Kruselings and MiniAmiga

Käthe Kruse Kruseling Sophia

I received a gift yesterday :). The Käthe Kruse company very kindly sent me a little Kruseling doll. They are 23 cm tall, about the same size as the Mini Amigas. But they are jointed, which is quite unusual for such a small doll.

The Kruselings come in a fancy box, one of those you want to keep – if you have the space for it ;). There’s a little booklet with the story behind each of the Kruselings: 5 girls and 1 boy. There’s also some additional info on the back. She has a little hair brush as well.

This is Sophia in the casual set version. The skin tone is a rather dark vinyl. According to the story they are all from different countries. Sophia is from Peru, and so she is definitively on the tanned side. She has inset eyes and painted eyelashes. The Kruselings were designed by Sonia Hartmann, who also made the little Kidz’n’Cats dolls. There is a certain similarity in the facial expression. Unfortunately you can’t take the head off, which makes it hard to customize her (but I will try anyway). No change of eyes for this one. I wish she had painted eyes, though, that would make her a great doll for repainting projects. The larger Käthe Kruse La Bella has a lovely face and painted eyes, but she’s not jointed, so you can’t really pose her very well for pictures after a repaint.

What I like about her face is that her features are following the Kruse design tradition of no-frills doll faces. It’s hard to describe if you are not familiar with Kruse dolls. There’s nothing glittery, über-cute or disconcertingly premature about the dolls, and I would rather have my kids play with a doll that looks “normal” than with one that looks like a heavily made up kid beauty pageant victim. Even the large dolls that are designed to look beautiful like the La Bella line look more classy than loud. I had a Kruse doll as a kid, and even back then they were different. Enough of the nostalgia, back to this Kruseling 😉

The clothes she comes with are really well made – and I say this as somebody who is particular about hems ;). This outfit includes a tiny jacket, a dress, leggings and shoes. She even has panties :).

The shoes are just plastic, and she has rather large feet. She doesn’t fit into Blythe shoes, or the shoes my MiniAmiga came with. Her hair has tiny braids on both sides, but the hair quality could be improved. It’s kind of straw-like and brittle, and I wonder why they don’t use better hair- it seems to be the main complaint judging from online reviews. At least is not too much for her head. My MiniAmiga looks like a mushroom in comparison.

Bendy, isn’t she? I wish the MiniAmiga had half of the Kruseling’s mobility. She can’t sit properly, though. But that’s an issue she shares with a lot of other jointed dolls. I am not sure how long the joints would last in the hands of a four year old, but they certaily add to the play value. Unfortunately she is a bit too small to work as a kid for the FIDs (I kind of hoped it would work). But at least my MiniAmiga has a friend her size now, one she can share clothes with.

Did I say repainting her would be difficult but I would try it anyway?

I did ;). I didn’t want to change her face dramatically, so I just accentuated her features. I also washed her hair and cut off the ends, which were pressed into weird forms by the packaging and couldn’t be straightened. Slight improvement, I think.

MiniAmiga

This little girl arrived last week. She’s a Mini Amiga Valeria. I have to say I was a bit disappointed. While the large dolls are great quality, this little one came with lots of glue in her eyes, sloppy clothes with frayed hems and one shorter leg. Since they are more expensive than the large dolls I expected more. I wasn’t in the mood to queue up at the post office to send her back, and since I am going to repaint her anyway it doesn’t really matter.

The leg is a bit annoying, but she can still stand, so it’s not much of an issue. Somehow the proportions of her little face are a bit off, she could use a bit more in the chin department and a bit less forehead – and a lot less hair. And the eyelashes she came with are just ridiculously long. Like her big sisters she can just turn her head and move arms and legs forward or back.

But I made her some clothes and repainted her, and even though she looks a bit eerie with the Glatzki eyes I had left from the Glatzki haul, I’ll leave her like this now.