LOL Doll Surprise House Project, and Two Knock-Off Dolls

I've never liked the LOL Surprise dolls very much, but two of the little girls in my life do. One is the daughter of my friend, who is four. I was trying to think of something unique, related to LOL Surprise, to give her for Christmas. I started thinking about furniture, because I don't know how many dolls this girl has, but from what I've heard, I'm pretty sure she has quite a number already and doesn't "need" more. However, since she's still only four, I was afraid anything I made that wasn't super sturdy, like wood and nails sturdy, would end up getting broken. Which was when I made the (possibly crazy) decision to make a little house. Part of what gave me that idea was some YouTube videos I've seen that show beds for dolls made out of foam core, and glued to a corner or wall of a room box. The house I've come up with for the four-year-old is basically a room box, but it's divided into two spaces, bedroom and eat-in kitchen. I'm taking pictures as I go along to record my work, so here's the first bits I've done.

Cutting out and gluing the foam core pieces together was nowhere near as easy as the YouTube videos show. Of course, Mr. BTEG only had a cheap glue gun, which I borrowed, so I'm not sure if that was part of the problem. I'm also not sure a high temperature or low temperature glue gun is the way to go when working with foam core. If anybody has any experience with this, let me know. I bought a high-temperature one, but then I found a dual-temperature one at another store, so now I'm torn. This box ended up mostly being held together with Contact paper, which was also used to cover the cut edges.

I attached two scrapbook pieces for the floor, wood for the bedroom, and tile for the kitchen. Then I taped on some scrapbook paper for the walls. Some of the paper that I bought is glittery, which I thought was a touch of which a little girl would approve. Of course, the paper sheds glitter everywhere.

The bare white wall on the right side is where a kitchen printout is going, when I get to the UPS store to get a color copy made. I found the printout online. The bunk-bed will be glued in the back left-hand corner. I'm thinking the kind of bed that has space for two on the bottom, with a bunk for one at the top.

Of course, it's easiest to make any kind of doll project when you have a doll to measure things against. However, I wasn't going to spend a huge amount of money on a doll, especially when ninety-nine percent of the LOL Surprise doll ball is stuff I didn't want in the least. So I picked up a couple of knock-offs from AliExpress, which finally arrived today.

I think I got knock-off Sugar, and Miss Baby. These dolls seem to have the LOL Surprise head, but the dresses and shoes are attached to their bodies, unlike the genuine article. I also got a pink bottle and pink seashell purse. Here's faux Sugar, minus her halo, which didn't come with her.

I had a... problem with faux Miss Baby. I realized quickly that her body was on backward! Or her head, whichever way you want to look at it. :) In any case, her toes and her face were pointing in opposite directions. Almost automatically, I twisted her body around so that the toes and face were both on the same side, but Miss Baby didn't have a head mounted on a neck knob, so I ended up with this.

I guess now you could call her Miss Baby Meets the Queen of Hearts. I'm going to glue her head back on, and hopefully it will stay.

The decapitation issue, not surprisingly, was not the only thing off about my two dolls. Their upper arms look strange in color related to the rest of their bodies, although I think Miss Baby is supposed to be wearing white gloves? In any case, the bottom of both dolls hands aren't painted at all.

Also, both dolls have chips off of their hair paint.

Think these dolls will ever become collectible, like clone Barbies and other clone fashion dolls are today?

So, work goes on with the house. I'm going to make the bed, with bedding, and a kitchen bench and table, and of course the kitchen printout needs to go up. I'm also going to put a piece of foam core up on the "roof," not as long as the house, but something the dolls can use as a "balcony." I got that idea after seeing that the official LOL Surprise doll house has one. By the way, the price for the official house is *insane.* You can get it for the low, low price of only $190.00 at Walmart!!! I wonder how many little girls will be disappointed this year that won't be getting the house. Some years, $190 could be as much as we spent on both of our daughters combined, or even less. I've discussed with Raging Moon how production quality issues could affect sales of these dolls, but being what I consider overpriced won't help either. As a matter of fact, that just makes quality issues like missing parts even more unacceptable.

Does anyone have any plans to gift a doll or accessory to a little girl in her life?

Petite Barbie Head on AliExpress Body

You've already seen my Princess of Japan, Hoshiko, using the new AliExpress body I bought for her. Today we're going to look at Eveleen, or Evie, who was originally on a Petite body.

Jointed Doll Body From AliExpress

Ms. Leo bought the same doll body that I have, and has already reviewed it. She used hers for the Asian Babysitting Skipper. I used the new body for my 2003 Barbie Princess of Japan doll. I also bought another, that I think is the same body, later. I paid $6.74 for one, and $3.58 for the other. You'll see how I rebodied the second one later on. Both bodies have extremely pale skin. Fortunately, the skin color suited Princess of Japan, as the legs of her original body were extremely discolored. Hoshiko, as I'm going to call her, was the first Barbie Dolls of the World Princess doll to use the Teen Skipper body. But if I wanted to dress her in anything but the kimono that she came in, that body really had to go.

