Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Been really busy today, partially putting this room together. Barbie and the gang are hanging out a friend's waiting for the limousine to pick them up before they head out to enjoy the evening at their favorite Irish restaurant/bar.

St. Patrick's Day is a big deal around here. I actually did see a stretch SUV limousine parked outside one of the local Irish restaurants at about three, and the restaurant had to be packed to the rafters, considering the parking lot was overflowing. I also saw at least three limo-buses driving around, one with people all dressed in green clothes.

The shamrock lights and shamrock paper I got during my latest trip to the craft store. I'll be blogging about that; I picked up a lot of really nice things on that trip. I'll also be writing a post about my new room box set-up, which you can see above. Floors and walls can be switched in and out, and now I just have to create a bunch of nice window and floor sets to use.

Erin go bragh!

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.

Spirit Abigail by Just Play, Addendum: The Knee Breaking Is Common

I first noted the Spirit line in August of last year. Wow, these dolls have been on the shelf for a lot longer than I remembered! There were a variety of dolls and toy horses released for what was apparently a Netflix series sequel to the Spirit horse movie. There were three 11 1/2" dolls released of the three main human characters: Lucky, Prudence and Abigail. I was not the only doll collector who noted at the time that with the relatively nice-looking articulation, the dolls might provide good donor bodies. I'd been waiting for the dolls to go on sale, but that just wasn't happening, and finally I decided I'd pick up an Abigail doll to see if she'd make a good body donor.

I decided to take preliminary pictures of Abigail while she was still all in one piece. Little did I know that state of things would last for a shorter time than I expected....

This is how Abigail came, wearing a pink shirt, plaid leggings and some odd-looking boots. I'm surprised that none of the characters get helmets, except that the horses are sentient in the show and I guess would never throw their riders.

Here is Abigail with Petite Barbie, Teen Skipper and Made-to-Move Barbie. Without the giant head, Abigail's body is somewhat between Petite Barbie and Teen Skipper in height.

While in the process of getting Abigail's clothes off to get some pictures of just her body, I bent both of her knees, and when I bent the second one, I heard a crack, and suddenly Abigail's left calf was loose. She was still wearing her leggings at this time, so I didn't know exactly what had happened. I was afraid maybe her knees weren't meant to bend, but the right leg had bent just fine. When I got the leggings off, I saw what the problem was.

Abigail's leg *was* meant to bend, but the connecting post had just snapped. I did take some more pictures, for anyone who is still thinking about getting one of these dolls, but I got less and less enthusiastic the more I examined the doll, even after the leg snap. For one thing, the top of poor Abigail's loose lower leg looked rough and chewed on.

For another, the plastic of her legs made her look like she had burn scars and scratch marks. She also had staining on her leg. I'm presuming that came from the leggings, because the boots don't really touch her leg very much, plus the leggings covered her legs entirely.However, the staining is kind of angled, like her boots. Since the doll was already broken at this point, I don't think I cared very much how it happened.

Here is Abigail's right knee, with the intact knee joint. Sorry for blurry pictures. By this time, I was just taking pictures for posterity. I knew Abigail was going back to the store, and I just wasn't that interested.

Of course the other question when acquiring a new doll, especially for a rebody, is if the clothes will fit other dolls. Petite Barbie looked like the best option as far as size. I didn't want to try the leggings in case there was a staining issue, so I just stuck with the top. Unfortunately, Petite Barbie, while short, is still meant to be an adult female and therefore has a bosom, if small. Abigail is still supposed to be a girl, or a very young teen. Therefore, Abigail's top was super tight across the chest. Otherwise, the top would make a cute dress for our petite gal (who really should have a name this far into the post!)

There are also a couple of sewing mistakes on the back of the dress, which you can have with any doll, but which I wanted to point out.

Not even the feet were a good match for Barbie (or a similarly sized doll.) Abigail's feet are huge next to Made-to-Move Barbie, and they're also wedge shaped, being much wider by the toes. At least the broken leg made it easy to take comparison shots. XD

I suppose Abigail's big feet would be balanced out by her big head, if you were playing with the doll as is. And her boots are the same way, very large but balanced by her over-sized noggin. But they looked quite out of place on Barbie.

In the past, even if I've been iffy about a doll, I don't believe I've ever advised not to buy one. I don't think this doll is worth buying, even on sale. If you have a child who is really into Spirit, the dolls might be worth it, although I would still go with the smaller dolls because then you get all the horses too. If you were buying this doll as a possible body donor, on the other hand, I'd suggest you look elsewhere.

ETA: Based on a comment which somehow isn't showing up on this page (maybe the commenter deleted it?), I went and looked at reviews of the 11 1/2" dolls on Walmart's site. A full seventy-five percent of Lucky and Abigail's reviews said that the knees broke, and also mentioned the Prudence doll as having faulty joints. There were also mentions of little girl tears, which just makes me angry. The only super positive review was from a grandmother who *wanted* to buy them for her grandchildren, which wasn't helpful at all. I also discovered that Breyer made horse and girl rider sets from this series, so check those out if you want a set for a child.

