Toy Fair!

Ok folks, this is going to be a long and text-heavy post. In fact, there's going to be almost no pictures, so please refer to my Flickr set on this topic. I know that the point of blogging is to be speedy, and publish things quickly, but I tend to prefer to get all my thoughts in order and do something more comprehensive. And hey, it's my blog, so I'll do what I like! ;P That said, I went to Toy Fair in NYC back on Valentine's Day. It took me a while to get around to doing a write up (I couldn't get anything done during the week) and then it's taken another (shorter) while over this past weekend to sort my notes and photos and get this post pulled together. So this isn't that timely - if you were eagerly awaiting news of Toy Fair, you've already seen it. But I figure my blog is not big enough for anyone to be eagerly awaiting anything here, so I'm gonna go ahead and post up my 'news' anyway.

Jun Planning
Of course the main reason to attend Toy Fair, for me, is the opportunity to go to the Jun Planning booth and check out the Pullips! The first year I was there, Jun Planning had a booth that was half dolls, half other things. Last year, it was mostly dolls, tho I think there were still some other things? (I was a level more obsessed with the dolls in 2009 than I was in 2008, so I only had eyes for the dolls anyway! XD) It's not like doll carnival where they bring all kinds of customs and prototypes, but usually there's at least a couple of dolls there that are not out/not announced. Last year they had the full set of Peter Pan, along with the boat, and that was a really great display. That was also where I fell in love with Tiger Lily and knew I'd have to get her, even if I still thought Byuls were weird. This year they had the steampunk pullips, and even tho photos of them have been pretty well leaked out at this point, I was still way excited to see them in person! I seriously can't wait for them to be released - I just hope I can afford them! >.< Based on my conversation with the folks working the booth, I don't think they will be the $300 that was originally mentioned when pictures first got posted, but I think they will be more expensive than average. Still "Not $300" is great news! I can live with paying an extra $50 or so. They also had all of the recently announced dolls (thru the Indian pullips). There were a few dolls, also, that no one has seen so far too... (shh....) There is a police/military-themed Pullip and Dal that I imagine we will see release fliers for any time, because it seemed like they were due to come out next after the Indian set. They also had some really beautiful ninja dolls that are supposed to come out in *January 2011*! Such a long wait! *dies* No photos of them or the steampunk pullips were allowed, of course. The taeyang ninja was beautiful, with smokey eyes and fox-fur colored hair. He did not have a fur wig, but he had a crazy messy hair style that suggested a fur wig and looked quite good on him. The dal had an eyepatch and looked like a boy (I forgot to ask about Isul, darn it!), and the pullip had purple hair. I hope someone sneaks out pictures of them soon, because they are definitely worth seeing! I didn't love the Indian pullip in person, but the Taeyang was quite handsome. The dal was much cuter than I realized tho! She's not coming out until August or September though, apparently.

Mattel
Mattel is not super-friendly, so after getting yelled at (not really! XD Just questioned and told a lot of items were off limits for photos) last year, I didn't even bother trying to take photos at their booth this year. I also didn't really take notes or anything, so let's see what I can remember... New Barbie Basics things will be coming is one thing. I think there were 4 new dolls, and 2 (?) new accessory sets. Only one really caught my attention - there was a whole set of shoes. Tons and tons of shoes. That one will be a must have! Hopefully it will be available at Target like the others (even if they are hard to get ahold of...) and not just an expensive one I will have to get online or something... If only they did basics for Boys!! I should've hinted at this. Altho... truthfully the Ken feet are a bit small for Taeyangs... Also, there were a ton of "Bond Girl" Barbies. I am not a Bond fan, and I am feeling like Bond + Barbie is some sort of odd feminist tag team nightmare, but oh well. Some of them had nice outfits.

There were also some new dolls in cool clothes and some 'new' repro dolls, but I am not sure I remember all of them well enough to describe, and I am also not sure which of them have been announced and which of them have not. And I am scared of Mattel, so no further news on them! ;)

Tho, it looks like you can see photos of everything over at mawphoto.com's flickr. (Here are the aforementioned shoes in all their loveliness!)

