bodner072

       I will keep an ongoing record of the miniature dolls that I have discovered in resale, flee markets, Goodwill etc... for those of you who are interested in our doll collections here. MGA Quints 5-sies 3" tall with rocking horses, high chairs, baby bottles, sippy cups, rattles, blocks,  bowls and teddy bears. Originally the toys, high chairs and dolls were sold separately for $20.00. I purchased all of the above in one bag plus much more for $3.00. These three inch dolls are the perfect size for Barbie's family and friends. Slightly smaller than the Quints dolls and so life-like, these babies are by TOOB.  Our fashion dolls will love parenting this group! These dolls are still currently sold.   These two inch porcelain dolls dressing lacy Victorian styled clothing are the kind of dolls little girls love to collect.

These motor trend, racing champions came with silver packaging that is perfect for displaying tiny cars on inside  of our doll's playroom or bedroom. You don't always need to make something new for a doll house. Try recycling something that you have found instead. All this shelf needs is a back made of cardboard and a few attachments  for hanging.        Here is an easy way to decorate the walls of a car themed bedroom inside a doll's house.            Our small boy doll just loves cars and old hot rods! So I decided to make his bedroom shelves by gluing cardboard to the backside of the packaging our tiny cars came with. Then I attached a tiny hook to the doll house walls and a small wire to the backside of the shelving unit. Now Barbie's toddler can display his tiny car collection on the walls of the doll house. Create a Minion Room Theme Inside of a Doll House Sisters Dollhouse Sophie & Chloe...

       You don't always need to alter, refinish, upcycle etc... every object you pick from a resale, an estate sale or flee market. Sometimes I have picked items that fit right into doll house interiors that look like they were designed for that exact purpose. These items do share one thing in common, however, I did not pay more than $2.00 for each piece and in some cases, I paid much less. This small, stained, wooden box was perhaps once used for jewelry? It looks like a set of stair-step dresser drawers  for a doll house. The brass handles and inlaid brass oak leaf design are in perfect condition! I won't be  altering this piece. Printed on the inside lid, "Lane Presented by Carol House Furniture St. Louis, Missouri." A cedar box, perfectly preserved with key to lock. This cedar box reminds me of a lovely cedar trunk that my grandmother had at the foot of her bed. Inside, she stored a wedding gown, wedding cake topper and fur cape. It was custom...

These dolls not only look clean, but they smell clean too, just like fresh mint!         Try cleaning your dolls the way you clean your teeth! After purchasing these cabbage patch kids at a local resale shop in my area, I decided to give them a good brushing. These little figurines were so dirty and dingy, I thought that using a toothbrush would be just right for getting into those hard to reach areas. Then I used a dish washing soap for their yarn hair. I think that this experimental cleaning was quite successful don't you? Now my dolls look almost as clean as they were when first purchased! What a dirty little doll; I hope that she can be restored!

A Rich Keystone Dollhouse with gypsum hardboard walls.  There are six rooms but it came with none of it's original furnishings.        I found a gem today at resale. This Rich Toys, printed particleboard Tudor, I believe from 1938. I paid $9.99! The house will need very careful cleaning and a great deal of research put into it's period furnishings. A wonderful collection of more Rich Toy Dollhouses here    Some history behind the Rich dollhouses The rooms look lonely and dark. These cry out for a little girl's affection I think. Here you can see where time has taken it toll on the particleboard edges. The printed checkerboard floors and carpets were once a bright Kelly green. The color is still brilliant on the outside of the doll's house. Brilliant evergreens, ivies, tulips and window  boxes cheerfully decorate this popular period doll house. The wooden trim and steps are still intact. The doorway is flanked by red vases and narrow  casemen...

Above you can see the finished table and side chairs.        It seems as though I have been looking for the right table and chairs to compliment some antique dining room furnishings in our playroom forever. I wanted something simple but elegant. The legs of the table needed to be at each corner underneath. These should be turned, and the top needed to be generous, so that little ones could set up the table for tea time. I have seen many tables and chairs over the years come through resale but none of them were quite right. They were usually too small, too juvenile, too shabby, too country... well, you get the jest of it. But, at last, I spied the perfect table and it wasn't in a shop, folks. I found it while walking through our neighborhood. The perfect table was abandoned by the trash heap of a neighbor with a sign taped to it saying, "Free."         Oh! How I love that four letter word, best of all! It was free! The mos...

I painted one half of my child sized suitcase with blackboard chalk paint. Then I decorated this side using liquid  chalkboard paints. The doll drawings may be found on this page of my blog if you would like to draw them on your version of the craft. Also there is an older post describing the "chalk transfer method" that I used to design the top half of this chalkboard painted luggage here. The text above on the suitcase reads,  "Home is where your friends are!"        I decided to combine two distinct craft projects into one in order to save money on supplies. Namely the suitcase, because these are getting a bit expensive to acquire from resale outlets. The lower half of my suitcase has been decoupaged with vintage sailor fabric and the upper half with chalkboard paint. This little upcycled suitcase is home to many doll house dolls. Supply List: chalkboard spray paint (black) white school chalk liquid chalk pens Mod Podge large soft brush sciss...

Walker, Harry [photographer] A smiling young boy, in a striped shirt, sitting on a wooden deck next to  a small toy phonograph.        You may not consider a record player to be a toy, but these make excellent additions to playrooms for children and grandchildren. Introduce a part of your past to them through music and dance and they will be delighted with the novelty of this former technology!        In American English, "phonograph", properly specific to machines made by Edison, was sometimes used in a generic sense as early as the 1890s to include cylinder-playing machines made by others. But it was then considered strictly incorrect to apply it to Emile Berliner's upstart Gramophone, a very different machine which played discs. "Talking machine" was the comprehensive generic term, but in the early 20th century the general public was increasingly applying the word "phonograph" indiscriminately to both cylinder and disc m...

 One of the first references to Alphabet Nursery Blocks was made by English philosopher John Locke, in 1693, made the statement that "dice and playthings, with letters on them to teach children the alphabet by playing" would make learning to read a more enjoyable experience.        Toy blocks (also building bricks, building blocks, or simply blocks) are wooden, plastic, or foam pieces of various shapes (square, cylinder, arch, triangle, etc.) and colors that are used as construction toys. Sometimes toy blocks depict letters of the alphabet like the standardized from our family collections shown above and below. Alphabet Blocks Inducted in 2003 Witold Rybczynski has found that the earliest mention of building bricks for children appears in Maria and R.L. Edgeworth's Practical Education (1798). Called "rational toys", blocks were intended to teach children about gravity and physics, as well as spatial relationships that allow them to see how many diff...

        Above is one of many wooden pull toys in our family collection. This alligator was made by hand. The wooden balls spin as the comical reptile is being pulled across the floor. Below is a bouncing, wooden frog by Melissa and Doug and a dancing alligator by Plantoys Planwood. What kinds of skills can a baby or toddler learn with the use of push or pull toys? learning to balance his or her body weight on two feet or one foot coordinating two skills at once, walking and pushing something selecting a direction to move and successfully accomplishing it listening and acting according to sounds that the object makes while moving large motor skills are practiced over and over developing the sense of one's own body and how that relates to another object  New games with old toys.  More About Pull Toys: Pushing and pulling: toddler development Physical play and development Educational Benefits of Providing Toys to Children  Playing with pul...