Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Doll Scene History

When I was a little girl I had a Sweet Sue doll I named Linda and a Howdy Doody doll. I loved playing with them. I enjoyed making doll clothes for Linda. I remember Howdy having to go to the doll hospital a couple of times because his head would get chipped (it is composition) & his mouth would get very full of raisins & cracker crumbs. I don’t know what happened to Linda, but I kept Howdy. His body deteriorated, so I discarded it, but kept the head.


My daughters bought a Today girl American girl doll for me for Christmas in 1995. I named her Charlotta but I call her Lottie. I decided to make a new body for Howdy so he could play with Lottie. I made him a cloth body. Later I would redo his cloth body with a plastic armature inside so he would be posable.


In 2000 I went to Europe with my parents & my sister Beckie. While in Oberammergau I bought another doll. An Engel-Puppen doll I named Gretchen. Here she is holding a small doll.

Gretchen

After I got home, I decided that I needed another boy doll, so go with Lottie & Howdy & Gretchen, so I saved my money & bought Jacob. He is a also an Engel-Puppen doll.

Gretchen & Heber

I had a son serving a mission at this time, so I made missionary outfits for Howdy & Jacob.

Jacob & Howdy (Elder Bonnett & Elder Doody)

This is a display I did, on a round table in our famiy room when my son came home from his mission

Welcome Home for Elder Jesse Taylor

I had a room in the basement where I stored my doll clothes & the few pieces of doll furniture I had acquired. Here are some scenes that I photographed down there.

Summer
Missionaries teaching

For a few years I would put up a Halloween display in my front window & in the window seat in the family room.

Halloween in my front window

Halloween on the window seat

And at Christmas time I would sent up a Christmas scene on a round table in the family room.

Christmas on the round table

One year I set up a Pool Party scene out in my backyard & a Camping scene on the front lawn.

Pool Party in the backyard

Camping in the front yard

Then I started setting up scenes on a rectangle dining table in the family room. These evolved over a few years.

When my one of the bedrooms became vacant, I took over that room for my dolls. I put a board across the bed & put a table up on cinderblocks, using all of one wall & 2/3s of another wall. I put up some boards over the windows so that I could better control the lights (for photos).


Then I moved my doll scene stuff into another, smaller room. Again I had the tables up on cinderblocks so I could put shelves under them for storing my furniture & such. This is were all but the lastest of my doll videos were taken.


Recently that first bedroom became available again. It has a nice walk-in closet. I had my husband cut the posts for my shelving so it would fit under that tables without them having to be on cinderblocks. Now all of my doll clothes, furniture, walls, fencing, & such is all in one room. This will make it so much easier to set up my scenes. Please check out my videos on YouTube (click on the link at the right).

4 comments:

  1. I love the history, Lorine! Thanks for writing it all down. It's fascinating.

    I remember doll hospitals...I found them so interesting when I was a kid.

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  2. By the way, this is Pat Bahr. "Partypatt" is my Wii name.

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  3. thanks for your comments Pat. I thought it would be good to give some background on what I'm doing. A lot of my inspiration was from the store windows at Christmas time - ZCMI, JC Penney, Sears.

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