Regarding Sandra, my reborn doll

It's been almost exactly two years since I talked about Sandra, the little reborn doll that I got off Temu.  She's still alive and well, and yesterday I grabbed her from Casa del Luna.  Here she's sitting on my lap, waiting for the carhop to bring us our food (Mama and I ate at Sonic).

While waiting I realized that Sandra has rotating shoulders and hips.  Yep, I've had her two years and I didn't know that, though admittedly I haven't played with Sandra much since I got her.  Anyway, now she can stretch out and look...well, a little more like a real baby.

Unfortunately, while I was monkeying with Sandra I noticed that her eyes have changed color.  They were hazel, and now they're deep blue with a violet ring around the center.

This was my own dumb fault for storing the poor child in an area where A/C can't reach.  Though this eye change would have to be noted and accounted for if I were trying to sell Sandra, I actually like the change.  I can always say that Sandra is a fairy baby or changeling of some stripe.

I have to admit that I like these iCradle babies.  Had I the room and the money I'd have more of them, but I don't so I won't.  These dolls are a good way to begin the reborn hobby though, kinda like Hujoo dolls make good starter ball-jointed dolls.

Ciao,
RagingMoon1987

The Temu baby

Well, I finally did it:  I heeded the call of trendy online shopping site Temu.  Temu offers lots of things for ridiculously cheap, but they also back up their online listings with reviews and owner pics...I think.  Maybe those reviews were done by Temu employees.  But anyway, I ordered a reborn baby doll...sort of (she's mass-produced), and I did this for three reasons.  One, to see if Temu was worth the hype.  Two, her sales pic was cute.  We all know how enticing sales pics can be...and also how misleading they can be.  Three, reviews said she's soft...which is exactly what eBay said about one of my other baby dolls, Mei.

Mei is a Ping Lau sculpt, something I can't resist, but she is definitely NOT soft!  Her vinyl is fairly hard, like that of a Wal-Mart baby doll or a Middleton doll like Adam.  For the record, Adam was not advertised as having soft vinyl...or at least, his Middleton brothers and sisters were not.

I like Adam better than Mei, overall.  He feels like a real baby in my arms, and who could resist that smile?

I will note that while neither Adam nor Mei have squishy vinyl, their cloth bodies are very soft.  With the right tools, both dolls could make superb reborn dolls.  Alas, I don't have the tools, the skills, the space, or the time to get the job done, so that's why I bought my own reborn.  

Bloviating over, my package came wrapped in orange Temu plastic and copious tape, but I was able to get it all cut off with no fuss.  The baby came in this box, entitled iCradle.  Never heard of it...<pauses to consult Google>...yep, they're mass-produced!  Wal-Mart and Amazon carry these, for about the same price (forty to fifty bucks American) that I paid for my doll.  Here's the box.

The box was not fastened shut, so I flipped it open and was mildly chagrined to see that this baby had zero padding.  She does have a plastic bag holding her together, but nothing else to protect her from scuffs.

As it turned out, I didn't need to worry about scuffs too much, but we'll see why in a bit.  Are y'all ready to see her?  Here she is!

Well...her hair certainly looks mass-produced!  See how it's painted like Mei's?

Wait a minute, I forgot to show y'all how the new baby compares in size to Adam and Mei!

Adam and Mei look like bigger dolls, but that's largely because the new doll's legs are molded in a bent position.  My Real Baby, Geneva, genuinely is bigger than the new girl. 

Geneva is just a big doll, period.  She would be a lapful for Sandy McCall, even more so than Salome was.  Anyway, the new doll has visible sutures in her skull.  See her soft spot?

