Merry Christmas, Tuesday Morning Shopping Finds & More

Merry Christmas Doll Friends! I am so thankful to be at home with my family this Christmas. Since my last post, I was hospitalized with a blood clot in my leg resulting from falling off a ladder a few months ago. I'm am just so blessed that the clot was found before anything bad happened. I am happy to report that I'm doing better and hopefully on the road to recovery.

A Christmas walk down memory lane...

Looking through some old family pictures, I found lots of pictures to confirm that my love of dolls started at a very early age. This picture was from my very first Christmas.

Christmas 1968
My mom, me, my big sister & our dolls

At just 5 months old, I received a Mattel Tippee-Toes doll for Christmas. She came with a little blue and yellow tricycle that she could ride. My sister, who was 8 years old, received an Ideal Giggles doll. These were among several dolls that I remember so well from my early childhood.

The last picture is of me with a little Goldilocks doll when I was just 8 weeks old.

Pullips & Ai BJD's back in stock at Tuesday Morning

For those of you who wanted to add a Pullip or an Ai Ball Jointed Doll to your collection, I have seen both back in stock at Tuesday Morning this week.  Here are a few of the dolls I've seen.

My local store had Tiger Lily from the Disney Peter Pan collection back in stock. I already have this precious little girl in my collection. The adorable little curly blond Dal, "Colline" wears a Heidi-inspired Swiss outfit.

A new face to me was Yeolume, who is supposed to be Pullip's future daughter. She wears a school girl outfit, and is 10 years old according to her character profile. She is smaller than Pullip, closer to Dal size. The Pullip dolls were $39.99 each, which is a great price for a Pullip.

These tiny Ai Ball Jointed Dolls were found at my local store this week. My daugter also saw other different Ai dolls, while shopping at a couple other Tuesday Morning stores this past week. The Ai BJD's were $29.99 each, which is an incredibly inexpensive way to give ball jointed dolls a try.

English Ivy

Coreopsis

Hybrid Statice

So if you're looking for Pullips or Ai Ball Jointed Dolls, now's the time to run out and check your local Tuesday Morning stores. I have also seen the Mini Pullips at Tuesday Morning this week. A tip for your search, sometimes these dolls are locked in the glass case by the register, and other times I've found them on the toy aisle with the other dolls.

More Christmas...

Christmas is my favorite time of the year! Most important is the Reason for the Season, celebrating the birth of Jesus. I love all of the Christmas time festivities, and all the beautiful lights and decorations. This year, I've had a lot of fun decorating in miniature for my dolls. In my last post, I shared some pictures of my new doll cabinet. Well, it looks a little different now, all decked out for Christmas.

Here's a few closeups of the shelves decorated for Christmas...

And on top, an Annalee Reindeer & Santa, along with an old fashioned looking Snowman ...

My vintage Georgene Raggedy Andy and old fashioned repro Volland Raggedy Ann found a cozy spot on the big tree with their pal, Santa.

The Elf on the Shelf even found his way into the dollhouse and made some new friends.

I hope you all are having a wonderful, blessed, safe, healthy, and merry Christmas.

Hugs ♥ 
 - Lisa

Happy Thanksgiving, Heidi Ott Dollhouse Dolls & What's New

Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a wonderful week! I'm sorry things have been quiet here for so long. I fell off a ladder and tore my ACL and my meniscus. After lots of doctor visits, tests, and physical therapy, I am finally off the crutches and hopeful that I won't need surgery. I'm still in physical therapy trying to regain my strength and range of motion, but I have lots to be thankful for this holiday season!!!

I haven't done much shopping lately, but I wanted to share what's new. I have been looking for a curio cabinet for a while, and I found one at my favorite local antique mall. It has curved glass panels on the sides, which I love. It stands over 6 ft. tall and is almost 4 ft. wide, so there's room for lots of dolls.  I want to change the knob to a pretty cut glass one, but here it is, as it looks now with some of my dolls in it. I can't wait to add lots of doll-sized Christmas decorations!

I also wanted to share a picture of this adorable tin sign that my daughter bought for me. Isn't she sweet?

Heidi Ott Dollhouse Dolls

I placed an order from the UK to get some Heidi Ott dolls for the dollhouse. These tiny dolls are spectacular and really very well made. The lady is like a tiny ball jointed doll. The adult dolls actually consist of 34 body parts which are formed in Germany and finished in Switzerland. There are 14 movable joints at the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees, and ankles, making them super posable. They have handpainted faces and mohair wigs. Here is my lovely dollhouse lady.

Their clothes are highly detailed and fully removable with beautiful trims, all perfectly in scale. Her dress has a button closure in the back. Additional Heidi Ott outfits are also available. Check out her tiny high heel shoes and the pin tuck detail on her dress.

I also got this Heidi Ott baby wearing a tiny white crochet dress and bonnet.

You can see how tiny she actually is in the palm of my hand.

Mommy and baby.

I got an adorable Heidi Ott little girl who is wearing a blue dress with white pinafore and a matching bonnet. She has long brown corkscrew curls.

The toddler boy is wearing blue corduroy overalls with a striped sweater and hat.

Scenes from the dollhouse...

In the nursery, Amelia Thimble from Wilde Imagination watches over the babies. The blue vintage Renwal playpen and baby are from the 1940's-50's. The little girl in red & white is a vintage German rubber doll from Ari. The white carriage with baby is actually a Christmas ornament.

