Great Scott!

Today at Target we found two awesome things!  From the look of the boxes I think that they have been floating around in the back room for a while and were only recently found and put back onto the shelf.  The first was the Werewolf Sisters Two Pack, which is super exciting because it is an older set and pretty rare.  To make things even better it was on clearance for $20!  Even though I love Howleen's new design so much more, it's so exciting to have the original version of her.  We've decided to leave Clawdeen boxed for now.  

 

Our second find was Scaris Draculaura.  This is the first time we've ever found her in stores and we thought we'd have to find her on Ebay.  This is a really cute version of Draculaura. 

 

On our drive home we saw...a time machine!  It was a DeLorean and it even had a license plate that said "MCFLY."  It was super cool.  The driver probably thought I was a major dork because I had Sam try to get close to it while I was practically hanging out the window taking a bunch of pictures.  

 

Seeing the car would have been awesome either way, but the Back to the Future movies have special meaning to me and Sam.  Back when we first met, he was in Australia and I was in the United States.  Because of the time difference he was a day ahead of me and would always joke that he was from the future, which lead to us quoting Back to the Future a lot.  I even changed my text message alert for him to Doc saying "Great Scott," so every time I got a text "from the future" I would hear "Great Scott!"  We even ended up watching all of the movies together.  We just got on the Xbox headsets and pressed play on our movies at the same time, it was a lot of fun. 

Reviews of Dolls Pictured

Werewolf Sisters Two Pack

Scaris Draculaura

 

Operetta, Finally!

We had quite a bit of luck on our latest doll hunting adventure.  We went to Toys 'R Us first, but didn't find anything new.  We almost bought the Draculaura Powder Room Playset and Doll, but decided to check out the other stores first in case we found something better.  Our first stop was Meyer where we found Sweet 1600 Frankie!  Her box is in perfect condition and looks super nice.  Unfortunately they didn't have a Sweet 1600 Draculaura, so we will probably have to find one on Ebay.  We're planning on leaving the Sweet 1600s boxed because they look so nice displayed that way.  Eventually we'd like to get a second set to have unboxed though.

Next we headed over to Target.  Right away I spotted New Scaremester Catrine DeMew and quickly grabbed her.  We were so excited!  She was the first of the New lines that we've seen so far.  We looked around for the rest of the New Scaremester dolls, but found nothing...not even another Catrine.  She was the only new doll they had and there wasn't even a label for her on the shelf yet.  We asked one of the employees to check the back for us, but they didn't have anything.  I guess she must have sneaked her way onto the shipment somehow.  We were a little disappointed that she was the only one, but very happy to have found at least her.  We haven't been able to find Scaris Catrine yet, so she is the first Catrine to join our collection.  I think I might even like her better than the Scaris one.  

 

We also found the Die-ner Playset with Draculaura and Operetta.  We were tempted to get it because we had not found a single Operetta yet, but we decided to wait.  The Operetta that comes in the playset is nice, but there are others that we like better.

Our next stop was Big W, were we found....Frights Camera Action Operetta!  We were glad we decided against the Die-ner Playset, because Frights Camera Action was one of the ones that we really wanted.  It works out great because if we ever find an original Operetta we can move this one to our Frights Camera Action display.

As we were about to leave, we spotted Draculaura's Roadster!  We were so excited!  We had never seen one in stores before and thought for sure that we'd have to hunt it down on Ebay.  We want to use it in our Sweet 1600 display, so it's awesome that we now have Sweet 1600 Frankie and Draculaura's car. 

