Bonnie & Pearl Dolls

Its always great to see a new doll brand and especially when its one from the UK. This little lovely is one of the many gorgeous offerings from a Welsh doll company, Bonnie & Pearl. Since launching their pop-up shop in Cardiff and now with their move to London, as well as their online shop, this is a brand that’s going far.

Founders Nicola and Lisa named their venture after their own childhood “best friends” – their dolls, Pearl and Bonnie, who kept them company through thick and thin. Now,

We make dolls that evoke the feelings we had as children, the excitement and joy that comes from opening the box for the first time and knowing you’ve found more than a toy, you’ve found a friend.

There are seven dolls in the Bonnie & Pearl range with a variety of skin and hair colours, all with sweet little faces and sleep eyes. One of my favourites is this darker skinned doll, not sure if I like her or the redhead best!

Each doll is 19″ tall with soft vinyl head and limbs and a soft middle, much like the Karito Kids dolls. They are jointed at the shoulders and hips with a tilting head, and the hair is a high quality acrylic wig.

As well as the meet outfit and accessories, each doll comes with a cardboard bed to sleep in, plus a comfy pillow, perfect for the perfect night’s snooze.

I’m impressed with the design of these dolls and also the range of clothing available, such as this cute school uniform

I think my favourite is the walking outfit:

The outfits should fit 18″ dolls such as Gotz and American Girl, with the usual caveat on different body styles between dolls – I suspect they will be a little too generous for Kidz n Cats dolls.

Overall these are lovely creations by people who clearly care about their dolls and their customers – if you’re local to Cardiff, Bonnie & Pearl run a regular “dolly hair salon”, plus their website features recipes and fun doll-related craft projects to try.

You can see the full range of dolls and outfits at the Bonnie & Pearl site, they are also available via Petalina and mydollboutique.

Its that SALE! Time of Year

Ah, following on from the festive season, come the sales! And the same applies in the world of dolls..

Now, first up is KR Bears & Dolls, offering a 10% discount of any in-stock product, but hurry, that’s only until Midnight on Sunday Jan 12th – that’s tonight, eep! Here’s the link – Trisha’s planning a site upgrade soon so be sure and check back frequently to see what she’s done with the place 🙂

The Dolls House has a whopping 25% discount off everything on the site for the whole of January, just enter the code at checkout – more details at the website

Meanwhile Petalina has sale pages for Dolls, Clothes and Accessories with some good discounts to be had, might be time to get something from your wishlist at a little less than expected.

Over at Nellie Rose most of the outfits are reduced, you’ll have to hunt from page to page to find them though as her separate sale page is only for accessories.

There are some great offers at My Doll Best Friend, some of her outfits are on sale and nearly all the Gotz dolls are reduced in price, well worth a look: Gotz dolls at My Doll Best Friend

Mydollboutique usually has a sale going on, but if you’re in the bargain hunting mood its still worth checking out: click here for the sale page

Fab Furniture (Countdown to Christmas)

Another in my series of seasonal gift suggestion posts..

Ok, you have your dolls, and your outfits, but they need some things to make life more interesting, or at least just places to chill out. Luckily, there is doll-sized furniture available – this great shot from mydollboutique shows some of the options available, from beds and wardrobes to chairs and even a chest of drawers:

All these and several other items are to be found at the mydollboutique furniture page.

With several dolls, why not invest in bunk beds? I love these ones from My Doll Best Friend, made of hard wood with pink cotton bedding they’re ideal for a doll sleepover. Find them here. There are matching single beds in this design available also.

And why have one chair when you could have two and a matching table to boot? Again from My Doll Best Friend, this set is of solid wooden construction, though will need an adult to assemble. Click here

Here are some fancier chairs with table from mydollboutique, they’ve been on my wishlist for ages, I must admit – you’ll find them on this page.

Personally I’ve fallen in love with these pink metal frame beds that My Doll Best Friend is stocking along with her wooden beds. They come with bedding in pink heart, white heart, pink patchwork and the white patchwork design shown. Sadly, while the furniture above is ideal for 18″ dolls, these beds are a little smaller, so will give a good night’s sleep to Soy Tu, Schildkrot and other 45cm dolls only.. The bedding sets are availble to buy separately, which is handy. This bed and the others can be found via this link.

As a final shout out for doll bed design, here’s a clever one from Petalina. This beech wood bed comes with pink butterfly bedding as shown and is the perfect size for 18″ dolls such as Gotz. Petalina’s page can be seen here

So what’s the clever part? Well, you can buy extras for it – buy a second bed and a ladder and voila, bunk beds. Or stick with a single bed, add rockers and yet another style of sweet dreams for your beloved doll to drift away with.

