Cu-Poche and Ever After High

I've been wanting to take some pictures with my new Cu-Poche dolls and their sort-of-corresponding Ever After High dolls since I got the Cu-Poche ones. I bought the light strand, that looks like a vine, at Target on clearance after Easter. It's so perfect for lots of photo themes, I think. The blue bird is Re-Ment.

New Mattel Dolls I've Seen, Via Instagram

Since I don't own these pictures, and they're not off of an official Mattel site, I'm not going to post any images here. But supposedly in July, Mattel is introducing a new line of five dolls called the Wild Hearts Crew. The theme of these dolls is that they do "cool" things like take pictures, play video games, or ride a skateboard; that's what I'm getting from their outfits. I'm pretty sure you don't have to be an Instagram member to see Instagram photos, so here is the link where I saw the dolls. There's an arrow on the side of the first photo, where you can click through to see all five dolls. If you can see them, what do you think? As an 80s teen, the safety pin jewelry made me laugh. We did it first! ;)

There are also small Monster High logos here and there on the girls' clothes, apparently an homage to Monster High. I wonder if they are targeting girls who played with Monster High when they were younger, and are now doing other things. As I was writing this, I just remembered my 10 year old niece bought a skateboard while we shopping together, the last time I saw her.

The dolls have articulation in their necks, shoulders, elbows, wrists and knees, as seen in the photos. Also presumably hips. There are also different body types, so I'm wondering if rebodying to a Barbie head would be feasible. One doll is wearing a necklace from a Barbie outfit, so I'm wondering if these girls will be able to share clothes with Barbie dolls. These dolls remind of My Scene; they have larger heads and are "edgier" than the dolls in the regular Barbie line. From a quick graphic I saw on Instagram, the dolls are going to be $14.99 each, and there will be outfit packs for them as well. They will only be available in the US at Walmart for now. I might buy one and review it, if I like the look of a doll, or think she would be good rebody material. XD

News has also been floating around about new Mattel dolls in the likenesses of K-Pop boy band BTS. Here is a webpage that talks about fans' mixed reaction to images of the line, but also has a good photo of each doll. I think I would only buy Jimin, but again, I wonder if these would be good for body swaps with pale-skinned Kens. Would anyone else like to see a line of dolls from a K-Pop girl band? I would! The BTS dolls are due to appear on shelves in September.

New Dolls! Cu-Poche by Kotobukiya

Today I have brand new dolls to talk about, from a line that I imagine is new to many of you. They are from a company named Kotobukiya, a Japanese company which has been around since 1953, making toys, figures and novelty items. These dolls are from the Cu-Poche line, a group of vinyl dolls made in chibi style. In Japanese, chibi apparently just means "short." In the greater world of those interested in Japanese culture outside of Japan, chibi means a child-like character with exaggerated features. This type of character can be seen in anime and manga art. For all I know, chibi also means a small, cute, child-like character in Japan currently too, but I don't have access to any experts on Japanese culture.

Cu-Poche dolls are made of PVC and ABS. Mine have fabric clothes; some have vinyl clothes. There are generic figures, characters from popular Japanese entertainment, and a handful of fairytale characters. The two I chose are Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. Here they are inside their boxes. I like how the front of Cinderella's box looks like a coach.

Here are the boxes from the back, showing you what accessories you get with your doll.

The doll inside the box is packed in a plastic clamshell, with more fragile items wrapped in plastic, and some of the smaller pieces have tape over the indentation they're in, to keep them from falling out.

I'm going to start with Little Red.

Both she and Cinderella are approximately 11cm, or 4.3 inches tall. Cu-Poche dolls have magnets in their feet, to help them to stand and hold poses.

We'll talk more about this stand at the end.

Lots more pictures and reviewing under the fold!

Happy Easter

It's been another odd holiday for us. Mr. BTEG is recovering from the flu, and I still have a bit of a cold, so we stayed quietly here at home. Fortunately, our daughters got to spend time outside the house, with other family. I'm a little down, but it will pass.