Reviews of Dolls Pictured

  

Sweet 1600 Frankie 

New Scaremester Catrine  

Frights Camera Action Operetta 

Draculaura's Roadster

Frights Camera Action and More

Another line that we were interested in picking up was Frights Camera Action.  I have always liked Viperine Gorgon and Elissabat, but didn't care much for Honey Swamp and Clawdia Wolf at first.  With Honey Swamp I just never paid much attention to her.  All I saw was a giant afro and pretty much dismissed her right away.  I don't think I ever even picked her up to take a closer look.  Then one day I saw a video review of her and instantly changed my mind.  She is a beautiful doll and her afro actually looks quite awesome on her.  She has a really nice color scheme and a beautiful face.  Clawdia on the other hand took me a lot longer to warm up to.  It's just that crazy bright yellow hair that bugs me.  I didn't even want her at first, but Sam said that the set wouldn't look complete without her.  After unboxing her, I noticed that she has a really pretty face.  I love that she's actually smiling, I'd love to see a smile like that in more of the dolls.  I don't think I'll ever be a fan of her hair, but when she's on the shelf with the other dolls it doesn't seem to be quite as noticeable.  Viperine has a really cool design with the snakes in her hair, snake-like eyes, and a snakeskin body mold. 

Elissabat is a really nice doll with a cute gothic design.  I love her outfit, especially her boots.  Frights Camera Action Draculaura and Clawdeen are also really nice dolls.  Even though they are pretty basic they have a really elegant look to them. 

 

Another doll I never paid much attention to was Jane Boolittle.  Every time we went out we saw about a hundred Jane Boolittles on the the shelves, but we had no idea who she was.  At that time we hadn't watched any of the Webisodes yet, only the movies.  Since we were really only interested in the characters that we recognized we didn't bother checking her out.  Then one day we watched a video review on her and I loved her so much.  I loved her outfit and hair, as well as her whole color scheme.  I also think she has a really pretty face.  

Once we watched the review we found out that she appears in Volume 4 of the Webisodes, so we headed over to YouTube to check it out.  After watching the episodes she's featured in I fell in love with her character.  Being a shy girl who loves animals myself, I can really relate to her character.  The episodes are:

Who's the Boo Girl 

Boo Ghoul at School

Creature Creepers Adventures Part 1

Boolittle Too Late

Jungle Boogie

We have found a couple of awesome deals at Kmart.  The Dance Class dolls were on clearance for $2 each, but unfortunately they were all gone by the time we got there.  We did, however, manage to score Catty Noir for $14 and Power Ghouls Clawdeen as Wonderwolf for $15.  Since Clawdeen is the only one of the Power Ghouls we have right now, we're going to leave her boxed until we get the others.  

We also found the Werecat Sisters Two Pack on sale at Toys 'R Us and picked up a Coffin Bean Toralei to go with them.  I really love the original Toralei, but she is rare and mega expensive on Ebay.  Coffin Bean Toralei is a really nice one too though.  She has long hair in this version, which I think looks really cute on her. 

Reviews of Dolls Pictured  

Honey Swamp, Elissabat, and Clawdia Wolf 
Viperine Gorgon 
Frights Camera Action Draculaura and Clawdeen Wolf  
Jane Boolittle 
Catty Noir
Clawdeen -WonderWolf
Werecat Sisters- Meowlody and Purrsephone
Coffin Bean Toralei

And So it Continues...

We were enjoying our Monster High display very much, but we found that we still migrated towards the Monster High section every time we went out.  It was a lot of fun to see what they had at each store.  It didn't take long before we started wanting more dolls, there were just so many nice ones. This is the point that it developed into a full-blown collection, rather than just a cute little display.

We instantly fell in love with the Ghouls Rule Frankie, Draculaura, and Abbey.  We love Ghouls Rule Cleo too, but we haven't seen her anywhere yet.  We were not too crazy about about Clawdeen, but Sam decided to get her so we'd have the complete Ghouls Rule set, once we found a Cleo. 

 

 Another must-have line for us was Sweet Screams Frankie and Draculaura, we had been looking at those since before we started collecting Monster High, but they were more expensive than the average doll.  We finally found them on sale for $10 off one day and grabbed them both.  My favorite of the two is Draculaura

We can't wait for more info on Sweet Screams Ghoulia and Abbey. So far all we've seen is the picture below.  From what we can see, they look awesome! Especially Ghoulia!  I can't wait to see higher quality pictures that show off more of the details in these awesome dolls.

