Haunted Dolls: Annabelle

Today, I want to talk about dolls. More specifically, haunted dolls! I have always had an interest for the paranormal (even though I would probably cry, faint and vomit all at the same time if I ever saw a ghost) and I have always found haunted dolls to just be so fascinating! This will be a series of different post, each featuring a certain doll, because otherwise this post would be miles long. I will try to feature the more famous haunted dolls, but I also want to include some lesser known ones. Even if you don’t believe in paranormal stuff, these are still interesting stories to read.

Today’s haunted doll is… Annabelle.

Fun facts about Annabelle:
1.The doll in the movie The Conjuring is based off of Annabelle the doll.
2.Ed and Lorraine Warren, the paranormal investigators in this case, were also paranormal investigators in the Amityville horror house case.

Annabelle is a Raggedy Ann doll that was purchased from an antique store by a mother in the 1970’s for her daughter named Donna. At the time, Donna was living with her roommate Angie and preparing to graduate from nursing school.

It was just after the doll was given to Donna that strange things began to happen. In the few months that they had Annabelle the doll, their claims included getting a creepy vibe from the doll, noticing that a limb or the position of the doll would move, the doll moving rooms by itself, the doll leaving them a chocolate boot as a holiday present and the doll leaving them notes that read “HELP US” or “HELP LOU” in a child’s handwriting (Lou was a friend of the two).

About two months after they had Annabelle, they said that they came home one night to find the doll “covered in blood”. This was apparently the last straw for the girls and they decided to call in an unnamed medium who conducted a séance in the girl’s apartment. The medium said that Annabelle was a girl who had died on the property and was communicating to the girls through the doll because “They were the only ones who she could relate too”. The girls felt for this doll and agreed that Annabelle could stay with them, a decision they would later regret.

Even though the girls were content with the mediums explanation, Lou still felt uncomfortable with the doll and tried to convince the girls to get rid of it. This apparently angered Annabelle because Lou claimed both that he woke up one night with Annabelle on his chest and that after attempting to get rid of her he was clawed across the chest by an unseen entity.

The group was frightened by these events and decided to contact the clergy. They were directed to the husband and wife team of Ed and Lorraine Warren.

Ed made the claim that this was the activity of a “demon” and that the doll was a product “between the earthly realm and hell itself”. The Warrens claimed that this demotic entity would soon possess someone from the trio and later kill them. Father Cooke was called in by the Warrens to perform the exorcism, but Ed and Lorraine said that they still suggest the group get rid of the doll. The doll eventually ended up at what is now called the Occult Museum, where it still rest today.

So what do you think about this story? I’m still not completely sure how I feel about it, some parts seem a little far-fetched to me. Have any of you ever visited Annabelle? I would love to know in the comments below!

If you want to learn more about Annabelle, I recommended these two articles:
http://www.nightwatchparanormal.com/annabelle-the-doll.html
http://www.warrens.net/Annabelle

Disney Princess Royal Bathroom Set Review

I’m back for my second review, this time of the Disney Princess Royal Bathroom Set.

I had been wanting some doll furniture for a photography shoot I have been planning, but I soon came to realize that I owned none. Not even a measly plastic doll fork. So, I went on a search to all of the flea markets, super markets, thrift stores, etc. in look for cheap doll furniture. I kept getting more and more frustrated as I went on. Stores either had really expensive doll furniture, (Monster High was $25.00 a set. Ouch.) boxes full of pieces of various broken furniture, or they sold no furniture at all. I even tried looking online, but when I added up all of the shipping cost it would have totaled up to the same price as the more expensive doll furniture sets. Maybe I’m just super cheap, but I just don’t feel that miniature plastic furniture should cost that much.

I was at Toys R Us one day with my sister when I came across the Disney Princess furniture sets. I was so excited when I saw that they ran for around $14.00 per set, the cheapest price I had come across yet. I ended up purchasing the Royal Bathroom set. Here is the packaging it came in:

Front

Back

A pro I noticed right away was the fact that the packaging was super easy to open! Children’s toys always seen to be stapled, pinned, tied and glued inside extremely thick plastic that is even hard to cut open when sharp scissors. This packaging was easy to open with just my hands.

Everything is also preassembled, yay!

The plastic strips that held the smaller items in were also really easy to tear apart.

It includes eight items in all. A bathtub, toilet, soap bar, bath tray, body scrubbing brush, body pouf, perfume bottle and a bottle of… something (Maybe it’s supposed to be liquid soap? I really can’t tell.). And no, the bottles do not open nor do they have anything in them. Here is the furniture all laid out:

The items also have really cute designs and details on them.

In the store the Disney Princess dolls looked smaller than my 10.5 inch Monster High dolls, so I was afraid they wouldn’t be a fit. But they fit just fine!

Some parts of the furniture are removable, as shown below, and they can come apart into really small pieces. If you have a child who just likes to stick things in their mouth, be aware of this.

This furniture line, as far as I can tell, is not any higher or lower quality than any other run-of-the-mill doll furniture you might find. It is made out of cheap, shiny plastic, but so are all of the doll furniture sets you will find in stores.

This line of furniture has what I would call the basics. They included all of the furniture you need but nothing more. You won’t find a variety of accessories in this line. If you look on the bright side, this does mean that you can have a very customizable lot of furniture if you want. You can easily buy singles of other furniture and extras you might like from different brands, flea markets or even make your own to add to your furniture sets. But, of course, this is up to you. If you are fine with just the furniture that comes with the Disney Princess sets then you can still have quite the nice collection of furniture for a reasonable price.

Overall, I am quite happy with this purchase. I could find no large flaws with these products and they come at quite the affordable price. Will I buy more of these products? Absolutely!

Do any of you own any of these furniture sets? What do you think about them?