J-Doll upgrade, part 1: A look at the broken wrist

When you are trying to keep a blog, nothing goes according to the plan. I like to think of myself as a fairly organized person. Yes, I'm slow and overwhelmed with ideas, but generally, I make lists, never skip steps and my stuff has to be in the right place or I flip out on the person who moved it. I take pictures for the blog that I put in labeled and numbered folders, signifying the order in which I intend to write the corresponding posts. Yet there's always some event that disrupts the perfect queue and this is how my promised continuation of the hair care saga has been in drafts for months and also, how today's post came into existence.

One week ago one of the girls from the doll meeting messaged me with good and bad news. Her new J-doll came in the mail, but one wrist was smashed to pieces. She knew mine had a wrist problem as well and asked if I'd fixed it. I had to admit that no, I was reluctant to move it and break it any further. Unfortunately, things don't fix themselves if you do nothing about it. I bought a doll, not a statue. I decided I've had enough of that.

Wrist surgery

I took some extra time to prepare this post because I wanted to turn it into a more global tutorial. I was just about ready when Blogger had this annoying glitch for a couple of days. What was up with that? It drove me crazy! I half prepared another post while saving this one for a time when people could actually see it, but now it's fixed, and I know I kept the suspense long enough. I'm happy to say I got to the bottom of the blackening issue, then made a new wrist replacement, and another one for a different (not broken) doll. I now present you a full tutorial for fixing broken wrists/elbows/knees on any doll that uses the kind of joint seen in the first picture. The beauty of it is that it uses common materials and can be adapted for any size and colour!

The J-doll quest

J-doll Lavalle

This is a special post. I'm not much of a reviewer - there are people who do a much better job than me (pretty much everyone in my followed blogs list). I like to buy dolls, swap their clothes and play with them. This time though, I'll make an exception and review a much expected doll that I got recently. I'll concentrate on aspects I found curious or interesting, rather than doing a review by the book. This is entirely new for me, so there are many words and pictures ahead. Oh, and the doll? It's J-601 "Lavalle".

The Chinese fashion doll Xinyi

Hi there! I have some new furniture and lighting and I hope to do this more often now! Last week I took advantage of a wonderful rainy day to bond with one of my newest dolls - a Chinese fashion doll I bought online who arrived on my very birthday in December. I waited for so long to introduce her because I couldn't get her a decent outfit (more on that later). But she got into some construction dust and I had to wash her hair and dress. I also had to dust my latest order of doll shoes that I hadn't tried on her before and found the one pair that fit. Then, as I was arranging the wet dress into nice folds, I came across this piece of ribbon and literally tied the whole look together. My doll was finally presentable enough for the blog, so I got the camera and some doll companions and went to shoot today's review...

Miniature violin

I know, I know, I was supposed to write about something else but I just received this tiny violin a couple of days ago and it's so neat! I was just going to squeeze a picture of it in the J-doll post then I decided to separate it and I'll explain why...

How to improve a neck joint

Hi everyone! The past year has pushed the limits of my ability to use the unusable and make do with cheap things. In this quick post I will show you how I add up and down movement to a neck joint that only provides rotation.