Ryan's 17th Birthday Party

Is Grandma getting old.....YES YES. At least I feel old. When the oldest grandson turns 17, things begin to fall in place. Yes Grandma you are getting old.

Ryan's 17th birthday party was held last night, Thursday, June 18 at the Golden Corral. We all had fun and gained weight I'm sure.

Here's just a glance at some of the fun we had.

The birthday boy with his brother Reese, age 8.


This shows the family. Stephanie (daughter), her son Cade, Barry (hubby), Jen (daughter), Wes (Jen's hubby).

Another family picture. This is just an extension of the above picture. It shows Lerin (Jen's daughter and Ryan's sister) on the other side of Wes. And a family friend on the other side. Steph's husband must have been still filling his plate.




And the littlest of the clan, Cole, chewing on his reflex strengthening blue thing....which he likes to chew on. But he does stick it down his throat every once in a while (this is its purpose).

A Storyland Madame Alexander Doll

This doll's picture is for my friend Karin to enjoy. I know she likes Madame Alexander dolls. This one is from the Storyland series and the doll has a Alexanderkins/Wendy type face. She is enjoying herself among the Easter candy.

Enjoy the picture Karin. More to come in the future.

Still Adding Dolls to the Blog

If you have been following this blog, you know that I have already added pictures of several dolls that live at my house. And I have tons more to add. But I am doing this is small groups because of the dial-up internet connection.

Some people who collect dolls, like to collect only vintage dolls of one era. Some like to collect one type of doll. Some like to collect dolls made by only one manufacturer. I personally think any doll, regardless of type, manufacturer or age has a place in a collection if the doll is available. Of course there are exceptions to this rule and especially, I don't collect the cheap little plastic dolls now being sold at Walmart or K-Mart, etc. I might have an old doll housed right beside a newer type doll. At this time, I have quite a few collectible Barbie dolls in boxes which have never been opened. I lost interest in these newer dolls a few years ago and do not buy these collectible Barbie dolls at this time. I have several American Girl Dolls and a few other series vinyl dolls from the 1990's.

In the 1980's and 1990's the Daisy Kingdom fabric company came out with a series of dolls which they intended for people to use are forms for sewing doll dresses. The dolls were a hit and people were buying them for their collections and for their kids as they were very well made and cheap, but naked when they were in the package. These dolls were sold at fabric stores along with farbic panels designed to make doll dresses to fit the dolls and also fabric panels to make dresses for young girls. Some of these fabrics are still being sold on ebay but the company went out of business. The above doll is a google-eye baby doll and I'm not sure if this doll had a name, although most others did have names. I will have to check on this.

The next few dolls are Daisy Kingdom dolls. The first one is wearing a white pinafore doll lady creation. The following picture shows three dolls wearing Daisy Kingdom dresses. The middle african -american doll is a black Pansy doll, wearing a factory made Daisy Kingdom Christmas dress. I also have a white Pansy doll but at this time I don't have a picture of her. The doll to the right is a doll made by Battat in 1998 to combat sales of the American Girl dolls. These dolls were popular with parents and young girls as they were much cheaper than the American Girl dolls. This Battat doll is also wearing a factory made Daisy Kingdom Christmas Dress. The doll on the right is an actual American Girl doll made by the Pleasant Company. She is wearing a dress handmade from a Daisy Kingdom fabric panel.

Another popular series of dolls were the Baby Face dolls made by Galoob, starting in 1990. Galoob made a total of 36 different dolls but I have only a few. They are popular and almost every collector has at least a few. They are cute in the face, and just make you laugh. The first doll is wearing a doll lady creation but the others are wearing their orginal clothes. The second picture shows a few of the dolls playfully playing with the Christmas lights. the third picture shows three of them on the left side sitting in the cradle with a couple other baby dolls.

In the next several days, I will add some more pictures. If you visit please comment at bottom. Just hit the comment as an anonymous person. Just tell me if I know you.

Dolls Make The World Go Round.

Doll pictures are still being added to this blog. These are being added a few at a time so that my dial -up connection doesn't blow up. HA HA

A lot of my dolls come from estate sales in and around my home town, with many from my county surrounding my town. When I purchased these, almost all of these dolls needed some sort of cleaning or repair or dressing in order to be presentable. Over the years I have learned the valuable knowledge of doll repair, so that I could make my own repairs. Sending dolls out for doll repair is very expensive.

Anytime a local person wants to visit us to see the dolls, they are most welcome, although I may not be considered the absolute best housekeeper in the world. And, dolls take up a lot of room and there is overcrowding in both doll rooms.

The first is a bisque doll head made in Germany. This doll is an Armand Marseilles bisque head, made in Germany around the early 1900's. This doll would have come with a leather body but I aquired her without a body. I am currently looking for a leather body on ebay and at estate sales. Her head has tiny holes to be able to attach the head to the body. Bisque is like porcelain but in the early days, it was called porcelain. Bisque dolls in their original state are usually very valuable.

This composition baby doll is one of my favorites. She came from a town just 7 miles from my house and was given to me by a dear friend. She had a huge crack in the back of her head and her wood fiber stuffing was coming out of huge tears in several places. Her legs were almost torn from the body. I repaired her head crack and in order to salvage her legs, I put casts around the tears inthe legs as the cheesecloth body was too fragile to attempt to sew the legs back together. The casts were made from gauze and glue and actually are holding her legs together quite well. I used one of my family's heirloom christening dresses and bonnet to clothe her. She is from the late 1890's or early 1900's.

Cutie little dolls appear in this picture. The dolls on the right side are all printed with Japan on their back and are typically known as little bisque dolls. These dolls were usually painted with bright colors and we very inexpensive dolls, sold at dimestores. Since the arms and legs don't move, these are called "frozen leg/arm dolls". These are just under 3 inches tall. The doll on the left is a carnival doll. She has a loop on her head and when she was first sold, she was attached to a string and a small stick and was sold in a carnival or was given as a prize to a winner of a game. She is made of a hard plastic, while some carnival dolls were made of a highly flamable celluloid plastic which was the first plastic made.

This doll is fondly called Walda by a number of doll collecting groups, although that isn't her real name. In fact, she didn't have a name when she was sold. This is a cheap porcelain doll which was sold in mass quanities through mail order advertisements put in women's craft magazines. These ads came out in the early 1970's and lasted 3 or 4 years, so a lot of dolls were sold. Most dolls are dressed in the brown print dresses although I have also seen green, red and yellow print dresses of the same style. Almost every doll collector has a "Walda" doll but she isn't really valuable. I still see these dolls at flea markets for $1.00 to $3.00. I'm also putting a picture of the original advertisment from a Workbasket magazine.

Small hard plastic dolls like this were made by the Irwin Company in the 1930's and the 1940's and are about 6 inches tall. Their arms and legs move too. When these were issued, I believe they were not dressed. At that time, crocheting doll dresses was a popular past time, so now when I find these dolls, many times they are dressed in wide skirted crocheted dresses. Also a note, many of the Irwin dolls were made with holes in their heads to accomodate talc powder. The pictured dolls do not have holes in their heads. Note their Kewpie eyes, looking to the side.

In the 1940's and 1950's many dolls were manufactured in Japan and sold in the United States. In the mid-1950's there almost every dimestore in America sold little plastic dolls with red hair in ponytails with red shoes and white socks painted on their feet. Some of these dolls came in a package labelled as "Topsee". These pictures show two types of these little red hair ponytail dolls. Many doll collectors have fondly named these dolls "Millie" for the girls and "Willie" for the boys (which were actually girl dolls with hats). The first picture shows a mechanical red hair ponytail doll. She has a wind-up key to make her move. Her felt skirt covers the movement mechanics.

The second picture shows a grouping of small dolls, including several red haired ponytail "Millie" dolls and even one "Willie" doll lying in the cradle. These particular dolls are about 4 to 5 inches tall. I also have some little "african topsee dolls" which have black skin, black hair in ponytails and red shoes with white socks, but the aren't included in this picture. Also in this picture is a Penny Brite doll from the mid 1960's, dressed in a red dress and she is to the left of Willie in the cradle. To the left of Penny Brite is a minature Samantha Parkington doll made by the Pleasant Company. This is a doll replicating the American Girl doll. This doll is from 1995 and were only sold by the American Girl Doll company for $20.00 at that time. Note the tiny highchair to the left of the cradle. I also have the potty chair in my collection. One of the red haired ponytail dolls is having a tea party, using china dishes and sitting at a snappy red table.

As you can see so far, I have an eclectic collection. Later I will post pictures of some Madame Alexander, Betsy Wetsy, Betsy McCall and others which were very popular in their day. Keep watching this blog for additional pictures.

Additional Pictures of Dolls

An earlier post contained several pictures of dolls living in my house. Here's some more you might enjoy.


This is a Sweet Sue, made of hard plastic and is from 1957.


Next is a Rosebud doll, which is from 1926. This is not her original wig nor her original clothes.


This is a composition doll which needs a few repairs. I haven't identified her or dated her yet but I believe she is from the late 1930's to mid 1940's.



Ideal doll company made this hard plastic doll between 1950 and 1955. Not really sure of the exact issue date....but the doll is called the Boopsie doll. The hair is molded.




Life wouldn't be half as fun if there wasn't a doll house to play with. This two story wood doll house is from the 1960's. A few years ago I changed some of the carpeting and wall coverings. It probably could use a complete refurbishing but I didn't want to lose the old look.

More pictures and posts to come in the future.


To save a doll from the compost pile, is saving the history of our country. Hug your doll. She will never talk back, but she will love you for eternity.

Dolls, Dolls, Dolls, Dolls and more Dolls.....

Just posting some pictures of the dolls which live with me. Some dolls I have never been able to identify. Others I know the exact manufacturer, date issued, and name of the doll. The doll world at times wasn't well documented, so some information is lost forever.




This is just a picture of the room where most dolls reside, although I have another doll room too!

These are Terri Lee dolls. On the left is a Terri Lee doll from 1953. She was in pieces when I got her and she has been restrunged. On the right is a reproduction Terri Lee sold in the Target stores in 2006. As you can see they are quite different. Many people never liked the Terri Lee dolls as they felt the features were too harsh. She actually is one of my favorite dolls. Just a few months ago I was able to aquire a first issue Jerri Lee doll as well as a box of rare Terri Lee doll clothes .... Jerri Lee is Terri Lee's brother. The doll is in pieces, but will soon be restrung.

This is a 1937 Shirley Temple doll. She is a composition doll which is wood based. She is cracked and actually is in very poor shape. Although I repair dolls, I do not repair dolls made of composition. To repair her to an acceptable state would cost about $250 to $350. I do have some original Shirley Temple doll dresses but I made this yellow dress she is wearing.


This is a saucey walker doll from the mid-1950's. She still walks and moves her eyes. Dressed in a doll lady creation in this Christmas picture. Sometimes she wears her own original dress.



A very rare redhead Madame Alexander ballerina doll. Unfortunately she has the dreaded doll disease which some hard plastic dolls get from being stored with another doll with the dreaded disease....there is nothing which can be done to cure the disease. I store her in a different room than my other hard plastic dolls.....her previous owner didn't. The doll smells like baby vomit.
Otherwise she would be my most valuable doll as she is rare.


Another post with pictures will coming in the near future. Watch for it.

Cleaning Doll Hair

Where is that doll you had as a kid? Or, where is that doll your daughter had. She might like to have that doll cleaned up a bit. Sometimes it does a soul good to get that doll out and have her around again. Remember when you held that doll as a kid? She probably heard you cry many times. Or, she might have heard you getting a paddling. Or, she might have visited your doctor with you when you got a shot. Those old dolls were a comfort then and sometimes it does an old soul a world of good to hold that same doll which was with you during a period in your life. I really think that may have been the reason why I have collected dolls over the years. They are a comfort to me.


Why did you store your doll away? Was she dirty and ugly and way past keeping her out. There must have been a reason why you kept her. Was it that you were hoping she would someday be the same as when you were a kid? You should know that she can be put back in some type of order. It really isn't hard. When you last looked at that doll you had when you were a kid, the hair probably was matted, dirty, and even partially cut. It might even be cut clear to the scalp and showing hair plug holes. I've always wondered why so many kids cut the hair on their doll. But I think I remember cutting a few heads of hair too. Another thing a kid always will do is discard the doll's shoes. As a collector, it's a pain to buy a vintage doll with no shoes, because it's very hard to find doll shoes to fit. Currently, there are some manufacturers which make new doll shoes, but it just isn't the same using doll shoes made 50 or 60 years later on a vintage doll. Ebay sellers list some old shoes but they can get really pricey.


