A Few Updates

Hello, everyone! May I just say, you guys are awesome for waiting so long for me to get my act together. This fall brought many new adjustments with the girls' new school, so for a while, it was just easier to play the avoidance card instead of thinking how behind I was on blogging. ;)

I'm about halfway done with my annual Rapunzel and Belle Disney Store doll reviews, so those should be up within the week. Since the reviews are taking longer than I planned (especially since my Belle dolls from prior years are still packed away and I have to find them), I thought I'd tide you over with a few updates.

For those of you who don't follow me on Instagram, I just did a full month's worth of drawings in October, known as "Inktober" for artists. ;) It was a crazy challenge to do one traditional ink drawing per day, but I made it. I think about two or three of them were a day late. ;)

Here are a couple of my favorites:

Fan art from Dragon Slippers by Jessica Day George.

Fan art from Tangled. 

Unicorn!! :D

"Phan" art from The Phantom of the Opera.

Fan art from Beauty and the Beast.

It was great to have an excuse to draw, and I really saw an improvement in my art as the month progressed. :)

Since I now have an indoor cat, I have to rethink the way I display my collections. He loves climbing and has taken quite a liking to my doll rooms, for example. ;) 

To keep my things from getting broken and to avoid situations where I'm annoyed at the cat for something instinctual to his nature, I decided to invest in a couple of display cases from IKEA. They didn't house quite as many of my things as I'd hoped, but it's a start. Here are my displays so far: 

With lights on...

...and without.

I couldn't fit my boxed doll sets in the displays and fit much of anything else with them, so I decided to put them on top with my Funko Pops from Frozen and Tangled.

The top left shelf holds some of my favorites from my Tangled collection.

The next shelf down has some of my Frozen favorites.

Next comes my live-action Cinderella collection.

And on the bottom, my Fluttershy, Minty, and watermelon mini collections. This is the display space I'm probably the least happy about. I might try rearranging it, or I might try displaying something else there instead.

The top right space has my more stylized dolls, like my Pullips, J-Dolls, and Licca.

The next shelf down has my custom dolls. This space will eventually have other dolls, too. :)

Next I have a display of some of my very favorite G1 My Little Ponies.

And the bottom shelf has some of my Hearts for Hearts Girls and mini dolls.

I may change the displays around a bit after a while, especially as I continue to unpack, rearrange, and go through my collections, but this is a nice start. :)

I also hung up three of my little house-shaped shelves again so I could display some of my mini Shoppies and Twozies. 

My toy budget has been much more limited now, but I've still managed to find a few things here and there. ;) 

Ever since I saw the messy-haired Anna Little Kingdom doll from Frozen in footage from last February's Toy Fair, I've been keeping an eye out for her. She never showed up in regular stores, but I just found her at Ross last week for $5!

She comes with an unassembled bed, a Sven pillow, three golden embellishments for her hair and dress, and a sleep mask.

Here she is, all ready for bed.

And catching some Zs with her mask on. ;)

At Target, I found a doll-sized Nutella jar. ;)

And also some Christmas Shopkins. My favorite is the ugly sweater one. :)

It's been thrilling to find so much unicorn-themed stuff around in stores, too. As I said on Instagram, though, I liked collecting unicorn stuff before it was cool. ;)

I also recorded a couple of YouTube vlogs during my absence that shares a bit of what's been going on with me. If you'd like to see the most recent one, you can watch it HERE. (Please pardon my crazy hair...I'd just taken a shower.) ;)

Not much more to report other than that. I've been busy parenting, helping the girls adjust to their new school (which they love), writing, and trying to figure out a better social media/blogging schedule. 

I also got a couple of writing rejections. One for a short story I submitted to a magazine, and one from an editor I met with at Realm Makers for my book. The good news is, in both cases, they liked my writing. It just wasn't a good fit for them. I'm trying to keep pressing on and remember that each rejection is a chance for growth and change. :)

I'm slowly starting to save up for Mount Hermon next year. While I'd be tempted to attend Realm Makers a second time, it's farther away next year, and I really missed Mount Hermon. We'll see how that goes, though. There are still a lot of other things that may need to take a financial priority.

I guess that's all for now. Just wanted you to know that I'm still alive and kicking. ;) Hope to have that review post up soon!