Inside a toy store

First a bit about the summer, that is long gone. One of the many storms, that visit my country during the fall, is building up. It has been rather windy today and the weather casts just say "you ain't seen nothing yet". I do not mind the wind, as long as it does not take along some trees.

This summer did not exactly go as I had planned. Had thoughts on gardening, especially in the backyard that heads to our garage. There we have some smaller trees and bushes, that I wanted to cut down or clean up. 

Long story short - during the summer I started to feel weird with pain in my joints. Felt like a hard strung BJD. I was tired and fell asleep easily. It got more and more difficult for me to function daily, so I had to contact the local health care center. Met a nurse and a doctor, took some tests and the doctor sent me home with cortisone for ten days. What a relief and I felt like myself again. Got energy, could take longer walks with Bentley and do some gardening. A couple of days after the medication ended, 10 days of high dose, I started to feel bad again. I felt so down and sad. The nurse and doctor looked at my blood work and the nurse contacted me with the results.

I have borrelia, lyme disease, that has gone to my joints. I got antibiotics and even this on a high dose, for then days. Now I just have to wait a couple of months to see if my joints gets better or if it is chronically bad for me. It can take some time, the doctor said and I may need cortisone while waiting. Have not even had any symptoms that those tics leave...read that in 50% of the cases here does not even get any symptoms in the beginning. Crazy.

And now over to some more fun news. In a town, nearby our cottage, there is a toy store. I visited it in May and took some photos of the toys they have there and thought that it would be fun to share with you! It is often you buy stuff (mostly on the the internet) and then you show that, do box openings and dress ups.

Luna Lovegood, from Harry Potter movies.

This store has sections of different stuff, not just toys, even if their toy section is rather large. They have home decor, a section for those interested in art, pets, car parts and candy. I usually walk to the sections with art, with stuff for the pets and then toys. They have a pretty good selection of toys, LEGO, stuffed animals and even for the small kids and babies.

I try to keep my eye on the new dolls. When I was there in May, they had many of those 'My First Barbie' dolls. These dolls are a bit larger with their 13,5 inches compared to ordinary Barbie. The store has a range of Made to Move and accessories for Barbies too - clothes and as seen on the picture above, a food truck.

L.O.L dolls in all kind of sizes and shapes are very popular over here. And expensive. The small ones called 'Hair, Hair, Hair' are really cute and I almost bought the one with the pink hair. She is just adorable. L.O.L Surprise Tweens with 15 surprises inside temped me too. Had not really planned to buy anything this time, so I nicely walked by.

A different kind of doll, called 'Unique Eyes'. Have not seen these
before, so it was interesting. Her face is cute, but somehow the hands and
the feet a rather huge for the rest of the body.

For the smaller children there are baby dolls and things to these dolls, like clothes, bicycles, strollers, shoes and beds. Skrållan, Pim and Lillan are Swedish dolls and have been around since 1966. Some of the clothes suit my Dollmore Mokashura Duyou (Noomi) and that is a good thing, because it can be expensive to order from abroad. Our Generation dolls come in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes. These dolls have lots of stuff to add to if you want to, not just clothes, shoes and accessories - even vehicles, tents, hot dog carts, picnic table and food, get ready for school supplies and so on. And if you want to read about the doll with those unique eyes, you can visit The Toy Box Philosopher! Our Generation dolls have their own homepage at Our Generation. 

Kenner action figures. 

Found even Bentley as a toy!

There is even a section for collectors. Star Wars, Harry Potter, My Little Ponies, Schleich and action figures. If you want to Save The Sea you can buy a stuffed fish, dolphin, octopus, turtle or sea horse to your collection. The plushies are made from plastic bottles that have been recycled and the toys are even eco-friendly! They have even names. I really loved the octopus Frans. Forest Dreamland is another version of Sylvanian Families. 

Being in a toy store is not easy. Had a plan to not shop, but I would have regretted that. Came home with Boba Fett and Baby Yoda with a butterfly. 

Enjoy the new week ahead! Stay safe! Will visit you during the week! 

Hope that the force (4th) was with you!

I had plans to post some photos on the fourth of May, on the Star Wars day. That did not happen. Then I had plans to post the next day and guess what? Well, right, that did not happen. So, here we are on the 9th of May trying to keep up. Better late than never.

This was the first photo I took. Thought it was blurry. Noticed later that
the focus was on the little pebble on the gravel road.

