Saturday, August 19, 2023

New clothes for old dollies

Lordy, has this week been nuts!  I didn't mind having seniors at the library, but it certainly made things busy and I'm glad it's Saturday!  Saturdays are almost always slow.  Anyway, lately I have (to my mother's chagrin) been buying clothes for my vintage dolls like the little dresses were going out of style.  Admittedly I could be putting my money elsewhere, but where's the fun in that???  I've got kids that need clothes.  Kids like...oh, like Thumbelina.
To be specific, this is Newborn Thumbelina (which I've shortened to "Lina").  That "newborn" makes all the difference when shopping around for clothes.  Ideal made Thumbelina in a wide range of sizes, and knowing their various labels makes clothes shopping a tiny bit less painful.  Even so, this was the only outfit I could find for Lina.
I love that it's got a bonnet!  One doesn't see baby dolls wearing bonnets much anymore, probably for safety reasons, but since dollies can't strangle or smother a body can gussy up their dolls any way they like.  Usually my handmade getups come from Etsy, but this one came from an eBay seller named diamondlady1956.  Diamond Lady has a small shop with a handful of nice things for various old dolls, but as I said above this is the only thing she had for Newborn Thumbelina.  Now...if any of y'all have the larger Thumbelina dolls (14, 16, or 19-inch models), then there are things to be had for them.  There are also two dresses for Chatty Cathy, but I'm trying not to be too big of a pig.  My Chatty Cathy has some nice dresses already.

Moving along, Lina's friend Baby See 'n' Say (pet name "Elmyra") gets my vote for most improved, though I'm still not quite sure what to do about her off-kilter eye.  Take that back, I know what to do, but it'll just be a cover-up.  For now, instead of having Elmyra fully repaired, I think I'll have her with a mild disability, because anyone can have or develop eye problems.  Anyway, here's how Elmyra looked when she arrived...
...and this is what she looks like now.  I brushed her hair, lightly washed her face, and then came the outfit.
Her little outfit is a Corolle outfit sized for 17-inch dolls.  Admittedly it's a bit of a squeeze around the neck, but once I get that top button fastened Elmyra is good to go.  Well, almost...I do have an eyepatch from TimberCreekCraftsTX waiting for her as well...
...and the glasses finally came!  They're your plain plastic American Girl-sized glasses, and I'm hoping they'll fit Elmyra's slightly wider head.
...eh, it'll do.  At least poor ol' Elmyra isn't sitting around with one white eye like that guy in "The Tell-Tale Heart."  Shudder...it's rare when Poe's writing gets next to me, but that one gave me the creeps.  But Elmyra is good now, and I give kudos to my mother for suggesting the eye patch in the first place.

This next doll is twins, and they get to model two outfits apiece.  They're both dolls that I've spoken of in the past but haven't reviewed.  Say hello to Lazy Dazy (pet names are "Maisy" and "Daisy"; Maisy will always be on the left).
They're both pretty beat-up.  Maisy has some rips in her body fabric that I'll need to fix in the future, both need hair treatment (a simple brushing didn't work), and they're both missing eyelashes.  I'm not sure how to fix that last bit, but I can at least make them aesthetically pleasing.
MamaPsCrafts is a good place to go for baby doll clothes, though admittedly I was a bit skeptical about how these would fit Lazy Dazy dolls.  The listing says they're sized for twelve-inch baby dolls, and Lazy Dazy is twelve inches, but...well, y'know.  In the end I needn't have worried about these fitting.  Both Maisy and Daisy look nice and comfy, but not too much so.  These rompers are lightweight ('cause summertime, that's why), but when winter comes they're covered there too.
Piggies for Maisy, Malden Greenwave colors for Daisy.  Indeed, the whole reason why I wanted that green and yellow getup was because it's Malden's colors.  Even when my contempt for the Malden school system ran Marianas Trench-deep, I still loved that our colors were something besides the standard red or yellow or blue that a lot of the other local teams use.  Clarkton and Holcomb use purple as their dominant color, and New Madrid uses green like Malden does, but for the most part towns around here are red, blue, or yellow.  ANYWAY, these little getups are also sized for twelve-inch dolls and are made of fleece.  They also will fit Emily, the My Lickety Treats doll, if I so choose.  And by the way:  MamaPsCrafts includes free little diapers with her purchases, so if you want your doll's butt covered, you're...well, covered!  Some of the fabrics are also gender-neutral, so if you have a boy doll or one that's kinda ambiguous (like Elmyra kinda is) then you're still covered.

