Christmas in New York City 2019 - Day #1 of 2

These past few years, I've really tried to make it to NYC during the Christmas season each year because a.)  I love it there so much and b.) I'm a crazy fan of Christmas and all things festive.  

I'm very nostalgic about Christmas and it's my favorite holiday.  I could care less about the gift-giving  part of things as that part stresses me out, but I love everything else about it. 

Earlier in the month, my twin sister asked me if I wanted to join her on a work trip during the middle of the week to NYC and of course, I jumped at the opportunity!   Now that the girls are older, I have much less "Mom-guilt" about taking more time for myself. :D

We stayed for 1 night at the New Yorker which is located in Mid-Manhattan, south of Times Square. 

While she was doing some campus visits for her job, I was able to wander around on my own for a few hours at a time, which is something I haven't had the luxury to do in YEARS.  

After I walked with her to her first campus, I was able to walk around the Bryant Park Winter Village.  I had never been there before, but I absolutely loved it!  I got a hot cider and spent the hour people-watching, browsing the cozy little shops and taking photos.

Selfie! 

After my sister's meeting was over, we met up, had lunch in the park (wontons!) and then walked down to the St. James Theater on Broadway as we had tickets to see Frozen.

This was my second time seeing it and I loved it just as much as I did the first time.  What incredible singers!!  We kept looking at each other in awe, but then again it IS Broadway, so the amazing talent makes sense, haha.  There are so many more shows I would love to see!

After the show, we headed back to the hotel to relax for a bit, then trekked over to her 2nd meeting (which I tagged along to, lol) and then met up with some of her colleagues/work friends at a delicious and cozy sushi restaurant called Mira Sushi.

After dinner, we walked by the Christmas Windows at MACY's Herold Square.  This was my first time seeing these and they were amazing!
They were also filming a movie right in this area so that was pretty cool to see as well. :)

We then headed back to the hotel for a few minutes to regroup and although we were tired and it was getting late, we decided walk over to see the Rockefeller Christmas tree.

 New York Public Library 

Saks 5th Ave 

What we didn't realize was that it was the same night as the tree lighting ceremony.  As we got closer, we realized it would be impossible to get anywhere close and after going through security, all we could really see was a big screen they were broadcasting the performances on.  We could hear the music, but just couldn't see anything!

Womp, womp.

After that fiasco, we walked A LOT OF BLOCKS back to the hotel.  On the plus side, we got to walk through Times Square, which is always a feast for the eyes any time, day or night! 

My sister and me.  I am the one with the hat on. :) 

After all of that walking, we were pretty exhausted, but it was such a fun and festive time.  

In the next post, I'll share some photos of our 2nd day before we had to head back home. 

I hope you enjoyed the photos and have a great day! 

xoxo Farrah 

I'm Still Here! Happy Holidays! :)

Hi everyone!
I know it's been a while since I posted here on the blog and I just wanted to say thank you to a few of you that reached out to me to make sure I was still doing ok. :)  That was so thoughtful of you and I really appreciate it!

I'm definitely still here, I've just been so busy with life lately that it has left little to no time for dolls and miniatures.  I still love them, but other priorities have taken over and this hobby has sort of had to take a seat on the back burner.

That being said, I think the other thing that had taken priority over my blog these past few years was my YouTube channel.  I had been posting on that more often than the blog, but I've decided to let that go.  I'm not going to even bother to get into the new laws that are going to start as of January 1st that will affect all the doll/toy channels because that's a whole story to itself!

I really want to get back into the blog world as I've had so much more fun interacting with all of you and sharing this hobby.  My focus in the past few months has been more on crafting as opposed to buying dolls and I am so happy about that!!

Until next time, here are some photos of all the snow we've gotten so far this winter.
We ended up having a white Christmas, but the snow is melting pretty fast at this point, but more snow/freezing rain in the forecast for tonight!

                                                  Little Button enjoying the snow bank :)

I hope you're all doing well and are having a wonderful Holiday season!
Christmas crept right up on me this year, and now that it's over I feel like I can finally relax and actually enjoy the essence of the holiday that I felt too busy to enjoy before. :)
I personally LOVE Christmas and try to keep enjoying it for as long as I can (without seeming like a crazy person) as it helps me get through this cold and dark part of the year.
I'm hoping to do a quick post of my Christmas doll related goodies, my recent trip to NYC and the American Girl store as well as some goals and plans for the New Year.
I'll see you in the next post!

Best wishes to you all.

xoxo
Farrah

Update Dollroom (aka the Girls Playroom, LOL)

Hey everyone!
About a year ago (YUP), I made an updated "dollroom" video, but never got around to editing it or posting it.  Recently, I was going through my files and found it so decided to post it to my YouTube channel.

Here's the "Before" video if you are interesting in seeing what our "dollroom" used to look like, haha!
(And here is the post I made here on the blog).   You all made such great suggestions on how to better organize this space and I really appreciated that!

The great news is that I deboxed pretty much everything I had!  That was a good thing as it was turning into a little bit of a doll hoarding situation!

But as you will see in the video, we have basically just made it into a playroom for the girls since having a doll room just for me felt like I was selfishly taking up a large space that could be better utilized as a playroom for the girls as they kept getting into my stuff anyway! ;)

Here are a few quick photos of it in a "semi-clean" state.  I will take better photos if I get it cleaned up and organized a little better one of these days. :)
Don't mind the wallpaper in the hallway as we are redoing that this summer!

