It's My Third Blogaversary! I'm Celebrating With A 'New" J Doll, Old Church Street! Plus My Top Ten Posts Ever

  Three years ago today I started this blog.

Happy Blogaversary to me!

I wasn't sure of everything I would do with it. So far it has served as a place to share some photography, some fun finds, and some interesting facts. It's given me the chance to voice a few opinions, get some writing out of my system,and hopefully educate and occasionally amuse.
  I was thinking of doing a giveaway for the blogaversary, but there has been such a low interest in previous giveaways I gave the idea up. Maybe I'll do a Christmas giveaway.
  So what have been the most popular posts I've done so far? You might think the oldest ones would have had the most views, accumulating them over time. Not really true. The most popular posts are scattered throughout the three years. Some of them are surprising. Counting down, here are my Top Ten Most Popular Posts (So far.)
10. Topo Gigio, from Living Dolls Week. Topo was Doll-A-Day 181. You can see the post HERE.
9. Little Miss No Name. My childhood LMNN was Doll-A-Day 33. You can see her HERE.
8. Newborn Thumbelina. Another of my favourite childhood dolls was Doll-A-Day 26. Check that post out HERE.
7. That Kid. The most sought after doll of my life was part of Talkin' 'Bout Boys Week and was Doll-A-Day 218. I had wanted him since I was 5. Find out what all the fuss was about HERE.
6. Ratti girl.This Ratti Tjorven doll with the somewhat unsettling grin was Doll-A-Day 9. See her in all her glory HERE.
5.  Midge and Tressy and the second Barbie Dreamhouse. This post about a yard sale haul of Tressys,Midges,Allan, and Ken, and my online purchase of a Barbie Dreamhouse full of mystery goodies ranks at number 5. To solve the mystery click HERE.
4. Ivy Cottage dolls Violet Pickles and Ruby Buttons were a joint Doll-A-Day 320. These seemingly little known children's play dolls were the creation of  famous doll artist E.J. Taylor. Succumb to their cuteness HERE.
3. The second part of my 2 parter on Beatles dolls and ornaments comes in at number 3. To 'Come Together' with them click HERE.
2. Ai doll Bee Balm was Doll-A-Day 21, and my second most popular post so far by way more than a nose.See why HERE.
And our number 1 post of all time is, (Drum roll please!)
Mrs. Beasley! This extra long post about Mrs, Beasley dolls and how I found the Beasley of my dreams, (which I had been dreaming since childhood!), was Doll-A-Day 27, and can be found HERE.
  Anyway, to celebrate I gave myself a blogaversary present today by deboxing a doll I've had for a while, this J-Doll,'Old Church Street'.

I got her at Tuesday Morning a while back, but I didn't open her because I thought I might have to sell her. (I bought a lot of dolls there that day!) But I really like her, and she was only $20, and after three years of hard blogging, I think I've earned her!

 I love J Dolls. They have great faces, so delicate.

 Unlike a lot of ball jointed dolls, J Dolls don't have changeable eyes.

They have the same bodies as Pullips, the Number 3 and Number 4.

The J Dolls I have have at least 2 different body types.Old Church Street has the number 3 body. She has an extra waist joint the number 4 doesn't have, but a less pose-able head, and those breakable, weird looking wrists.

Her head can only turn left and right. She can't look up or down.

Fortunately she doesn't seem to share a common weakness with the other dolls I have with this body: highly breakable wrists. I've had a couple whose hands broke off nearly straight out of the boxes. (You can see my other J Doll posts HERE, HERE, HERE,and HERE.

This one has a less attractive wrist joint too.

 I seem to either love or hate these J Doll clothes. Most of them I love, including this one.

The clothes are generally well made, at least on the J Dolls I have bought.

There are also a lot of pieces to the outfits, which is good value and gives you lots of options for looks.

The shoes are often a let down though. Some are plain and ugly, and a lot of them don't stay on very well. I lost one of this girls shoes a couple of times during her photoshoot. Luckily I found it both times.

Where has my shoe gone?!

The hair on my other J Dolls is very smooth and soft. This doll has courser hair that is harder to keep looking nice.

I just washed my hair and I can't do a thing with it!

  So, Happy Blogaversary to me! I hope you're all enjoying it as much as I am. And here's a little more of Old Church Street.

Doll-A-Day 228: Review of J Doll Camden High Street

  Well, it seems it's Review Week here at Planet of the Dolls. This will be the second review in two days, and there are more to come.
  Yes, I've been to Tuesday Morning again. I was surprised to see so many Jun Planning and Groove dolls last week, because I thought that ship had sailed ages ago. Every time I went to check, there was nothing. That's not really surprising though, considering how fast those dolls usually sell. And when I went back this past Friday they still had some. Maybe people around here have had their fill or are getting tired of them. Well...More for me then!!
  Today's doll is Camden High Street, one of the J Dolls by Jun Planning.

The boxes are metallic and the back is almost impossible to photograph!

The dolls are all named after famous streets known for fashion.Camden High Street is named after a street in just about my favourite place, London, England.

Samuel Johnson said, "A man who is tired of London is tired of life." That was said a long time ago, but it was still true when I lived there in 1986. There was always something interesting to see or do. Other than coming home at the end of the day and blowing black soot out of your nose, I can't imagine a reason to want to live anywhere else.

 I've reviewed three other J Dolls,Diamante La Calle, Marche, and Magnificent Mile, so if you like J Dolls you may want to check those reviews out too.

Left to Right: Marche, Camden high Street,Magnificent Mile, and Diamante La Calle. Everybody but Diamante is in their original outfit. She's wearing a Barbie Look dress,because I disliked her dress so much and wanted to fund a J Doll or two, so I sold it, and no shoes because her shoes won't stay on without socks, and all she had were knee highs.