Another line that we just had to pick up was 13 Wishes.  The 13 Wishes Haunt the Casbah dolls were the ones that always caught our eye before we knew anything about Monster High.  I especially love Clawdeen in this line. 

We also grabbed a Howleen and Twyla.  I really love this version of Howleen.  Twyla is an awesome character in the movie, I love her personality, so it was nice to add her to the collection.  

We have searched all over town for a Gigi, but haven't been able to find one.  We saw her one time in Target back before we were collecting Monster High.  She was the only one there and we had her in our hand, but we didn't know at the time that we'd be starting a collection or that she'd be so hard to find.  We'll probably just have to find her on Ebay at this point.  We decided against Freshwater Lagoona because we just weren't that crazy about her design, compared to normal Lagoona.  We were sort of on the fence about Haunt the Casbah Abbey. She looks pretty in the picture there, but in person all of the dolls have crazy messy hair. She's on clearance at Target right now, but they still have heaps, so we're sort of waiting to see if they'll get even cheaper.  I'd love to try to boil perm her hair, but I've never done it before, so I'd want to practice on some cheap non-Monster High doll first. WookieWarrior23 on YouTube has a review of their boil-permed Abbey here, and a tutorial on how to do a boil perm here.

 Reviews of Dolls Pictured

Ghouls Rule 

Sweet Screams

13 Wishes- Haunt the Casbah

13 Wishes Howleen and Twyla

The More the Merrier

At Kmart one day, we randomly decided to look and see if they had any Monster High posters and found this really nice one

We thought it would make an awesome backdrop for our new doll display.  Since we already had most of the dolls in the picture, we decided that we would get the others to make it match the poster.  We had remembered seeing Robecca at Toys 'R Us, so we headed back to grab her and also picked up Scaris Rochelle. We had never seen an original Rochelle in any store and figured that we wouldn't ever be able to find one in stores. I personally love Robecca and think she has an awesome design.  I love her robot sculpted body, cog shaped eyes, and Steampunk style. And her blue and black hair is sooo pretty!

 
















We didn't find any Venus dolls at Toys 'R Us and just decided to keep an eye out for one.  We weren't expecting to find an original Venus in stores, so we were just planning on looking for a nice version of her.  After leaving Toys 'R Us, we headed over to Target and found...an original Venus! We were so excited and not expecting that at all. I love her original doll, so I was very excited to find one. 

Her hair was absolutely perfect, silky smooth and perfectly straight and I love her Punk style. 

We now had all of the dolls in the picture except Abbey, so once we got home we hopped on Ebay and ordered an original Abbey.  She arrived a couple of weeks later and was in perfect condition. Her hair was beautiful and straight just like Venus'.  I was beyond excited to finally receive an Abbey, she is definitely one of my favorite characters. 

We finally had all of the dolls we wanted, and a nice poster to match. Even though they were taking up more space that we had originally intended, we were really happy with the way the display looked.  And that was the end of our Monster High doll hunting....or so we thought....

One is Never Enough

Everyone who owns Monster High dolls knows that you can never have just one. We were satisfied having only Draculaura for...about a day. Or maybe half a day.  We soon decided that she was out of place without her two besties and went back to Toys 'R Us the next morning to get Frankie Stein and Clawdeen Wolf. 

They looked awesome together! We were quite happy having those three. They are the main characters after all, and Draculaura no longer looked out of place.  But Sam is a big fan of Cleo  and Ghoulia, and I found myself wishing we had an Abbey.  We decided to collect what we considered to be the "main cast," the ghouls you see most often in the movies. The next time we went out we picked up Ghouls Night Out Spectra and Lagoona, the Ghoulia and Cleo Lab Partners Two Pack, which was the only Ghoulia we had seen in stores, and then we got Picture Day Cleo because we weren't too happy with the Cleo that came in the two pack. 

