Boxed Dolls

Since my husband, Mike, and I moved three times in two years, most recently landing in Santa Fe, we decided to downsize; and, also, buy a future vacation/retirement home in the Teton Valley. Most of my dolls now live in a climate controlled storage locker back in Denver. My dear son, Steven, helped me wrap each and every doll in acid free paper, read all of the doll markings for my collector's catalog, and neatly box them all. I miss each and every doll. I can hardly wait for Mike's promise of building a basement doll room, or doll house, for me! The second and third picture are dolls we had to box-up when we moved to Santa Fe.   :(

I must admit to collecting a few dolls recently: all of the Disney Frozen Dolls and coloring books/paper dolls/sticker books; Angel Pulips, and the rest of the Hearts to Hearts dolls. At first, I easily found the Frozen dolls in the stores. However, I only bought a couple at once; and, when I went back to the store for more they were all gone. So I bought the rest, for good prices, on Amazon. Angel Pulips were very inexpensive on Amazon, too, as were the discontinued Hearts to Hearts dolls. All of the new collection resides in our office closet, and guest room closet, now.

Oh, I went to Tokyo a few months back! Mike had to attend a business meeting in Shiodome.

We even flew in our daughter, Jill, from her Peace Corps assignment in Albania. It was wonderful to see Jill for the first time in a year and a half! Anyway, we only spent part of the time at Kiddyland, where I bought some Licca dolls. My dear husband also took me to the famous store, Junie Moon. I bought a couple of Petite Blythe dolls there. Junie Moon has a museum-like aspect to it. If you want to see all things Blythe, check-out their online store:  http://www.juniemoonshop.com/  Of course, most of the dolls are the new Blythe dolls, not the old $1,000+ Blythe dolls from the 1970's. So wish I had one of the old Blythe dolls. Maybe someday...

Halloween Dolls

I've become a devotee of Facebook this year, so blogging has definitely taken a back seat...more like been run off the road for me. I do keep in touch with my fav blogs via e-mail, which is great! Anyway, it appears that there will not be any Halloween Peekaboos this year :-( Kelly is still running strong for 2009 with Miranda as the bride of frankenstein; Kayla as a green zombie; and Kelly as a cute vampire-ess.

I'm a virtual assistant/bookkeeper/girl friday by trade and one of my clients is in the exhibits and tradeshow industry. I travel with her for shows and there is a chance that we might go to Toy Fair (TIA) in February! I've researched the show and there are several exhibitors from Colorado who might need some assistance. I hope so as I would adore going to NY for the infamous show "ToyCon"!

People who collect dolls are GREAT!

I can't believe that I haven't posted to my blog for over a month! Actually, I've been working on a novel about a news reporter who rediscovers her childhood love--dolls! Yesterday a friend called and was just wondering how my business was going in this economy and also how my doll blog was going. I'm like, oh yeah, I have a doll blog. I originally started it to meet other doll collectors and find out how they went about it, etc, and just share this great love of all things adorable, cute, and enchanting--all things dolls!

The one thing that I have found out for sure is that people who love dolls are just plain nice. I bought my one and only, never-removed-from package, liddle kiddle--Pretty Parlor--on ebay. As I communicated back and forth with the seller, I realized that I was talking to the lady who wrote THE BOOK on Liddle Kiddles. When Pretty Parlor arrived she came with lots of extras from Paris, along with a hand written note. So special!

Then, when I ordered my Kelly books I got a note from the online store that the books would be shipping directly from the author. I sent a quick e-mail to the author after I received these beautiful books and her response was just so genuine and lovely. Not to mention, all of the notes, and extra gifts, I've received from fellow doll collectors.

I'm reading a book about "play" in human culture and it has really opened my eyes to the innate need in all of us to play every day.

Comes in like a lamb...

No snow here in Colorado. Darn! I was really hoping for snow so that our spring would be more like a real spring this year. You know...if March comes in like a lamb, it goes out like a lion. This aphorism generally holds true for my native state. What's more is that April tends to be one of our snowiest months. Oh well, nothing to be done.