Tonner
Ok, to be honest, I am not very knowledgeable about Tonner, so I'm not going to try to write anything up for them. I will just refer you back to the flickr set. Their dolls are not really my speed, but they are always extremely impressive! I googled "Tonner Toy Fair 2010" and saw other people had covered all the news I could possibly report, so if you want news beyond my pix, I suggest you do that too. ;)

Madame Alexander
I don't collect anything Madame Alexander, but their booth is fun to stop by because their dolls have such great costumes! They also make hats to give away to everyone who stops by their booth.Last year they had a doll that I'm still in love with, but have not been able to find out anything about. I didn't ask last year, stupidly, and when I asked this year, I wasn't able to find anything out. Boo hoo. :(

This year I didn't see anything truly amazing, but I did see this really striking doll:



She's gorgeous, no? They also had some cute Rainbow Brite dolls. I guess she's everywhere... Also, there is a collection with outfits designed by Jason Wu! I totally spaced seeing this somehow, but saw it in the catalog later. My friend got some pix tho.

Alice in Wonderland
Speaking of everywhere, I'm sure you'll not be at all surprised to know there was Alice Everywhere. I saw Alice in Wonderland figures, and Alice in Wonderland themed plushies, and Alice in Wonderland dolls... Nothing I personally felt like I couldn't live without, but if you are an Alice fan, you will be having a great year!

Other doll stuff
We did spot a few other doll-related things. Bandai had a big exhibit of their Harumeki (sp?) stuff. Some of the clothes were really cool looking and made me wish they were actually clothes, and not just 'pinned' fabric. I actually rather like the concept behind this - a way to try out fashion design without needing to learn to sew (or knowing how to sew well enough to make clothes, at any rate) but i still think it would be so much more fun to actually end up with clothes that could be put on an actual doll. Oh well. One thing that did intrigue me tho was that some of their models had shoes on. Rather big shoes. Maybe shoes that would fit Type 2 pullip feet?

Bandai also had some cute mini dollhouse type setups. Very, very tiny. The concept was little animal figures that made houses out of discarded items like empty soda bottles. I like anything tiny, so these will be a temptation for sure!

We also stopped by the Corolle booth were they had some cute Penny Brite stuff. I had never heard of this doll before last year's Toy Fair, but I guess she is a doll from the 60s or thereabouts that is being reintroduced. She's not the right size to share clothes with any of the dolls I collect, and I'm not sure if her face really appeals to me at the end of the day, but she had some cute clothes. There was a Little Red Riding Hood that I quite liked. Doesn't appear to be very expensive either, so I'd consider that as a 'maybe' for future purchase... Esp. because I had a Penny Brite dress that I got from a doll show and it does fit my Dals. I am not sure if the new dolls are the same size, I will need to investigate.



This one is my favorite, of course!

The same booth also had these cute dolls apparently designed by Marie Osmond, who was apparently taking notes from Blythe. They had big heads and big eyes, just like the dolls I'm used to (haha), but were maybe a little younger looking overall. Still, they were pretty charming. More charming in person than they look in their promo pictures... I dont really imagine buying one, but thought I'd mention because they were cute!

I think that's about it, except for the swords (see below, in the Anime Stuff section). Ooh, and except for these awesome dollhouses that I totally missed. Too bad!

Anime Stuff
I didn't see a lot of specifically anime-related items, but I also didn't go out of my way to look. Most of the anime-stuff is usually at the Diamond booth. I don't really remember anything too interesting tho. Which doesn't mean there was not anything interesting, just that it didn't catch my particular attention. My friend did point out some cute music-themed anime girls that I suspect were from K-On, tho I haven't seen that show to know for sure.

What DID catch my attention was over at the Square Enix booth - they had some really beautiful figures last year, and that was true this year as well. Now I'm not a gamer at all - I don't even own a game system - and I have never really played Final Fantasy, so I have only a loose understanding of the characters and storyline, but nevertheless, I really tend to like the art work. So I was (oddly?) excited to see the Square Enix figures. One, in particular, gave me that "grab for my wallet, need to buy now" feeling - it was this amazing giant horse figure and a rather cyberpunk/steampunk looking woman that the man running the booth said could combine together to form a motorcycle. He said they were like $200. This is bizarrely tempting considering I don't collect anime figures (esp. not expensive ones!) and I don't even know who these characters are, it's just that they were so amazing looking!

According to fanboy.com, which I thank one of my friend's friends for pointing me towards last night, there were also some rather cool looking Bleach figures there, but apparently I was so busy ogling the crazy motorcycle lady I didn't notice them. They've also got pictures from the Lego booth - which had "security" and seemed like too much trouble to get into - and the nifty Star Wars lamps I spotted at one of the booths. Well, I thought they were lamps anyway. Turns out they are actually speakers! I need some iPod speakers. Hmm...