I don't know beans from bull's foot about babies, but I do know that the sutures only tend to be visible when the baby is very small.  I remember Miss Emily musing about this when she was reborning Saskia, because Saskia was clearly an older baby...but she still had sutures visible.  But anyway...my mama calls this baby "Sandra," so I guess that's what I'll call her, but regardless Sandra has visible sutures.  She's also got visible veins in places (Mei, Adam, and Geneva do not, nor were they meant to).  I knew that reborn dolls sometimes have this (one of Miss Emily's dolls did), but with Sandra being mass-produced I wasn't expecting it.  Maybe someone did take the time to reborn this gal a little before I got her.  I had a hard time photographing the veins, but if you look closely you can see one right in front of her ear.  It looks like a little red lighting bolt.

She even has manicured nails!

Pretty cool!  Some folks don't like this level of realism on their dolls, and for other folks a few painted veins wouldn't be realistic enuff.  I'm not picky, so Sandra does me just fine.  She does have more blushing than I'd like in places, though.  Her wrists and her ankles are the pinkest.

I wonder why the joints are the most blushed here?  Babies don't crawl on their wrists and ankles!

Odd blushing aside, sometimes reborn dolls come with accessories and sometimes they don't.  I was delighted to see that Sandra did indeed come with several little freebies.  She's got her own headband, binky, bottle, and birth certificate, and I retained the tag for the sake of future reference.

Here's what the back of the tag says.  It's got a couple of examples of Engrish.

CHOCKING hazard!  LOL, it gets the point across, but I can't help giggling at that.  I love translation foibles!  I want to point out the binky, because...well, because even though it LOOKS like a real binky...

...it's not.  Adam and Geneva won't be using this bad boy!

It's got a magnet in it, as does Sandra's mouth.  Sandra can thus look like she's sucking on it, AND I can turn it any ol' way I want!

Usually babies get the binky oriented in their mouths correctly, but not always.  This comes off easily, by the way.  The magnet holds, but it only takes a gentle tug to separate doll from binky.  I make note of this because we all know how magnets can cling, and how babies can be stubborn!  

I'll also touch on the headband, even though it's just a soft piece of elastic with a lace bow attached.  

It stretches to fit and looks very becoming on Sandra.  It would probably fit Mei and Geneva too, but I'm leaving it on Sandra.

If Sandra is like all the babies I've known, then she probably HATES "having that ol' thing on her head," as my grandmother would've put it.  If Sandra were a real baby I wouldn't force the issue, but since she isn't real I'm having my way, LOL.

Overall Sandra is about what I expected from Temu.  She's a nice doll, but not on equal footing with the ridiculously priced uber-reborn dolls one can find on eBay.  She reminds me a bit of Adley and Annabelle, the two little semi-reborns that visited me at the library last fall, except that like Adam and Mei they were bigger than Sandra.  Even though Sandra isn't super-duper detailed she IS a nice little doll, one that could stand up to gentle play from a child and a fair amount of cuddling from an adult collector, just as Adley and Annabelle could.  She's also a good doll for a newbie to the reborn world, like I kinda, sorta am.  She is soft, just as advertised, and I've never, repeat, EVER had a doll that could hang on to her own binky.  I am curious about what iCradle's other products are like now; do they all come with little veins, or did someone legit work Sandra over a little before sending her to me?  I don't know, and I have no intention to find out since I don't need another baby in this size.  Adam, Sandra, and Mei are quite enuff for me!  Oh yeah, and Geneva, but she's kinda in a class of her own.  For some reason I'm extremely fond of Geneva, and I may do a post just for her one day.  

Baby Love,

RagingMoon1987 

Annabelle and Adley visit the library

There's no need to fear, Underdog...actually Underdog is on vacation, so y'all are stuck with me for another day.  Warning:  I have another post scheduled for tomorrow, so beware.  But today two little girls introduced me to their reborn dolls, and of course now I'm sharing them with y'all.  Meet Annabelle (the brunette) and Adley.

