Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Trader Joe's Brand Insulated Shopping Bag

So I heard there's a recent bit of drama in the doll collecting community. Some thin-skinned president of a certain doll company got all kinds of online grief after pricing a doll bag at around 413 USD (based on current exchange rates). That price is ridiculous. I'm going to use the above Trader Joe's insulated shopping bag instead. This bag has a lot of padding and seems to be strong enough to take all kinds of abuse.

The pictured bag was $7 and change at a local Trader Joe's. Unfortunately, Trader Joe's doesn't sell this bag online. You'll see a significant markup on this bag at eBay and Amazon so expect to pay 20~30 USD online. However, that's still a better deal than a $413 doll bag made from wabisabi.
There's even a pouch you can use to store small items.

I used the above box to give anyone looking at this some sense of scale. That's a box for the Volks brand Dollfie chair. While the box is set vertically in the above photo, I have this box laying down horizontally below. This box is not large enough to make the doll lie down as pictured below. I ended up using an empty box (not pictured, and originally for chocolates) as a "stool" to give the Volks chair's box some added height. (I hope what I wrote there makes sense to other people.) Without the added height, the dolls' legs are too long.

Nina is a DDS-sized doll.

In the photo below, you can sort of see the additional box I
used to give the chair's box a little bit of extra height.
Airi has a DD(L) body so her legs are longer than Nina's. No problem.

Basically, I threw in some appropriately sized boxes into the TJ bag so a doll could be stored inside for transportation purposes. The boxes can contain anything from doll clothes to accessories; they don't need to contain a doll chair. If you get your own bag for your doll, you can choose for yourself what boxes, clothes, and/or accessories to put inside. Just make sure your doll is in the kind of clothes which allow you to bend her knees. If her knees don't bend, then this type of bag and box method won't work for you.

When I take these dolls anywhere using the TJ's bag, I'll also wrap them in appropriately sized transparent plastic bags and make them wear face masks. I didn't use such a plastic bag and face mask in the photos above for image clarity.

While I can't stop people from spending $400+ on a doll bag, at the minimum, I hope I can help people with finding the best alternative possible at a far more reasonable price.

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