Kasey reviews … Uppercase Box September 2015

Hey everyone!

It’s been awhile but I’m back with the first of my 3 unboxing posts for this month, starting with Uppercase! In case you didn’t read my last post and are unfamiliar with Uppercase, it is a monthly YA book subscription box that costs $29 / month (including shipping) for the expert pick box which comes with a brand new, recently published YA book which will either be signed or include a signed bookplate, exclusive author content, an Uppercase interactive reading experience, and a fun book-related item or accessory.

I thought this month’s box was great so let’s get to it! I don’t want to have spoilers for anyone trying to avoid them, so click on the Read More to see what is in this month’s box.

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Kasey reviews … Fandom of the Month Club August 2015!

Hey everyone,

It is once again time for the Fandom of the Month Club review! If you’re new to this, check out either of my two previous posts to find out more about what this box is and what it offers. For everyone else, let’s get into it!

I was pleased when I got this box to see that it was a different color than my past two boxes. It’s just a little thing but it made me happy regardless.

 

Purple box this month! My favorite color too 🙂

Spoilers for this month’s theme and items after the Read More!

Kasey reviews … Caroline’s Collection!

Hey everyone,

So as the post above said, I’m going to be reviewing a good portion of Caroline’s collection from American Girl today. I don’t actually own Caroline, the doll, but I’ve been using Felicity as my stand in. I wasn’t really connecting my Felicity doll to her original stories so I think she’s going to end up being a sort of custom Caroline-esque character, but I haven’t completely settled on all the details yet.

Anyways, I’m going to be taking a look today at Caroline’s Work Dress, Her Accessories, Travel Outfit, Spencer & Hat, Holiday Gown, Travel Basket, Bed & Bedding, and her calf Garnet. I also own her skating set but I am not going to be reviewing that in this post.

When I first came back to AG in the spring, Caroline wasn’t really anything that interested me mostly because I was more focused at the time on the dolls that I remembered from my childhood. But after hearing that she was going to be archived, and hearing good things about her collection and her stories, I decided to take a closer look, and I fell in love with her collection.

After buying Felicity on eBay and realizing that I was having trouble connecting with her, I realized that the fact that all of her collection was only available secondhand was probably a big reason why. Since I didn’t really want to buy a Caroline doll, I decided that giving her Caroline’s collection would solve two problems at once — not having anything for Felicity to call her own, and wanting Caro’s stuff without actually owning the doll.

Let’s start by looking at the Work Dress outfit. This was the first outfit I bought from Caro’s collection and it is one of the more popular ones, judging from the fact that it was one of the first to sell out after her archival was announced.

This set comes with the cap, the dress, and a pair of boots that you can’t see here. I love the dress colors, with the green and the pink. Here’s a closer look at the dress:

Want to win a free year of Uppercase?

So hopefully you have all had a chance to read yesterday’s review of my first month receiving Uppercase. If you didn’t, the link is here: Kasey reviews … Uppercase August 2015 box

Well, I just saw on Facebook that there is a contest to win a free year of Uppercase! That’s a free year of books and goodies people!

So I thought I’d share my link with you all so that anyone who reads this blog can enter to win this amazing prize. I will put a disclaimer that I get 5 entries for every person who uses my link to enter — but once you enter, you can share your link with your friends and if they use it then you too will also get 5 additional entries!

So here’s my link and good luck to everyone!

https://www.uppercasebox.com/giveaways/uppercase-box-one-year-giveaway/?lucky=675

Kasey reviews … Uppercase Box August 2015

Hey everyone,

I’m very excited for today’s review because it is my first book subscription box! Around the time I signed up for Fandom of the Month club, I was considering trying out a YA book subscription box, and another one OwlCrate was top of my list. Unfortunately, they’ve had a wait list for the past few months that I have yet to get off of, so I decided to try out another one instead called Uppercase Box.

I went with the expert pick box, which costs $23 + $6 shipping, so $29 / month. This box, according to the website comes with a brand new, recently published YA book which will either be signed or include a signed bookplate, exclusive author content, an Uppercase interactive reading experience, and a fun book-related item or accessory.

Money is collected on the 1st of the month and the box ships out on the 15th with 2-day shipping, so mine actually got here yesterday but I wasn’t able to pick it up from the mail center until today.

I don’t want to spoil this month’s box for anyone who might still be waiting for their own to get here, so click on the read more to see what fun stuff was in this month’s box!

