Romantic Alice Pullip

Alice was a birthday gift from my husband back in July, and I finally freed enough space on my worktable to get some pictures of her. Alice in Wonderland is a popular theme in Japan, and Groove, who makes Pullip dolls, has made several takes on Alice, with Pullip's friends filling in occasionally for other characters in the stories. For example, Groove has also made Romantic Alice in pink and monochromatic versions. And my Pullip Alice du Jardin is yet another "take" on Alice in Wonderland. Alice du Jardin is really stretching the Alice in Wonderland idea. Romantic Alice at least has a blue dress, apron and striped socks, even if the clothes are rather Lolita-esque. I took these pictures at different times of day with different lighting, so don't mind if the color in the pictures is all over the place.

Here is Alice, mostly complete. For some reason, Romantic Alice also came with a lace cape. It's pretty, even if you can't see it from the front very well, as it's not very full. However, Alice can't wear hers, because not only is the neck fastening super tight, but instead of a hook and eye, this cape has a hook and... hook. Luckily, it is an easy enough repair if you can hand-sew.

Alice's dress and apron have net, lace and tucks galore. She wears a chain with three charms: a teacup, a key, and a crown. Her necklace was "Made with Love."

Like other Pullips, Alice has an eye mechanism that lets her eyes look left, right and center. Rachael pointed out that with Pullip Alice du Jardin, her eyes seemed to go farther to her left than to her right. Romantic Alice's eyes seem to go a bit further.

A note about the brown hairbow: it's a pain. It came on the top of her head, with the lace ties wrapped around and around her neck. If you want to see her necklace, or put on her cape, or redress her, or whatever, the hairbow has to be tied at the bottom of her head at the back. Tying a top-heavy bow on a huge doll head that has lots of hair, was not fun. Maybe I'll put elastic on instead.

Even under the net overskirt on Alice's dress, there are tucks and lace, that you can't really see because of the overskirt. And I think this color is the closest to the color of the dress in real life.

A last couple shots of Alice, with and without her apron.

I think it's funny that the first doll I debut in my new roombox is really too tall for it. I will probably add more on top of the wood paneling, but I haven't decided what yet. Most of what I will be sharing pictures of in my next posts will be better sizes, although I do have another new Pullip in the queue. I should be able to improve my lighting for those, as well.

Groove Pullip Alice du Jardin

For a while, I put off buying a Pullip doll, because the JPGroove official website was advertising some kind of future sale, and picturing three dolls that I was already interested in buying. I was hoping the three dolls were going to be sold in a reduced price three-pack. Instead, the dolls were full priced, but you also received two bags of eyechips, two bags of shoes, and a wig. In other words, Groove is dumping stuff from the Make It Own line, that didn't sell. Well, I certainly could use more shoes for my J-Dolls, and any Pullips I might get in the future that have wonky shoes. The spare wig looks very nice too, although I didn't get a picture of it. So I don't have anything to complain about there. You'll see the extra shoes at the end.

When I pulled Alice out of her shipping box and paper wrappings, I had an "Oooooh" moment that I haven't had in quite a long time, when viewing a doll in-box for the first time. As far as I'm concerned, for a higher-priced doll,  you should be impressed when you first view it. I knew exactly what she looked like; I've seen lots of owner pics of her. But just viewing her in person made me excited to own her.

Let's go over her head, clothes and accessories. As you may know, Pullips have a small lever in back that lets you turn their eyes from side to side, and also open and close the upper lids. Unfortunately, I didn't get a pick of the eyes in different positions. And when I closed the eyes, at first I was afraid I wasn't going to get them open again without brute force. It's been so long since I got Alice, that I've forgotten exactly how I did get them open. I'm pretty sure there's also a knob on the back of her head. Either I had to push that in, or the actual lever, to "release" the eyelids. I took some new pictures later to show how her eyes work and made it into its own post, which is here.

Alice's hair is gorgeous, and mostly in ringlet curls, but there are lots of loose hairs that create frizz. I'm very thankful that I have my Pleasant Company American Girl wig brush. I've been gently trying to brush her hair and incorporate some of those loose hairs into the curls. It's only going so-so, though. I may just have to accept some frizz, because it really doesn't spoil her look. What is a problem is that her bangs look crooked. I say look, because I haven't tried yet to re-adjust her wig, to see if that fixes the problem. If not, I'm going to very carefully give her a bit of a trim.

