Harumika Dress Form and LPS Blythe Hybrid

I found these while thrifting:

Left: A Harumika dress form with no stand, from the New York City designer dress form set.

Middle: An unidentified anime figure's body. Hope I can identify the owner using this website: https://www.animecharactersdatabase.com/. A figure of Perona from One Piece. (Thank you for the ID, "Unknown"!)

Right: A Littlest Pet Shop Blythe head, from LPS Blythe Style Skate set.

A clear envelope with some crafting supplies. What I find most important in this is the cutting mat.

Now I have a cutting mat, yes!

Back to the Harumika dress form. It didn't come with a stand so I have to improvise. I have a short wooden dowel, and a balloon cup stuck on a jar lid, which was previously a doll stand I used for my dolls. 

There is a shallow hole underneath the dress form which was for the original stand, so I inserted the wooden dowel through it and it fits perfectly! I don't even need to add glue!

Then I inserted the wooden dowel through the balloon cup and it also fit! Now my dress form with stand is complete. I might leave it as it is, or paint the wood, the balloon cup and the jar lid black to match the dress form's colour.

/What's special about a Harumika dress form is that you can drape pieces of fabric on it and tuck them in the back to secure them. There's a tight slit on the back of the dress form for tucking fabric there so you don't have to sew anything. You can use a ruler to tuck the fabric there if you don't have that special tool that comes from the Harumika set.

Then this anime body Perona figure I found, at first I had a different plan for it because I knew I have an anime head in storage in my new place. While rummaging through the toy box at the thrift store, I found this random LPS Blythe head, then I thought of sticking the Blythe head to the body.

As you can see, the neck hole is just right for the neck peg of this body. So I gave the head transplant a try.

And it works!!

I had a heart shaped wood from a lot of toys and found use for it when I painted it black with a marker and stuck the figure onto it with sticky tack. It works!!

Afterwards, I gave the figure a wash specially the Blythe head because it had paint on its face and hair. I also stuck a lollipop I made from a wooden bead and toothpick to her raised hand to complete the look.

Now these aren't at the thrift store but at a local supermarket. I found this Sikaly doctor doll.

Then I noticed the joints of the doll.

Oh those are Liv joints! This doll has a Liv clone body...

... but I spoke too soon because her feet are Barbie sized and unarticulated. This is still good, because Barbie sized shoes are more accessible than Liv shoes!

And I noticed this cheap doll called Anita. Wow look at all that hair!

And the dress looks somewhat decent! The doll apparently has chopstick legs, but it's nothing a body transplant can't fix, right?

In Which I Thrift More Bears

So here's another thrifting haul. Three 7-11 Paddington bears, a commemorative bear and a Neon Genesis Evangelion Shinji figure with no arms.

The pink coat bear, the commemorative bear and the Shinji figure cost me P60 altogether, while the two other bears cost me P36.

Here's one of the bears. I just need the coat and the hat. His green boots are missing, aw.

The second bear. I just need the coat and the hat as well. It says 'Amsterdam' on the back of his coat.

The third bear. It says 'Hong Kong China' at the back of his coat.

The floral shorts did not come with the outfit. However, at the thrift store, I found the shorts on its own in the toy bin, so I tried it on the bear. Then I bought the bear with the shorts still on and the seller didn't notice it.

A commemorative bear from Hong Kong. Not sure what this outfit is supposed to be. Is it for the postal office?

I couldn't remove the shorts without removing the bear's feet. So sad. I just hot glued the feet to the legs afterwards. It doesn't look pretty, but who cares.

So the Shinji figure I bought doesn't have arms. It's supposed to look like these:

It's not a big deal though. I thought I would just add replacement arms for it.

  

I have a small hollow and unarticulated doll from a different haul. I thought I can just cut off the arms and use it for Shinji.

I cut off the arms to size. Surprisingly one of the arms fits Shinji when I haven't even glued it yet.

Another shot but without the doll head.

Here is Shinji modelling his right replacement arm.