The next doll is yet another of the ones Tam sent to me, Real Baby (pet name "Geneva").  She didn't really need a new outfit, as she's already very well-dressed.
This was a case of "I saw it and wanted it."  Once again, the Etsy shop is MamaPsCrafts, but this dress is sized for...well, for a 21-inch baby doll like Real Baby.
This listing is a little different than the ones that the Dazy twins are modelling, in that it offers both an array of fabrics AND an assortment of styles.  I could've gotten a romper or a dress-and-leggings set for Geneva, but I chose the latter.  The characters on the fabric should look familiar.
I tawt I taw a puddy tat!  <pause>  I DID!!!  I DID tee a puddy tat!!!  I always hated Tweety Bird, by the way.  Bugs Bunny fully embraced his status as "a stinker" (his own words), but Tweety always played the "cute and innocent" card and got poor ol' Sylvester in trouble for being...well, for being a cat!  No, I don't want my cats eating Laverne and Shirley either, but I'm a bit more proactive with protecting them than crazy old Granny was with Tweety.  Either that or Sylvester was smarter than my cats...yeah, that's probably it, LOL.

Like Geneva, So Surprised Suzie didn't really need a new outfit either.  Indeed, she's got two already!  She's got her cute little stock outfit, and a pink party dress.
LOL, reminds me of the parable of the minas:  "Sir," they replied, "he already has ten!"  The Bible I used in high school was an NIV, and I know that particular translation has a lot of naysayers, but the gist of it was the same and I loved how blunt it was at times.  Anyway, Suzie has two outfits to call her own, but I wanted something else nice for her so I got her something for fall...or so I thought.
C'mon, no doll can belong to me without having something from Etsy!  The shop this time is BrierRoseDollClothes, and as with Newborn Thumbelina I think I got the last dress sized for this type of doll.  In the pictures it looked mostly orange, but when I actually got the dress I saw...that it's in shades of pink.
Granted, the lace on the hem IS orange, but for the most part this dress is black, white, and pink.
Drat, I hate Valentine's Day, and I...well, I don't hate Suzie's wardrobe, but I do wish it were a little less monochromatic.  Oh well, the dress looks cute on her so I won't complain.  There are a handful of other things to be found on Etsy and eBay, so I'll go snooping and see what else I can grub up.

That concludes my busy week!  Unless something else comes up I won't be back until next Tuesday.  That's when Malden starts school, and I'll have something...semi-school-related.  It involves a locker, so there's that.

Love y'all,
RagingMoon1987

4 comments:

  1. I'm glad you were able to rehabilitate Elmyra. (You need to get her some pets so she can live up to her name.) I think she looks great now You should actually be able to turn that eye around, ('love to hear percussion. Turn it upside down'...or at least frontways.) I had it turned, but then I chose to pull her string a few different times, hoping it would hop back in place the rest of the way, and only proceeded to make it worse. I never liked Tweety either. He's not a nice bird. I never liked the Road Runner either. He goes way father than he needs to. I mean, poor Wile E. is only trying to survive. As Aladdin would say, 'Gotta eat to live'.

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    1. Indeed, I was able to get Elmyra's eye turned around, but it just flopped back again, LOL. Yeah, she needs some pets that she can love to death.

      Oh mercy, I was always on Wile E. Coyote's side! The Roadrunner was a mega-jerk and I wanted him to get his so bad!

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  2. Well they all look much better for having some momma attention RM. Poor little Elmyra's eye looks a bit swamped by that patch, I do hope you find a replacement for her soon.
    Big hugs,
    X

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    1. Yeah, the patch is kinda big for her head, but then those patches just run big in general because they fit over one's glasses.

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