Na! Na! Na! Surprise doll review (+ boxed room stuff)

     *sigh*  I took the photos for this "doll review" on the 8th...of November.

    I still seem to have some serious issues regarding getting content up on my blog(s).  I had hoped leaving Wordpress would improve those issues, but they may have actually gotten worse. :(  Anyway, because I'm lazy, rather than putting a link on every single image, here's one big link to the gallery for this post.  I'd recommend opening it in another tab and switching over if there's any images you want to see larger.

    Anyway!  I first spotted one of these dolls at Target, and made an immediate "must buy later" note to myself, because the store display featured one out of the package (but inside a plexiglass box to protect from pawing and/or sticky fingers) and let me see that despite the typical MGA design, these dolls are jointed cloth!

    As has become MGA's thing lately, these are blind "box" dolls.  This is what was inside that initial outer plastic package:

    Thankfully, at least that straw is paper.  (That's about the only good news regarding the excessive packaging, though...)  Here's a close-up of the opening instructions:

(Before I continue with the review, may I just first state how much I *@#$&&@$#&!*@#ing hate Windows 10?  It said to itself "your cell phone randomly decided this part here was the top of your image, so obviously you were completely wrong when you told your graphics manipulation program that this other part was the top, so I'ma just put the top back where your cell phone said it was, and you're gonna be cool with that because I'm evil and you're a doormat."  Yeah, guess what Windows 10?  I am not a doormat!!!  And, of course, because Blogger does not have any way that I can find to actually manipulate your images, I had to go into Windows 10's photo viewing software to rotate the image (apparently, that's the only way Windows 10 will accept that you want to change where the top is, no matter what GIMP or Photoshop has to say on the subject) and then upload all of them AGAIN.  And there were like ten of them like that.  ARGH!!!  Worse still, it turns out that Google Photos, while allowing rotation of images, doesn't always save the rotation, and sometimes it saves the rotation without saving the change in dimensions so you end up with a squished picture, so I had to delete all of the needing-rotation images, rotate them on my computer, and then upload them again.  UGH.  Obviously, in the future, I need to rotate them on my phone before they get transferred onto the computer.  What a hassle!  Okay, sorry.  That just had to be said.  Now, on with the review.)

    Notice how many steps there are at the start there regarding how to make the package send out a puff of confetti.  Honestly, I doubt many children bother with that step.  (Even among those whose parents would allow them to use the confetti blast.)  I don't, in fact, know if children even really respond to this whole "blind box" thing the way the companies expect they do.  They respond to the toys, and I'm sure they enjoy getting to "unwrap" each toy, but wouldn't they be happier knowing that the toy they were unwrapping was the one they wanted?  I mean, I'm a (relatively) rational adult, and it still drives me up the wall when I buy a blind box toy and get the only one in the set I really dislike for the fifth time.  (Okay, actually, I would never keep going on a blind box series if my luck was so bad that I got the one bad one repeatedly.  But you get the idea.)

    See that torn strip of paper at the top?  That's the pull strip that the instructions talk about, the first step of the confetti mess.  I only opened it part of the way, and very slowly, so I could get an idea of how to avoid the confetti mess.  Turns out the confetti is in a tiny section of bag at the top there, so the thing with inflating the bag is to give it enough power when you squeeze it that it'll burst the wall between the two sections, and send the confetti flying everywhere.  So if you don't open the paper strip at the top, the confetti is safely sealed in.  Sadly, I did open the strip partially, so I had to be very careful about how I went about cutting open the rest of the bag!  (But I was successful, and not one piece of confetti escaped!  Thank goodness for that, 'cause my place is messy enough already without confetti.)

    Inside the large plastic bag, I found this:

    A cute cloth pouch, the flyer showing all the dolls, and two more plastic bags.  (We're up to three plastic bags now, plus the outer plastic container.  All of which of course claim to be recyclable, despite that no conventional recycling center would ever accept them.  Maybe the bags could go to one of the grocery bag recycling centers, but I kind of doubt it.)

    

    And inside the cloth pouch...there is another plastic container!

    Admittedly, the inner plastic thing was all that was giving the cloth pouch any shape, but still!

    When you open the inner plastic container, the doll practically bursts out, having been folded up way too far (backwards!) in order to fit inside.  (Again, marked as recyclable, but it's questionable as to whether or not any recycling center would actually take it.)

    So, we've finally gotten the doll out, and she's very cute in her little tie-dyed underwear. (Or maybe it's supposed to be a bikini?)

