Showing posts with label Tuesday Morning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tuesday Morning. Show all posts

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Ideal the Majestic Dollhouse

Dear Readers,

I recently got a new dollhouse!  I still don't have a house for my 6 inches dolls.  The Fisher Price Loving Family House is cute but is really more suited for children.  The bulky furniture and house décor was not truly what I had in mind for my delicate dolls. 

So when I saw the Ideal Majestic Dollhouse in a Tuesday Morning store, I really didn't hesitate to buy it. Once completed, the house will be 3 feet tall and fit dolls under 7 inches.  I thought about my new Ai-Dolls and how I didn't have a house for them yet so I went ahead and bought it.

It has working lights, 2 story tall, 6 rooms and more than 200 pieces of furniture and accessories to customize the dollhouse. It has 6 plug-in lamps that really glow (needs 6 AAA batteries).   For only $29.99, it was a steal.

The walls and floors are made of laminated cardboard and the beams and accessories are made of plastic.  This is obviously not going to be as sturdy as my previous wooden dollhouses.

The assembly of the house took less than one hour.  It was a breezy assembly and the instructions were clear but the cardboard pieces for the roof were too big and I had to trim them to make them fit.

This is the back of the dollhouse:

Once assembled the house looks quite spectacular!  The front wall opens up for each of the six rooms.  The inside is spacious and although it may look dark, the plug-in lamps provide an exciting lighting option.   Here below you see the lamps cords before I tuck them in their position closer to the wall.

The lamp has a cord that you plug in at the base of the room and you can turn the light with the switch located on the back of the room.  There are 3 pairs of plugging hole in each room so you can potentially add more lamps.  The batteries are hidden in the walls.  The picture below shows you the tiny black switch.  There is one for each light.

The dollhouse allows a lot of customization.  The package included 6 pieces of cardboard for the floor and each piece has two designs so you can easily change the look of the floor by flipping over to the other side.

There are also paint, paintbrush, painting rolling, stamps and ribbons but I didn't try them yet.  There is also yarn to weave the laundry basket, blankets and pillows for the beds, and tons of furniture!  A nice touch is that most of the cabinets have working drawers that you can pull out!

Here below are close-up shots of each room.  Please note that I did not add anything but the furniture and pieces that came with the dollhouse.  I did not apply any of the stickers provided or paint any furniture yet.  The holes you see on the walls are pre-cut and are for you to add frames, cabinets, etc.







Although the house structure is made of hard plastic, it is not strong enough to withstand normal children play, let alone rough play.  The floor made of cardboard is also too flimsy to endure any kind of handling by children.  The house itself stands solidly but you can only move it by carrying it carefully at the base otherwise it may break.

Pros:

  • Easy assembly
  • Working lights
  • Easy access to the rooms
  • Many furniture pieces
  • Great possibility of customization
  • Fits 5-6 inches dolls
  • Good price

Cons:

  • Too fragile for young children
  • Roof did not fit unless trimmed
  • Cheap linen and furniture

I still like the house despite the flaws because it's an unconventional size that fits my 5-6 inches dolls like Ai-doll, Strawberry Shortcake, Little Dal and Little Pullip, LPS Blythe, etc.  Here below you see how the dolls fit inside the rooms.

This is how the house compares to the Loving Family House:


The options for customization is a truly fun bonus.  The working lamps are a wonderful addition and provide and instant WOW factor!  It sure beats the unsophisticated Fisher Price Loving Family House!  For an adult collector or older children, I would totally recommend buying this dollhouse.


Thursday, February 6, 2014

J-Dolls

Hello Dear Readers,

Thank goodness it is finally Friday!  I longed for some rest after this busy week :)  I was not going to blog again until next week but I saw these deals on Amazon.com and I just HAD to post about it.

Are you familiar with J-Dolls?  They were made by Jun Planning until Groove took over (it is also the company that creates Pullip dolls).  Well J-Dolls are like Pullip but without the big head.  They have jointed limbs and a very pretty face with strikingly beautiful stationary glass eyes! 

Here below is one of the most beautiful ballerina doll ever: J-Doll Rossi St.  According to this website, she was created in 2008 and her name Rossi Street is located in St. Petersburg, Russia, and is named for a famous architect who designed a theater familiar to ballet fans the world over.



They are named after a particular street in the world and they wear very fashionable clothes.  I noticed  J-Dolls have sometimes very adult-theme clothes like lingerie as opposed to the more fairy tales and anime-like clothes that the Pullip and Dal dolls wear.  They are certainly collector's dolls and not toys because of how fragile they are and the mature outfit they wear.

I never bought one before because a price tag of $60-100 seemed a little high, especially since the dolls do not have the same eyes mechanism like Pullip dolls and their head is stiff so you cannot tilt it or move it much.  And apparently they have very fragile wrists that break easily.

While I was looking for the Little Dal dolls on Amazon.com, I noticed the price on a J-Dolls and was quite surprised by how incredibly cheap it was! Some of the dolls are only $24.99!  I checked online to see if there were more and indeed, there seems to be a sudden boom of low-priced J-Dolls at the moment.

But wait, I found out that it was even cheaper!  Apparently the stores Tuesday Morning had been selling them for $19.99 in December 2013.  And the Little Pullip and Dal dolls were $9.99!!!  WHY DO I ONLY LEARN THIS NOW? T_T

Well I am too late as usual: I went to my local Tuesday Morning store and they had no J-Dolls left... but they did have some Little Dal dolls for $9.99.  Unfortunately there were only 3 types and I was not interested in them.

There were many Barbie, Bratz, La Dee Da, Monster High, and other dolls on sale in the Tuesday Morning store.  If you are a doll fanatic, you should totally check out your local store to see if they still have some of the dolls you might like!

Amazon was then the next best thing.  Of course, the rare dolls are not on sale and you would have a hard time finding them in any store but the cheaper dolls are still very pretty and constitute a great deal.

So I plunged and bought my first J-dolls :)  I don't have them yet but  I wanted to post about the J-Dolls today so you can get them at a good price while you can.  I have updated my Amazon store and added a J-Doll section.  If you decide to buy from my store, I thank you in advance for your patronage :D

Most of them will ship for free but some of the dolls require a shipping fee so you should verify before you check out!  I admit I usually buy from Amazon because of free shipping ^_^

Tomorrow I will go check another Tuesday Morning store and maybe I'll get lucky :)

Have a great weekend y'all!


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