That was the highlight. I also saw some Evangelion stuff and some other random cute anime girls at Kotobukiya's booth. Most of their booth, however, was given over to a giant display of their newest product - Star Wars chopsticks. I actually thought these were kind of neat, tho I have to admit I don't want them for chopsticks. I want them for doll-sized lightsabers!! I think they might actually be too big, but... I assume chopsticks can't be too pricey, so if I find them somewhere, trust me, I'll be trying to make it work! XD Their booth also had some nifty looking display swords that also seemed doll-sized. I will be looking for more info on those as well.

Ok, well that wasn't strictly anime-related after all, I guess. And neither is the only other thing I might put in that category - Ben 10. Lots of Ben 10 stuff at the Bandai booth. But, um, I don't remember much about it because although it's a relatively entertaining cartoon, I don't really care about Ben 10... ^^;

Hello Kitty
While my primary mission at Toy Fair was doll-related, if you follow my blog at all you know I couldn't *not* keep an eye out for Kitty too! XD My first Hello Kitty siting actually did not really even have anything to do with the convention itself. The convention center has a couple of little magazine stands where you can buy the paper, some candy, or some little gifts. These are located right near the door. So practically the first thing I saw coming in the door were some cute Hello Kitty plushies with Easter Bunny ears! Like Kitty in the plaid tartan dress, these were made by Ty. And since they were some of the only toys actually for *sale* at Toy Fair, you can bet one made it home with me! (How could I not buy a souvenir after all? ;P) They were also a clue as to whose booth I should be sure to visit. But in case that wasn't enough, they was also a great big banner from Ty showing 4 Hello Kitty plushies. Two of them were familiar, but 2 were not. Actually, at first I thought only one was not familiar - my eye was immediately drawn to the Kitty holding an apple. I want that one! So you can be sure that when I went to the Ty booth, I asked about her. Unfortunately, it turned out that the person working the booth didn't know anything about her either. She said the apple Kitty was probably a future release. I hope so! When I went back to look at the banner again (just to be sure I'd seen what I had seen!) I also realized that the one with the red bow is unfamiliar as well.



There wasn't anything at the Ty booth I hadn't seen before - tho if I hadn't seen those Easter Kittys on the way in, they would've been new...

Last year there was a whole booth of Hello Kitty merchandise. I'm 90% sure the booth was for Nakajima, who is the company that runs the Sanrio stores in the US. I couldn't remember their name while I was at Toy Fair this year (silly me not to prepare better! ^^;) but I was pretty sure they weren't there. Luckily once I got home and remembered their name, it turned out to be true that they weren't there. Jakks Pacific was there, and I knew they did some Hello Kitty stuff, but were were short of time so I decided not to go by their booth because I was thinking they mostly did electronics stuff. I realized today as I was cleaning, however, that they also make the plushies that Target has. So probably I should actually have checked them out. Boo.

I did run by the Jelly Belly booth (because I wanted the free Jelly Bean samples... >.>) and they had some Hello Kitty crossover stuff there too. Mostly the stuff you have all seen - the Hello Kitty packaging. But they also had a little ceramic sort of cookie jar affair that was quite cute. And they also had a Hello Kitty "gumball" machine (gumball in quotes, of course, because it's for jelly beans. XD). The one they had there was only a prototype and they said they were going to be making changes to it, but based on how they are describing it, it will be really cute! So be on the lookout for their Hello Kitty theme gumball machine this year - I know I will be!

I also happened to see a couple of Hello Kitty plushies at the Dragon booth. I am not sure why they had any, but I am afraid I also didn't ask. They were Halloween themed, and looked somewhat similar to Halloween Kittys in the past.

There were a couple of other little Hello Kitty things I spotted, but nothing new or exciting. I wish I'd had more time to run around the convention, just to be sure I didn't miss anything!

Valentine's Day!

Ok, this is going to be another long post! It's been taking me forever to pick away at getting all the pictures uploaded. I went to Target and 'surveyed' (haha, makes me sound official) all the Hello Kitty Valentine's merchandise. There's a lot of it!