She's a very attractive doll, though not everyone's cup of tea. But I'm fine with her over-sized head, and I love her outfit, which is very well made. It was a little bit startling at first to see the J-Doll body, that I'm so familiar with, with an enormous head and outfit to match, but I'm getting used to her.

It was a surprise, however, to find out that there's no way to attach the huge brown bow firmly to her head. There is a stiff headband underneath the bow, yes, but it doesn't fit her head snugly, and it doesn't seem bendable to where it would fit. So her bow has to be carefully laid on top of her head. Considering her large noggin already makes her difficult to pose, this is just another challenge. She also came with the stuffed rabbit and stand. The rabbit is wearing a small clock-face pendant, as a small nod to the very loosely interpreted Alice in Wonderland theme. I'll tell you a bit later on why she's not wearing shoes.

Her costume consists of a dress with net underskirt and ruffle, an elaborate apron, and ruffled cuffs on her arms. I'm not sure whether those are supposed to be pushed up to the end of her sleeves, or worn as cuffs on her wrists. On the one hand, they tend to slip down and cover her hands in a very impractical fashion if they're worn on her wrists (although what part of this costume is practical, really?) On the other hand, they look strange right below the sleeves, at least to me. Like if they were meant to be there, why not just sew them onto the actual sleeve cuffs?

I called this clothing piece below an apron, because that matches the Alice in Wonderland concept. This is really an elaborate overdress, that could be worn as a dress on its own. I'm going to have to try to get a non-blurry picture of this. The viewing lens on my camera is so small that it's impossible to tell whether a picture is blurry until I upload it. And I've already put off this review for way too long as it is.

Underneath the dress is an underskirt made mostly of net, with a ribbon, a ruffle and lace trims. You can also see her underwear, and her stockings. Those stay on her fairly well, as opposed to most of the stockings that I've gotten with J-Dolls. That may be because these are made of a stretchable knit, as opposed to large-scale pieces of lace, as many of the J-Doll ones are.

Even without all of the fancy outer trimmings, the dress itself does not disappoint. I left the underskirt on, but the dress has its own ruffle with row of lace, tucks in the skirt and puffed sleeves, darts on the front of the bodice, a bib with pleated trim, and neckbow, although that is actually a separate piece. I'm almost scared to untie it, if I ever wanted to redress Alice. Would I ever be able to tie it again?

I only have one ridiculously small quibble with the dress, and that is that the stitches on the outside of the dress are made with white thread, instead of cream, which would not stand out as much as the white. But considering how well the entire costume is made, and how elaborate, that's really nothing but the perfectionist seamstress in me talking.

And now, for the shoes. Oh, those infamous Jun Planning/Groove doll shoes. If you've read any of my J-Doll reviews, most of the shoes don't even fit, although that's nothing compared to the pair that disintegrated before they even came out of the box. You can be sure, then, that I wasn't necessarily going to expect that a nice pair of shoes was going to accompany any Pullip, as oftentimes they wear the same shoes that I've already had bad luck with. From the pictures, however, Alice's shoes seemed like they might be one piece, and even sturdy. And indeed, the pink part is one solid piece, that fits relatively well (the giant rose covers the fact that there's lots of room between the upper part of the shoe and her foot.) The one-piece gold bow and straps are also sturdy enough. However, apparently if something can go wrong with a Groove doll shoe, it will. When they came out of the box, both shoes looked like this:

However, within about fifteen minutes, one shoe ended up like this:

At least the pink part is still one sturdy piece, and the bow hasn't broken into little pieces! Yeah, I may have low expectations here, but at least that means that the parts can be glued back together. Conceivably. I tried Loc-Tite super glue this afternoon, and the glue was more interested in sticking the shoe and my fingers together, than sticking the gold piece back to the shoe. However, that was only a first try. I'm sure there's lots of other things I can try, so I haven't given up yet, although it means Alice did not get to pose in her shoes for this review.