I did not celebrate in any special way. Just took some of my Star Wars cars out in the forest, together with Bentley. I let him roam free and go where he wanted while I took some photos. You can see a cream colored fluffy blurry thing in some of the photos below. 

We are at the cottage at the moment. Our oldest daughter got a job at the Red Cross Shop down town and the youngest daughter has some studies left before her summer vacation starts, if she does not decide to do something during June to August. 

Blurry fluffy Bentley in the background, to the right.  R2-D2 as a car on one of the stumps from a
fallen trees that have been taken care of and cleaned up around.

During the late Autumn and Winter there were hard storms and many of the trees (pine and spruce) have fallen down. Some of the fell over the gravel road to the lake. It is easy to jump over or crawl under if you are fit, but you can not drive by any vehicle to the lake at this moment. Not even with a stroller. Our neighbors have a little child and they often walk to the lake. There is a plan to take care of the fallen trees soon.

R2-D2 in the forest nearby our cottage. And Bentley in the background.

C-3PO as a car.

It has been some nice and sunny days lately. Nice change from the crazy snowy days we had in early April. Hope that you all are doing well! Now I am off to your blogs, to see what you have been up to!

May the Fourth be with you!

BB-8 among Bellis perennis.

Is this a fun day, or what? Celebrating a Star Wars Day, just for fun and giving your Star Wars toys some extra love on this day. I took my Hasbro dolls Leia and Rey out on an adventure together with my youngest daughter and our dog. Needed some extra hands to keep all in some kind of order. Some tiny happenings did occur, but in all it was fun. Borrowed our neighbors fence too. That was okay.

Paper and Vinyl

Inspired by Xanadu’s post about paper dolls, I started to think about dolls in general. I remember my childhood - there was a lot of paper dolls - bought, cut out of magazines and homemade. That was a huge thing during my days as a young girl. I often used magazines with ads as a base for clothes. The clothes in the ads became the base and fabric for the clothes for the paper dolls. Some extra paper glued on, just to make the clothes stronger and more ready for play. 

Ballerina Marie, then probably Lisa and finally a Swedish sportsman as paper dolls.

Two new action dolls

After a meeting at the younger daughter’s school (all is very good, she is behaving) husband and I took a trip to DollarStore, just for fun. Took a peek at the toy section and saw some Star Wars toys and collectibles. Was not sure if I liked the dolls made by Hasbro, with mold on clothes and decided to leave them on the shelf.

Hairdorables: Kat

Late in March I took a trip to a new shopping market called "Eko:-". They have many markets and shops in many places and I have visited one before. This time I wanted to see what they have because I have heard several complains. But as usually, non of these complaints were true. It was a clean, a lovely place och the prices were cheaper compared to toy stores, art stores and other stores. 

Came home with a Disney Princess, Snow White and a Hairdorables, because I was a bit curious about these tiny dolls with big heads and lots of hair. Had seen some cute versions on the net and YouTube, so I hoped for one of those. But those blind packs can be surprises, both a happy one and a disappointment.

Project: Let's bake!

I was wandering around on Pinterest and Youtube for some days ago and found some cute tutorials and pictures of donuts, made for jewelry. I thought that the size is a perfect fit for dolls, mostly Barbie, Monster High and similar. I had some Fimo clay at home, in brown and some pastel colors that would work for the donut and the frosting. Even if the brown is rather dark, it can work as a chocolate donut with frosting.

Happy 2019!

Just buzzing by to wish you a Happy New Year and may it bring the best to you. Happiness, success, plenty of time for dolls and your other hobbies, time to enjoy a good book, a lovely movie or just time to chill for a while if life feels hectic. 

Some toys

Inspired by several of you and the toys you have, I thought that I could share some of mine with you. The last week at the cottage, I tried to pick the best day between rain, hard wind and a bit better weather (that is the totally gray day) to take some photos. These are just a tiny bit of the ones I have and I hope that I can share some more later on, because it was very fun to 'dust' these toys and think about the memories around them. 

So here goes!

These three are called "Mucklor" and they are tiny characters from the Swedish children's book about Pettson and his cat Findus. Pettson is an old farmer, who lives in a small ramshackle farmhouse in the countryside. The first book came in 1984. These tiny characters can only been seen by the cat. I bought these at a store in Kalmar on one of the trips we made there several years ago.