In the children's room, the new Heidi Ott little girl plays with her Raggedy Ann and Andy in her bed, while her little brother plays with his toy train and fire truck. The curious siamese kitten wants to play too.

In the kitchen, Heidi Ott mom tries to get her chores done while taking care of her little ones.

The little bisque baby sitting in the high chair was handmade by my friend.

Out on the porch, there is much work to be done. Rabbits need to be fed and pots need to be planted.

I hope you enjoyed this little tour of my dollhouse and meeting the new occupants.

Have a wonderful blessed Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Hugs ♥ 

 - Lisa

Back To School, Ebay Finds & More!

Hi! I hope all the students, moms, teachers, and families are getting settled into their new back to school schedules. We've been so busy here, that I haven't had much time for blogging. We were blessed to celebrate our 28th wedding anniversary and our son's 20th birthday in the last week.

We are getting our youngest two daughters back into their homeschool routine, and our oldest daughter got a new job as a 1st Grade teacher. I spent the week before school started at her school, helping her to get her classroom ready. She started with basically an empty room. Since she loves Dr. Seuss, she decorated the room in a fun, colorful Dr. Seuss theme. I thought it might be fun to share some pictures of her new classroom.

Her door.

The word wall. We covered all of her large bulletin boards with fabric first, then decorated them.

Teacher's desk. Can you see her Cat In The Hat doll on the top shelf?

Student's desks. We made the truffula trees and the flowers that hang over the tables to mark the groups. We had so much fun working on her room together.

Now, on to more doll related news... I have a few dolly finds to share. This cute little girl was an Ebay find.

She is a vintage Effanbee Half Pint doll from 1966. I just love her big, dark, side glancing eyes and her chubby cheeked smile! She has sleep eyes, that close when you lay her down, with rooted eyelashes. She has red hair in long curls. She is hard plastic, 11 1/2" tall, with a chubby toddler body that is jointed at the neck, shoulders, and hips. She is wearing a yellow dress, bonnet, bloomers, socks, and white shoes.

Tonner has just released a new version of the Effanbee Half Pint doll, well three new versions actually... and they are all pretty adorable!!! You can see all three at Tonner.com, but here's a sneak peek of one of the Tonner Half Pints. She is called Half Pint Grins and Giggles (photo courtesy of Tonner.com). I can definitely see the similarity between the original vintage Half Pint and the new Tonner sculpt.

Another Ebay find was this pair of Effanbee Patsyette in Storyland dolls. The seller was offering both dolls in one auction, so I got them at a bargain price.  They came in storybook style boxes.

The boxes open up like a book. Inside, the doll is tied on the right with a ribbon, and on the left is a storybook. Also included is a stand and tag.

I got Alice in Wonderland and Red Riding Hood.

The dolls are made of hard plastic with molded and painted hair and features. They are jointed at the neck shoulders and hips. Their elbows are not jointed, but the right arm is molded in a bent position and the left arm is straight.

Their costumes are very well made and very elaborate with multiple layers. Alice has a blue dress with white ric-rac trim, white lace trimmed bloomers, white petticoat with lace trim, and a white pinafore style apron. She also has white stockings, black shoes, and a black ribbon headband bow.

Little Red is wearing a red and white gingham dress, white lace trimmed apron, white bloomers, socks, and red shoes. She also has a red cape with a ruffled hood, and she is carrying a tiny wicker basket with a red gingham cloth.

They each come with their own little storybook with adorable drawings.

I love the full color artwork on their boxes.

For size comparison, here is Little Red with Mini American Girl Marie Grace. Patsyette dolls are a couple inches taller than Mini American Girl dolls.

Patsyette is a couple inches shorter than MH Clawdeen who is wearing a similar costume.

Here are the new Patsyettes sharing a shelf in my cabinet with Kewpie and some of my ball jointed dolls.

My most exciting find yet was this sweet little antique Armand Marseille baby at a local antique mall. 

She has a bisque head with dark brown sleep eyes that close when you lay her down, and an open mouth with teeth. My doll club friend, who is also a doll artist and appraiser with 40 years of collecting experience, told me that she is what is known as a German Character Baby. She said my sweet baby is valued at $200-250, which means I got her for an incredible bargain at just $35. 

She is marked on the back of her head Armand Marseille A 975 M Germany 6/0. There is also a mark stamped in purple on her composition back, but I just can't make out what the letters are.

If you'd like to see exactly what an antique bisque socket head type doll on a paper mache composition body looks like, here's a picture. She is jointed at the neck, shoulders, and hips.

Her wig and outfit are not original or as old as she is, but I love her just as she is.

I was so thrilled to find this little girl just sitting on a shelf in an antique mall! She was just waiting to go home with me and be loved and treasured.

Here she is... happy to be home.

I've been thinking lately about the dolls from my childhood... Thumbelina, Giggles, Tippee Toes, Holly Hobbie, etc. I'm not sure what happened to most of my own dolls, but I think I'll be on the lookout for them. I have started a new Pinterest board of the dolls that I grew up with, called Blast From The Past Dolls. Anyone else collect dolls from their childhood?

I'd love to hear about your recent finds, or your thoughts on my finds. Please leave a comment below.
Hugs ♥ 
 - Lisa