Tea with Lena: A Rainbow High Doll House Renovation

Lena and Ian's house is finally done!  Or it's done enough...for now.  These projects have a way of stretching on and on, because there's always some cool new accessory or decoration that can be added.  For example, not only did we squeeze in a record player from the last review, but Lena will be sifting through some Mini Brands Masterpieces artwork today to see if any of it can be used as a last-minute finishing touch.

So this review will have two purposes: the first is to show off the house and talk about all of the products I used, and the second is a mini review of the Masterpieces surprise balls.  But Lena's going to be in charge for the most part, so I'd better turn things over to her:

Lena in her renovated Rainbow High house.

Tea with Lena: Barbieland Miniatures and Zuru Mini Brands Create

I was going through the blog archive the other day and noticed that it's coming up on three years since I started reviewing again.  Three years!  The time has flown by for me.  I also noticed that I'm posting way less often than I used to, which is a little depressing.  At this point I have an enormous backlog of dolls that I'm dying to look at!  I always set the goal of writing shorter reviews more frequently, but don't seem to be very good at following through on that--and this week is no exception.

This week is a little different, though.  About a month after I re-started the blog, I asked Lena (Barbie Signature Looks Lina) to join me as an assistant.  Her job was fairly simple back then: stand in and act as a size and body comparison for every doll that I review.  She's done very well with this task, I think, but has started to complain that she's not being used to her full potential.  So, back in January of last year, we dreamed up the Tea with Lena series so that Lena could invite guests into her home and add a new perspective to certain reviews.  This week, rather than hosting a review in her home, Lena asked if she could be on set to help me show off some smaller items that I've been meaning to review for a while: an assortment of BarbieLand mini dolls and two new Zuru Mini Brands toys:

Mini Brands Series 5 ($7.49), Mini Brands Create ($9.99), BarbieLand Cutie Reveal ($2.89), and BarbieLand Color Reveal ($2.99).