Dolls! Vintage 1980's Drink Wet Doll

 

When I saw this lovely doll looking a bit worse for wear in a suburban op shop last year, I could not resist her.  She was very grubby but otherwise in good nick.

 

 

Her lashes have been trimmed a little and her left pigtail has had a bit of a trim too.  As she has a lot of soft hair, you can't really notice it too much.  Her hair is quite good quality and is lovely and soft.

 

 

She has sleep eyes.

 

I made her a little bloomers and top outfit using one of my old patterns, and modified it to fit her.  She is 15 inches high and I thought I could use the pattern for that size, but I had to upgrade her to the 20 inch doll size so that everything would fit her baby's stomach.

 

 

She is a funny little doll with her abundant hair and a baby's body, but I love her anyway.

 

 

Alas, I have too many dolls, so she is up for sale on etsy and ebay.

 

I am making a hoodie at the moment using a KwikSew pattern and using a sweatshirt fabric with large cat's heads printed on a grey background. Sounds weird but I like it.  I needed some hoodies to wear to the pool and just lounging about or down at the shops, and thought I would have a go at making some.  Spotlight had a lot of this kind of fabric on sale recently, so I bought various prints to make 4 hoodies!  I will do a show and tell soon.  I wanted to make something in a stretch fabric as I have lost 3.1 kilos since the beginning of the year and don't want to make anything too fitted as I lose more weight.  I have a fair bit more to lose but I already feel a lot better.  We have had a hot and humid summer here in Australia and I have felt pretty uncomfortable so that was the final push I needed to have another go at losing some weight.

 

Hope you are all well and happy stitching and doing dolly things.

 

 

 

 

Dolls! Gypsy Outfit for the 18 Inch Gals

 

I started this little outfit sometime in the second half of last year, and got hopelessly distracted by life!  Anyway, now it is all finished and I am sure the 18 inch girls are fighting to see who is the first to wear it.  So far the American Girl and the Alexander Girl (Favorite Friends) have been the first to try it on. Both outfits are in my Etsy and Ebay stores.

 

 

 

It consists of a 100 percent pure wool felt vest decorated with braid, fringing and a facet cut plastic bead.  Underneath is a snowy white peasant vest and a little sash to hold it in place.  The outfit wouldn't be finished without a head scarf and this one has some sequins to really set the gypsy mood.

 

Who is that scary gypsy lady in the background?

 

 

 

I thought I had cleaned up a very adorable 1980's plastic baby doll recently, but when she was all dry and had finished at the hairdressers, I noticed her skin was very dirty.  I read on the internet about baking soda being able to shift the more stubborn in-ground dirt on plastic dolls, and so I mixed some with some vinegar and scrubbed at it with a soft scourer sponge.  It worked a treat and she looks healthy and pink now instead of a dull colour.  I am cutting out the fabric to make her an A-line dress and co-ordinating bloomers.  She is such a funny doll because she is obviously a baby but has the hair of a 3 year old!  I can't wait to show you the photos.

 

Hope you are happy doing doll things!

 

 

 

Dolls! Prairie Girl or Goldfields Girl and Flowers Pics

 

The modern 18 inch dolls had a bit of a photo shoot today.  Getting ready to list a few outfits that I have made in my online stores - Etsy and Ebay.

 

 

This is an 18 inch Alexander doll.  She photographs beautifully don't you think?  I can't remember which one she is and the box is too hard to find in the top of my wardrobe.

 

 

 

This is the American Girl doll doing her best Hollie Hobbie impersonation.

 

 

I have been doing a big clean out of my doll collection.  I had so many in boxes and storage that I couldn't enjoy them, so it was time for a big thin out.

 

I am finishing off a sweet little gypsy costume for an American Girl doll, so I will post pics of that too.

 

I really want an Australian Girl doll, but due to the combination of needing to save up for one and the model I want not being available until the end of the year, I will just have to wait.  Matilda is a lovely doll and is 2 inches taller than the American Girl dolls. I just can't understand why she would be out of production until the end of the year, but I guess I will have to be patient!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dolls! Hello, and a Tale of 10 Crissy Family Dolls

Hi!  I am back!  I had a shocker of a year last year on so many levels that I could not get to blogging.  I wasn't doing much doll stuff and not too interested really.  Didn't stop me from buying the odd doll or two though!

This mostly scruffy line-up is all of my Ideal Crissy family and friends that I went out and bought when I read Nymphaea's posts about the wonderful makeovers she did on hers.  Nymphaea, if you are out there, I hope you see my post.  I really miss your blogging and comments on my blog too.

Anyway, I was at a trash and treasure market recently, and I spied a Brandi in her original, if not battered, swimsuit.  The seller would not budge on anything less than $20.00, but that was pretty good as once I got her home and took her hair out of the plait, I could see it was in good condition.  I will still wash it though to freshen it up and straighten the foundation hair.  Anyway, I remembered having a Country Crissy, and do you think I could find her in the mess in my spare rooms?  I took one room apart to find her and found a lot of other dolls too.  I found all of these Crissy family dolls, and counted 9 in total, which I thought was fairly good going.  And I got to re-arrange my dolls in storage, and even make more space in the spare rooms.

 

This photo got a bit lightened for some reason.

 

Country Crissy, who started the Great Doll Clean-Up

This is the Brandi that I got from the market last weekend. She still has her tattoo.  I have already made my other Brandi (see first photo, top right) a maxi dress, and I will have to think what to dress this one in.  Perhaps a beach set to wear over her swimsuit?  I am particularly fond of the Brandi dolls, I am not sure why.  She just looks so tanned, healthy and happy.

 



 

 

I am not sure who this one is in the orange spotted over-alls, but a quick check of Beth's site makes her look like a Tara.  Her hair is a mess and the base foundation hair has been trimmed as has the extension.  I will still give her a mini makeover though. 

 

 

This ratty little ghost at the front has an badly matted hair extension.  I am going to struggle dealing with this one, but I had some success with my first Brandi when I did the wet towel and warm iron technique (until I over-did it a bit and frizzed the ends). 

 

I was packing up the dolls in the not as messy spare rooms, and found this little rotter - a Cinnamon!  So I posed her with all of my "good" Crissy family dolls who arrived in good condition, or I did makeovers.  She still needs a good wash and her hair cleaned, but that is a job for another day.  So that makes my collection of these dolls come in at 10, hence the name of this post.  Nothing wrong with round numbers!

Phew, that felt good to do a blog post!  Hopefully you will see more of me this year.  Please stop by and leave a comment, I would like to hear from you!!

 

 

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.