Even though I was dying for an Abbey, I decided to hold out for the original version of her. The store only had Picture Day Abbey and Art Class Abbey, which are both very nice, but I have a special attachment to her classic look.  I almost got Picture Day Abbey, but we decided to just wait and look for the original one on Ebay. At the time, I remember thinking that our collection would be pretty much complete once we got Abbey....boy was I wrong...

Reviews of Dolls Pictured

It's hard to find good reviews on some of the older dolls, but I'll link reviews for some of the others

Ghouls Night Out Lagoona and Spectra 
 Lab Partners Two pack
Picture Day Cleo

The Beginning of an Obsession

I blame Draculaura for my obsession, but we'll get to that in a minute.

I have always been drawn to Monster High. I remember when I used to work at the checkout at Target, the very first Monster High doll to pass through my line was Clawdeen's Little Dead Riding Wolf.  I instantly loved that doll. Red is my favorite color, and I've always loved Little Red Riding Hood. Also, wolves are my favorite animal and werewolves are awesome! I thought it was so clever and cute that they made Little Red Riding Hood into a wolf.

 

As much as I loved her, I thought "what the heck am I going to do with a doll?" So I continued to admire the Monster High dolls from afar, never really knowing anything about them, just admiring their design. I paused to look at them if one happened to come through my line at work, and every once in a while I did a quick pass through the Monster High isle at work, but that was about it.  I have always liked things that are "scary cute," like The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ruby Gloom, Skelanimals, and Hotel Transylvania, so it's no surprise that Monster High caught my eye, but I think I was too quick to dismiss them because I've never considered myself to be a "doll person."  

A couple of years later, after getting together with my boyfriend Sam, the Monster High interest reignited.  As we were browsing the movie section of our local Kmart, Sam held up a Monster High DVD to show me. We both mentioned how cute it looked, but didn't end up buying it.  We eventually realized that every time we went in to look at movies we migrated towards the Monster High DVDs and eventually ended up buying one. It was a double feature of Friday Night Frights and Why Do Ghouls Fall in Love. We thought it was really cute and eventually ended up buying the rest of the Monster High movies.  After watching the movies it became part of our weekly routine to browse for any cute Monster High stuff when we went out shopping.  We had fun looking at the dolls and talked about whether or not we should get one, but always decided against it. 

We were at Toys 'R Us one day and decided to each pick out a toy, like the fully grown children we are. I chose the Lego Friends Dolphin Cruiser and Sam chose....Draculaura.  I was excited that we were actually finally buying one, but still had no idea what we were going to do with her.  We did notice that the box said a stand was included, so that was a plus.

Anyway, once we got home I got to work on my Lego kit. I'm new to Lego as well, Sam had gotten me a few smaller kits to put together previously, but this was the biggest one I'd done before so I was very excited. It was super fun and turned out awesome! 

 Sam is great at putting things on display and did all the extra little touches. I absolutely love the way he made it look like the dolphins are jumping up out of the water.  While I was building my cruise ship, Sam was getting Draculaura out of her box and onto her stand. I was so absorbed by building that I wasn't paying any attention to what he was doing.  When he had her all set up he told me to come take a look at her. I was shocked! I had no idea how pose-able she would be and how awesome she would look on her stand. 

 

I absolutely loved the pose he put her in, I felt like it really brought her to life. I had always thought they would be like Barbie dolls...legs straight, both feet on the ground, arms at their sides...but I was pleasantly surprised at how pose-able she was. 

Once we got that first Draculaura out on her display, we were completely hooked on Monster High.  

 Reviews of  Dolls Pictured

Clawdeen-Little Dead Riding Wolf

Draculaura 

 NamanthaSuxx is the best Monster High reviewer out there, be sure to check her out