According to the girls' mother, Annabelle's nickname is "I Gotta Pee."  I didn't think to ask why, LOL.  Anywho, these two are semi-reborn and were purchased off of Amazon.  They apparently were not cheap, and I can guess why!  I didn't get a picture of their hands or feet, but they have blushing and manicured nails.  Their binkies are attached with magnets; underneath they have open mouths.  Unfortunately I didn't think to photograph that.  But they were very similar in weight, size, and expression to my Middleton doll, Adam.  Hmmm...Adley, Annabelle, and Adam.  LOL, what a trio that would've been!  Even though I need another large baby doll like I need a third head, I'm now off to Amazon to see what the going prices are for dolls like this.

Much love,
RagingMoon1987

Sunday randomness: a whole new level

A whole new level of weird, that is.  Frequent fliers of this blog know fully well that the Moon Girl revels in pushing the envelope of strange, but this one may be too strange even for some of y'all.  I'm going to birth a tiny baby.  Yes, birth, as in help it get born in a way.  Now this won't involve any blood, pain, or nudity unless I cut myself with scissors and have to strip (y'know, so I won't get blood on my new jeans), but if you're weirded out feel free to step out.  For those of y'all who choose to stay, this rather odd purchase was inspired by a video I saw on YouTube, one of this teeny-weeny little silicone baby being pulled out of an appropriately-sized amniotic sac.  The Etsy seller apparently has shuttered its store so I don't know where one could get something like this now, but I doubt this will be a repeat purchase so no biggie.  My baby came wrapped up in tissue paper and ribbon, just like a present.

I was only expecting one amniotic sac, but the baby came ensconced in two.  This bigger one apparently was used to cushion the smaller one during transit...I guess.  It's made of thick...latex?  God only knows what, but it's like a balloon.  It looks a little like a breast implant.

With all the protection that this baby got, I assumed that there would be fluids involved, and this bag reinforced that assumption.  There's a pad in there, and a tiny pair of plastic forceps.  Yikes!

My grandfather was a forceps baby, and he carried the scars for the rest of his life, in the form of a few small dents in his head.  Anyway, it took a fair amount of force to open the first bag, and inside is the second bag.  I see a little bald head in there, and an umbilical cord.

Here's the sac from the side.  As y'all can see, it too is tied off like a balloon.

This second sac fits comfortably in the palm of my hand, kinda like a stress ball.

Yeesh, I've seen stress balls that look like womens' boobies, but not babies in utero!  Regardless, I could tell at this point that the sac had no fluid in it after all, so I relaxed about making a huge mess and opened it up.  Once again, I had to exert quite an effort with the scissors, but the forceps were not needed.  Here's my baby!

Hmmm...looks like one of those toys that grows when you let it soak in water.  Definitely not the prettiest thing, especially with that umbilical cord attached.  It's a very realistic-looking cord, but let's cut that off anyway, just like we would a real baby.

Still not the prettiest baby in the world.  It's made of rough, gummy material, and thus painting those little eyes and that mouth can't have been easy.  In addition to the baby itself and the "c-section kit," the seller included several items that should determine this child's gender...

...but all of that crap is green except for the little hat.  Luckily there's also a pram inside, and it's BLUE!!!

Huzzah, I got a boy!  He looks a little like an "Ichabod" to me, since he's so funny-looking.  He looks only a little less funny with his hat (which appears to be the fingertip of a glove).

Ichabod is a little one.  He fits nicely in the palm of my hand.

He looks ridiculous in his little blue pram, though.

All of Ichabod's toys are way too big for him, especially that binky.  

Well...maybe that bottle isn't too big.  Ichabod is rubbery and soft, and he's completely flat on one side.

Yeah...weirdest thing I've ever bought on Etsy, hands down.  Luciana's Tribble was a little goofy, but there was at least a rhyme and reason for that.  By the way, "Goldie," as Luciana calls her has given us zero trouble with breeding.  So far there's just the one...and Ichabod seems to think she's a pillow.

Don't get too close to her mouth, kid.  Goldie hasn't been reproducing, but her appetite matches that of the other Tribbles.

Very truly yours,
RagingMoon1987