New Mattel Sanrio Clothes, J-Dolls, Re-Ment Little Twin Stars

A lot of people have been buying and reviewing the new Hello Kitty, Little Twin Stars, and Chococat outfits made by Mattel. They looked great, so I had my daughter pick up as many as she could find on her last run to Walmart. Unfortunately, one of the things not there was the Little Twin Stars two-piece top and skirt set, but I did get the Little Twin Stars blouse, which was good enough for this photo shoot! Back in May of 2017, I reviewed a Re-Ment Little Twin Stars set which featured a pink shoe, a blue shoe, a LTS purse, and a tiny LTS stool which really doesn't fit in anywhere. The shoes ended up fitting my J-Dolls beautifully, so I bought a second set, so I'd have two pink shoes and two blue shoes. I decided the LTS shirt/purse combo was too perfect to pass up, so here is Melanie wearing the Mattel top, with the Re-Ment purse and shoes. Adelheid is also modeling, wearing the Chococat dress and cat ears, carrying the purse, and wearing the blue Re-Ment shoes.

I really love this new line of clothes Mattel has put out. It's certainly a step up for them quality-wise, and I hope we see more of it in 2018. Now that I have the Chococat dress in hand, I suspect the reason the dress is not printed on the back, is because the back is a completely different material to the rest of the dress. The printed part of the dress is a very stiff cotton, while the back is a stretch material. You notice that the ruffle, which is the same fabric as the front, does go all the way around and has the same pattern. I'm guessing it was a fitting design choice here to make the dress out of different materials? Anyway, there might actually be a reason there isn't printed material on the back of the dress, while on other things like the red Hello Kitty shirt, there is.

Somehow I missed that the Chococat dress and purse set also comes with black cat ears! How cute! And they fit the J-Doll head, although I have the two ends tucked into Adelheid's hair, which might help.

I also love the pique material that the Little Twin Stars shirt is made out of. And the blanket stitch is a pretty alternative to the ubiquitous serged edge, but you still don't need to fold and sew down the edges. The Little Twin Stars print on this shirt is a far darker shade than the Re-Ment items, but I think the purse still really looks cute with the top. Melanie finishes off the outfit with a tulle skirt from the Shibajuku Girls line. It's not a perfect fit with the top, but the pink looks cute with the other pinks.

The purse also came with the Little Twin Stars charm, which is removable, not exactly surprising considering how detailed Re-Ment can make things.

For you J-Doll owners who might want to hunt up this Re-Ment set on eBay or elsewhere, here's a picture of the shoes, purse and stool. Seriously, what was the point of the stool? It's too small for anything, except maybe a footstool for a Kelly doll. Again, please remember you have to buy two sets to get a pink pair and a blue pair of shoes. You'll also get two purses that way, at least.

The Little Twin Stars items were fun to pair up here, but the real story is these great new clothes by Mattel. Is Mattel signaling that the company wants to create better quality clothes again as a whole? I really hope so. Also, there are a lot of blogging Barbie doll owners out there snatching up these clothes, and I hope a lot of parents are buying them too. Hopefully, sales will convince Mattel that better quality will still sell.

Lots of Toy Sales at Target

I stopped really quickly at Target tonight for a few things, but of course I had to breeze through the toy aisles while I was there, right? Shibajuku Girls outfits are now $6.98. I think all of the Ever After High dolls, such as they are, are on sale. Monster High dolls are on sale as well. A few of the Barbie Video Game Hero dolls are marked down. And Twozies packs are marked down as well. I may or may not have brought home a couple of Shibajuku Girls outfits and a few EAH dolls that had faces that I wanted. :)

And yes, I know I need to post a real post soon! I'm working on Chapter Three of my story, I promise! I have some photos ready for that, and also have some photos for another two posts that I'm working on. I need to take *more* photos for all three, and then type them up! I'm going to plead busy; my youngest daughter's high school graduation party is next Sunday, and I'm also starting to work on stuff for my eldest daughter's bridal shower, which is in September. Lots of fun, but lots of work!

J-Doll Wigs, Outfit and Shoes

I let myself get way too far behind in blogging, and then when I finally went to put up a new post on Thursday, I discovered that our home internet was down. Time to get back into the blogging groove!

Back in October of 2013, I purchased my first J-Doll, Unter den Linden, whom I named Lindsay. She's a beautiful doll, but her long, blond haired wig was rather dry. Now that there aren't as many dolls out there that I want to buy, I have been spending more money on clothes and accessories. I saw a couple of relatively inexpensive wigs in J-Doll size and decided to take the plunge to replace Lindsay's original wig. I bought two, one a short cut with auburn hair, and one of long dark-blond hair with bangs. Which one do you like better on Lindsay?