After the body transplant.

Looks good!

I tried on the outfit of the commemorative bear on some of my dolls. It looks hoochie on Aurora.

Aurora, stop putting your hands in your pants! Haha.

Here is Liv doll Sophie wearing it. Still a little hoochie and the hat just sits on her big head.

Another shot of Sophie.

Howleen (still with no arms) is swimming in the outfit. She's too thin for this.

This might be Licca's style? It still looks baggy on her though. Oh well. Someday I will have a doll that can wear these clothes.

An Old Toy Collection

Here are my old photos of toys I've collected:

From left to right: My (unofficial) Spice Girls figurines, my Edith (Despicable Me) figure which I gave to my niece, my old Angry Birds spring figures which I gave to my old co-worker's son.

My first Daruma doll which I thrifted. It doesn't look like it's in good condition, but I cleaned it up and looks a bit more decent now.

Two other Daruma dolls I've thrifted.

Next time I will talk about all my Daruma dolls in another post.

My old cat with my Daruma dolls and matryoshka dolls.

I am so lucky finding these matryoshka dolls (nesting dolls). They're vintage from Russia and I bought them for P30, I think. The seller at the thrift store probably had no idea it's not just some wooden toy.

Some of my toys.

From left to right: my Bandai retro TV figure, Posh and Ginger Spice figures, my matryoshka dolls, my four Daruma dolls, my White Totoro plush, a Neon Genesis Evangelion gashapon figure, vintage style Goofy and Mickey gashapon figures which I already gave to my nephew, Scary, Baby and Sporty Spice figures, and my Sailor Pluto plush.

I took this photo way before I even collected fashion dolls.

Oh my goodness, this photo makes me feel nostalgic. This was just last year when I started rescuing Monster High and Ever After High dolls. There's even that custom Frozen Anna doll I haven't finished yet.

I'll take more care of my dolls. Customise them. Complete them. To 2016! Cheers!

Chibi Fig

(I posted this on my now private personal blog on August 28, 2014. Since I now have a toy blog, I'll post it here.)

Yesterday I thrifted a new K-On Santa figure. It's chibi sized and I didn't know the name of the character I got. In fact, I don't even watch this show. Anyway, I found out the character's name is Manabe Nodoka and it's a girl! I thought it was a boy, hahaha! The figure is pretty cute and would be perfect for Christmas.

Gashapon! [Part 1]

I like gashapon/gachapon/gacha gacha toys, but I just can't handle the suspense of not knowing what toy I'm going to get when I drop that coin in the machine and turn the knob to get the toy, so for the most part, I just look at the display.

I've only tried the machine twice in my life and it was quite nerve-wracking, LOL. Well, the second time was. The first time was just me trying the machine not expecting much. This is the one I got:

I don't know this character very well but I am pretty sure this is from Neon Genesis Evangelion. I like that it has its own stand and it's just compact but still very detailed.

One token here costs P60, so if it's a 100 yen toy, that's already P60. The conversion rate right now though is Y100 = P36.77. Yikes.

2 tokens worth P120 versus Y200 = P73.54

3 tokens worth P180 versus Y300 = P110.31

Can you see how expensive this is?

I'll talk about my anime figures in another post, but for now here's an image dump of some gashapons I've seen and to which I've paid attention.

One Piece:

Doraemon:

Hello Kitty (1 token! That rarely happens!):

Neon Genesis Evangelion (I want Asuka Langley, the orange-haired girl):

Sailor Moon (So cute! They are always sold out.):

Train cases / suitcases with stickers inside. I'm not sure if it is of 1/6th scale:

 Cheerleaders. This is not from the Koppu no Fuchiko line. I believe this is from a different manufacturer:

Big Hero 6's Baymax inflatable toys:

Monsters Inc. figures and cheerleaders:

Disney princesses figures and Toy Story soda bottles:

Yu Yu Hakusho / Ghost Fighter. I regret not getting any of these:

More gashapon photos soon!