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Is a Porcelain Doll to Look at or Play With?
Monday, October 5th, 2009I don’t know how many times I’ve brought my daughter to my mother’s house only to have her get scolded for trying to play with my mother’s doll collection. My mother has always been the antique collector type of woman and she’s accumulated a room full of porcelain dolls over the years. As I was growing up I would make sure to stay away from the doll room of the house because not only did they scare me with those big unblinking eyes but my mother was like a hawk in protecting them.
“Collectible porcelain dolls are the most precious and valuable dolls” my mother always used to say to me. “They will be worth millions one day as long as you kids don’t break any of them!” Well, they might be worth a fortune right now but she’ll never see any of the money from them because she’ll never sell them. My mother is so in love with her porcelain doll collection that she would probably like to be buried with a few of them.
It just goes to show you, dolls take on meaning to people. Even though these little porcelain girls are just sitting up on the bookcase and in those doll houses collecting dust year after year, my mother feels something for them and will be transported back in time through her memories whenever she goes to look at them. As she tells her granddaughter: “Antique porcelain dolls are for admiring, not for touching.” She has kept that motto for the past thirty years.
If you own porcelain dolls I urge you to let your children play with them. They were made by an artist who specializes in letting little girls have fun and if you’re just using them as show pieces for your guest room, do yourself a favor and just let it go. There is nothing cuter than seeing a little girl wandering around with her favorite porcelain doll tucked under one arm as she wanders out of bed to get a glass of milk.
Porcelain dolls aren’t meant for adults to collect and gawk at, they are made to be played with and loved by a small child. If only there was some way I could convince my mother that her collection of Victorian porcelain dolls should be played with and not just looked at.
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Doll House Furniture – The Most Important Doll House Accessory
Monday, October 5th, 2009Doll houses are classic toys for little girls. They’ve been around for so long that their history has been shrouded and no one really knows when they originally started being made as toys. For as long as there have been dolls, girls have wanted to build houses for them to live in and have parties for them to play in. Everyone likes to play house sometimes when their young and the doll house allows the imagination to go wild.
A doll house however is not simply just an empty house with some Barbie’s in it. Doll houses are made to be decked out in lavish doll house furniture to make the dolls at home in their miniature mansions. Anything you can find in a real life furniture store you can find in a doll house furniture store. There are couches, televisions, dining sets, cabinets, beds, armoires, and anything else you can think of. The idea is to try and get your wooden doll house to look as much like a real house as possible and that’s why doll house furniture is one of the most important dolls house accessories.
The doll house concept is all about customization. The point is to allow your daughter’s imagination to run wild in the doll house and really make it her own. She can style the dolls clothes of her porcelain doll, she can throw a bed in the living room of her Barbie house, and she can drive to work every day in a pink Lamborghini if she wants to. The possibilities are endless with doll houses and that is why doll house furniture ranges so widely.
If you’re looking for the best quality doll house furniture, you know, the type that will match the time period of your doll house and really make it stand out from all others, you’re going to need to visit a specialty doll house store. Doll house stores used to be popular a long time ago but now that interactive media like the Sims and Second Life have taken over the doll house market they have been run out of business. Luckily we have the internet.
Look around online for a doll house store that will ship you doll house furniture. There are tons of good retailers out there who are just dying to provide you with high quality doll house furniture and support your interest in this wonderfully old toy.
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Playing Pretend Family with Dolls Clothes
Monday, September 28th, 2009The imagination of boys and girls is endless. Little girls have great imaginations and love to play pretend. They love to pretend they are singers, dancers, their favorite character on tv or mommies. A must for most little girls toy box is dolls of all kind and the accessories that go with them like a baby bed, bottles, stroller, and dolls clothes. One of the favorite past times of little girls is playing house that includes a mommy, daddy, and a baby. They love to pretend they are married and daddy goes to work, and they are mommy who stays home to take care of their baby. The baby doesn’t always have to be a baby doll it could be their favorite stuffed animal or even the family pet. Anything they can put doll clothes on gets to be the baby.
Baby dolls are usually the favorite of little girls because they don’t fight when they try to put doll clothes on them or run away like the family pet. Pretending to feed, burp and change the baby’s diapers are also part of this game of pretend. They like to have play pots, pans, and dishes to play house with as well. Being a grown up mommy that takes care of here family is a fun game to play and good practice for when they actually do grow up and have a family of their own.
Little girls like to play with miniature doll houses too. There are many types of doll houses for children to choose from. Farm houses come with a farm family, dad, mom, children, dogs, cats, chickens and cows. Then there are houses that look like the house they live in that has bedrooms, a living room, bathrooms and a kitchen.
These type of houses come with miniature doll house furniture and miniature families. There are some doll house kits that come plain so the child can paint the walls and make the floors look the way they want. With these houses they especially love to play decorator by decorating them and arranging the furniture over and over again. Tea parties are fun for little girls. They love to help their mommy make cakes or cookies for the party and they invite their playmates, dolls and stuffed animals. Even the family pet has been known to attend a tea party from time to time as long as there is cake or cookies involved. If the treats are good enough they might even allow themselves to be dressed for the party.