First up, we have the cards. There are two types of 'little kids' Valentine's Day cards available. I am referring to the little tiny cards that you give out in school. (why do we do that again? how do kids get suckered into such a ridiculous thing, esp. as it's some other fool thing to spend money on? No one is really in love in grade school, so you either get kids that feel bad because they aren't popular enough to get cards, or you get scenarios where everyone has to give everyone a card - which prevents kids from feeling unpopular, theoretically, but serves no purpose except to make greeting card companies happy. Hm) Anyway, there's two types of Hello Kitty cards available in this category. One is Lenticular (more about those below) and the other comes with pencils you can give away. Here's the pencil version:


I included the Barbie and Phineas and Ferb cards too, just for fun. (I am a huge fan of Phineas and Ferb - Dr. Doofenshmirtz or however you spell his name is so funny!)

Here's the back:

Both the Kitty and Barbie designs are cute, but nothing amazing. The P&F cards are kind of disappointing, the sayings are mostly not that funny. But oh well, nice to see them there anyway.

There was, surprisingly, quite a lot of Hello Kitty toys for V-day. Since when is this a holiday to give toys to kids? Well, I would buy this stuff for me, so maybe they have caught on to the fact it's not for kids? (or even people in love?)


There was a friendship bracelet making kit (ok, THIS has to be for kids... no?)


And a kit to make a Hello Kitty plushies (I DID buy this. I mean, it was only $5! $5!! How could I not?!)


And stickers (I did not buy stickers. I wanted to, but I'm trying to cut back. They're really cute, but a roll of stickers is too hard to store. Esp. since I'd totally want to keep the adorable packaging... sigh)

And then, moving away from the V-day aisle, I found some Hello Kitty and My Little Pony card packs:



And Hello Kitty and My Little Pony Stickers:

There was probably as many MLP products as Hello Kitty products, btw, but I didn't take pictures because I am not really into MLP... ^^;

Some of the general holiday merchandise (back in the Valentine's section) is pretty cute too!

I really like those owl bags, but I don't need them for anything. So I'm debating whether to just buy some now or whether to wait to see if I can catch them on clearance... Hm.


I thought this box of candy was adorable. Too bad I'm a boring single person so I don't have anyone to buy it for me... >.< (maybe I can get that on clearance too. Haha)

Because Hello Kitty items sold out way before Christmas, I decided I'd better buy the cute stuff now and not wait for sale/clearance. There wasn't much I was dying to have anyway, but of that list of 'must haves' the first was the lenticular valentine's cards. I love anything lenticular. I even think it's great that there's a word that describes it, because I didn't know as a kid. I'm talking, in case you also have not been clued in about this word, about the cards that flip between 2 or more designs. They are made of ridged plastic, so when you run your fingernail over them, it makes a little scraping sound. They can also be used to make 3D pictures (the kind you can see without glasses) and I always thought they were just about the coolest thing ever. My grandmother sent me a bunch of 3D postcards like this, I think that's how the love got started. So my $3 went out for a bunch of cards I'll never use! XD

Here's the front of the package:



On the back, they talk about 9 designs, but I'm not so sure about their math. You get 9 cards per sheet, and you get 3 sheets. However, each individual card flips between 3 different designs. I'm not sure that you get 3 x 9 = 27 different designs. I think some are reused. But probably each set of 3 is unique for each of the 9 cards. Actually, all this math is making MY head hurt. Just be aware that the designs shown here on the back of the package are not actually ALL of the designs! XD



Here's the cards:



And then here's the back of the cards:



I appreciate the fact that the package mentions you should use colored pencil or permanent marker on the cards. I am forever using the wrong kinds of pens on cards because it's so hard to tell what is going to work on which surface, even when I try to guess carefully! Also, the majority of my pens don't work well with greeting card (coated) paper. Now what would be *really* awesome would be if they made more cards that worked with gel pens... >.>

Taking a closer look at some of the cards, here's the cutest design, I think:


(the middle one, I mean!)

And then, just for a fuller example, here's all 3 views of the card over on the far right above:



I love the ducks! So funny!

I also bought the Kitty stickers, just because I have been buying all of the sticker designs I see. So here's a (slightly) better view of those:



These are actually pretty similar to the roll stickers and the cards I didn't buy, so I think I'm covered for this design! XD You get two sheets, which is nice, even tho it's not like I use these stickers anyway.

You also get some cute packaging, even if not AS cute as the roll stickers...



I also found a few new Hello Kitty items in the toy aisle (no Valentine's Day connection)


New puzzle design. I've seen a little lunchbox with Hello Kitty as a cowboy too (not at Target, I'll try to get that posted later). I love this new design!