Hoshiko's new body is also smaller than the standard Barbie body, which I think works out well. I currently have Hoshiko in an outfit that Fashion Fever Teresa originally wore. I think the colors work with her face paint, even if the dress is a little large in the bust for her. The sweater helps cover that. Her feet are a little smaller than the standard Barbie feet, but she is wearing shoes from a Fashion Fever outfit pack that work for her, and the dress.

The head really is a pretty good match with the body. And if she can't touch her face, well, it's better than the straight-armed, three-click knee body with the discolored legs that she was previously on.

As you can see in the picture above, her hands do have fairly visible seams. She also has a few issues on her lower legs. I'm wondering if I could use sandpaper very lightly to sand some of the problems out.

For $6.74, or for whatever around that amount you find these bodies on AliExpress, they're definitely worth it. While this body is not as articulated as the MtM dolls, it's far better than the old school Barbie body, at a lower price than buying a MtM for a rebody. The only issue here, outside of lower quality, is that these bodies usually only come in super pale colors, because they're made for Asian standards. A quick look over at AliExpress did find a couple of sellers who had doll bodies similar to Hoshiko's, with fairly dark skin. The only thing those dolls didn't have was a waist joint, or an under-the-bust joint. Hoshiko has a waist joint. Yes, you'll get to see what Hoshiko's body looks like without clothes, in my next review. I put the other body with the red-headed Petite Barbie, who will definitely have a name by the time I do that review! I'm not so sure how I feel about Petite Barbie with her new body, but since I have her on that body for the moment, I wanted to show you in case you want to do a switch yourself. I also should see how Hoshiko fits in her original kimono and geta. So stick around!

Ever After High Stuff

I finally decided to give Chinese website AliExpress a whirl, and my first purchase ended up being two pairs of Ever After High shoes. I picked them up from the post office today, and I'm happy with both pairs. Since they're not "official," they're not painted like many EAH shoes are, which I like, since they don't "go" with any particular doll's outfit or color scheme that way.

The first pair of shoes are from the outfit of Legacy Day Madeline Hatter. They look very pretty as Madeline wears them, with the teacups in different colors. I would also like these if they were all gold; Maddy's shoes are mostly bright gold, and I like the color. I'm not sure how well these shoes would take paint, however, since they are not solid plastic, but a bit more like rubber. In any case, they're beautifully detailed. Since I don't have a Maddy, Holly stepped in to model.

I could try just highlighting some of the details on these shoes with paint. That would be less of a worry than painting the whole shoe and wondering if the color will stain the doll's foot.

The next pair of shoes was designed for Cedar Wood. On Amazon, I saw a picture where the straps are a bright pink, and the leaves and the branches on the platforms made to stand out with some black shading behind them. Again, I might consider doing something with these shoes to bring out the patterns on the platforms. I also don't own a Cedar Wood, but since Ashlynn Ella not only loves nature, but can never turn down a new pair of shoes, she was glad to model for me.

Not only does Ashlynn have new shoes, but a very special furniture piece. I blogged about wanting to repaint this item about a year and a half ago, but I'm glad I never did. It belonged to a Cinderella doll set my youngest daughter had, appropriately enough, a shoe shop.

This bookcase reminds Ashlynn of her beloved mother, Cinderella. It even has a picture of her Dad, Prince Charming.

For now, I'm also going to display books from Legacy Day dolls on top. I only have one book right now, belonging to Briar. I'd like to get Legacy Day Ashlynn and Cerise Hood at some point, if their prices go down. Getting into Ever After High late, I missed getting some of the earliest dolls at good prices.

I have actually started painting some other furniture I have, now that the weather is warm enough (some days) to spray on an initial coat of Krylon before I start the actual painting. That will make up at least one other post, probably more. I'm documenting my work every now and then through the process.

Two more things:
1. I got both of my daughters watching the Ever After High webisodes. That actually made them interested in looking at my dolls! :) My youngest daughter even suggested she should get a Holly doll, and her sister a Poppy doll. My eldest daughter likes dying her hair, and just dyed one side purple, although it's more of a Raven Queen purple.
2. When I got my Legacy Day Briar in the mail, my husband brought the box in and opened it for me. At which point he said, "Briar? Don't you already have two of those?" (I do, First Chapter and Spring Unsprung.) I guess he does pay some attention to my dolls (although in this case I think a lot of that is because I've been buying dolls from our shared Amazon account.) He also watched a couple of EAH short videos with me, although he didn't get sucked in like my daughters' did. :)

Has anyone else gotten any doll items from AliExpress? I know SmallerPlaces has, and also BlackKitty.