Having Fun with My Froggy Stuff

Several weeks ago, one of my readers drew my attention to a great blogger and YouTuber:  My Froggy Stuff. You can find her blog HERE and her YouTube channel HERE.  I had so much fun reading her posts and watching her videos that it instantly inspired me to try some of her projects!  My daughters and I had a great time crafting together. :)  

Here are a few of the things that I made for my collection:

No sew dress/shirt (you can view My Froggy Stuff's tutorial HERE), plus my own creation on Kaitlin 1 (in the orange).  You'll notice that these pics were taken before I decided to rewig Kaitlin 2. ;)

This dress was one of my favorites.  It's so lovely and flowy.

Plus, it looks great with Kaitlin 2's green eyes. :)

I used material from an old shirt I'd outgrown.

The two Kaitlins together. :)

Kaitlin 1's dress was made out of one of the sleeves from another shirt I'd outgrown.  I cut arm holes in the material just underneath the end of the sleeve, and used the natural hem of the sleeve as a sort of loose collar.  

I cut another strip of material from another part of the shirt to use as a belt.

Britt's shirt was the very first one I made.  It was actually supposed to be a dress too, but I miscalculated the size of the material circle I needed. ;)

Britt's necklace is a child's bracelet we got as a hand-me-down.  It looks great with her blue eyes! :)  

  I also cut a thick strip of material to use as a kind of headband/scarf type thingee. :)

Once I'd gotten a few of these under my belt, the madness began! :)  I wondered how some of the dresses would work for Elena, my Karito Kids doll (FKA Pita).

I found that she could wear the dress I made for Kaitlin 1...she just didn't need the belt.

Then, with the other sleeve, I made a shirt that looked a lot like the dress.  Too bad I'm horrible at cutting straight lines!  (Don't look too closely at the bottom of the shirt!)

The back of the shirt ended up looking a little funny with the seam off-centered.  Oh well...I think it still works from the front, at least! :)

Next, I tried my hand at some American Girl styles.  Jenna, my little trendy gal, was happy to model for me. ;)  This first outfit was also supposed to be a dress, but it ended up just a little short.  Good thing leggings are so in style right now! :)

Next, I tried a shirt...

...and then I decided to try my hand at a halter top.  I cut a large hole in one side of the circle of material...

...and put Jenna's head through it.

Then I twisted the two sides to give it a little more of an elegant look.

I'm not really a fan of halter tops myself, but it was fun to experiment! :)

My last AG sized project was this outfit.  Those of you who read Tess and Maggie's blog will recognize this outfit from THIS post. :)

Once again, a little short for a dress, but a little long for a shirt.  Oh well.  I suppose it works. ;)

After seeing Mommy hard at work like a mad scientist in his lair, Little Gal got interested and requested a dress for Rahel.  Here's what I came up with.

Not too shabby, if I do say so myself! ;)

There were lots of other great craft ideas from My Froggy Stuff.  After an afternoon of crafting with the girls, I decided to make a doll bed and shelf for my BFC Ink dolls, just for fun.  Here are the results:

Doll bed (you can view My Froggy Stuff's tutorial HERE) and shelf (I basically drew inspiration for this from THIS video).

I used a really fun Bath and Body Works box from my online order for the insides of the shelves and for the headboard of the bed.  I used some black duct tape for the outsides.  By the way, don't look to closely at the shelf...it's horribly crooked!  I didn't exactly...uh...measure before I cut and put it together.  :}

Here's a closer look at the bed.  I didn't have cereal boxes on hand, so I used part of an orange box instead.   I also used a nice, thick box for the headboard.  

Side view

A close-up of the headboard.

Another fun tutorial My Froggy Stuff had was her "Room in a Box" for Barbie-sized dolls.  I thought it would be fun to try making one for Belle.

Room in a Box for Belle, including a bed and dresser.  Click HERE to see the bed tutorial and HERE to see my inspiration for the dresser and for the room in a box idea.

The dresser.  It took me FOREVER to get those strips of zebra print duct tape cut straight and attached to the dresser!  That stuff is really sticky!

I love how the bed turned out!  It's really cute and so easy to make! :)

I'm still working on wall decorations.  I thought this would make a really cute little bulletin board.

I'd like to get one of Belle and Robby's nice outdoor pictures and use this paper as a mat behind it.

I made this picture frame out of some packaging from a bead set.

Belle is super comfy in her new room! :)

I've found that the tiny proofs that come with my printed Costco photos make the perfect sizes photos for Belle and friends! :)

I hope you enjoyed this post!!  If you did, I'd encourage you to go check out My Froggy Stuff's blog and YouTube and start some crafting adventures of your own!  :D

My Little Pony Blind Bags

Now begins the huge lineup of review posts that have been waiting patiently to be published. :)  First up, we have the adorable and highly addictive My Little Pony Blind Bags, featuring ponies from the latest version of the popular children's collectibles and TV show.  