Then they had these cute little houses. They remind me of the cooking show playset from earlier...



I did not see again these V-day Hello Kitty plushies I had seen last month - I don't know if they sold out, or if they just weren't at this Target. I will have to look again at one of the other locations (I have to go to a different Target tonight anyway, since the one I was at the other day was out of stock of my shampoo... >.<)





I also did not see these Skelanimals plushies - I wonder if I missed anything in between when these disappeared and the new things appeared? ^^;

Pinky Storage

I decided recently to disassemble most of my Pinkys and put them into storage - I used to keep them all as assembled figures in a little curio cabinet I got a while ago from some discount store like TJ Maxx.



However, I started having two problems with this. The first problem is that the number of Pinkys keeps expanding, and I can't really fit anymore onto the shelves. So they have been expanding to other random areas in my room, but even that is starting to max out. The second problem - which has actually been bothering me more, since the pace of new Pinky releases has been pretty slow - is that a lot of them were starting to have a really annoying backwards 'lean'. All these big headed dolls eventually do a number on their bodies, so Pinkys have a tendency to slooooowly bend the plastic. It's not a problem if you change the combos around a lot, but I haven't been doing that. So I thought if I disassembled them it would be better for avoiding the leaning, and might actually encourage me to make new combos. We'll see!

So here's the storage system I decided to buy:



I got it at JoAnn Fabrics. It's supposed to be about $25, but all those craft stores are always giving you coupons, so I got it for half of that. It's about 10" tall, 11" wide and 7"ish inches deep. I'm not sure where in my room I'm going to stash it yet, but it's not too big so it should be able to go somewhere. I wish it were more attractive (ugly colors) but oh well.

Inside it has 4 trays and a big box up at the top. I bought a 5th tray and put it inside the top part because I didn't have quite enough trays. By themselves, the trays cost like $3. There's a bigger system from this company, but then that's a *really* big ugly thing that will be in my room. >.< I may eventually have to buy a second one, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Here's the way I put it all together:


In the big section I started by putting all of my large (don't fit in the trays) but flat items - I'm putting that extra tray on top of this stuff.


In the top tray, I put odd colors of hair and a few heads with hair. I left the hair on these couple because I tend to have favorite head/hair combos. Most of those I left assembled, but I didn't really like the combos on these (or the combos were leaning too much) so I decided to disassemble them for now.


On top of that tray I piled 'oversize' pieces. This is not so convenient tho, because of course I have to pull all that stuff out to get at the tray, and it doesn't fit in easily. But it will do for now.

In the four inner trays I put heads, accessories, and hair pieces.


I started by trying to put heads with similar color eyes together, but that attempt at organization didn't really last. So this try had 'grey-eyed' Pinkys and red hair pieces.


This tray has brown and black hair pieces. As you can see, there's an awful lot of hair pieces that color. That's what forced me to buy the additional tray!


Then we have some more heads plus hats, hairpieces and glasses. As you can see here and with the extra tray, I still have a couple of spaces in my system, so I have a little bit of room for new Pinkys.


The accessories tray is the most fun to look at! XD

So that's the complete box. Now, of course, Pinkys are more than heads and accessories. The body pieces are stored elsewhere. I already had a system going for that since there was (until recently... <.<) always extra body parts. This is the little cabinet I've been storing those pieces in:



It's a cd cabinet, so each of those drawers is cd size. I got it a while back on clearance at Target, I think.


The top drawer has shirt pieces. I put each piece in a little plastic baggy to prevent rubbing. I have a couple of pieces that have paint rubs on them from having them in my bag for photo shoots. >.<


The bottom drawer has legs and skirts. The skirts are all in a little box.


I have to pile more leg pieces on top of the little box. As you can see, this drawer is about full, which is a problem. Storage problems never end unless you stop buying stuff!! ^^;

Because I have an insane number of Pinkys (almost all of them), I still left a bunch assembled and in the case, but I tried to keep them to the top and one shelf. The other shelf is going to my mini Pullips.



I have a few more Pinkys assembled, they are in my shadow boxes and on a bookshelf. I also have a few more mini Pullips that will need to go into that top shelf, I actually haven't taken them all out of their packages.


This is what the cabinet looks like closed. It's kind of a lousy photo because I took all these pictures at night, and the flash reflected too much. I'll try again for a better photo later.

And that's it! Now if only my whole room were this organized. *sigh*