I also purchased a knit tank top and tiered skirt from the same Etsy seller from whom I bought the wigs, a place called LazyDaisyWorkshop. I asked Lindsay to model this for me as well. I think the outfit goes nicely with her new long-haired wig.

Lastly, I've been buying a lot of Re-Ment lately! I decided to take a gamble and buy a set from the Little Twin Stars bedroom series and see if the shoes fit my J-Dolls. And they do! They take a little bit of easing on, but that just means they stay on well. Also, keep in mind that Little Twin Stars had a pink and blue theme, pink for the girl star and blue for the boy star. Therefore, each original set had one shoe in pink and one shoe in blue. Once I determined that the shoes from this set fit, I bought another set so I would have two shoes in each color.

If you want to think about getting these for your J-Doll or Pullip, the dolls modeling these shoes have the type four body. I also tried a shoe on my J-Doll with the type three body, and it did fit her as well.

Lastly, a full length picture of two of my J-Dolls wearing the shoes. The brunette with the braids is wearing a Shibajuku Girls dress that I reviewed here. If you remember from my review, the interfacing of this dress kept rolling up so that it showed at the top of the neckline. I've since tacked that down by hand underneath the collar, and it has also made the collar lay flat. The blond on the left is wearing a dress from Robert Tonner's Only Hearts club line, and it is extremely versatile, as it will also fit Mattel's Stacie, and Hannah at Never Grow Up has put this dress on an Ever After High doll as well.

I'm finding that I really enjoy picking up all these new things for my dolls!

Shibajuku Girls Clothing Packs

I've seen information about the new Shibajuku Girls line of dolls online here and there. They have a sort of anime look, and their clothes are supposed to be based on Japanese harajuku fashion. I'm not interested in the dolls, but I did decide to check out a fashion pack when I saw them at TRU.

I didn't realize until I bought my second fashion at Target, that Rachael has already reviewed a Shibajuku Girls doll and her outfit, here. She's got some excellent comparisons of clothing swaps between the SG dolls and several different dolls. My post won't be nearly as comprehensive; I just wanted to show the two fashions that I bought. Also, while the fashion packs do come with one giant hair clip accessory, I didn't get pictures of those. The hair clips would suit a Pullip or Blythe or similar doll. The fashion packs do *not* come with the shoes or socks like the dolls come wearing.

The first outfit I bought was a black vinyl jacket and dotted tulle skirt. The skirt fits the Made to Move body, and closes in the back with Velcro. It's not exciting, but it is nicely made. Like the dress below, it has a ribbon underneath that goes between the legs. It fits a bit shorter on the Barbie body than I would like.

The sleeves of the jacket are far too small for a Barbie size doll, and also too short. I had to remove Ashlynn's hands to get the jacket on her, but the fit is fine once you get it on. The jacket is held together at the bottom by a piece of Velcro. For some reason, the sleeves are slightly gathered on the seam, which is odd for a "leather" jacket. I also nicked a small hole in one of the sleeves while cutting off one of those wretched plastic tags. Still, whenever Ever After High starts its motorcycle gang, Ashlynn will be ready.

Grrrr. I'm a Rebel.

Next is a dress, which I liked because of all the different colors, especially the ruffles at the bottom. It looks cute on Briar. For reference, this is a Ballet Briar who I rebodied. I also took down her bun/roll.

The facing of the neckline kept rolling up on Briar. I'm not sure if it's because of how it fits the Ever After High body, or if it will happen on the Shibajuku Girls doll it was actually made for. I can tack the facing down with thread, but the collar pieces don't lay nicely either. They're not completely finished underneath, only along the edges, which I think contributes to how they roll up. I suppose I could make a very tiny tack at the corners of the collar pieces, to hold them down. Or I could try steaming them flat with my iron. I'm afraid if I try to tack the collar pieces down, they will rip a hole in the dress.

The armholes in this dress are incredibly tiny, so the number of dolls it will fit are limited. I had to take Briar's hands off to get this on, just like the jacket above. The Velcro also sticks out a lot in the back. But at least the dress patterns go all the way around to the back *cough.*

At $9.99 each, these outfits are not *cheap,* although you do get the hair clip in addition to an outfit, if you're into those for your dolls. But these outfits don't really work for Barbie, who has fashion packs in abundance. There are no commercially produced Ever After High outfits, for example, out there, and a handmade dress from an Etsy seller will probably cost you more. The price point isn't bad considering these are somewhat uniquely sized. Also, if you like the outfits, but not the dolls, as I do, it's great to be able to buy the fashions separately. The other outfits I recall seeing were a pastel fabric jacket with a pastel tulle skirt, and the sailor schoolgirl uniform that Rachael reviews. If this first wave of dolls goes well, I hope we'll see more fashion packs down the line.