    Check this out:

    Front... (and that's not a stain on her stomach, but her belly button)

....and back!

    I adore the fact that her undies/bikini/whatever says "Love and Peace"!

    Inside the other two plastic bags, we have her astonishingly short tie-dyed minidress, and an awesome pair of flower-decalled high-topped go-go boots.

    So, here we have her, all put together and just supremely adorable!  Her hair is a super-soft synthetic (though it's attached to her non-removable hat, which is not really the best way to handle it), and I love her modern-misperception-of-the-1960s vibe.  Plus, purple is my favorite color! :D  I think I love her more than any other playline doll I've bought in years.  I intended to buy at least one more in this line before the Christmas holiday started, but that never ended up happening...but I guess since it's over now, I'm now "allowed" to go back to toy shopping again, so I'm going to keep an eye on sales whenever I happen to be at a Target or wherever (admittedly, not likely to happen very often, between COVID and no longer having a job to get me out of the house), because I definitely want more of these cuties!

    Though she's not without her flaws.  I went to make her sit down on the shelf beside some other dolls, and...

    Yikes.  What's the point of giving a doll joints if they work like this?  I don't get it.  *shrug*  Thankfully, I had some old Kimport stands (salvaged when my former boss wanted to throw away some from the museum's collection), so she's safely on one of those.

    My only reservation about this entire line is the amount of plastic waste in the packaging.  (Fortunately, I hold onto stuff like that to shred and use in crafting projects, but most people just pitch it.)

    If anyone from MGA happens to read this, please replace that plastic packaging with something non-plastic!  Kids love ripping through wrapping paper and tissue, I promise!  Replace the plastic packaging with tissue or paper, and then, since the doll herself is cloth (admittedly with some "plastic filler" according to the tag), you could actually market the line as being an eco-friendly one, which would definitely get some parents more interested in letting their kids have these adorable dolls!

    Anyway, before I move on, I wanted to show you the flyer for this collection of this line.

    Surprisingly, this says it's Series 4.  That means I missed the entire first three?  How the heck did that happen?  I didn't realize I was so out of it!  (Unless the other types currently out, the ones in larger packaging, count as the first three series?)

    Close-ups now, to give you a good look at the others in this "series".  That boy doll on the end there is the only one that I consider to be 100% a "dud".  His face and cow headgear is cute enough, but an athletic uniform?  Really?  Is that the only thing you could think of to put a boy doll in?  That is pathetic in all kinds of ways, and deeply dismissive to a large percentage of real boys (to say nothing of agender and non-binary kids).

    Personally, if I'd been their marketing department, I'd have put the panda-hat girl on the outer box, rather than the yellow bunny-hat girl.  But that's just me.

    Strange to say it, but the pink kitty is actually one of the less appealing dolls in the series.  Thankfully, my purple bunny is absolutely my favorite in this line-up, so I really lucked out with this one!  Though I have rejected their name of "Melanie Mod" and given her the name "Usagi Whirlwind".  Because.

    And that's about all I have to say about Na! Na! Na! Surprise at this time.  (Except to wonder what the heck is up with that name!)

    Next, I want to talk about the ongoing saga of my boxed room.  I only dedicated three posts to it on my old blog (1, 2, 3), so there's a lot more that's gone on that I've never posted about, though it mostly boils down to me dithering about what to do (and also making a lot of air-dry clay bricks in 1/12 scale).  The short version is that after working on a miniature exhibit that opened for about two days before my former workplace had to shut down due to COVID (which of course led to my losing my job, because evidently "exhibit coordinator" is more important than "curator" to a museum that's closed), I started going on a miniatures kick.  I came up with the idea of a boxed room of the single room artist's loft apartment where an artist and her model lived and worked.  I've bought both dolls and a smattering of furniture, even.  (Though the artist is still at Big Bad Toy Shop, because I wanted to save on shipping, and so she's not going to be shipped to me until my other pre-order comes in.  Who knows when that will be, of course....)  I had planned out where to put the room, and its dimensions were of course hampered by the fact that it was going to be on a shelf, so it had to be able to fit on said shelf.

    Well, a few days ago, I had out this huge piece of cardboard because I was using it to do a jigsaw puzzle on, and while I had it out, I drew a rough outline of that size, and laid out the furniture I already have:

    The rocking chair and the two plant stands are out on the porch area, while the other stuff is on the inside of the loft.  Which might seem fine and dandy, except for two issues:  I also want them to have a bed, and of course they have to have an area where the actual art takes place.