Oh and finally, wardrobes! Along with the mydollboutique one shown in the top most image, you can find nifty wardobes like this plain white one by Kidkraft over at Petalina: here

And this fancier pink-curtained version is over at The Dolls House here.

Yep, going to some nicely furnished doll bedrooms in the offing with any of the items above, we’re all definitely spoilt for choice.

Images © Petalina, My Doll Boutique, My Doll Best Friend, The Dolls House & Kidkraft

Cardboard Creativity (Countdown to Christmas)

As the dreaded or delightful season of gift giving looms ever closer I decided to do a series of posts with some suggestions of what would be great stocking fillers or big pressies for doll-lovers, doll-owners or dolls themselves.

A little while ago I featured the rather ingenious village shop, made all of cardboard, from Frilly Lily, which you can read about in detail here, and which looks like this:

If you fancy something a little less pink, or a gift that’s even more creative howver, I found two great “colour-in” buildings, a castle and a house, over at mydollboutique.

The castle is a decent size, over a meter wide and nearly that tall (exact dimensions are 96.5 x 109 x 89 cm) and comes flat packed in panels that slot together. It can be coloured in with pen, pencil, paint or whatever seems suitable, and has pre-printed details of stonework, windows, door etc. The drawbridge lowers, even! As you can see in the pic above it looks great all coloured in, although I’m not sure blue would be my choice. Its a good mix of play and art that should make for hours of fun for the lucky recipient. Its hard to tell scale, but there was a pic of the castle with two dolls dressed as princesses (mydollboutique has lovely princess dresses also) that really shows what a substantial object this is:

If your taste runs to the more mundane, there is also a playhouse in the same range, same flat-pack panel design to be assembled and coloured, with outlines of flowers, grass, fencing and a tree on the sides, an opening door & window –  there’s even a wee chimney! Final dimensions for the house are slightly smaller than the castle at 89 x 63.5 x 96.5cm.

Hats off to whoever came up with these designs, I think they’re just great! And at around £20-£25 each won’t break the bank.

Follow the links below to find them:

Frilly Lily village store
Colour-in castle at mydollboutique
Colour-in house at mydollboutique
Princess dresses at mydollboutique

Images © Frilly Lily and mydollboutique respectively.

Halloween!

It’s Halloween! It’s Halloween!
The moon is full and bright
And we shall see what can’t be seen
On any other night.

Skeletons and ghosts and ghouls,
Grinning goblins fighting duels,
Werewolves rising from their tombs,
Witches on their magic brooms.

In masks and gowns
We haunt the street
And knock on doors
For trick or treat.

Tonight we are
The king and queen,
For oh tonight
It’s Halloween!

– Jack Prelutsky

Halloween and the gang were keen to don costumes for some spooky fun – little witches and a pirate, even Rapunzel! Somewhere out of shot is a small Alex running around and tripping over Harry’s Hogwarts robes and Jamie pouting because he didn’t get to wear the pirate hat..

Harry buckling his swashes rather handsomely as a dread pirate complete with hat – not sure what the owl is doing there but its suitably spooky, ooooh! With romantic flouncy shirt and buckled boots he’s a real dandy.

Oh, that’s a scary skull to accompany Witch Alice and her wee pumpkin! No hat, the purple hair is much more fun, everyone should have purple shiny hair at some point in time.. and purple skirts, and purple and gold shiny stars on the bodice, oh yes.

Its that owl again, keeping Helene company – she’s too cute as a witch, with shiny cobwebs decorating her dress, hard to see the jewelled spider choker that completes the ensemble. And a pointy hat, can’t really be a witch without a pointy hat (unless you have shiny purple hair to show off, Alice wants to point out…)

Spooky or classy? Katy loves her Rapunzel dress, and couldn’t pick between owl and skull so posed with both. The gold braiding detail shimmers delightfully by candlelight, she could be the belle of any ball, any time of year.

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble – two little witches and mischief’s doubled! The skull’s not really that scary, quite friendly really (he watches over me while I sleep to keep the bad things away..)

Such a handsome couple stepping out ready to show off their costumes – do pirates dance the waltz? All the running around in the rigging should make them pretty nimble.

None of the dolls are going trick or treating but there are plenty of sweets lined up, and maybe they’ll get to duck for apples at a halloween party on October 31st.. it’ll be spooktacular fun!

Helene’s witch costume and Harry’s pirate made by Nellie Rose. Boots with buckles by Gotz

Katy’s Rapunzel dress from mydollboutique along with the pumpkin

Alice’s sparkly leotard and black and purple tutus from My Doll Best Friend; hair accessory from Tesco

LED flickering candles – much safer than real flames around dolls and fabric – via Amazon

Stuffed owl & skull part of my own home decor (the skull’s been with me 20 years now…)