Fashion Dolls 101

Ty Girlz line of soft-sculpt cloth dolls made by makers of Beanie Babies Ty Girls Soft-Bodied Dolls  T he cute Ty Girlz line of soft-sculpt cloth dolls were introduced to the doll and toy market at the American International Toy Fair in New York, on February 11, 2007 . The cloth fashion dolls were released Ty Inc, maker of Beanie Babies. Like the Beanie Babies, the Ty Girls were soft plush, fabric dolls with embroidered faces, similar to a rag doll but with trendy, sometimes provocative clothes.  The first six Ty cloth dolls released in April 2007, were14-inches tall with mildly odd  but very striking  faces. Dolls after that were a bit shorter, were issued with wires so the Girlz could hold poses, and came with sweeter, softer, rounder faces that looked younger. Lot of Ty Girlz who have had some of their clothes scavenged Ty Girlz Threadz The dolls targeted tweens and teens and sported short skirts and cropped " belly-button"  tops . Their outfits could be mixe...

Historic, Colorful & Quaint Rag Dolls & Cloth Dolls Are Fun to Collect & Display An old and historic toy, rag dolls have been around for a long time. Made of cloth and stuffed with leftover fabric or other materials,  they are one of the oldest children's toys in existence.   Dolls made of cloth date back to antiquity.   The  British Museum  is home to a  Roman  rag doll , found in a child's grave in Egypt, dating from the 1st-5th century AD.  A collection of various rag dolls Rag dolls are still very popular today.  One only has to do a search on   Ebay  to see the myriad varieties of rag dolls, cloth dolls and plush dolls available to purchase online. Colorful rag and cloth dolls enjoy a sunny day There are rag dolls with painted faces and embroidered faces. Some cloth dolls have painted faces or eyes, noses and lips sewn on out of cloth or even paper. Hybrid soft-sculpted dolls have cloth bodies with faces m...

Rag dolls are  dolls traditionally home-made from spare scraps of cloth and other materials. The faces are usually painted or sewn on. According to Wikipedia, they are one of the oldest children's toys in existence.  I recently came across these two charmers left by the side of the road in Oklahoma City on Big Trash Day. Although I do own a couple of rag dolls, I don't really collect them, but I couldn't abandon these two cuties there, so I rescued them. One is a fanciful Halloween doll with straw hair, and the other is a festive Christmas doll with wool hair, clutching her own small doll in one hand. Once I got the girls home, I discovered they were signed and tagged. The dolls were signed in 1995 and 1996 by Jeannie Dibble. One tag is Dibble's own tag and the other is from a store in Stillwater called Kottage Shoppe which sold country crafts made in Oklahoma.  I couldn't find any more info on Dibble Dolls online, but I did find a reference to Barbara Murat of Fle...

Mattel Celebrates A Decade of New Fashion Designs Since Barbie Basics with Barbie Looks Collection Mattel has gone Back to the Basics with the new Barbie Looks Collection. Many readers will remember the Barbie Basics™ Collection , a series of Barbie dolls and fashions that were introduced in late 2009 to be officially released in the spring of 2010. The Barbie Basics Collection examined the essentials of an effective wardrobe starting with the "little black dress." Each of the 12 original dolls featured a unique hair style, face sculpt , skin tone, various arm styles and a different version of the classic Black Dress. After numerous releases over the course of a couple of years, including the Red Target exclusive series pictured above, the popular Basics series concluded in 2011. A decade later, Mattel and designer Bill Greening are joining forces again to bring back the popular series. The new dolls and their clothes will be updated to reflect the changes of the last ten ye...

  The Baby Yoday Squismallows  plush toy from Disney is absolutely adorable. From his big, dancing eyes to his sweet smile to his cute long, green ears to his oh-so-squishable, huggable body, this plush toy figure oozes cuteness.  Part of the Disney Squishmallows collection, Baby Yoda joins three other cute Star Wars character figures. While I am no fan of Disney's socialist policies; their anti-Christian, anti-white, anti-straight employee training; and their subtle (sometimes not-so-subtle) leftist political plot lines, there's just no getting around the fact this Baby Yoda plush toy is adorable. NOTE: The Baby Yoda Squishmallow was a gift. I no longer buy Disney, but I can still appreciate some of their products. Related Articles: My Valentine Bear  

As reported in part one of this series, I found a broken 1978 Barbie Dream House by the side of the road recently and brought the middle piece home. Also in the same pile of trash was a broken modern Barbie house. I harvested it for its removable kitchen and a couple of other pieces to use in the Barbie Dream House. As you can see from the photos, the kitchen had small plastic tabs at the bottom which would insert into the side of the modern Barbie house. The Dream House has no place for the tabs to go. This means I could either try to remove the tabs or add something to balance them. Currently, I am trying to add something to the front side of the kitchen set to make it stand straight. Ideally, someday I hope to find original pieces to the Barbie Dream House, but for now, the kitchen set will make a good prop and help fill in the hole in the back of Barbie's new home. I tried a large bottle top from a gallon of Arizona tea, but it was too big. You can see how high the kitchen set...

1978 Barbie Dream House provides fun fixer-upper opportunity Recently while visiting Oklahoma, I encountered the phenomena known as "Big Trash Day." This is a day when people leave larger objects than will easily fit in a trash can by the roadside for the garbage men to pick up. On this last Big Trash Day, I found a broken vintage Barbie Dream House by the side of the road. The house had been painted, marked with magic marker, and was filthy. Before I took any photos, I cleaned the first layer of dirt off of it. I left the two broken side wings by the side of the road. Maybe in hindsight I should have taken them, too, but I have limited space while we are here in Oklahoma, and the full Dream House takes up quite a bit of room. I opted to only take home the central two-level structure of the dream house.  This is not an article about repurposing or restoring this Barbie Dream House. I don't intend to make it into something new, nor do I intend to restore it to like-new con...