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.

IKEA Furniture

A couple of weeks ago, Mr. BTEG and I drove from our house on the west side of Cleveland, Ohio down to the IKEA in Columbus, to buy a bunch of items that we have been needing for quite some time. Since we did buy several big items, the drive was worth it, and it was also fun browsing, and picking up a few things here and there that we could also use. One of the things that found its way into our cart was the toy bedroom furniture set from IKEA, of course. :) While this set has been around a while, and there are lots of pictures out there, I wanted to show you my own pictures that I took. Plus, I've never seen who could fit in the bed when it is stretched out to full size, and I've always been curious to know how Barbie would look. That picture will be at the end. :)

Mini American Girl Kirsten told me that she was a natural fit to model this furniture, seeing as it is her size, and also came from a store that originally came from Sweden, just as she did. She also told me that if I brought her along on our next trip, she could teach me how to pronounce all the Swedish words everywhere. I dunno, we enjoyed making up wacky pronunciations, just for fun. Or trying to use the German pronunciation that we are used to, to pronounce some of the words, which may not be the right way to pronounce Swedish. Anyway, on to the pictures.

Okay, I don't remember furniture looking like this back in Sweden.

The bed comes with a comfy pillow, mattress, and blanket.

The bed also comes with a plush dragon. I would prefer my Sari doll, made for my size.

The wardrobe is a great height for me, and even has a metal rod where I could hang the clothes that I don't have.

Somehow, a picture showing the chair, that Kirsten is sitting on at the table, didn't make its way into my folder of pictures. Not quite sure how that happened! Anyway, the chair is just a little red chair, suited for dolls Kirsten's size. As I said, there are lots of pictures out there of this IKEA set. It's been around awhile. The colorful striped rug also came with the set. It's solid red on the other side, and is reversible.

The blanket that came with the bed can be problematic. It's a stiff felt type fabric, and doesn't have any drape. It has a giant fold on one end, as does the mattress, to accommodate for the fact that the bed can be stretched out, and wouldn't lay well over Kirsten in the bed, nor Barbie, for that matter. Of course, that wouldn't matter for most of the small kids this set was actually made for. :) My two daughters had Duplo dolls with furniture and bedding very similar to this when they were little, and exactness was not a concern to them.

I do have making more clothes for the mini AG dolls on my list. Actually, I thought it might be fun to try to make a mini version of Kirsten's spring outfit, since I do have mini check pink gingham. I also might now have to try to make mini dolls for my mini AG girls. The list just keeps getting longer. I did not know Kirsten could be so good at throwing shade.

And yes, when the bed is stretched out all the way, it does fit a Made to Move Barbie doll. Her head and feet come just to the ends of the bed, but she could sleep in it. It might actually be convenient for Barbie's Studio Apartment.

So is this picture going in the IKEA catalog?

I hope you enjoyed seeing my pictures.

Our Generation Mini-Dollapalooza at Target

Mini versions of established doll lines have been increasing in popularity, manufacturer after manufacturer getting in on the wave. Madame Alexander Travel Friends are not a mini version of a larger doll, but still a small play doll. There are mini Lalaloopsy dolls, Moxie Girlz, American Girls, Corolle dolls, Kidz and Cats, and Our Generation dolls. They're a great choice for economical doll play, which is probably driving some of the popularity. Now Our Generation has stepped up the mini doll game with a new line, Lori by OG. There are new dolls, new outfit sets, a camper, a home with a loft bedroom, and more!

Let me start with pictures of the new dolls first. A couple of the pictures are blurry; I was in a bit of a hurry. I spend too much time at Target as it is! There are a couple of dolls in dance clothes; there was a space on the shelf for a ballet studio, but it wasn't out on the shelf yet. Dolls with extra accessories seem to cost slightly more, but they're still a good price.

Here's the two outfits that were out. Lovely lace! is a cute outfit, but the white "fur" around the top of the boots is plastic and to me it throws the outfit off. I spot you! is, um, interesting. A spotted fake fur jacket and buffalo check pants? No. Just no. I still have hope for future releases. Individual outfit sets certainly are a nice thing to have, although they don't always sell well.

Let's move on to the camper, or as it says on the tag, a glamper. Glamorous camper, maybe? Ugh. Anyway, the camper looks full of play value, with two beds, a table with booth style seating, and a small kitchen area, with some cooking pieces included. There's also a small camping lantern, and it appears there are parts of the camper that light up. Probably above the kitchen, or maybe above the beds for a little reading before bed. I didn't take the time to study the interior too hard.

The crown jewel of this line is the house. It's got a built-in kitchen, with a bar and a few stools. As you can see in a picture above, there's also a separate bed and dresser set for the loft bedroom, and I think the last flight of stairs goes up to a rooftop patio. The herringbone fabric for the blanket is an interesting choice, but it does kind of fit in with the diamond pattern on the pillows and the dresser, I guess. I would have gone with flowers. :)

Not only do small dolls offer play value for a much lower price than their bigger counterparts, the extra benefit of play sets for the smaller dolls, like this camper and house, is that they take up far less space than the OG camper for the 18" set, or a house for the larger doll. It's interesting to me how the 18" doll grew to be so ubiquitous in the doll world, and now manufacturers are taking that 18" paradigm, and turning it on its head. I'm interested to see where this goes.