Happy Lunar New Year!

Our lovely model shows us the accessories I bought for the Lunar/Chinese New Year celebration. They are two separate ORCARA sets put together, from their Happy Chinese Festival Celebration series. Despite the name, the sets in this series are not all strictly Chinese/Asian festival related. There is an Easter/spring one, which I have, and there is also a Christmas set with some kind of large bird waiting to be carved. Which always reminds me of the Chinese restaurant scene from A Christmas Story. Although the bird in the ORCARA set, fortunately, does not come with its head.

Peanuts are apparently very common for Chinese New Year, and you can see those on the blue plate, which is the only item that did not come from one of the Chinese Festival sets. I believe the filling of the cake-looking items on the white plate, is pineapple.The red round serving dish looks exactly like a Chinese candy box for the holiday, that I found online. You will have to scroll down there to see the picture. I also took a clear picture of the character on the tea pot, in case any of you who know the language wanted to see it.

I don't celebrate this holiday in the human world, but I've getting more interested in some Asian cultures lately, and I thought the above sets would be fun for my dolls to have. I wish health and prosperity to all of my readers, no matter the season! :)

J-Doll Punkka Street

This is the second J-Doll I got during the sale at Groove; the story of that purchase and the other review is here. This doll has been gracing the top of my blog for several months now, but I'm finally getting out her review. As always, this doll is named after a physical locale. Punkka Street is in Finland, "where an old castle sits amid surrounding forests and lakes." The theme Groove chose to use with her was "water sprite." I named her Anni after a Finnish vlogger I watch.

Anni photographs beautifully, but it was hard to capture the real color of her hair. The above picture was taken in our front bedroom, which faces north. I also took some pictures in my bedroom, which faces south. The southern pictures did not accurately capture the color of her hair. The ones in the north bedroom turned out better, plus I took a couple of pictures outside in the sunlight. Here is Anni wearing most of her outfit.

That's the last you'll see of those shoes. They're the same as the ones that came with Stephen Avenue Walk; they're way too big and don't really march the arch in her foot. She also has knee-high stockings, a dress with a thick belt, a small lace jacket, a hat and a purse.

Above she is standing, holding the purse that came with her. The purse is another wasted accessory, honestly. The faux leather has cracked and come off in multiple places, and I think this probably happened to all of these purses, and not just the display model. The color of her purse, shoes and the flower on her hat are also interesting to me. They don't match her hair, eyes, or the beading on her dress, nor do they harmonize. At least the hat is nice, so she could wear it with something else.

Here are up-close views of her jacket and belt. As usual for J-Doll, the jacket is a little on the small size. The belt is really more of what you might call a sash. There's actually a lot of material in it, sewn together in bunches, and decorated with beads.

I was not fortunate with Anni as far as cracking plastic issues. This is what her left arm looks like just below the wrist. Of course, she was a traveling display doll at one point.

And below are a couple of pictures I took of Anni in direct sunlight. I don't think the picture of the back of her head accurately captured her hair color either. It's probably actually closest to the pictures with the northern light. It's very nice hair, not super soft, but not overly coarse either.

She's a beautiful doll, and I'm glad I managed to get a good deal on her. She has too many outfit issues, plus the arm crack, to have been worth full price. Her delicate face and inset eyes are her biggest appeals; she'd make a lovely water sprite.

3D Printer!

Even though I have other stuff to post, I wanted to share my big news, because Mr. BTEG bought a 3D printer, and today he got it working! He's spent hours researching, at least an hour putting it together, and suffered a couple of setbacks, including the printer not having all of the required parts! The printer took some time to arrive here from China, so getting the right pieces from the manufacturer would not have been easy, either. Mr. BTEG, being the wiz kid he is, produced new pieces at the maker's center at one of our local universities. (Edited: he used a 3D printer to make the pieces that  he needed. How meta!) If he wants to share more information in the comments, that'd be great. I'm pretty sure one of the pieces is the bright orange one next to the black rectangle with the colored wires coming out of it. What he ended up making with the printer is a small rectangle with low sides, kind of like a mini tray. You can see the outline of the rectangle on the bright orange flat working surface.

I'm sure Mr. BTEG has a whole list of stuff that he wants to make, but I'm hoping there will be some time available to make me a few things too. :) He did buy a spool of blue filament since my favorite color is blue. I have a whole bunch of stuff that I downloaded from Thingiverse in anticipation of having access to a 3D printer. Never thought it would be at home!

I'm Having Commenting Issues

I really have been commenting on other people's doll blogs, but for some reason, Google is eating them! I'm really not sure what is going on, but I hope Google can get this fixed soon. In the meantime, I'm still out here.