Dolls! I Am Back Again, and a Few Recent Doll Finds

 

I have no real excuse for not blogging except for some fairly large changes to my personal commitments and a dreadful state of apathy.  I have been on holidays for just on 2 weeks so I thought it was time to do a new post. I certainly haven't been remiss in obtaining new dolls, and the pic above shows 3 of the latest.  Before we get into the details on these three ladies, a big thankyou to Nymphaea, now Night Owl for stopping by to see how I am.  And thankyou to Audra for keeping in touch as well when I wasn't a very good email correspondent.

 

I have a slight case of Barbie fever at the moment.  My better half did a deal and bought a huge bag of 63 Barbies from an op-shop for me as a surprise.  The middle dark haired dolly is from this bag, and the two blondes are from an auction on ebay of 1980's Barbie doll cases, dolls and clothes. The auction was badly presented, and you couldn't see the clothes in much detail, but I had a hunch that it was a good find, so I put in some bids and won.

 

 

 

I am 99 per cent sure that this Barbie is a Crystal Barbie from 1983.  I found a cheap copy of  Collectibly Yours Barbie Doll Indentification & Price Guide 1980 - 1990 by Margo Rana and so far I have identified 3 dolls from my ebay auction win.

 

 

I tried very hard to flatten her hair, but then I realised that these dolls had their long hair tied to one side. I am going to have to find some Barbie sized elastic bands or use some sewing thread to pull her hair to the side.

 

 

 

I nearly forgot the before shot for these dollies!

 

I am really happy that firstly the ebay auction dolls have their original outfits and that I was able to identify them using Margo Rana's book.  I am waiting on one that covers the 1990's decade of Barbie dolls as I have a lot more to identify.

 

 

Crystal Barbie has a lovely face don't you think?

 

The dolly on the far right is a Barbie using the Stacie face.  I have found this information on another collectors site, not in one of my reference books, so I would like to confirm this before I say it is a Barbie for sure.

 

 

I think this Stacie Barbie has a particularly lovely face and kind of looks more natural than your average Barbie from the 80's.  She is wearing the original tagged Barbie garment that came with this doll.  I nearly tossed it in the 'not really interested pile' because it is fairly plain. She is missing quite a few hair plugs on one side of her head.

 

 

 

The dolly in the middle is a 2000's Barbie My Scene doll and I think she is Nolee.  She is larger than your average Barbie doll, but she still managed to fit in this Barbie doll dress.  She has the most humungous applied hair eye lashes ever. I am planning of getting rid of the pen or ink mark on her face with acne cream.  Her previous owner gave her an uneven hair cut, but I kind of like it!

 

 

 

She photographs well, don't you think?

 

 

Hope to be back again soon with more dolly news.

 

Lizzie.

 

P.s I am even making a summer dress (for me) from voile, hope to blog about that too.  It has moved into the hot weather here now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dolls! My Large Head Dolls

 

This little group photo is of my Takara Blythes, some of my Diva Starz and down the front, some recent additions to my collection, two Cutie Pops who are from the Swirly Brights range made by Jakks.

 

The designers of these two Cutie Pops dolls went mad using colour and pattern.  They look very much influenced by the psychedelic 60's and I just love them.

 Their hair pieces and bows are inter-changeable.

Their makeup is great and the way they have designed the eyes is so creative.

Some of the dolls come with an extra pair of eyes so you can make them look like they are sleeping. The eyes just snap off, and you press the new ones into the heart shaped hole.

Here is my Blythe who is the biggest headed of all my big head dolls.  Her hair is amazing it is just so thick and heavy.

My other Blythe.  Both my Blythes have shoes, but I put them in a safe place (probably their boxes) and didn't bother to go looking for them for the photo shoot. I just love my Blythes too.

Here is one of my Diva Starz who was an ebay buy and she is wearing her original outfit.

Good night everyone and happy dreams!

Thankyou to Bila for joining my blog, go and have a look at hers as it is so stylish.

Dolls! Ideal Crissy Gets a Maxi Dress Too!

This is my poor little Ideal Crissy doll, who has had her base hair trimmed at some stage by a previous owner.  I still think she is great.  The 70's were a back to nature movement for some people, so I have used a folksy patchwork print fabric for her maxi dress.

I think her tail has been trimmed slightly at some stage as it is not level.

Happy with her new dress.

 Here is Brandi and Crissy in their maxi dresses.  I have one more maxi dress to make for another Crissy who has the wavy base hair.  Hers will be red.  When that is done, I will be making another shirt for myself.

Dolls! The Olsen Twins/ Triplets Have Had their Makeover

 

This is the after photo of the Olsen dollies I got from the Op Shop before Christmas.   These Mattel dolls do capture the real Olsen twins likeness in my opinion.

 

Pity the twins are not smiling in this photo so we can do a better comparison of the likeness:

 

Picture of the Olsen Twins from Wikipedia

The hair on the blonde Olsens turned out nicely, but it isn't of great quality and a lot of it came out.  Both blonde dollies lost hair as it was so knotty before hand and took a lot of 'aggressive' combing to get the knots out (especially the one that had nail polish in her hair).  Strangely the brunette Olsen has much better quality hair which didn't come out anywhere as much as the blonde Olsens. Not sure why they made this doll in the two different hair colours; perhaps they change their hair colours a lot?

