Dolls and Doll-related Items for Sale

Sunday, January 28, 2018

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!



Wednesday, January 10, 2018

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.

Friday, January 5, 2018

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.