Monday, August 30, 2010

New Beauty and the Beast Stuff and Squinkies Update

Hi everyone!  It was an eventful day at our house today.  First off, I got my Disneystore.com order that I had pretty much forgotten about.  We have a Disney visa that allows us to earn reward dollars that we can use on Disney merchandise.  I used our latest rewards earnings to pre-order Beauty and the Beast on blu-ray (Yay!!).   While I was at it, I got 2 more Beauty and the Beast things. :)


The first item was a Beauty and the Beast reusable shopping bag for only $2.50.  It was so cute, I couldn't resist. 


P.S. I'm really sorry, I have no clue why Blogger decided to upload my pic sideways.  Every once in a while it's just stubborn! :{

When I was placing my order, they'd just brought out a beautiful new Belle Barbie-sized doll.  Only 5,000 were being made in the entire world, and she was absolutely stunning.  She was also $100.  Stunning or not, I just couldn't bring myself to spend $100 on her (even if it was with rewards dollars!).  Instead, I was a good girl and bought the $12 Belle Barbie-sized doll instead.  She's not as fancy, but just as pretty.  The very next day, the $100 Belle doll was sold out!  Apparently there are lots of other folks willing to spend that much!  And, to be perfectly honest, if I had unlimited cash, I would be pretty tempted too!  Anyway, here's some pics of my more frugal purchase:

Front and Back views of the box

She has such a pretty face! :)


This is from the Disney Store's newest set of dolls in the Princess line.  The main difference is that they've now made their arms fully poseable.  Their prince dolls have been super poseable for a while, which is really cool.  Maybe they got enough positive feedback from their prince dolls that they decided to try the same thing with their princesses.  I'm not sure if Belle's legs are poseable too.  At least for now I'm going to try to be good and keep her in the box.  Although, the box got a bit smooshed on the bottom, so maybe that will give me an excuse to open her. :)  I know they're my dolls and I can do what I want, but I also know their value decreases when they're deboxed.  I've always figured if I ever had to sell off my collection, I'd get better prices for things if they were still in their boxes.  I have rebelled and opened 3 dolls so far, though.  ;)  They're just so much more fun to display when they're free (not to mention that the Toy Story movies give doll collectors complete guilt complexes about keeping toys unplayed with in the box)! :)

Okay, on to Squinkies!  So, I stopped by Target this morning and almost all the Squinkies were GONE.  They've apparently been selling out all over the place and our town was next on the list.  The only other place that had them was Wal-Mart, so I headed over there with my 2 youngest girls to check out their inventory.  They only had 4 bubble packs left and 2 of them were the same set.  They also only had 2 of the Cupcake Surprize Bakery set that I was really interested in getting for the girls (and hey, let's be honest, for myself too!).  I actually had 3 bubble packs and the Cupcake set in my cart for a while, but I was good and put it back and just bought 2 bubble packs.  So, I was...sorta...good.  
I went home and talked Squinkies with my husband (he was thrilled to be discussing Squinkies, as I'm sure you can imagine).  I explained that there were only 2 Cupcake Bakery sets left in our town and that the longer we waited, the more people would know about them and the harder they'd be to find.  Already, they were selling on Ebay for at least $10 more than what they sold for in the stores. 
While my husband didn't jump for joy and tell me, "You must go buy the Squinkies!", he also didn't say he'd be upset if I did.  He basically gave me the freedom to decide on my own (a dangerous choice).  Just as a side note here, my husband is not a tyrannical brute, but we try to discuss bigger purchases ($20 or more) together before we impulsively buy.  It helps us not just go out and spend money without thinking about it (which...I basically did this morning...oops!). 
So, within the hour, I was on the road with my 2 youngest again, on a Squinkie mission.  Would the Cupcake set still be there?  The anticipation was killing me.  Look, I know this sounds pathetic, but this is the way I do things.  It's all or nothing...adrenaline rushing...I was instantly reminded of the day I went back to our local toy store as a tween to purchase the special edition Breyer horse I'd been saving up for.  It took 3 months of work, but I finally had the cash.  I stepped excitedly into the store, only to be told that he was sold out.  This was back before the internet rampage, so if a store didn't have something, it was pretty final.  (In case anyone is interested, through the wonders of the Internet, I was able to find my long desired Breyer horse last year on Ebay for less than I would have paid for him originally)
Wow, I'm really into rabbit trails today.  Sorry everyone!  To get back to my story, the Cupcake Squinkies set was still there, much to my girls' joy (okay, okay, and mine too).  So here are some pics of our successful Squinkies quest:

 

Here's the Cupcake Surprize Bakery.  You insert the Squinkies in their plastic bubbles through the red plastic cherry.  There's a slot on the left where you can insert either one of the two included plastic coins or an actual dime or penny.  Then you turn the pink heart and a Squinkie pops out of the hole in the cupcake "paper". 


Here's what the bakery looks like with the sides open.  It also comes with all the Squinkies and accessories you see in the front. 

Some close-ups of the Squinkies.

I wanted to show you even closer pics of my favorite Squinkies from this set:

I LOVE this little kitty.  She reminds me of Marie in the Aristocats.

Here's a cute little girl in blue.  She's one of the Squinkies on the label of each Squinkie package.

I love these 2 babies, too.  I'm pretty sure the baby in pink is also one of the Squinkies on the labels, although her hair bow is a different color.

My favorite Squinkies are the kitties, especially the ones with these molds.


What's even more exciting is, in one of my bubble packs I got...a Sparkly Squinkie!!!

 
So, here's what I've discovered about Squinkie collecting.  The rarest Squinkies are see-through and sparkly, like this guy.  There are poodles, kitties, horses, and monkeys that are sparkly.  The colors they come in are blue, pink, purple and yellow (so far, at least). 
I think I've mentioned in my earlier Squinkies post that one of the ways to buy them is in packs of 16, and the bottom 4 Squinkies have colored bubbles that you can't see through very easily.  Most of the Squinkies sets have the same 4 surprise Squinkies.  But randomly interspersed between these normal packages are some packages containing a special sparkly Squinkie.  So if you get one of these, hold on to them.  They'll be the ones people will be looking all over for on Ebay this Christmas! :) 

Okay, I think that's all.  If I have any followers after today with all my juvenile confessions, it will be a miracle!  I know it's sad...a 28 year old getting all worked up over a bunch of rubber animals and people.  But that's the way I am! :)  And like I've said before, at least I have girls so people don't give me weird looks when I buy this stuff! ;) 

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