Caring for Your Handmade Cloth Dolls

Here are some handy tips for people who collect handmade cloth dolls and want to ensure they are kept in prime condition.

These tips are very important as careless handling or positioning can result in damage to the doll, which over time may become irreversible.

The good news is that you don’t have to wrap your dolls up in a box and keep them stored away in the attic to preserve them. 


How then should I care for my handmade cloth dolls?



Light. 

Avoid exposing your handmade dolls to light, whether it is natural sunlight or fluorescent lighting. Natural lighting causes cloth dolls to fade. It also fades the colour away from doll’s clothes.

If you want to display the doll in a bright and sunny room, at least put your doll in a corner where natural sunlight won’t shine directly on the doll. The same goes for fluorescent lighting on the doll.

Storage

The best way to store your handmade dolls is to put them inside a display cupboard that has glass doors. 

This will help to keep most of the dirt and dust from getting  on your dolls. It will also protect your dolls from being damaged by children, pets or insects.

  

 

 Dust.

If your handmade dolls are displayed in the open on cabinets or shelves, make a point of cleaning the dust from your dolls on a regular basis. If dust is allowed to accumulate on your dolls, it can cause staining or yellowing which is hard to remove.

Pets.

Keep your handmade dolls up high and as far away from your pets as possible. Pets are adorable creatures, but if they are anything like mine, they will love nothing more than to use your doll as their personal chew toy.

Plastic containers. 

Never store your handmade dolls in a plastic container. Some plastic containers are waterproof and can trap whatever moisture is left in your doll, which can later develop into damaging molds that are very difficult, if not impossible, to clean.

If you do have to place your dolls in a plastic container, make sure it has holes where air can freely circulate through.



Insects.

Aside from keeping your handmade dolls dust-free and mold-free, you also need to keep your dolls bug-free.

The cloth in a doll’s hair and costume can attract moths and carpet beetles. Examine your dolls regularly for any sign of insect invasion.


 Temperature

Extreme heat or cold can compromise the integrity of the material from which your collectible doll is made of. It can make the fibers of the fabric become brittle.

The best temperature to store dolls is room temperature, the temperature that you yourself are most comfortable in.


Chemicals.

Be careful when using cleaning products near or around your cloth dolls. Most cleaning products contain chemicals such as acids that can damage your dolls.

For example, wood varnish or polish that you clean your cupboard where you display your dolls can stain or damage the doll’s clothing. To prevent chemical exposure on your dolls, line your cabinet or shelf with acid-free paper before displaying your dolls.




Handmade cloth dolls are precious and can prove to be a very valuable collector item for the future. These handy tips are easy to follow and should help to keep your dolls in good condition for many years to come.

Hope these few tips help you to preserve your dolls so that you will have them to enjoy for many years.

Take care!

Marieanne xxx

Memories of Dolls Past - Part 11

Hi to Everyone,

This is the second part of the post about some of the dolls I have made and wanted to share with you.

These two girls, Marie and Babette are part of a trio from a pattern I picked up in a craft magazine years ago. I only have images of two of the dolls, the third doll was a brunette which I gave to my younger sister.

When I saw these dolls, I just knew I had to make them for the simple reason that there are three sisters in the famiIy I grew up with, one a brunette the other a blonde and me, I’m the redhead. I thought they would be a nice reminder of our sisterly bond and in future years they could become family heirlooms. My brunette sister already has hers that’s why I don’t have a photo of hers. My blonde sister isn’t really into dolls so hers stays with me, for now!

This is Baby Beau, a doll I designed for a baby, back when there were a lot of babies being born in our family. Her body and arms are made from one piece. It was after making a few of these dolls that I decided I didn’t like handstitching the facial features, it seemed a tedious job and I didn’t like the look. Most of my dolls today have painted faces.

I have made heaps of other dolls but unfortunately I didn’t hang on to them long enough to take photos. So, here is a photo of my first and only teddy bear that I’ve made. His name is Blaxland, after the Australian explorer, because it was a pioneering effort that I got him finished and that’s where I was living in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, when I made him. I got the pattern from a craft magazine.

While I adore teddies, making them is another story. Having to cope with cutting up all that fur fabric and the excess fur getting literally everywhere, even in my mouth, isn’t such a pleasant thing. I really would love to create my own teddy designs one day but I think I will have to find another choice of fabric.

Well that’s it for my stroll down dolly memory lane. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did reliving it. Stay tuned for the next adventure.

Take care!

Marieanne xxx

Memories of Dolls Past - Part 1

I thought I’d share with you some of the first dolls I made many years ago. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of photos especially of those I was most proud of but you will see from the photos how far I’ve progressed since those days - well, I hope you do!

This isn’t one I made but it is my very first doll, her name is Elizabeth and she’s almost as old as I am - no I’m not telling! Like me she’s had a few repairs over the years, for a start she has a new wig, her old hair was made of fine reddish cotton, shaped into a style and glued to her head. Unfortunately, the doll hospital didn’t have anything that resembled the original hair so this is the best they could do. It has changed her look quite dramatically but I still love her.

She has also had a new arm and foot attached, both are slightly bigger than the original limbs but that was the closest they could come up with. They were both broken when I was a little girl. It was the day I was being discharged from hospital and my mother had bought her a new outfit which is the one she’s wearing not. I was nursing her on my hip and walked between two narrow poles, her limbs stuck out too far and as a result one arm and part of one foot were broken off.

Elizabeth then spent many years packed away in a cupboard until I was old enough to get her repaired. I guess my mother was tired of sending my dolls to the doll hospital to get their hair put back on. (I fancied myself as a hairdresser when I was very young).

Her original outfit was a blue tutu which I used to try on, it fit except I couldn’t get the buttons to the tunic to do up. It’s hard to believe I was ever small enough to fit into something so small. (When my youngest sister was born we used to dress her up in her bride doll’s dress which was as tall as she was at two years old).

This is my one and only raggedy doll, Raggedy Ann (this was my interpretation of Raggedy Ann at the time). I was going through a bit of a down time and so she was made to look a bit how I felt.

Stay tuned for the second part of this post coming next!


Take care!

Marieanne xxx

My Best Friend Dolls

Image by crackedmoon via FlickrWhen I was a child, my family moved a great deal, sometimes up to three times a year and so I didn't always get a chance to make friends. Consequently, my dolls became my friends and over the years they were sometimes my only friends. As a child, I started making my own dolls, beginning with paper dolls at first and then went on to making sock monkeys from old socks. We were a family of eight and so finding odd socks to use were never a problem. I didn't progress on to dolls until I was older and my friends and family began having children. I started designing my own patterns at first because I didn't know about buying doll patterns.

I finally bought a couple of commercial doll patterns and made quite a few dolls before moving on to other art and craft projects. It has only been in the last year that I have decided to go back to designing and creating my own dolls and putting them up for sale. It took me a few weeks of experimenting with drawings and drafting patterns to come up with a couple of designs that I like.

I have also bought a few doll making books to help me learn some new techniques and tricks of the trade which I have a lot of fun experimenting plus playing with a few new ideas of my own.

I aim to blog about my progress and post photos of my dolls along with tips and techniques along the way. So far I am enjoying the journey and hope you will enjoy taking the journey along with me. I will be posting photos as soon as I can but at the moment we are having some very bad weather which is preventing me from setting up the photo shoots that I want to take, plus Christmas is only a couple of weeks away which means lots of things to get done, so please forgive my if the photos aren't posted until after Christmas. In the meantime, I will continue posting....