Dolly Review: City Girls Harper (New York Doll Collection)
From the New York Doll Collection comes the City Girls, a line of dolls themed around the boroughs of New York City. City Girls are 18″ tall dolls with stuffed torso’s and vinyl limbs. Sent for review was Harper, a girl made to represent the Bronx. Harper has the darkest skin tone of the dolls so far. She’s a little lighter in real life than in her promo photos.
Each doll in the line has their own unique background. Here’s a bit of Harper’s story, as written on the company’s website. “…I live in Riverdale with my Dad, Grandma Elaine, and younger sister Violet. My mom passed away when Violet and I were really young, so Grandma Elaine came to live with us. I love Art. I am a painter and love to sew. Grandma Elaine taught me how to sew dresses and accessories. I’ve gotten to be so good at it that I now design my own dresses, shirts, and accessories!… My favorite place in New York is the Metropolitan Museum of Art… My biggest dream is to have my own fashion line for girls and women who want to look artistic, unique, and express their creative sides through what they wear.”
One of the things I like about this line is the face mold. Harper has a round face with chubby cheeks. I think it’s rather cute! She has dark brown sleep eyes and long lashes.
Harper is wigged and has long silky dark brown hair. You can comb and style it. I’m very happy with the quality of the hair. Sometimes 18″ dolls like this can have course, rough hair, but Harper’s is the opposite.
As I mentioned earlier, Harper has a stuffed torso with vinyl limbs, like many other 18″ dolls. Because of this, I wasn’t sure if she would be able to stand on her own. Surprisingly, though, she stands like a trooper! This is because of her hard, densely stuffed torso. On a similar note, the cloth body is a good color match to the vinyl limbs, which isn’t always the case.
Since the character wants to be a fashion designer, it’s no surprise that she’s wearing a stylish outfit. I love the fur vest, long orange shirt and black leggings. The fur boots complete the look. Harper wears a Queen Elizabeth the Second pendant. I don’t know about you, but I’d totally try to rock a look like this! Per usual, velcro is used on the outfits, but the way they utilized it is a little better than other companies.
Overall, I like Harper. Having never seen these in person, I wasn’t sure what I was going to think, but I am happy about the quality that I see in the City Girls dolls.
You can order a City Girl for yourself via their website. Don’t forget to follow them on social media, too: Facebook, Instagram. What do you think of Harper? Who’s your favorite City Girl? Share your thoughts in the comment area!
Fashion Doll Quarterly, Winter 2017 Issue
Do you subscribe to Fashion Doll Quarterly (FDQ). If so, you may see a familiar name in it! Jane Easterly, the showrunner of the annual Pullip convention PUDDLE, was kind enough to ask me if I felt like writing coverage for the 2017 event, that would later be submitted to a magazine. That magazine turned out to be FDQ!
Check out my PUDDLE coverage in the Winter 2017 issue! I touch on a bit of the history of the show, as well as the day’s activities, vendors and contest winners! PUDDLE may have started out as a small gathering of Pullip fans, but ten years later, it’s grown into much more than that.
At PUDDLE, I went around and asked people why they attended the show year after year. While, of course, they mentioned their love of the doll brand and seeing all the amazing custom dolls on display, the one answer that everyone gave me was this: the people. It’s all about the people, the community of collectors that attend every year. While I didn’t directly quote anyone, hopefully that point came across loud and clear in this write-up.
So, next time you’re at Barnes and Noble, check their magazine section for the Winter 2017 issue of Fashion Doll Quarterly! I hope you enjoy reading the coverage as much as I enjoyed writing it!
Collection Close Up: Madame Alexander Dionne Quint- Restored!
At a doll show recently, I picked up a fixer upper composition Dionne quintuplets doll made by Madame Alexander in the mid to late 1930’s. She was in dire need of a little (well, a lot of) TLC from my favorite doll doctor, Dr. Noreen. Dr. Noreen has restored a few other dolls for us, including an antique bisque doll and a smaller Dionne baby.
