Passing on the Legacy of the Doll

Hello friends! Sorry it's been such a quiet week around here. I'm actually up to my neck in fun kids craft projects that I can't share with you quite yet (but can't wait until I can!). And of course I'm scrambling to get so many things completed before this little girl gets here - now scheduled to be arriving on Oct. 2 (if not before!).  Things have been bustling around here and there is definitely an air of excitement and anticipation in our home. The boys are just over the moon about the prospect of getting to meet their little sister and so are Jon and I.

Our space in our home is very small so we have been trying to find the best way to incorporate this little girl into the room with her brothers. It's been a little restrictive but I'm always up for a design challenge (I'm finding the "less is more" aesthetic is definitely crucial for this space to work, which is hard as we need so much more...). Little by little we are adding small touches of "little girl" into our home and our lives. Just one of those touches is the the introduction to the doll in our home, such as this darling vintage doll, with a new hand sewn ensemble, gifted to baby girl by my sister Lorajean.

















The boys are trying to take this all in, especially A who has always been afraid of dolls (he insists that all dolls be removed from the guest room when we stay at my in-laws...he claims that they are looking at him and it makes him squeamish). That fear has now been translated into silly play where one of the boys will grab this doll and chase the other one around the house with it, giggling and threatening to scare one another. Oh boy. We've had a few chats about how we need to respect little sisters stuff and how this might make her sad in the future, etc....but we'll see how much it sticks (and I can't deny suppressing a few giggles and eye rolls of familiarity when thinking about teasing older brothers, who will torment and pester their sister one minute and then defend and protect her in the next breathe...something I know a thing or two about - having just such an older brother).



Well her brother's are going to need to get used to a few dolls around here because one thing I've been dying to delve into is the world of the doll. Well OK, I've sort of been into dolls for perhaps my entire life...and I just may or may not already have a small collection of them (that the boys have never seen). In fact, when we were found out we were expecting our third I told Jon that I was going to have to buy this blonde Blythe doll for the baby if it was a girl...and if it was a boy, well then the doll would just have to be for me :). (We didn't get the doll...yet....).

You see this affinity for dolls is really a part of my legacy. My mother was (and still is) a doll artisan of sorts. I grew up watching her make dolls and she has experimented with a wide variety of mediums from porcelain to cloth. I can remember watching her pour the porcelain into tiny hand molds and was mesmerized when I would watch her take tiny paint brushes and create little lips, eye brows and if it was a cloth doll, even eyes. She was also very picky about which dolls she would purchase for myself and my sisters. She would inspect them from top to bottom to see how they and their clothing were made before ever jumping into a sale. They had to have just the right look and design, or forget about it, we didn't get them (we never had Barbies - they didn't make the cut). She somehow ended up with five girls all with different hair colors and we all loved how our dolls would often match our hair color (I always got the lighter brunettes). I think my mother secretly loved having an excuse to purchase an entire line of dolls that she was really into. We each had a Fisher Price "My Friend Doll", a Hasbro's "My Beautiful Doll" (got to love those 80's clothes!), and I can still remember the Christmas when we all got our own Lady Lovely Locks Doll...yeah, that was a good year.

My sisters have also carried on the legacy of the doll in their own lives and in their own ways. Lorajean even makes her own darling doll sculptures. I've enjoyed creating a few dolls of my own and have quite a number of ideas for the future. Needless to say, I am excited to have an opportunity to carry on this legacy of the doll...in our our own way. And hey, if I every veer into "creepy doll lady" territory, I'm confident my boy's doll aversion will be sure to keep me in check ;).

What about you? Does your family have a craft/design/toy legacy that you want to pass on? I'd love to hear about it!

Turn the record player up, for that sweet sound...

While we been making a more concerted effort to unplug the TV we've simultaneously decided to plug in Jon's vintage record player and have been collecting a very fun selection of our favorite tunes and stories ever since. The result - a most enjoyable atmosphere of crackly tunes, singing, dancing and happy happy faces.

I started collecting vintage kids records (as well as some show tunes, a little Neil Diamond here and a little Temptations there...and anything else that spoke to us) the late part of last year when we found Jon's record player in storage. In fact, we've sort of started a new tradition of taking the family to thrift stores every other week to look for vintage record treasures. (We've also made it a point to stop at thrift stores wherever we travel to see what their vinyl selection is.) And we've been thrilled with what we've found.

The boys favorites are the Chipmunks see Doctor Doolittle (we have the Christmas album too), the Smurfs Sing Along and the Return of the Jedi record and book read-along (we think we might have to go to ebay for the rest of the Star Wars collection as we've not been able to find anymore in stores).

My personal favorites are Annie, Mary Poppins (the vintage cover art is just to die for), Peter Pan and Robin Hood (I was seriously head over heels for Robin Hood when I was younger and was convinced that to be Maid Marian would be the most exquisite thing in the entire world. I mean, does it get any better than Disney's waterfall scene? I think not.)

We recently had some needle disrepair so we are waiting for a new one to arrive in the mail, and let me tell you, I'm going through some serious withdrawals. Our home is just not the same without that old time vinyl sound vibrating throughout its walls. On a recent trip to see my sister, we found a treasure trove of records at her thrift store that we are still waiting to listen to. I seriously can't stand the suspense.

I can tell the boys miss it too. If they aren't singing and dancing along to the records, they are sitting and playing quietly while listening to suspenseful or silly stories.

What about you? Do you own a record player? Where do you find your records? Thrift stores? Online? And has it made a difference in your home? I'd love to hear your stories as well as which records are your favorite (and that I just might need to add to our collection)!