Dollstagram and MCM Sale

Hey there, I live! I know, I know. Crazy, huh? Where I last left you over a year ago I was just about to move out into the country. Since then I've long since settled in and mostly have a combination of fluctuating interest, back pain, and a toddler to blame for my long absence. Not to say that I haven't been part of the doll community online. I'm still dollstagramming at least. Not that my photography has gotten much better! But I do enjoy connecting with other doll enthusiasts and enjoying their beautiful photographs.

The Madison Children's Museum American Benefit Sale was this summer and despite not feeling particularly dolly at the time, I still went. My Best Friend had to bail on me last minute (She was sick, poor thing :/) So it was just myself in there while my husband and toddler waited outside. Needless to say I wasn't in there very long, but I picked up what I wanted (from what I could afford with my limited budget this year.)

The spoils?

Molly's Swimsuit

Cecile's Parlor Desk

Cute polka-dot dress from Craft Sale

The dress was made by a woman in Nicaragua as part of a project to employ and teach underprivileged women there. Most of their clothing are inspired by world costumes but this dress called out to me. Check out chicanica.org for more information.

I've been busy with other doll-related things recently too but I'll save those for another post :)

Food & Pants

When I found Molly's Tea Set at the flea market I immediately wanted to get a hold of the silverware and birthday cake that once came with the set. The cost on eBay for the silverware was ridiculous, so I turned straight to calling American Girl to order replacement parts. From them, I managed to buy all the silverware, napkins, birthday cake candles, and a new set of glasses for Molly. (Though something tells me I could find those when I next raid my parent's attic in an attempt to find my doll stuff mixed in with my sister's.) The birthday cake I bought from a member of the AG Playthings board.

Molly's Birthday Cake

I've had all these pieces sitting around for a while, but I wanted a red tablecloth to display them on before I took and uploaded pictures. So today I finally ironed out a fat quarter of red fabric and hemmed the edges. Then I started taking more pictures...

Kit's Birthday Cake

Pictures of things such as my most recent eBay purchase, Kit's delicious-looking cake. It won't be long now before I buy the depression glassware set for her to complete the set-up.

My display of doll food and knickknacks on top of my bookshelf. Aurora has been dutifully guarding the curio cabinet for some time now.

Where both Molly & Felicity's tea sets reside on my dresser. You may notice Appa resting on my pillow in the mirror. I sure did...

 

So I decided that Sakari & Appa needed to meet.

By the way, I made Sakari's black pants to go under the tunic. It took two tries, as my first attempt to alter a pattern to fit  Journey Girl dolls made for some awkward-looking pants. I may embroider the hem to match Sakari's sleeves, but not today.

The Hobby Lobby Cabinet

I bought this mini cabinet from Hobby Lobby some time ago, intending on finishing as a display for my doll food. I promptly covered the glass, took off the hardware (grumbling about how one side was higher than the other) and pre-stained the wood. Since then, its been sitting in the basement, waiting for me to finish. I didn't think to take any photos of the before, so the image above is from Hobby Lobby's website. Yes, even the display image has the hardware on wonky.

Today I brought the cabinet up to take a badly-lit phone photo for you. Molly shows how much taller she is than the cabinet, and you get to see the current color of the wood.

I've seen these cabinets floating around etsy and Pinterest, painted to be used precisely for AG dolls. One Pinterest dollhouse had the cabinet upside-down and hanging from the ceiling in their kitchen. I think its sized perfectly for that- and I'd love to use it that way too if I had both the room and energy to build an AG dollhouse.

I'll update when I manage to continue this project. I have several going on right now so it may be a while. I figured in the mean time I'd get this post up to help motivate me and to help anyone interested in buying one of these the scale.

Journey Girls Ski Lodge Set

A few weeks ago I decided to take advantage of a 20% off sale and get the Journey Girl's Ski Lodge from Toys R Us. I had never seen anything from this brand in person but it looked cute online. I've wanted a doll-sized fireplace since I was young and would set up Christmas each year for my sister's dolls. My childhood fireplace was a badly-painted piece of cardboard with a string across it to hang my youngest sister's socks. Good times.

So I bought the Journey Girl's Ski Lodge... because as much as I love American Girl's beautiful parlor for Caroline, that thing costs $300. Maybe someday. When I have a place to put it. If I can convince myself to throw that much money at a non-doll doll-item.

 

Its a cute set. I pretty much knew what I was getting myself into as far as quality goes so there were no real big surprises. Anyone who's read any reviews knows that the chairs are a bit too small for AG girls to fit into properly. The little cushion had to be taken off to get her in.

I'm not really fond of the bright blue logo stamped on the front. If I were to keep the rest of the set, I'd want to repaint the chairs.

The coffee table is okay. I honestly don't have much of an opinion on it. Its just kind of... there.

Rug is hideous. But I've never been fond of animal print so maybe its just me.

The TV surprised me by being made of wood. I don't know why, but I expected it to be plastic and none of the reviews I had read said otherwise.

I may just be spoiled by AG food, but this food is cheap looking. I never took it out of the plastic. If and when I do, I'll add pictures of it as well. The photo I took through the plastic turned out way too blurry and is packed away in the box with most of the set at the moment.

And now we get to the main event - the fireplace.

Its a decent size. It came in three pieces that required a screwdriver. The stone facade is just paper. I hadn't noticed this from pictures online, but there are splotchy colored blots over the stone that are kind of ugly. The bricks on the inside are also paper. They have a slightly colored gradient added to them that I suppose is meant to make the center of the fireplace brighter... as if the fire is casting shadows onto it? I'm not really sure. I may eventually try to make my own paper to replace the ones the set came with.


Now this is the part where I both complain about Journey Girl's Quality Control and praise Toys R Us's customer service.

The paper was peeling off in places that made it impossible for me to fix without entirely disassembling the fireplace. I might have just dealt with this myself - After all, I was already thinking of replacing the paper, but that wasn't the only problem. There was a dent on the mantle.

I tried to ignore it, to pretend it didn't bother me. But it did. A lot. So a day or two later I called customer service and got a label to ship it back. They were very easy to deal with and I commend them for that. A few days later my new set arrived via UPS. It took me a few days more to ship the original set back- it was hard to get out of the house with a giant box and a six-month-old baby. UPS couldn't pick up the package themselves without charging me and that just wasn't going to happen.