Kasey reviews … OG Sharp as a Fox outfit set

Now that I’ve done my introductory post to the AG girls, I wanted to do another couple posts showing off a some new outfits, and the girls’ new display.

Since I didn’t have an abundance of modern clothes for Charlie, I wanted to get her an outfit that would be like her “meet” outfit, and perusing the OG online section of Target I found the perfect outfit. I was able to snag it during a free shipping promotion so I didn’t have to buy the full $25 worth of stuff you normally would.

The set is called Sharp as a Fox and I thought it was absolutely adorable when I saw it and I immediately knew that Charlie would look perfect in it, and I was right.

Here’s what the box looks like:

As you can see, the set comes with a shirt with a fox + cap + mustache, a pink skirt, red shoes, two bracelets, and a jacket. Here’s a picture of Charlie wearing the full ensemble:

The lighting is off in this picture but the dress is skirt is pinker than it looks here, since it’s a bit washed out in this pic. Here’s a few more of Charlie (+Kit in some!):

While I was back home last week I got a new shelving set that was perfect for setting up a mini room for the girls using Kit’s bed. There’s also room enough I think for her desk and chair if that ever goes way on sale.

Everything in this set fits Charlie perfectly, although the bracelets take a little more work to get on than everything else. I actually like the plastic shoes in this set. Compared to some of Kit’s AG shoes, they slide on like a dream, and they the red looks good with the rest of the colors in the outfit.

This set also looks good without the jacket, and I actually can’t decide which way I prefer:

And here’s a close up of the shirt / skirt combo where the color is a little more accurate:

I think that this outfit has great mixing potential with every piece from the shoes and bracelets to the skirt, top, and even the jacket. I don’t have enough modern outfits to try out some different combos now, but when my collection gets built up a little bit more, I will have to try it out and post some more pics.

So far I only own two OG outfits, and while the material quality isn’t quite as high as AG, I’ve actually been very impressed. The cost is significantly cheaper than AG and the two outfits I’ve gotten Charlie (this one and the moose pajamas) have been some of my favorite modern outfits that I’ve seen including all the ones AG comes out with. I’ve also been impressed with the OG accessory sets I’ve seen online, though I don’t have plans to buy any soon. I will definitely be buying Charlie more OG clothes in the future and highly recommend this cute set.

Kasey reviews … My Life As Cupcake Baking Set and other prize goodies!

I’ve been mentioning in many posts for the past month or so that I won some awesome prizes from Flo at Say Hello to My Little Friends and I am finally going to do a review of what I won today. Since she’s new to the gang and my modern girl, I thought I’d let Charlie help out with the review.

But before I get to the big stuff, I wanted to take a quick look at the little prizes that were included along with the big MLA cupcake baking set.

Again, ignore the terrible picture quality. I was in a rush and didn’t correct my camera settings.

As you can see, there’s a micro binder perfect for school, a mini purple notebook or possibly journal, an adorable rubber duck, an Eiffel Tower charm that will almost certainly belong to Grace when she eventually comes home with me, and my two favorite things from this mini bundle of gifts: a coffee cup candle that smells good and would be a great prop for a cafe setting, and a mini Apples to Apples game with real cards that you could actually use to play.

I showed the Apples to Apples game in use by my girls at their slumber party in my last post but here’s a closer look at the game they had set up:

I think Kit was judging this round and the two options for Goofy were Hamsters and Spider-Man. Charlie put in the Spider-Man card, and even though Kit didn’t know who that was, she though it sounded goofy so she chose that card as the winner.  I haven’t found uses yet for all the little stuff that I got, but I imagine I will as my AG collection grows and I set up different scenes to photograph. The big prize however was the My Life As Cupcake Baking Set, and I’m excited to have Charlie show that off for you.

Kasey introduces … the American Girls!

Hey everyone,

Despite the fact that American Girl dolls are one of my favorite things that I collect, I haven’t actually done any posts about mine yet, so I wanted to change that today since I just welcomed a new member to the AG doll crew (TrulyMe 58 for the curious)

Growing up I read all of the AG books I could find at the library. This was back when Kit was the new girl (and in fact I think she wasn’t even available when I first started reading these books) so it was just the originals (Felicity, Molly, Kirsten, Addy, Samantha, Kaya, and then Kit). I always loved the historical stories and whenever I could get my hands on a catalog, which was rarely and usually around Christmastime, I wanted an AG doll so badly but they were crazy expensive and I was a bit of a tomboy who had eschewed such girly things as dolls so I never asked.