I'm in the process of reorganizing my part of our family craft/hobby room, so I didn't have a lot of space to get a picture set up. Heidi from When I Read I Dream looks cute in this quick pic I set up.

A blessed Easter to all of you who celebrated this holy day.

LOL Surprise Dollhouse Take Two

In one of my original posts about a LOL Surprise dollhouse that I made for my friend's daughter, I said that there were two little girls I knew who liked the dolls. The other is my niece, and although I wanted her house to be ready for Christmas as well, I kept putting it off. To be fair, we didn't get to see the extended family and exchange Christmas gifts until March. Some of you will remember that the entire BTEG family had a yucky cold through the Christmas holidays, and so we didn't want to spread our germs around. Then came a joint birthday party for the niece, and great-nephew, who have birthdays very close together in January. The three of us wanted to go down to Youngstown, OH for the day, but I think we were still a little wiped out from illness, and the high that day was about 16 degrees F, or about -9 C, so we were a little uncertain about taking a long trip in that kind of cold, anyway. Finally, Mr. BTEG's sister threw a surprise birthday party for her husband, earlier this month. Their daughter is our niece, who was getting the house. We made it to the party, and after most of the partygoers had left, their family and ours exchanged very belated Christmas gifts. Now, let's talk about the house.

I had some good ideas making the furniture this time around. Above, you see Stacie sitting next to what the store called plaques. I'm pretty sure these are generally used for decoupaging or painting or adding some sort of decoration to the front, to make a sign or message to hang on your wall. I painted these, added foamcore rectangles covered in muslin to the flat top, and they became beds. You could add a headboard, footboard, and feet, too. Of course, these particular pieces are only good for very small dolls.

Below you see the house in progress, and in front, a bathtub, chairs and a table. The bathtub and table were originally a box with a lid. The box itself became a bathtub, and the lid got legs added to it to become a table. The chairs were from a hobby store. I attached two beads to the "bathtub" for knobs, but I couldn't get a piece of wire to stick well enough for a faucet.

My work was not the best, but I used four pieces of balsa to make a couch with armrests, then painted it and attached four beads to the bottom for feet.

And below, the house completed and given to my niece. I had a hard time attaching the brick scrapbook paper strips to the front of the house. And I wasn't able to do careful cutting to the blankets that I sewed together with white fabric to make a blanket and flat sheet, and they weren't the same size. I ran out of time through procrastination (how often do crafty people do that?) I also learned that cardboard can warp a lot more than I thought it could, and that it was hard attaching something else to the sparkly scrapbook paper that I bought. But my niece got excited just taking the furniture out of the bag we presented it to her in, and was thrilled with the house. That makes it definitely worth it. She opened the two genuine LOL Surprise dolls that we also gave her and started playing with it right away. I hope she has fun dolly times with it.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

At Ever After High, the O'Hair twins are giving a tea party for St. Patrick's Day, using a special tea set from their great-grandmother. Madeline Hatter was invited, since everyone has discovered that she'll crash any tea party that she's not invited to, anyway. However, she did bring a tray of delicious macaroons from her father's Haberdashery and Tea Shop. Jillian Beanstalk is the fourth guest.

If the leaves in the forest are green, can a shamrock ever be seen?

The teapot, four cups, shamrock shaped plate, and ten cookies, are a Megahouse set. It also came with a clear spoon and fork, with a shamrock at the top of the handle, and a basket to store the cups. The spoon is on the table in the pics above, although you may not be able to see it very well.

On eBay, I happened upon a duplicate set to this one, only the teapot and cups were white, and not clear.

There were also a couple of other different sets that Megahouse made with a clear/solid version.

In the Ever After High webisodes, Jillian does have some sort of British Isles accent, that sometimes sounds Irish, so we're going with her being Irish. In trying to find out exactly what her accent was, Mr. BTEG discovered that Jillian's voice actress is originally from Cleveland, though. :)

Happy Pi Day!