Ordering from ZapfCreation.co.uk

I recently ordered some items from Zapf Creation's UK website so I thought I'd write about my experience and also review the products I bought.

When you go to Zapf's website, it looks as if it directs you to two separate sites, either Baby Annabell or Baby Born. It looked to me as if you would have to place separate orders from each site, but if you add items to your cart from the Baby Annabell site, they will show up in your cart on the Baby Born site. I thought that wasn't very clear and once you're in one shop, there doesn't seem to be a way to navigate to the other shop. ***I just received an email from Zapf (not to me personally, just as an email subscriber) that said that from September 2025 both sites will be combined, so it will be much easier to shop for both dolls. This is good news!***

Signing up to the newsletter gives you 10% off your first order, but the 10% can only be used on non-sale items. There is also a banner that says that delivery is free if you spend over £30, but when you come to the checkout, it tells you that delivery is only free on orders above £50. I'm not sure how much postage was because my order ended up being over £50, so it was free. The delivery times are 3 to 5 working days.

My order arrived via DHL. I placed my order on a Sunday afternoon and received it on a Thursday morning. After placing my order I received an order receipt, but then heard nothing more until my order actually arrived. I did notice that I had received a text message from DHL saying my order was due to be delivered that day, but I didn't see the message until after the order had arrived. It actually arrived about 20 minutes after the text had been sent. I'm used to receiving dispatch emails from companies once my order has been sent out, so I thought the communication from Zapf was a bit lacking.

There are some items on the website that are a bit misleading. With the dummies, socks and some of the outfits, there are two variations. From the pictures it looks as if you will receive two items, but when you read the description you will find that you only receive one of the items and it will also be chosen at random for you. I was aware of that before I ordered but I can imagine some people might end up disappointed. I would hope that if you were to order two of the same item, they would send one of each variation, but I suppose it would depend on the stock levels at the time.

I opened all of my items as soon as they arrived so I don't have any photos of them packaged. Zapf has really made an effort to do away with plastic packaging. There are no longer those horrible plastic tags holding everything in place. Any clothes that are held in place are now held in place with thread, which stitches them onto the cardboard. I found the stitching just as annoying as the plastic tags though! It's often really tight and you risk cutting your item if you try to cut it from the front. The stitching also leaves a small hole in the fabric. With the swimsuit I bought, the stitching ended up damaging the fabric.

Since I make dolls clothes, I really didn't need to order any clothes. However, I did want to get some more dummies for my dolls, for display purposes mainly and some socks and tights. I do have a pattern for tights, I just haven't got around to making them yet. I knew the tights from here would be proper circular knitted ones, like real tights. If I make tights, mine will be made from fabric so they will have to have a seam on the legs. I bought a little rain set because it came with a tiny pair of wellies. Dolls shoes are quite hard to come by and dolls wellies are almost impossible to find. I have some fabric to make raincoats or rain gear with so I wanted the wellies to go with that. I also bought a swimsuit and two sets that had hoodies in them because I wanted to see how Zapf made their dolls hoodies. Here is all my new stuff!

The dolls dummies are pretty much as I expected them to be. For both there were two options, and the one you get is chosen at random. The pink one could have been either pink or orange. I'm happy with the pink one. The blue one could have been either pink or blue, so I was happy to get a blue one since the other one was pink. Both of the dummies have the Magic Eye feature. Ricky is a Magic Eye doll but I bought him from eBay so he didn't come with a dummy or any of his original clothing. I think I might just be easily amused, but I have been having quite a lot of fun swiveling the dummy round and opening and closing his eyes! I think the Magic Eyes are a really great function on a doll. It's nice that many dolls have eyes that close when you lie them down, but you don't always want them to be asleep when they lie down. It's a great idea that your doll closes their eyes only when you put their dummy in. But then you might want the doll to have a dummy when they're still awake so these special Magic Eye dummies allow you to do that!

The pink dummy fits in Violet's mouth. Violet is one of the original 1990s Baby Born dolls. It also fits in Ricky's mouth, who is one of the original Magic Eye dolls. It does not fit Baby Annabell, Baby Mia, Baby Chou Chou or any of the Big Brother and Big Sister dolls.

The blue dummy fits Ricky, Violet and Baby Annabell. It doesn't fit Baby Mia, Baby Chou Chou or any of the Big Brother or Sister dolls.