This new Dionne had good eyes and face paint, but suffered from large cracks in her face and, unbeknownst to me, a bubble in her composition. Bubbles form when air gets stuck between the composition and the base of the doll. To fix this, the good doctor would have had to restore a lot of the eye area, which would have disrupted the original paint and been a much more costly and invasive restoration. She decided against doing any work on the bubble, which was fine with me, as I didn’t even notice it until Dr. Noreen pointed it out.
But, lesson learned. If you see a composition doll with a lot of bubbles under the composition, you may want to pass on picking it up or, at least, barter the seller down a bit. And definitely ask the seller if a doll has any bumps or bubbles on their face when shopping online.
The real thing that I wanted Dr. Noreen to fix were the large cracks, which took away from the doll’s cute face. Also, I really wanted her to work on her hair, which was a mess. Well, in a few short weeks, Dr. Noreen delivered on all fronts! Check out her handy work.
Her chin had to be repaired, as it had lost some of the composition.
The Dionne’s torso had some cracks, too, which were expertly filled in.
The human hair wig was restyled by Dr. Noreen into something that resembles an actual hairstyle (and not a bird’s nest). She did a wonderful job cleaning this girl up!
It’s amazing how much better she looks with the cracks filled in! It will always be obvious close up that this Dionne had some face cracking, but from a far, you can barely tell. Now, instead of the cracks drawing your eye, it’s her cute chubby cheeks and delicately painted features!
Truth be told, I wondered if buying this $30.00 Dionne had been a mistake after purchasing her. But, after seeing the magic Dr. Noreen did on her, I’m very happy to have picked this girl up! You can find Dr. Noreen on Facebook or, of course, her website. What do you think of this restoration? Share your thoughts in the comment area.
Dolly Review: Little House Covered Wagon/Horses (The Queen’s Treasures)
The Queen’s Treasures has always been kind to my blog and channel. They’ve sent many awesome things to show off on the blog. This last item, though, takes the cake for being the biggest item sent for review. Today, I’m going to show you the Little House on the Prairie inspired Covered Wagon, complete with two of the plush horses (sold separately from the wagon). The Covered Wagon/Hitch comes with a conversion kit that allows you to make your wagon into a sleigh.
The wagon and hitch measure just over 4 ft long, which makes this a huge statement piece! Made of real wood, this 18″ doll accessory requires a bit of set up. Instructions are included, but, truth be told, they are a little wordy!
Eventually, we got this together. However, we decided to not change it into the sleigh, because we didn’t want to risk not getting it back together. (To make this a sleigh, you remove the wheels and replace them with sleigh pieces.) Watch the video review, linked below, to learn a bit more about putting this together, as well as to really see the scale of this piece. It’s hard to tell how big it is in photographs!
The Queen’s Treasures Covered Wagon is large enough to fit two 18″ dolls in the front seating area. There’s also room for dolls to lay down in the back half. I’d imagine this could hold at least three 18″ dolls, if not four, which makes it a great display piece!
On top of that, the wheels actually move, so you can pull the hitch or push the wagon for active play. I love the colors of the wheels. They look great against the grainy color of the wood used for the rest of the wagon.
The wood is a little rougher than I expected. That being said, at least this isn’t made of plastic. The use of real wood makes this piece stand out among other 18″ doll accessories, which doesn’t surprise me, as The Queen’s Treasures is known for their quality!
I love, love, love the little trunk included in this set. To not take up needed doll space, there is a special spot to store the trunk, just outside the seating area of the wagon. The trunk opens and closes and has enough space to hold small accessories.
While the hitch is included with this wagon, the horses are not. Those are sold separately. They’re plush with no articulation. The horses and wagon aren’t exactly scaled to the 18″ Laura Ingalls doll, also sold by The Queen’s Treasures, but for this set to truly be scaled for the doll, it would have had to be much larger.