I have some of my stuff still in the playroom (like a few boxed Barbies and my Limited Edition Disney dolls, but pretty much my entire collection of dolls (American Girl, Disney, Monster High, Ever After High, Barbie and miscellanous) are all safely tucked away in bins so they don't get too trashed from little hands. :)

Since I took this video, Pumpkin Pie (my now 9 year old!) doesn't really play in here anymore, which is sad (she's a tech geek and has told me that she doesn't really like dolls anymore)!  It's still ok, though as Little Button (now 6) loves this room and plays in here almost daily.  I can't believe how quickly the girls are growing up!!
I remember when I couldn't keep her away from my dolls.  She especially loved Monster High back in the day.
Sometimes I will catch older daughter playing Barbies with her sister, and that always makes me so happy.  I deliberately monitor "screen time" with them so it forces them to play like they should!

I know I have complained in the past about how it's hard to collect dolls when you have children that want to play with your collection, but in my heart, I know that my 6 year old will probably grow out of dolls soon as well and then it will feel a little lonely to just have this collection by myself!
Part of the joy in having a collection I guess was actually sharing it with my daughters.  We used to have so much fun going "doll-hunting" and seeing what was new in the toy isle.
Even though I let them play with almost all of my collection and a lot got "very played with",  I definitely am thankful that I did.

I guess time will tell, though when they do grow out of dolls and it might just be a big relief to actually have a space to just have my own collection down the road!  ;)

Have any of you started your doll collections when your children were younger or you had kids in your lives that wanted to play with everything?
Have you always loved dolls all along since childhood or did you take a break when you were teens/younger adults?

I think I have just always loved dolls.  I loved Barbie/Disney into my early teens and although I stopped playing with and collecting them, when I got my first apartment in my early 20s, I discovered eBay and bought a few of my old 80s toys back to keep on my dresser.
Then I had kids in my early 30s and the love of dolls was rekindled and the rest is history!

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy the video.

See you in the next post! :)
xoxo

Farrah

Thrifty Makeovers! (Monster High and Ever After High)

Ok gang, today it's time for a doll makeover post!

Gosh.  I had this entire review typed up and ready to hit "Publish", but blogger froze and wouldn't let me do anything!  When I refreshed, it all disappeared.  Ahh!  

I'll try to do my best to write what I had, but at this point, I think the photos will pretty much just speak for themselves!

The girls and I finally got lucky at our local thrift store and came across a bag of donated Monster High and Ever After High dolls!  

Pictured from left is Sugar Coated Holly O'Hair (EAH), Picture Day Abbey (MH), Posea Reef (MH), Signature Jane Boolittle (MH), Ghoul's Alive Clawdeen (MH) and Signature Raven (EAH). 

It was really fun to clean everyone up and see how much life 2nd hand dolls still have left in them. 

All of the dolls above were only $1 each. 

First up is Ghoul's Alive Clawdeen.  She wasn't too bad, but she definitely needed some help in the hair department. 

Here she is all cleaned up and she's looking pretty good!
She has this gimmick where you press a button on her back and her eyes close and she looks like she is howling.  The gimmick no longer works, but she's still a cool doll. 

Next is Picture Day Abbey and she was pretty much complete in terms of outfit and accessories!  Whoever had these dolls before took pretty good care of them and beside the messy hair, they didn't look like they were played with too much.

This Abbey had VERY gluey hair though and I had to do 4-5 glue treatments on her to get the stickiness out of her hair!
Overall she came out pretty good, but she's actually a double for us, so she may find herself back at the thrift shop!  At least now she's clean and glue-free! :)

                                                                                                                                   
Raven Queen is also a double for us, but I couldn't pass her up.  She was also "complete" as far as her outfit goes, but her hair was also VERY gluey.  She took several glue treatments to finally have soft, manageable hair again. 

It was cool to find a signature Jane Boolittle doll and she also barely looked played with!  Luckily her hair was glue-free so she just needed a scrub with dish soap\/baking soda as well as a hair wash and condition.  I didn't even take her ponytail out as she was in great shape already!

If we're being honest, this Holly doll is actually one of our dolls from our own collection.  I included her in this review as she needed a makeover anyway.  She's Little Button's Holly doll so she has been played with quite a bit.  She was also an easy clean up and luckily we found her missing hand!
I'm not sure where I put her dress though, so she is borrowing a Dutchess "Fairest on Ice" dress for now.

Posea was the biggest and best transformation of them all.  The other dolls we found together at the thrift store, but this one Pumpkin Pie found at the bottom of a box of dirty toys at the flea market. 

She had the worst hair I've every come across in a MH doll!  I wasn't sure how she would turn out, but she cleaned up beautifully!  She was actually easier to clean that Abbey and Raven!  

It was really satisfying to clean her up. :) 

So here's one more before and after shot of our new thrifted dolls. 

I really hope I can buy more 2nd hand dolls in the future as they're so much cheaper and they're really fun to clean up! 

Whether or not they all stay in our doll collection, I love knowing that if they get redonated, they will be more appealing to a child (or adult collector, haha) now that they are fresh and clean and looking good again.

Do you guys like to shop 2nd hand for any of your dolls?  What's the best find you've had out there in "the wild"? 
I remember finding a Little Mermaid Vanessa doll for $0.75 at our shop once! :)

Hope you're all having a good weekend and see you in the next post! :)

xoxo Farrah