Next up we have the tiny socks and tights. There were two variations of this set and they are supplied at random. The socks are so small and cute! They also have a very annoying label sewn into the toe of one of them. I suppose it's a bit odd that they have different pictures on each sock, making them look as if they're odd socks. And it's a bit odd that they have a lipstick mark on one of the socks, considering they're for dolls who are babies. Even the Big Sister dolls are too young for lipstick print socks. The tights are cute and fit very well. I think they're a bit of a busy print overall and probably won't be able to match with a lot of outfits, but I'm happy with them. It was £7.99 for the set, so very expensive for what they are. However, they both fit perfectly. I have tried buying dolls socks before and they were too big for all of my Baby Born and Baby Annabell dolls. I just wish there were more Baby Born socks and tights available and more plain or neutral ones available too. There don't seem to be any socks suitable for any of the boy dolls.

Next is a girls outfit with a hoodie and trousers. Overall, this outfit is quite well made, although I did find a thread chain inside that hadn't been snipped off. I just don't love the cheap feeling polyester fabric. I believe they use this fabric because you can print on it using a technique called sublimation, so it probably saves money compared to having to get different colours and patterns of fabric made for you. Unfortunately, it just feels kind of cheap, and since polyester is made from plastic, not everyone wants that for their children's toys.

I found the elastic round the ankles in the trousers was incredibly tight. It's a really thick and stiff elastic and I think young children will actually struggle to dress their dolls. I think the elastic might be tight so that the trouser legs don't ride up the dolls legs. The Big Sister and Brother dolls have slightly longer legs than Baby Born, so I think this might stop the trousers from looking too short on the Big Sister dolls? I also tried the outfit on Mia, who has a thicker body and it was a bit of a struggle.

It turns out Zapf makes their hoodies by having velcro up the back, into the hood section. This is the way many dolls hoodies are made because dolls usually have very large heads in comparison to their bodies and many have arms that can only move up and down, so it's difficult to pull something over their heads and get their arms in too. Even though the hoodie opens almost all the way up in the back, I struggled to get it on most of my dolls. Mia and Annabell seem to have larger heads, so it was a very tight fit on them. With the others, I found that if you put the hoodie on with the hood up, you can't take it back down again. It's too close a fit. If you put it on without the hood up then it's a real struggle to get the hood up again.

This boy hoodie set was very much the same. This was another set that came with two variations and one was supplied at random. It looked as if both hoodies came with jeans type bottoms, so I was very surprised to find that the ones in this set were actually made from waterproof fabric. Again, the ankle elastic was incredibly tight and the hood suffered the same issues. On my Big Brother doll, it almost looks as if he is being strangled when the hood is up. Again the top is polyester and seems to be printed using sublimation, but the design is cute. The dinosaur's tail carries on over to the arm of the hoodie and there is some extra scaly detail on the arm. It's just very odd that the trousers are made from waterproof material!

Next is the swimsuit. I do have some fabric for swimwear but it's just something I never get round to making. I was interested to see how Zapf made their swimwear. Again, this was an item where there were two variations and the one you end up with is randomly chosen. I was not super pleased with this item as it was not very well made. The bottom part of the swimsuit is very baggy around the legs.

There is some damage to the fabric right on the front, I can't remember how this came, just on a hanger I think. I think this is maybe where it was stitched onto the hanger or where there was a tag stitched on. It has left a hole that has damaged the fabric. The frills on the shoulders are uneven too. One starts close to the edge of the front and the other doesn't start until almost the top of the shoulder. The straps on this felt very delicate as I pulled it onto the dolls shoulders. I felt worried that I might damage it, so I imagine it might not last very long if a child is playing with it. The gathering on the waist ruffle wasn't all that well done either as it was quite uneven. From a distance though, it looks like a pretty swimsuit. The colours are nice together and go well with the print.

The last outfit is the rain outfit, which I mainly ordered for the little pink wellies. They are really cute! I love the little smiling rain cloud design. The rain suit itself is just okay. I could not get it onto Violet. She can wear the trousers but there is no way she's getting into the jacket. Her arms are not flexible enough and there is no give in the waterproof fabric to be able to stretch it over her arms. In the photos on the packaging, the Big Sister doll looked as if she had the sleeves of the raincoat pulled up. It turns out that the sleeves are just incredibly short. I'm not sure why. I think it could be because they've made the raincoat extra roomy to fit over whatever the doll is wearing underneath, and because it's wider, the arms have been made shorter???

Again, the elastic at the ankles and this time at the sleeve cuffs too is incredibly tight. It made dressing the doll a not particularly enjoyable process. Honestly, I felt exhausted after trying to push and pull the outfit onto the doll! It's just a bit disappointing because it could be better.

In spite of my minor complaints, I would order from Zapf again. In fact, I'm just about to order some hangers for hanging clothes on my clothes rail. Both the Baby Born shop and Baby Annabell shop have some sale items that I'm sure will be worth a look.