Besides sending these awesome products for review, The Queen’s Treasures also set up a coupon code! Use “CONFESSIONS” while checking out on their website to receive 10% off of any item, even sale items! (So, if an item is already 35% off, you’ll get an additional 10% off of the sale price!) I encourage you to check out the site and do a little holiday shopping! The winter holidays are coming up fast!
You can follow The Queen’s Treasures on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I love the Covered Wagon and think it will make a great display piece my dolls. I love that it fits multiple 18″ dolls, too, and that it has the ability to be converted into a sleigh fit for winter. Photographers, this is a great prop to have on hand for your dolly adventures. It’s also a wonderful accessory to have under the Christmas tree for the Laura Ingalls fan in your life. Alongside this release, there’s a whole slew of other Little House on the Prairie merchandise on their website.
Definitely check out the video review to see the massive size of the Covered Wagon/Hitch and two horses. And don’t forget to use the coupon code “CONFESSIONS” to get a little extra bang for your buck for a limited time on The Queen’s Treasures website.
What do you think of the Little House inspired Covered Wagon/Hitch set from The Queen’s Treasures? What are you picking up with the provided coupon code? Share your thoughts in the comment area!
Spotlight: Rolling Rock Dolls
Rolling Rock Dolls is an eBay/Etsy shop run by Celeste, a mom whose passion for designing affordable clothing for her daughter’s dolls turned into a business. All ready to ship, Celeste makes clothing for dolls of various shapes and sizes, though it seems the most popular looks are for 18″ American Girl style dolls and the smaller Wellie Wishers.
Celeste reached out to me a few weeks ago asking if I would be interested in reviewing an outfit from her Etsy shop. Noticing the variety of outfits available and the affordable pricing, I agreed. For review, Celeste sent a strapless dress in royal purple satin. Along with the outfit came a crown and purple boa for added effect. While the outfit for review is very dressy, Rolling Rock Dolls offers outfits of all styles, casual to dressy to princess’y!
While the dress didn’t fit my Pleasant Company Molly, it fit my mom’s Mattel American Girl just fine. I was surprised that the top fit as well as it did, being strapless. The outfit is sewn well and looks very pretty on this American Girl. My dolls usually are in more casual attire, but for an imaginary evening out, this dress looks great!
To give you a little more insight into Rolling Rock Dolls, I asked Celeste a few questions about how she got started.
Question: How long have you been creating outfits for dolls? What got you started?
I have been making doll clothes for about 4.5 years now. I got started when I got my daughter an 18 inch doll from a flea market and found out that their clothes are pricey. I did not know how to sew at that time and I initially just wanted to learn how to sew. This business has been “accidental”, but I am glad I continued on with it. I love when I get feedback that I made little girls/kids happy with their doll clothes.
Question: Do you collect dolls yourself or just make outfits for them?
I collect dolls myself but I did not use to. I was influenced by my own business to keep collecting dolls and still have so many dolls I want to purchase for my collection.
Question: I see you make clothing to fit the Disney Animator dolls, what made you start making outfits for them? I don’t see that very often!
I saw a Disney Animator doll online and I thought they were the cutest. I love the facial expressions and their toddler form.
Question: What makes your Etsy store different from others?
Checking at other Etsy sellers, my prices are usually way down than the competition. I also offer doll clothes for various types of dolls like American Girl, Baby Doll, Corolle Les Cheries, Wellie Wishers and others. I constantly offer promo codes and I keep updating my inventory. Also, my items are ready to ship, I ship 6 days a week except for Sundays and holidays.
Question: Where can people find your sites?
http://stores.ebay.com/rollingrockdolls
https://www.etsy.com/shop/RollingRockDolls
https://www.facebook.com/RollingRockDolls/
https://twitter.com/RollingRockDoll/
https://www.instagram.com/rollingrockdolls/
I encourage you to check out Rolling Rock Dolls online. Maybe you’ll find an outfit that’s perfect for your favorite doll! What’s your favorite outfit from Rolling Rock Dolls? Let me know in the comment area!
Confessions of a Doll Collectors Daughter 