside of them. Their eyes do open and close depending on whether you are holding them horizontally or vertically.
I happened to have my own electronic Fingerling in my bag (I’ve been showing it off to various friends since I purchased it at Toys R Us last month and I left it in that bag) so I pulled it out for comparison with these clip-on Fingerlings. As you can see, my electronic Fingerling is larger than the clip-on versions.
These clip-ons may not be able to move or make sounds but they cost only $5 each (versus $15 for the electronic versions).
While I was shopping in Target I noticed that, at long last, that store finally got a shipment of the electronic Fingerlings. None of the local stores in my area had these in stock until recently. (Which was why I ended up buying my Fingerlings at the Toys R Us store in Annapolis.)
I noticed that these Fingerlings monkeys have glitter on them (while my own Fingerling is glitter-free).
Target also happened to have baby sloths available. If it weren’t for the fact that I had to purchase more important items, I might have bought a sloth to see what it was like.
Nearby I noticed that there were new dolls in the ever-popular Monster High line. I really liked the butterfly-style wings on this Draculaura doll.
There were also new dolls in the DC Super Hero Girls line as well. Here’s a shot of Harley Quinn.
Sagittarius Dolly 
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