She also came with a stand. It's rather nice, with a large base and nice waist grip. The only problem is that the upright part of the stand is telescoping, which can mean it's difficult trying to stand up a doll with bending knees and ankles. At least for me, Alice wanted to collapse at the knee just as much as she wanted to stand straight so I could fit the grip to her waist. Also, the base and the upright section are two separate pieces, which kept coming apart, as the hole in the base, and the post of the upright section, are both very shallow. And of course, there's the fact that Alice is very top-heavy, but that's nothing to be surprised about.

To sum up, I'm really happy with my purchase. The body is nice, I like the face, the hair is perfectly acceptable as is (at least it's not filled with glue), the clothes are gorgeous, and her hairbow and bunny accessories are cute. I may get a tiny hairclip and sew it to the bow, to keep it in place on her head. The shoe coming apart is something that I would imagine could happen with any shoe with separate pieces glued together.

And speaking of shoes, here are the two shoe packs that came with Alice.

Nothing exciting, which is why I imagine that they didn't sell well. I myself looked at buying these a couple of times and decided against it. But I'm not sorry to own them. You'll probably see them on my J-Dolls at some point in the future.

The two packs of eyechips are not exciting, unless I decide I want to restyle a doll in the future, which is always a possibility. The wig, though. I haven't taken it out of the package because it seems so delicate, but this is the wig I got.

Photo belongs to Groove and is only to show the wig I received.

If I was going to pick a wig, this is the one I would have chosen, being the most elaborate. If you're going to get a wig-with-purchase, why not make it a more complicated 'do rather than a simple short cut? When I say it seems delicate, I only mean that I don't want to disturb those long ringlets until I'm ready to put the wig on a doll. And this also means that I can buy a Pullip who might be less expensive, but whose hairstyle didn't interest me, and swap wigs. Saving money, yay!

How do you feel about big-headed dolls? How do you feel about her Loli fashion? Any tips on how to glue Alice's shoe back together again?

J-Doll Abbott Street Review

I've been holding off on buying any more J-Dolls, even though I had some on my wish list, because in my opinion, the retail price was just too high for the quality of the doll that you got. However, I was fortunate enough to read about sales at the online Groove Store that is in English and ships to the US. One of the sales Groove runs is a sample sale, which means dolls that were on display at conventions. The dolls usually don't come with a stand, and they may not have all their accessories. Supposedly Groove is very good about inventorying the sample dolls and letting you know what you're getting; there are no refunds. I ordered two dolls and it looks like both of the dolls came with all their accessories. The stands aren't that great, in my opinion, so I wasn't worried about getting one of those. I did end up not getting a stand with either doll. Shipping was also very minimalistic. This is how the box looked when I opened it.

When I pulled away the paper, the dolls were wrapped in plastic with their accessories loose. This is probably how they were transported to and from conventions.

Since I have a lot of great pictures of each doll, I'm going to review them one at a time. Today I'm reviewing the blond on the right. This J-Doll has the Type 4 body, and originally came out in 2010. She is named after Abbott Street, in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. Even after looking it up online, I can't really say much about Abbott Street. Some of it looks like a business area, some of it looks like residential, with gorgeous lines of trees on either side of the street. I didn't see many pictures of actual shops or housing.

So my girls needed names! I have named J-Dolls in the past, based on the streets they were supposed to represent. However, I just wasn't feeling Abby as a name for this doll. Since she's from Australia, I could have been somewhat cliche, and named her Sheila. I didn't feel like doing that either. I decided to name her after my favorite Aussie doll blogger, Rachael (only I changed the spelling; sorry Rachael!) So Rachel is her new name, unless the blogger Rachael objects!

Even though my first view of my new dolls was through plastic, I was reminded again of how delicate the faces of the J-Dolls are. Rachel also has shades of pale pinks and browns on her face, that come together really well with her hair and blue eyes. She's probably one of the prettiest J-Dolls I've bought yet.

Being from Australia, she of course has to have a hat. But Rachel seems to be a very girly girl, so she's put her own spin on it, adding a pink cameo on the front.

Some of her hair is held behind her head with a piece of off-white lace. I don't know how long that will stay on; it doesn't really seem to be firmly attached.