Before I start, I would like to say that a part of me will always love the original ponies that I grew up with the best.  These ones are a little funny looking with their huge heads and eyes.  They've kind of grown on me, though. :)  

As far as the TV show goes, I have mixed feelings.  The My Little Pony movie that I grew up watching would give my daughters nightmares enough to last a month.  It was full of magic and super scary bad guys (including a really creepy over-sized spider!), and Baby Lickety Split was really bratty.  I really loved that movie, though.  (My mom can still sing the "Nothing Can Stop the Smooze" song.) :}  I had a huge collection of G1 ponies and had all of their names memorized. :)

Then we have the My Little Pony movies that my girls grew up with, full of disgustingly sweet ponies who sang really sappy songs, let everyone be winners and always promoted fairness and kindness.  Not necessarily bad things to promote...just really hard to watch as a parent (ESPECIALLY the Princess Promenade movie...gag me with a sugar spoon!).  

So then we have the newest batch of ponies and their TV show.  

The pros?  

1. The ponies actually have fleshed out personalities that can entertain the kiddos and yet make the parents chuckle too.  

2. The stories are really interesting and funny.  

3.  Their are boy ponies, grandma ponies, married couple ponies, and adorable baby ponies. :)  

The cons?  

1.  The biggest issue for me is that these ponies argue and yell...A LOT (aside from gentle Fluttershy...one of my favorite characters, by the way).  So, while I enjoy the show myself, it's not one that I like to have the kiddos watch very often.  They really don't need the encouragement to be more argumentative than they already are!  

2.  There's a bit of an Eastern mysticism hidden in the history of Ponyville and Canterlot.  That doesn't concern me quite as much, because we usually talk about those sorts of things after watching a show.  I wouldn't want to let the girls watch it constantly, though.  I also know that this might be a real problem of conscience for some of you, so I thought I'd mention it.   

3.  This may seem a bit silly to some of you, but I really have a hard time with the fact that Spike the baby dragon has to belch up the letters from Princess Celestia.  Was that really necessary? (I can just see my brother rolling his eyes right now.)  4.  Once again, some of the stories are pretty scary for sensitive kiddos like mine.

I just figured I'd share my thoughts on the show, since some of you might assume that I absolutely loved it, seeing as I've purchased several of the figures. :}

Okay, now that I've spent half of the post rambling on about the TV show, on to the ponies!     

Each pony comes in a sealed foil package, so the pony you get is supposed to be a surprise (more on that later).  Each package includes a pony, a collectible card, and a small brochure showing all of the available ponies.  Above is a picture of three of my ponies:  Fluttershy, Applejack, and Twilight Sparkle.  These three ponies are my favorites.  Fluttershy because she's so sweet, Applejack because I love her hard-working, "can do" attitude, and Twilight Sparkle because she's completely OCD (somewhat like me).  Seriously, there were some scenes where I was cracking up because she was acting just like I would in a similar situation. ;)

Hiding in some packages are special glittery editions of Rainbow Dash (shown above), Twilight Sparkle, and Pinkie Pie.  I don't always appreciate Rainbow Dash's attitude, but her athleticism and enthusiasm remind me a lot of one of my close friends in high school.

Close-ups of Fluttershy...

...Applejack...

...and Twilight Sparkle.

One of the things I love is that these ponies are the perfect scale for the Princess Celestia pony from McDonald's.  I believe this was from last year's Happy Meal line-up.  It really bothered me that Princess Celestia was the same size as the other McDonald's ponies (I'm big on scale!), so I was thrilled to discovered that she worked just right with the blind bag ponies. :)  Now if only they'd made her the right colors! 

And of course, the icing on the cake is that the blind bag ponies are the perfect size for the dolls! :)

Hayden enjoying her new ponies.

When I first found out about these, I discovered that there were several series, or "waves" of blind bags that have been released.  As far as I can tell, Wave 1 is the only series that has hit my area so far.  And the only place I could find these was at my local Walmart in the toy aisle.  They were $1.97 each.  

One thing I discovered was that there are tiny, embossed codes on each foil bag that reveal which pony is inside.  After doing a little more research, I discovered the following blog, which provides us with a complete list of the codes for the US ponies (wave 1):  http://www.toyreviewdaily.com/2012/01/17/code-number-list-my-little-pony-blind-bags-us-series-1-kiosk-ponies-2012-hasbro/

When I purchased my ponies around a month ago, the codes worked correctly!  I was able to get sparkly Rainbow Dash, sparkly Twilight Sparkle, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie by following the codes.  However, when I looked at the blind bags again just last week, I couldn't find the codes anymore.  Instead, there was a long series of numbers.  (There was a comment expressing a similar problem on the blog I just linked to.)  I'm wondering if the toy company discovered that people had figured out the system and decided to change the codes.  If I find anything else out, I'll be sure to let you know!  I also hope we get some of the other Waves locally soon...I'd really like to get Big Macintosh! :)   

I found another site I found that has more info about the ponies that have been released in Europe and the US so far.  You can view it HERE.  It includes full color pictures of each pony. :)