From the number of J Dolls I own you might start to get the feeling that I like them. I love them! I love their delicate faces. I love their poseability. Sometimes I love their clothes. I didn't like Diamante's dress, and I didn't care for parts of Magnificent Mile's outfit. But these were the dolls I found. I can afford a $20 doll from Tuesday Morning, but not what I would have to normally pay for a ball jointed doll with such a lovely face. I did like Marche's sailor outfit. And I LOVE Camden High Street's clothes.

I would have worn this outfit myself when I was young and thin. In fact,I had some similar clothes, and I always wanted a top hat.
Getting into these dolls' boxes is pretty easy. You peel back the sticky circles and the inner liner slides out.

Then it's not too difficult removing the ties that bind. Not too difficult, but, uh...time consuming. There are quite a lot of attachments.

More tape circles to peel, a couple of wire twisties,lots of thread to cut, and some plastic strips to slide out.

Once she was out there was also a thread to cut that held her skirt layers together for display in the box. Be careful of that tulle!

 

 She comes with a stand. The base is clear plastic with a stone pattern. The metal part is telescoping, so you can use it at different heights on her body. Every doll has a different color base.(At least, all of mine do. They may have repeated some colours. They made a lot of these J Dolls.)

Here she is out of her box. She's about 10" tall.

She has a top hat with metal decorations,a cream coloured blouse,a British flag tie,a cream coloured skirt, a black tulle overskirt with white tulle accent,black lace thigh high stockings,black boots, black undies, and a black and white purse. The purse doesn't open.

The lace tie is sewn on to the blouse. The flag tie has a Velcro closure. I wasn't good at putting them both together and making it look right. I don't do accessories very well...

Her legs are covered by plastic under the stockings. The J Doll's clothing, especially the stockings, are bad for staining the dolls, so I left the plastic there. Why not? Her boots were covered in plastic too, which I did remove.

Nice detail on her boots. That metal looking ring is actually just molded and painted. Her boots slide off easily, but it's scary getting them back on. It feels like you're going to break her foot off.

 Her hair was held in a plastic 'tube' to keep it tidy.

This is straight out of the box. She looks like an old lady.

She has two blue streaks.

It's a bit coarse, more so than my other J Dolls.

There are a couple of types of bodies to the J Dolls. They're the same bodies as Pullips.Of my previous three dolls Diamante had a type 4 Pullip body, which in general seems to be the better body of the two. Slightly more poseability with the head and hands,more delicate clavical...

How to tell a 3 from a 4 when they're still in the box. (Provided of course you can see their necks.) Number 4 on the right, number 3 on the left. Notice the huge dip in number 3's neck.

...better looking wrist joints.

Number 3's clunky looking wrist on top, number 4's small wrist on the bottom. Number 4 has bigger,but more graceful looking hands.

 
 Type 3 can't look up or down. The head can only move side to side. Camden's head barely wanted to do that. It was very hard to turn.

Diamante, with her number 4 body, on the left, and Camden, with number 3, on the right.I thought Diamante was pale until I got Camden!

 
Type 3 does have an extra joint in the waist that type 4 doesn't have, which allows them to turn their upper bodies a bit without turning their whole body, and to lean sideways a bit.

3, on the left, 4 on the right.

So it's something of a trade off. You get the extra waist joint with a 3, but they are more prone to breaking, and have less poseable heads.

The other two have type 3 Pullip bodies. These bodies seem to be more known for breaking joints and I pulled Marche's hand off trying to get her coat off when I was reviewing her. Luckily it went back on. Camden High Street has the type 3 body. And true to form her hand broke off straight out of the box.

The hand was in one piece, but the top half of her wrist broke off and the hand fell out.

"Oh dear..."  It's like watching a Tim Burton movie!

It's a peg and hole joint, so without the other half of the peg part the hand can't stay on. I managed to repair Marche's, so hopefully this one will be as easy. Foolishly I tried to take her outside for her photo shoot without actually gluing it, just putting it back together and hoping it would stay until I was done. Of course the hand fell off again. Luckily I found it, but I couldn't find the piece of wrist. Without that there was no way of repairing the hand and keeping the poseability. I hoped the piece would show up inside her shirt when I had a chance to look.

Fix this, will you? "Let me give you a hand." "A big hand for the little lady." Come back next week folks. I got a million of 'em.

It did!
As I said, I love her outfit. There are lots of pieces to it, so you have options with her look.

The whole outfit.

The whole outfit minus purse.

The whole outfit, minus the clunky purse and flag tie.

Just the blouse and underskirt, with the short part in the back. She looks sort of Prairie Girl.

Just the blouse and underskirt, with the short bit in front. A little more Wild West Dance Hall Girl.

Just the blouse and tulle over skirt. Very risque.Too Lady Gaga for me. Maybe if she had a thicker layer of tulle.

Unlike a lot of other ball jointed dolls, J Dolls' eyes are not changeable, and their hair is glued down. I have heard that it is possible to crack open the head to remove the eyes and change them, but there's a great risk of breaking the head in the process.

The other option if you want variety is to collect MANY J Dolls.They all have the same head mold, even if they do use a couple of body types. And the variety of eye and hair colour,skin tone,clothing styles, and hair style is amazing.

Although these guys seem to be heavy on the straight hair with bangs. They all have a different skin tone, lip colour,eye colour, and hair colour. And their clothes are WAY different.

Her eyes are purple, and she has green and gold eye shadow.

She has dainty little ears.

 Here are more pictures just because she's so cool.

I would love to have more J Dolls.They're so beautiful and fun to pose. I have my eye on Picasso Street East, but that one seems to be more expensive. Typical.