Her dress seems very boho, with her multi-tiered skirt. She has also decorated her dress with a belt and a chain, with circular and leaf-shaped charms on the chain. On her legs are lace knee-high stockings. She finishes her look off with what we in the US would call cowboy boots. Of course, she has also girlied the boots up by adding lace trim and applique.

As you can see in the middle pic directly above, she also has a jacket that she is wearing half on, half off. When I took pictures on the day with the Angelina Ballerina house background, I couldn't get the jacket on, because her right hand would not come off (and still won't!) However, I wanted to get some more pictures with better light, and this time, I managed to very carefully work the lace sleeve of the jacket over Rachel's right hand. With the left hand, it is far easier to do, as the fingers on her left hand are curled up. As is usual with J-Doll jackets in my experience, the jacket is very prettily detailed, but could have used a bit more material so you could see more of it from the front. Also, there is a loop in the threads woven through the top of her dress, where the thread got pulled. I'm going to have to try pulling the green thread straight, with tweezers.

And speaking of details, I really do like the details in her necklace, especially the fact that Groove used a lobster-claw fastener, which is rare in dolls Rachel's size. I also like all the lace and tiers in Rachel's skirt.

It seems, however, that the purse made absolutely no impression on me, since I only realized when I sat down to write this review, that I took no pictures of it at all! I didn't want to do a *third* photo shot with Rachel, so let me share this manufacturer photo, where the purse looks pretty much like what I got. Like her hat, the purse is made out of a kind of suede material, but Rachel has girlied it up with lace. Girlfriend really likes lace!

In the past, I've talked about my good fortune in getting J-Dolls that didn't have cracks in the plastic of their limbs. Well, my luck did not hold out here, although to be fair, these dolls were technically second-hand. I have no idea what previous handling these dolls had. Rachel's right arm has a crack near her shoulder joint.

When I went through my older J-Doll posts, I noticed that Abbott Street was on a wishlist I posted in 2015. Getting her in only two years isn't really that bad! I'm happy with the price that I paid for her, too. I've learned to enjoy these dolls for their beautiful faces, lovely inset eyes, and their poseability. The clothes and accessories can be hit or miss in terms of quality; I like most of what Rachel came with. Ironically, the boots are the sturdiest pair of J-Doll shoes that I've gotten to date, yet the lace on them makes the boots look a little off to me. Still, I am happy to have added her to my collection.

More OG Lori products, plus an outfit review. Also a brief appearance by mini Kirsten Larson

Mr. BTEG and I were hanging out together in another part of town, when he mentioned that he wanted to go to Target. What a coincidence, because I wanted to go to Target as well, to look for more OG Lori stuff! I did indeed find some new things, so I have so more pictures for you. There doesn't seem to be much out there about this line yet.

A doll with dark skin, and black hair in a bun, plus a girl with Asian features. And yet another dance outfit, bringing the total up to three dolls in dance outfits, that I have seen. I'm looking forward to seeing what the ballet studio will look like. That green furry skirt, though!

 A classic peacoat look here, done in red. Plus a dog to take for walks.

I think both of these dolls have made appearances elsewhere on the internet, but they were in the store, so I took a picture. The neck joint of the doll on the left looks odd. Also, her name is Lori. Brown-eyed blonds, like the one on the right, seem popular with collectors.

 This doll was pictured yesterday, but I got a better picture today. I love the ruffled trim on her skirt.

I also got better pictures of the individual outfits, and I have a better feel for why I don't quite like them. The fabric of the animal coat, plus the fur trim, just looks cheap. Also, I don't get the blue purse with this outfit. There's some sort of headband that goes with this outfit, but I don't know what it's supposed to be.

With this outfit, it's not just that the fur trim on the boots is plastic; it's also that the white especially stands out when everything else in the outfit is cream. The trim being plastic just makes it look worse, in my opinion, making it stand out even more. The rest of the outfit has good casual pieces, though.

Everybody seems to love the camper. I like it myself. So I took the time to open the little camper door this time, and take a picture with the light turned on. It is over the kitchen unit, but you could use it for a little bedtime reading, as well, while listening to the music of the crickets and frogs. The light makes the camper look extra cozy. On the down side, the pillows on the bed look thin, and the blankets won't cover a doll well.

 Outfit review plus mini Kirsten pictures below the fold.