Kit was, from the first time I saw her, my favorite AG girl. She had a bob cut which I envied because I had long hair that went down to my butt that my mom wouldn’t let me cut, she was a writer, and a bit of a tomboy.

Anyways, fast forward to earlier this spring when I randomly thought about AG for the first time in probably years, at least seriously. I did a quick Google search and visited their website and immediately went to look for the historical girls. That was when I realized that there were some I didn’t recognize, and that some of the ones I was most familiar with (Kirsten, Felicity, and Molly) weren’t even for sale anymore. But Kit was, and in her brand spanking new BeForever meet outfit I thought she was ridiculously adorable.

I think I visited the website dozens of time over a month or so before I decided that I needed to have her. I was a little self conscious at first because I hadn’t made my collecting interests very public and my mother tends to be very judgmental of my purchases, but I decided I needed to own Kit anyways, and it has just gotten crazier from there.

I received Kit during spring break when most of my roommates were gone and she was perfect. I was worried I wouldn’t like her as much as I thought and that I would regret my purchase but I definitely didn’t. I quickly ordered her a few more outfits and started rereading her series, which I hadn’t read since I was a kid.

I also realized that Kit looked adorable in just about anything. Seriously. Take a look:

This is one of my favorite outfits for Kit. It’s not an AG outfit but an outfit called Urban Explorer by Dreamworld Collections, LLC Here are some more pics of her in that particular outfit:

Kasey reviews … Fandom of the Month Club July 2015

It’s that time of the month again! Even though this is only my second month subscribing to Fandom of the Month club, my first post was from last month’s box, so I’m very excited to continue this monthly series and show you what I got this month!

I had a very good idea in advance which fandom was going to be picked for this month because of a clue given on the curator’s Instagram page, and luckily it was a fandom that I am, well, a fan of, so I have been excited all month. Although I think in the future I prefer to be surprised as to which fandom was chosen.

I saw on Facebook that there are 3 different colored boxes shipping out now, and I was hoping to get a green box, but I got another red one just like last month. If you are new to this subscription service, here’s what the box looks like:

As a quick refresher on this subscription service, it ships out once a month for a cost of $13 + $3 shipping (so $16 total) and contains 3-4 pieces of fandom-related jewelry bundled up inside a cute screen-printed mini canvas bag. Each month represents one fandom and fandoms have been / will be repeated. I don’t want to spoil which fandom came in this month’s box on my main blog page, so click on the read more to see what this month’s fandom was!

Kasey reviews … The Science Behind Pixar

Hey everyone,

Long time without a post, so I’m excited to change that tonight. A few months ago I heard that the Boston Science Museum was going to be hosting a temporary exhibit on the science of Pixar so of course I immediately freaked out and knew that I would be going to see it. I was able to go a couple of weeks ago with a friend of mine and it was absolutely amazing. But before I go into that (and share a few pictures!), let me just give you some info from the Museum of Science website.

So the exhibit is at the MoS from now until the beginning of January 2016, so if you’re in the area or thinking of visiting, there is still plenty of time to go. You can get a ticket online that includes admission to the main exhibit halls for $29 if you aren’t a member, although I think if you just want to see the Pixar exhibit you can buy a ticket at the museum for closer to $10 (don’t quote me on an exact number!). Members can buy a separate admission ticket for just $5.

During the day there are admission times every 10 to 30 minutes from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm, so there are plenty of chances to go if you decide to buy a ticket at the museum the day of. The basic setup of the exhibit is that you first watch a short introductory movie before being admitted to the main exhibit. The movie is just a quick tour of all the different parts of the animating process and their departments at Pixar.

Once you get into the main exhibit hall, you can stay in as long as you want — the website recommends about 75 minutes and I think my friend and I probably took about 90. Throughout the room are different areas dedicated to all the different segments of animating. Each area has a video monitor where you can watch some really interesting interviews with people who work for Pixar, and then usually an interactive part where you can play around with some of these things yourself.

There were of course, also plenty of larger than life figures of different Pixar characters. So let’s take a look at some of the pictures I took!

This is a banner hanging above the stairs to the exhibit hall.

We were in the 3:00 group as you can see on the screen!

Here are a few of the signs in the waiting area where you stand in line before they let you in to see the film.

Do I look like Buzz? (I’m wearing an Inside Out Sadness shirt!)