Two blonde Olsens before their makeover

Smooth hair after makeover

 Here are all of the girls to receive their makeovers.  I still have the Crissy family dolls to complete and show you when they are finished. I am afraid I have a bad story to tell you about one of these dolls, as I had a failure with her hair - my first one!!  She isn't too bad and I did learn something in the process.

'Days of Our Lives' style photo with a Barbie

Dolls! 5 Mattel Fashion Dollies & A My Scene Swappin Styles

Bootsie in 40+ degree heat wave.

No, this isn't a Mattel doll, of course!  But it is how we have all felt here in Melbourne this week; only got the energy to lie on our backs on cool floor boards with our tummies catching the breeze and waiting for food tid-bits to be put in close proximity.

Now on to the real business of this post.  After I got my Diva Starz dolls from the op-shop, I went all mad for those dolls, and bought another one on Evilbay.  When I was looking for the Diva dolls, I spied these dollies one of which has inter-changeable heads. I just had to get them, and the seller had them at a very reasonable price so they have ended up with me.

Only one has the removable head, can you guess which one?

 

This one with the lovely long applied eye-lashes?

Or this one? By the way, the clothes these dolls came in are quite well made - this jacket is lined!

 

It's this one!  You can see in the photo there is a line around her upper chest. This is where the head comes off.  In the photo below, you can see the button release mechanism.

  

All of her extra heads. Oh wouldn't it be good to be able to put a new head on that came with a completely different hair style!

 

 Pigtails head and the little stand that the heads are stored on.

 

Back view of Pigtails Head.

Beyonce Head?

 

Lovely Thick Long Hair Head.

All the dolls have c Mattel on the back of their heads and c 1999 Mattel Inc on their backs. I haven't done any research to see exactly when these dolls were made except to check the Mattel website which wasn't any help. I think the quality of these 6 dolls is wonderful and their hair is divine. I don't think I will have to do much to restore their hair.  The fabric that they are posing against is a cotton poplin from Spotlight which I am aiming to make into a shirt for me at some stage. I am halfway through making a summer top from some divine Liberty Tana Lawn cotton (for me). I took the photos of my Connie Crawford shirt but they came out really dark so I will have to take the photos again - but not today!

If you like posts about doll hair as a feature of the doll, have a read of Nymphea's post on 'hair themed dolls', it is excellent!  If you want to see the advertisement for the My Scene Swappin Styles dolls, click here.

Thanks for making it this far in this pic heavy post. You might have noticed that I have added "'n dolls" to my blog title. The dolls appear to have taken over this blog and so I thought I had better change the blog title to reflect that. Nymphea suggested making up a new blog for my dolly stories, and while I am very tempted, I just don't think I could keep two blogs going.

Dolls! More Op-Shop Revamps

 

Here is a Disney doll who I think is some kind of ballerina because of the feathers sewn into her skirt and the fact that her elbows are bent and give her a dancer's look when they are raised. She has Disney on the back of her head and Simba Toys China on her back.  Her dress isn't tagged but I would say it is the original as it it fits her so well.  The earings look original too. Her shoes are borrowed from a no-name look alike Barbie from Big W store.

Next up is one of the Olsen twins with her other twins - triplets maybe?  I am going to have my work cut out for me taming her sister's hair!  The re-vamped Olsen twin has 2002 Dual. Ent. Grp. on the back of her head and 2002 Mattel Inc made in Indonesia on her back. I wonder why they have seemingly two different companies making these dolls? I know a lot of the antique dolls had heads and bodies made by different manufacturers; maybe they are adopting this manufacturing model. Or maybe it is just a parent company and a smaller off-shoot company. Anyway, I think the Olsen dolls have captured the likeness of their real life counterparts quite well. Her dress is from an ebay seller in China.

Back view of re-conditioned and messy hair:

New friends

Her is Disney ballerina undergoing her intensive hair treatment along with a Bratz and a Diva Starz. Oh, the price of beauty!

 

 

I have finished my Connie Crawford shirt and worn it, but I have not taken pictures yet. Keep an eye out for this post as it will be coming up.

Thankyou to Audra and Nymphaea for inquiring about the awful heat we had last week, it was truly dreadful if you don't like 40 plus degree days. We had four days of intense heat and the last 2 got up to 44 degrees! Quite a record for Melbourne. I managed okay, but after it was over and we got a cool change, it went from about 7 percent humidity to 70 percent. I don't like humid weather either...I guess it is summer though!

Dolls! Third Diva Starz Makeover Done

Hi all, here I am back again after getting side-tracked from blogging in the lead up to Christmas.

This is the third Diva Starz doll to get her makeover, and her hair nearly got the better of me, but came out alright in the end. I didn't make the dress; it is from an ebay seller in China. The necklace is one of Barbie's.

Trying for a boho meets rock chick look?

To recap, here is the before - note the knotty hair:

Lovely hair

Finally, here are all the Divas in their finery:

 

I have been making a Connie Crawford shirt for summer and just sewing the buttons on today. I will do a post about it soon. I am going to need some more cool clothes as the temperatures are going to be 41 degrees tomorrow and then 38 and then back up to 40 by Friday.  We are all gonna melt!