Another year has come to an end and this blog is still going strong. I’d like to thank all the people who have  read the blog, commented, emailed me with their mystery dolls or shared their knowledge with us. We have had a few interesting mystery dolls and while we haven’t identified all of them the research is a lot of fun.

Teen doll by Chiltern

The biggest change to the blog this year has been Naomi joining me in writing it. It is a lot of fun to have a co writer to discuss ideas with and I know that readers enjoy seeing photos of her Ken collection , action figures and other dolls.

Teddy Saxon

Dr Monty Moone

Georgie

Marty looks cool in a hat

Dr Sebastian Starr

Another important arrival this year was our Triang Model 61 dolls house. This is the same type of house as I had as a child and Naomi managed to locate one on sale for a good price in the UK so we are sharing it. We had a lot of fun photographing and writing about all Naomi’s vintage dolls house furniture. Next year we hope to be able to show you her entire dolls house collection.

New Dolls This Year

I promised myself several times not to buy too many dolls but it seemed every time that I did that something that I just had to have would be available. The oldest dolls I have adopted this year are the celluloid dolls that Naomi found at a garage sale in Oatlands. Other newcomers were Ideal’s Posie Walker, a birthday present from Naomi, an Italian doll I brought home from the Op Shop and didn’t want to send back and two  Pedigree Paul dolls, one with rooted hair.

Twenty inch celluloid baby doll . Sunburst in diamond mark and made in Japan on back.

Princess Elizabeth made by Palitoy in the 1930s.

Hard plastic Italian made doll.

Paul in London Look

Posie Walker with vinyl head c1954-57

Rescue Dolls

This year I brought home many dolls from the Op Shop to be cleaned up and redressed and many of them have been featured on the blog. It has been an interesting way to learn something about dolls that I would not necessarily want to buy myself although one or two of them did end up staying with us as Naomi bought Woody  and Bullseye and I bought the old Italian doll I was trying to ID earlier in the year. Here are some of the dolls that have passed through this year.

Woody, Buzz, Bullseye and Jessie after clean up.

Baby Bratz in a new outfit.

Merin and Avery

Monster High Draculaura

With a restyle.

Redressed in baby clothes with a cot quilt and blanket.

Redressed dolls headed back to the Op Shop

Cabbage Patch dolls redressed.

Toralei Stripe

A donated high chair and donated outfit for baby.

Barbie

There is not much to say about Barbie this year. I still don’t like the playline dolls any more than I did last year. Ken has been revamped with more variations but sadly I didn’t like any of them. The trend towards more plastic clothing on playline dolls has continued making visits to the Barbie aisle an exercise in disappointment. Actually  I no longer expect to see anything I like in the Barbie aisle so if I do it will be a nice surprise. I did buy a couple more Barbie The Look dolls as they are the main ones that I really like at the moment. I do like the Made to Move bodies but the main problem with playline for me is their faces. They just look blank.

Apart from that I’ve really concentrated on vintage dolls and fashions and as Naomi and I have merged our collections it is becoming quite impressive. I have been concentrating on early vintage and Naomi more on the Mods although we both have some of each.

Skooter

Fur jacket

American Girl Repro in Wedding Day.

The Barbie Look City Chic Style- Sweater Dress

What’s Coming in 2018?

All this year I’ve been painting and getting my house fixed up ready to sell. It’s taken a lot longer than I originally thought because I did a lot of the painting myself but I’m almost ready to sell it. Naomi and I will certainly be moving to a new house together in 2018. That may cause a few hiccups as we pack everything up and move it but once we are set up we are planning a bigger and better room where the dolls and Naomi’s teddy bears will live. We want to keep on blogging about our hobbies and will have a lot more things to share with all our readers as we set up dolls houses and dioramas for the fashion dolls. You will get to see what happens when the girls are finally reunited with the guys and we’ll do more posts about dolls houses, paper dolls and action figures as well.

I have a box full of Op Shop dolls in my spare room so I will continue to be the Doll Lady for the time being. Whether that continues will depend very much on where we end up.

Thanks again to all our regular readers. I wish you all a happy and safe New Year from both Naomi and me.