Dollcena is so darling dressed in her little Kelly outfit. She came to me in a Winnie the Pooh costume that covered up her lovely lavender hair! I myself have never died my hair purple but, come to think of it, as a kid my favorite Liddle Kiddle Kologne was Miss Lilac with the lovely purple hair.

I received my set of three Kelly Green Books on Friday. Perfect timing as I had just come down with a knock-down-drag-out cold and looking at pictures of Kelly dolls was about all I could do Friday evening. The DDI World Kids Dolls are included in one of the books and apparently they were distributed to KayBee Toys in the year 2000. I'm still hoping to find more of these cuties, but at least I have the pictures to look at now.

World Kid Dolls Update!

Yay! Miss DollyMad was right with her information that World Kid Dolls are somehow related to Kelly. Apparently, my little beauties are foreign Kelly dolls. The Amazon book reviews are very complimentary, but the book is $89.95! And, alas, no copies at my local library, or on prospector. :-(

Kelly

One of the things that I noticed when I found Kelly dolls on Amazon is how inexpensive they are, even new-mint-in-box. I went over to ebayland and saw large lots of Kelly dolls starting at $10.00. Hmmm...maybe I should get some of these dolls and practice fixing their hair, cleaning, etc., and then I could do the same for Liddle Kiddles! And maybe I should get one of these large lots of shoes and clothes, too, because all of that is less than one good Liddle Kiddle, I reasoned. So I did and as soon as I opened the packages I fell in love with Kelly. I must say that I don't like the Kelly with the round, open, mouth for bottle or pacifier. It's not so cute and it brings back bad memories of trying to get my son off of the "binky" many years ago!

Here is a nice website page about Kelly dolls: http://www.lilfriends.net/guide/basic/kiddle.html

Tutti

When I first started collecting I had a set amount of money I could spend and I was only focusing on Liddle Kiddles. And every day I would be disappointed because I couldn't afford many of the kiddles I wanted. My boyfriend volunteered to go to antique stores, doll hospitals, doll stores, Goodwill, Savers, flea markets, etc., to search for kiddles. After all that, he was able to find two locket kiddles for me. To this day, we both cannot go into a thrift store without searching through all of the bags of dolls, just in case a kiddle is hidden amongst all of the McDonald-land-toys--which, by the way, some people actually collect!

During this time, I was checking out any doll book I could find at the library. One was about Barbie, and had loads of great pictures. I saw Chris, who is a friend of Barbie's sister Tutti, who herself is a twin of Todd. Chris's face really looked quite a bit like a kiddle face. So, I started looking for Chris on ebay. Too expensive again! However, I did find a doll lot of 10 Tutti dolls. The bidding was over the Thanksgiving holiday and luckily my daughter, Jill, was home from college. She logged in at the last minute and won the Tutti Lot, and case, for just $40.00!

(BTW--Jill, who herself thinks most dolls look "weird", surprised her mom at Christmas and Birthday with gifts of 10 kiddles! Apparently the university has quite the high speed internet which, I am told, is a must have for successful ebay bidding :-)

I really like my Tutti's! I found out that Kelly's ballet slippers fit Tutti's feet. I dressed two of them in Kelly dresses; the rest all came with their original clothes. The hair was the biggest challenge, so I used a mixture of fabric softener and water to get out tangles then shampooed and added hair ribbons. Voila!

Windy Fliddle

Windy was my first complete surprise kiddle. My daughter, Jill, won Windy on ebay. Jill is a very skilled ebay-er! I've tried her techniques, but don't have her track record yet.

BTW, I made the scarf and the keys and glasses are Kelly's. I love to add accessories, and even dress my Kiddles in Kelly outfits (shock, horror!) Of course, I adore the Kiddles with all of their original accessories, clothes, and darling tiny shoes, but there is something so special about rescuing naked, partially chewed, even with some little green spots, etc. Kiddles! That is how, in very short order, I now have 58 sweet, sweet, Liddle Kiddles!!!!