Review: Chelsea Doll And Sewing Playset

(From the Nendoroid Doll collector's point of view)

Cross-posted to MFC.

I'd heard that doll clothes for Barbie's little sister Chelsea fit Nendoroid dolls, so I decided to satisfy my curiosity. I bought the I Can Be...sewing playset ($9.99 US) and a simple boy doll with a cute outfit ($7.99 US).

The boy doll's outfit is all one piece, made to look like a T-shirt and shorts. It fastens up the back with Velcro. The girl doll's outfit is two separate pieces: a shirt that fastens with Velcro, and a skirt with an elastic waistband. The torsos on the Chelsea dolls are only about 2mm longer than the torsos of Nendoroid dolls, so they can wear each other's clothes:

The crotch of the boy's "pants" are a little low on my White Rabbit, there, but overall everything looks nice. Chelsea feet are the same width as Nendoroid Doll feet and only about 1mm longer, so they can even wear each other's shoes (without socks)! Nendoroid Doll clothes on Chelsea dolls is a very silly idea, and I don't know why you'd do it, but you can.

On to the sewing playset! It includes: a cloth tape measure, a wrist pincushion (which is a wee bit big on Nendoroid Dolls, but works), two cones of "thread," a sewing machine, a dressmaker's dummy, a pair of scissors, and a small piece of cloth to put in the sewing machine and pretend your doll is making something. As you can see, these items are pretty well-proportioned to Nendoroid Dolls too. You may want to sand the word "Chelsea" off the sewing machine, though. Each plastic piece is one solid color, but has molded details.

The dressmaker's dummy has a molded-on plastic dress, so you can't use it to display actual doll clothes. It's a cute piece, though. It is just a little bit shorter than the Nendoroid limited-edition dummies, and looks pretty cheap by comparison, but works very well as a display piece if you can't get hold of the Nendoroid one.

Basically, if you're thinking of getting Chelsea stuff for your Nendoroid, it works, it's inexpensive, and you probably won't have any size issues. You will want to get out your acrylic paints to add a bit of color to the accessories, since they're solid-colored plastic, but the molded details are sharp and will make this about as easy as miniature-painting gets.

This set is 8/10 for a Nendoroid Doll collector. If you have kids who've outgrown their Barbie stuff, and they own Chelsea dolls, it doesn't hurt to rummage through their dolls to see what treasures you can find.