Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Dressing Your Doll on a Dime Part Three: The Springfield Collection

Welcome to Part Three of Dressing Your Doll on a Dime! You can see Part One and Part Two here and here but, today we are looking at the Springfield Collection, which is available at Michaels and online here. Let's jump right in!

I have a quite a few outfits from the Springfield Collection:
They are inexpensive, they fit fairly well and they have some pretty cute outfits! Because I have a decent selection I'm going to review three outfits today.


The clothing either comes on a cardboard hanger or in bags.

The outfits range from $9.99 (outfits on hangers) to $7.99 (in the bag) in store. Online they seem to be a dollar higher and I'm not sure why.

Here you can see the elastic cords
The bags are pretty easy. Just tear off the top and remove the outfit! The outfits on hangers are a little more complicated. The tops are connected to the hanger by plastic tabs and the bottoms by elastic cord that is sewn onto the clothing. I usually just snip the cord but you could save them to hook the bottoms back on the hanger for storage.

First up for review is a hoodie tunic and green leggings:
The tunic is made out of white t-shirt material with peace signs printed on the front.

The leggings are a thin stretchy green material.

One thing that I don't care for with this brand is that the tags are HUGE and really stiff! I usually cut them out because they tend to make odd lumps or they show through. Especially with thin cloth like these leggings.

Next up is a halter dress.
It's made of a striped, stiff material. The halter part is a pink cord that you tie.

Last but not least is one of my very favorite outfits. It's a purple plaid tunic and leggings!
Unlike most tops the velcro that holds this tunic closed is on the front. It also has a cute little sash that ties and real belt loops for it!

The leggings are the same thin, stretchy material as the green leggings, just in lavender!

For all of the clothing the seams are nice and everything is neat and tidy on the inside. No loose threads!

Next up let's talk about shoes!
These are actually for a friend and are just here so you can see the bag.
The shoes also come in bags and range from $4.99 to $6.99 in store. The prices online were higher when I looked at them this weekend, but when I checked today they are the same as they are in store. Springfield you are confusing me!

I'm going to review three pairs of shoes that I already had. You will see at least the silver shoes up there in later post.


First up are the blue sneakers.
The uppers are blue canvas, while the toes are white plastic and the soles are a stiff white foam. The laces are pretty standard shoe laces and they do have plastic aglets which I think is a nice and realistic touch!
The insole is cardboard.

The white sandals are next.
They have a white canvas upper with a soft foam sole. They have cloth covering the insole and braided cord around the outside of the shoe. They also have a white canvas ankle strap with a velcro closure.

And finally the purple flats:
They have a purple canvas upper with a cute fabric bow. The soles on this pair of shoes is also foam but it's a very hard textured foam and like the sneakers the insole is made out of cardboard.

Springfield shoes seem to be inconsistent in quality. It's not that any of them are poor quality it's that all of the shoes have at least one thing that makes them seem not quite real? I guess is what I'm trying to say. Some have nice textured soles, some just have soft foam. Some have a nice insole but most of the shoes I own have cardboard. I'm not sure why they didn't just stick a little cloth over that. It would make the shoes look so much better! But all of the shoes have cute details and are really easy to get on and off!

So how do all these outfits look on the dolls?

Let's talk about the hoodie and leggings first!
Everything fits well including the shoes! I love the colors and the design on the front. My only issue with this outfit is that the hoodie doesn't have any velcro and has to go over the doll's head.

Because of that they had to make the neckline pretty wide and so it hands loose and comes down low on the doll's body and looks a little strange. It would have been hard to add velcro to this outfit though so I'm not sure what else they could have done.

The hood looks great and it's big enough to fit over Kanani's hair!

I have a few issues with this dress.
The biggest problem is that it's really short! The hem sits well above her knees, and I don't care for clothing that short on dolls that are supposed to represent little girls between 8 and 10. I ended up putting white leggings under this dress after I was done taking pictures! My other issue is that the her hair tends to get caught in the cord around her neck. It's really hard to tie a bow and not get hair stuck in it!

I still think this is a really cute dress! I love the colors and the pattern of the stripes.

Last but not least:
I don't have any complaints about this outfit. It's adorable and it fits great!

I love this shirt! The plaid is just too cute! I guess if I had to come up with something I would wish that they had put buttons down the front of the shirt, and I may do that myself eventually but honestly I just love this outfit!

The Springfield Collection is an inexpensive brand with a decent range of outfits and shoes! The quality is good over all with a few minor issues and everything is pretty easy for little fingers! So this is it! I've gone over all of the brands I was planning to review and next time (in Part Four) I'll give you guys my final thoughts! Till then!

2 comments: