Dare I start a doll thread?

[Foofoogal]

Wow, I love all these dolls. I started as a collector of dolls. I won ribbons with some of them. Love the Teri Lee with the glasses, Cissy and Toni in your display RedHotRidingHood.

I am going to have to put a photo of my pinup doll in her boudoir outfit. i will never ever sell her.

 

[CherryRed]

Here are a few more of my girls:

 

[Red_Lipstick]

CherryRed, those dolls are so cute! And I love their clothes
Are the outfits original or you made them yourself?

 

[CherryRed]

Thanks Red! I made all the outfits except for the bottom one. Most of these dolls all needed some restoration to get them like they are now.
This is what the brunette Maggie in the red outfit looked like when I got her:

And this was the Toni:

 

[Laura Chase]

I love her!

 

[tuppence]

Laura thanks for your advice. I'm sorry you missed out on the doll. I would walk over broken glass to get a doll like that.

Cherryred those wig makeovers are phenomenal I think I saw all your knitted dolls clothes in another post. I am so jealous

Redridinhood, Thats why the doll book is not so good, but in general( not always the case) the dolls with side glancing eyes are from the 20's and early 30's. The boudoir dolls with the big boobs are from the 40's and 50's. So your doll would be in the former catagory

 

[Laura Chase]

tuppence, let us know what you decide, I think it's very exciting!

 

[RedHotRidinHood]

Thanks for the information, Tuppence! I just wanted to know for the heck of it.

CherryRed, your girlies are beautiful! I have always thought that Toni dolls were the cutest ever made from that era. Such sweet little faces. And your restoration jobs are fantastic!

 

[CherryRed]

Thank you Tuppence and RedHot.
I love Toni too. I have several of the P-90's (16") but that girl is a P-91(18") and is my favorite.

 

[Tamamiko]

I love the BJD's. I have a small one. I rooted her hair myself. I need a smaller brush to paint the face though.

I know this is an older post, but a tip for a smaller brush is to take a cat's whisker and tape it to the end of a pencil. It makes for near perfect detailing.

 

[deadpandiva]

I know this is an older post, but a tip for a smaller brush is to take a cat's whisker and tape it to the end of a pencil. It makes for near perfect detailing.

Thanks!

 

[Tamamiko]

No prob

 

[Decayla]

Dolls

Heres a repo of the 1959 Barbie Learns To Cook

Hers the showgirl barbie

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I know this is an odd place for a fellow to post, but I will say if you're ever moving, watch your doll collection very closely.

We hired movers when we moved out of one of our houses and my mom had a very large doll collection. The movers stole the entire collection. This was in 1994, and it still hurts my mother to talk about it to this day.

 

[Viola]

That's a so sad. I think in some ways taking a collection someone has put together fondly over time is crueller than taking someone's money. Your poor mom.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

My mom thanks you for your sympathy. It was very tough for her. All the dolls were given to her by her grandfather, whom meant so much to her. They were very close as she grew up right next door and was raised by them while her folks were working. He had only died a couple years before this as well, just making it all the worse.

 

[chanteuseCarey]

Okay, but just remember I didn't start this...

Well, the title got me. Haven't had the time today, and I'd be up half the night reading all the posts. But I'll have to go through it all very soon.

Our family has collected a very specific French doll called Bleuette. It was originally created in 1905 as a marketing ploy to the middle class and upper middle classes in France. There was a separation of church and state just prior, so the church could no longer train the children (primarily little girls) in the arts of homemaking. One very shrewd businessman created a weekly newspaper, called La Semaine de Suzette, targeted for 8-12yo girls. The deal was if you signed up for the weekly newspaper (all in French) for a year, you got the doll for FREE. The editor had, in preparation for subscriptions, 20K dolls produced with a porcelain Jumeau head mold in size 1, composition body in marked 2 embossed on the back between the shoulder, also marked 2 on the bottoms of the feet. 60K subscriptions came in six weeks, before anyone had ever seen a picture of the doll. LSdS continued as a weekly newspaper from 1905-1960, with only a break in WWII, as Hitler put a kibosh on the French having paper to print it. A number of doll head molds were created in the 55 year span. The dolls were 27 cm tall, and later on 29 cm tall.The reproduction Bleuettes are 27cm.

The goal of the doll and the newspaper was to train up the next generation of French mothers. The girls getting the newspaper were the mamans; the dolls were their bebés. The newsletter had patterns to make clothes for the doll, over 1060 patterns in its 55 year span. One can see a 55 year history of French fashion. The girls learned to sew, embroider, and cook, as well as French history, etc. Original dolls and newspapers are still in existence (best source right now and for the last several years is evilBay), and reproduction dolls are doing big business. Bleuette and her world are flourishing again over 100 years later due to doll collectors around the world.

How do I know all this? Well, after a year of collecting, researching and playing with these dolls and being on Bleuette Yahoo! groups, my DH and I on Valentine's Day 2006 created and produced a very special Bleuette vignette. We called it "Bleuette's Valentine's Ball." We built a 1:6 scale French ballroom with bandstand. The stage platform held nine doll "musicians" and over twenty dolls "attended" the Ball. The musicians (called the Blonde Bleuettes) were based on characters in the 2000 HBO film, set in the WWII era, The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, starring Dame Judy Dench, Ian Holm, Olympia Dukakis, Cleo Laine and Leslie Caron. DH made scale band stands and tiny scale sheet music.

We posed the dolls and took pics. 55 pics are posted in a Picture Trail album of mine. As a result of this Valentine's Ball, a good Bleuette friend suggested we create a online doll publication. Thus was birthed BleueFantaisie E-zine: the Magic of Bleuette in our lives. I was its Publisher and Editor. The publication ran for just over a year, when it became more time and effort than my husband and I could manage.

Here is the link to the Bleuette's Valentine Ball. Click on the picture to enjoy!

 

[tuppence]

My mom thanks you for your sympathy. It was very tough for her. All the dolls were given to her by her grandfather, whom meant so much to her. They were very close as she grew up right next door and was raised by them while her folks were working. He had only died a couple years before this as well, just making it all the worse.

I'm really sorry for your Mother. Does she have any photos of them? Sometimes thieves do really dumb things, like selling them on ebay. If they were wearing home-made clothing, which is quite common, you might be able to i.d them like this. Let us know if we can help with identifying what kind of dolls they are.

I have lots of Bleuette patterns Chanteuse, But No Doll.

 

[AtomicEraTom]

I'm really sorry for your Mother. Does she have any photos of them? Sometimes thieves do really dumb things, like selling them on ebay. If they were wearing home-made clothing, which is quite common, you might be able to i.d them like this. Let us know if we can help with identifying what kind of dolls they are.

I have lots of Bleuette patterns Chanteuse, But No Doll.

I'll have to ask her if she has any pics, again this was in 1994, and we've moved 9 times since 1994, so we'd have to do some searching! But thank you oh so very much for all of your kindness!

 

[Foofoogal]

chanteuseCarey

I have been to many doll shows and around lots of dolls but that is the most amazing thing I have ever seen. Thanks so much. Fabulous.

I so want Juliette Claudine or Elizabeth (opaline)