    Just to illuminate the lack of space further, here's a topdown view:

    You can kinda-sorta see the hints of the pencil outline in the photo, but to really drive the point home, here's a version where I cropped it as near as I could to the actual outline.  (I hadn't quite drawn it straight, so it's not perfect...)

    Basically, there's no way that I have room for a dining room table, sofa, art studio and bed in the space I have.  Since there's all sorts of other stuff already on that shelf (I showed it in the previous post; it's the one with Scootles, Dracula, Cher, a blonde I haven't introduced to you yet, a replica Greek pot, a sort-of replica Egyptian piece, etc.) I'm fine with finding another spot to put it in...except that I have no other spots to put it in.  *cough*  I mean, I can probably find something somewhere, but only by dislodging a bunch of other stuff.  (Ugh, I need a larger house.  Or a smaller doll collection.  So, yeah, a larger house.)

    I spent a while last night looking at dollhouse kits, and I really fell in love with one I saw on Etsy, a kit to make a row house, like you see in a downtown area.  The great thing about that is that it has lots of rooms, but a very small footprint, since it's all up-and-down.  Instead of a porch, they could have their garden on the roof, and there's plenty of space to have everything I want inside.  The terrible thing about it is that the kit cost like $400.  :<

    So I'm still in a limbo space regarding the whole issue of the boxed room/new dollhouse.  (The fact that I already have three dollhouses (two tin ones bought recently and one left over from my own youth) made me prefer the boxed room, but I really am rather in love with that kit on Etsy...)

    Anyway, there's actually one more component to this post, and that's a Christmas report that's surprisingly in keeping with what I've just been talking about.  Despite that she knows nothing of my recent interest in making a boxed room (and almost nothing about my doll collecting, aside from the Barbies I had the last time I let her in this house), my mom gave me this for Christmas:

    I've seen these kits around a lot as I've been looking for stuff for Leann and Val's loft (particularly while looking for the loft itself), but I've typically ignored them, since they're not to any standard scale (and a very small non-scale at that!) and because having all the furnishings handed to you in a kit like this is frustratingly rigid.  But for whatever reason, I got this as my "unexpected surprise present" instead of a jigsaw puzzle like everyone else in the family.  (Even my brother, who's never shown much interest in puzzles, got one.)

    I have to admit, it's a fun little kit...as far as I can tell from looking at the pieces.  I haven't really done much with putting it together just yet, though I plan on posting the whole process (probably only highlights here, with the full "photo record" in a single album in my Google Photos).  Still, I have a few images to share:

    Bottom of the box, showing a detail of the finished piece.

    The box itself, underneath the outer paper sleeve.  It's a nice, sturdy box, too.  I'll probably reuse it for something when I'm done with the kit.  And I love the little design printed on it.  It's a nice touch.

    Here's the view when you first open the box.  The instruction manual on top there is 14 pages long, all one language, and does not read like it was translated by Google, which is definitely a plus.  Lots of pictures to show each step, too.

    And underneath the manual, you have oodles of bags with various parts in them.  I have not yet braved the bags. :P

    What I have done is start trying to paint the MDF walls and floor.  This is the paint they provided, a particularly inefficient and inelegant shade of not-quite-white.  (I would call it a variation on "eggshell" as a color.)  The floor (of which you only see a portion in this picture) and the wall nearer it have two coats in this picture, and the other wall only one coat.  The manual merely "suggests" that a second coat might be a good idea.

    I say that if sticking with this paint, you'd need about four or five before it could hope to be good enough.  (And I doubt that little canister of paint even has enough for that many coats!)

    The lighting is terrible in this shot, so you can't tell the colors very well, but in this one I've given the floor a single coat of a pale tan color of acrylic so cheap that it comes from Target, but it's still better than the paint they provided with the kit, as you can see by the fact that you no longer see the MDF color bleeding through all over the place.  As the "tile" flooring shown in the main illustration is a piece of paper that is not printed to look nearly as nice as the one they used in their demo model (the colors are dingy on the provided version) I'm thinking of gluing down some cloth to both parts of the floor and the walls, giving it carpeting and...wall-carpeting?...instead of just painted "wood" and paper tiles.

    I have a feeling that there may be further changes of this sort in the future for this set (substituting nicer book covers bought as .pdfs off Etsy, perhaps, if I either buy a printer or find someplace to get them printed for me), which will do a lot to make it feel more "mine" and less "standard kit".  So I expect to have fun messing around with it, at the very least. :)

    Once I stop being intimidated by some of the more fiddly steps involved in assembling the furniture...