Dolls which are very old, usually had wigs which used human hair or caracul lamb's wool . The hair usually was glued to a cheesecloth type material. Dolls like the early Shirley Temple were usually adorned with human hair. Even though this is human hair, the hair on an old Shirley Temple doll should never be washed. Actually these old Shirley dolls were made of wood composition which can never be wet....not even with a damp rag. Wood composition can explode, crack and peel if allowed to get wet. That's why so many of these old dolls didn't survive the years. People stored them in damp basements, humid houses. Even extrememly hot dry attics damaged the dolls. Shirley Temple dolls can definitely benefit from curling the hair on dry hairdresser plastic perm curler rods, using the perm papers. More on this in later posts.





To get us started, I thought I would talk about cleaning the hair on vinyl dolls which have rooted hair (plugs). Dolls such as Barbie, vintage vinyl Ideal dolls, mattel, and many others typically have the rooted saran type hair which can be safely washed with a good shampoo.



Saran or Vinyl Type Hair: If the hair is matted, I usually use a darning needle to pick it out. This can actually be time consuming if it is really matted and dry looking. In fact, sometimes I generously spray the hair with WD-40 (yes, go to the garage and rob the can of WD-40). The petroleum in this WD-40 tends to be absorbed into the vinyl/saran hair and softens the texture. I typically leave this on at least a couple of hours and then wash the hair. If the hair still looks extremely dry and matted, spray it again and leave it on for a longer period. Sometimes I have sprayed and resprayed many times before the hair looks better. After the WD-40, I again try to pick out the matts with my darning needle or a wide bristle dog brush kept only for this reason (a doll wide tooth brush will also work) . NEVER USE A BRUSH YOU HAVE USED ON HUMAN OR ANIMAL HAIR. Remember you really only have to do this step with the WD-40 if the doll hair looks extremely dry.



Now comes the shampooing. I position the doll with her head over the kitchen sink. I like to use baby shampoo on my vinyl/saran doll hair. I usually wash it twice and rinse the soap out. Now comes the conditioning. Some people use fabric conditioner straight from the bottle, but I prefer Dove hair conditioner. I have had much better luck with this than with other hair conditioners. I also like the conditioner that comes in packages of hair color and if I have that, I use it for conditioning doll hair. We are striving to get a deep conditioner on this vinyl hair. I usually let the conditioner stay on the doll hair for 15 or 20 minutes if the hair looks dry. Then I rinse it and carefully comb it out with my wide tooth dog brush. Then while the hair is wet, I roll the hair on perm rods like the picture shows above. Be sure to use perm papers too so the hair ends don't crinkle. I let the curled doll hair set for a couple of days to dry then carefully unroll the perm rods and pick it out. On very small dolls, I sometimes roll the hair on toothpicks or those sticks intended for candy pops (buy them at specialty stores where candy making supplies are sold). Just remember the smaller the perm rod the curlier the hair. After styling you can spray it a very little bit with hair spray but do not use lots of hair spray. Sometimes a clean hair doll looks much better with a small ribbon or a baby type doll looks mighty cute with a baby headband.


If your doll was stored away with hair which has been cut to the very scalp, sometimes it is better to cut all of the hair off and re-wig the doll. I usually use a pair of cheap hair sissors then go over it with a pair of clippers to get the doll scalp pretty smooth and hairless. For a new wig, you can save lots of money by going to the Goodwill, Salvation Army or other thrift shop and find a porcelain doll which still has its glued-on hair. Many times these dolls are only a couple of dollars. The wigs can be removed from the porcelain doll head by using a cotton ball soaked in alcohol and run it along the edge of the wig and continue doing this until the wig is removed. Let the wig dry completely and then glue the wig to your old doll head, using Elmer's Glue or other glue of your choice. Cement type glues don't work well on this project.

After your doll has had her clean hair for a while, the curls may begin to fall out. You can always reset a vinyl doll's hair in perm rods and perm papers and after rolling her hair, hold her head above a boiling pan of water. The steam from the boiling water sets the hair curls. We call this giving your doll a permanent. Be sure to not let her fall in the boiling water or it could be disaterous.


Good luck in cleaning your vinyl doll's hair. Next time we will talk about how to clean up you doll's vinyl body. It's amazing to know that you will actually be able to get those ink marks and even those magic markers off the vinyl. It can be done and it's fun doing it but even more fun to see the result.


Don't hesitate to ask me questions. If I can help you I will surely try. An old doll is a part of history and she/he deserves to live on.

Here's just some pictures I thought you might enjoy.