Starting around July of this past summer, after I finally published my novel Crafting Memories, I started on another fictional story idea I have had for a few years. Without going into lots of detail about what the story entails, my protagonist is involved with doll collecting and doll crafting. I had been a doll collector myself years ago, so this is a subject that has always fascinated me.

As I started in on the project, though, I realized that my knowledge about today’s doll collecting was a little rusty. What’s a writer to do? Of course, research! And more research! And that is how I fell down the rabbit hole of doll collecting again as I remembered how much fun it is to have these small little works of art to touch and look at and arrange and rearranged.

Fast forward….I’m now a lover of Pullips and Blythe dolls. So that’s why you’ve been seeing videos on my blog as well as my Youtube channel about dolls. And, yes, I’m still working on the fictional piece, which also gave birth to a non-fiction book idea as well that I’m working on….very, very slowly because my teaching job doesn’t give me lots of writing time. But, I’m not on a deadline.

Below is my most recent Pullip acquisition, Romantic Alice. She is only my second Pullip. I show off my first Pullip here. Though I pretty much like 99% of the Pullips I’ve seen, I plan to focus on dolls like this that have a 19th century feel to them. So here she is in the box, and I started recording an “un-boxing” video (which I will post here in the future at some point), and what do you think happened?

I discovered one of her arms was broken. As I pulled her out of all the tape and plastic and metal wire, her arm kept fall off at the elbow. I pulled up her sleeve to reveal a crack. Yikes!

Now I will back peddle a little and explain that she is a 2011 release, and according to a disclaimer on Pullip Style, which is the web site I purchased her from, Pullips are known for issues like this, especially older ones.

But, whaaaa! My new dolly has a broken arm. Yes, I was kind of freaking out and super disappointed. I contacted the company, and the owner (I believe) send me various types of instructions about how to pull the arm out of the socket.

It took awhile. I finally had to hold the loop part with a pair of pliers and pull really hard. I was so worried I was going to break something else on her. Finally, though, I got the arm out. The company sent me a new one, and it popped right in without any problems.

I managed to get all of her stock clothing back on, and the arm stayed the entire time. As I dealt with all of this, I started to think about the protagonist in my story, who would think my situation was easy peasy since she is an expert, and cliches like “art imitates life” and “truth is stranger than fiction” swirled around in my brain. Though, these would probably be switched around to “life imitates art,” right? Not that I want to buy another doll with a broken arm any time soon, but it gave me a little taste of what my character does. I will have to write this into one of the scenes in the book now!