Vintage Effanbee Edna Hibel Dolls from 1984

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!

So we are still in the middle of moving. It's probably good I didn't know how long the process would take or I would never ever have packed all my dolls away! I miss them, is that crazy? So much so, my husband has very sweetly added to my collection. Those will have to have their story told some other time though... This post is being written on Labor Day but since I uploaded the photos for the draft in July, it'll probably post from then. Funny, eh? Like time travel into the past! I got quite a few dolls in July, as I may have mentioned in a prior post, because my wedding anniversary is in that month and my husband knows I love dolls. What a wonderful man he is to me! So some of that windfall of dollies are two Vintage Effanbee Dolls designed by Edna Hibel. I think they are the bee's knees!

Aren't they awesome! I love the expressions on their faces. Especially the one with the smirk. Dolls gotta have attitude sometimes too!

As with the other Vintage Effanbee Dolls I have collected, these were originally pretty expensive, even by 2015 standards, when they were produced back in 1984. People would buy them then and tuck them away to keep them "safe" and practically new. Again, like time travel. Then, later, in this case over three decades, someone decides to clean out their collection and I buy them on eBay. Some times I love the Internet!

Closeup photos of their faces.

I love the intricate detailing of her costume.

Here is the back of h outfit.

See? In 1984 she was $45.75! I paid about a quarter of that for both dolls! What's awesome is they were made very well because they are so expensive. Really top notch!

Here is her kneck marking.

**Nude Doll Warning**

She has an all vinyl body and can stand well on her own.

Her arms and legs both move very well and she is very sturdy. 

Here is the one with attitude! I love her wooden shoes!

Back of her costume.

Front of her tag.

And back. 

Trying on each other's dresses... They fit ok on each other.

I am sure you'll be seeing much more of these two! When they get unpacked again that is! They are off in storage right now. 

Well, that's it for now! See you next time!

Ertl 14" Girlhood Journeys 14" Doll: A Photo Review

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!

I have been ever so remiss in writing of late! Big happenings my real house have virtually stopped all happenings in the Doll House to make a long story short. In fact, the Doll House and all the dolls are packed away in boxes and are headed to storage. *gasp* I know! Not my favorite aspect of our current life situation but necessary. We are moving to a new part of the world soon and in order for that to happen, we have to sell our house. Unfortunately our realtor doesn't seem to think prospective buyers would appreciate the broad expanse of doll related items and dolls... Really?! What's the matter with people nowadays? *sigh* However, since we are bound to end up paying him rather large sums of money for his knowledge, I have attempted to yield to it. Trust, me, it's painful. 

One solace is to know I have roughly ten drafts here waiting to be finished... A plethora of photos awaiting the stories to flesh them out. This is the first of those postings. I went a little doll mad (more doll mad?) in July. I tend to overdo on extravagance during that month because it's a big celebration month in my life... Teehee. I an generally not one to indulge in the somewhat mainstream girlie indulgences like getting nails done or going to shopping mall to pay too much for clothes. Nope, this girl, when she gets fun money, she runs to eBay (or better yet, thrift shops) to look for a new dolly. Or rather, usually a vintage dolly. 

So, without further ado, I present one of said dolly. Or rather two, because I tend to buy in twos (or threes, or until I own entire collection once I have found one.... Oh, wait, did I say that out loud? I digress, again. See why I never get anything written!

Meet Shannon! She is an Ertyl Girlhood Journeys 14" Doll. I am not sure when they were produced but I think it was in the 1990's. Perhaps you know and can leave information in the comments. I ran across them when I was researching 14" dolls on eBay. I think I've mentioned how dangerous that sort of research can be. Teehee. You can get them for a song though, usually for under $20 including shipping and you can pay that much for a take out pizza nowadays! Dolls last much longer than pizza!

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well I agree and am going go let the photos tell a lot of the story about this doll. Mostly because I am a bit short on time and want to get this posted. I am not sure if it will post, date wise, as the day I wrote draft or the day I post it but I am writing this on August 22nd and it will be the first post I've posted since early July. Egads! Did I mention we are moving...? Moving is so much work and I also have a job and kids and a husband and and and... So doll time has taken a hit! I'll get much better again after we get moved! 

Isn't she pretty?!

Her clothes are so well made! If you have HeartForHearts dolls who need clothes, the purchase price of one of these on eBay would be worth it for the dress because they can share clothes! 

Despite being vintage, she had never been removed from her clothes. They were sewn on.

She has a soft body but is stuffed with pellet like stuffings like a bean bag. Kind of different but it makes it easy for her to sit well.

Her back.

She sits well and with her legs forward which is always nice. (Many dolls nearly have to do the splits to sit down!) 

Here is her tag.

Compared to a HeartsForHearts doll, Lilly.

Trying each other's clothes. They work well but their feet are not same at all. Shannon's feet are much smaller than Lilly's.

An original add I found an image of on Google. As you can see, there were four dolls in the line. I imagine I'll pick up the other two at some point or another.... Just too cute not to have all of them. In fact, I have Kai on my wish list at this very moment... I am trying to be good though. My dear husband is very sweet but he just had to move quite a few boxes of dolls into storage and... Well... He has his limits. Not to mention we are trying to budget because we are moving. Digressed again... Sorry. Back to the dolls!

I also found Juliet on eBay. She was missing her shoes but was otherwise in perfect condition considering her age.

Here is mark on back of her neck.

And some clothes swapping ensued as soon as all the review photos were taking... Girls will be girls, dolls or not! 

Lilly wearing Juliets dress. 

Juliet wearing my vintage Effanbee dolls dress.

Here is said Effanbee doll (She is a Jan Hagara 15" doll who came named Laurel but has since been named Heather) in Shannon's dress. By way, I generally always rename my dolls... So Shannon is now Susannah and Juliet is now Patricia. I'd explain why but it wouldn't make much sense to you. Suffice to say I like to name my dolls after people but you don't know these people. Teehee.

That's it for now doll friends! Until next time! 

XXOO

Our Generation 18inch Hair Grow Doll

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!

So, I am reasonably certain that if you look at the date of this blog, it will read that it was written in July... Um... Not really... That, my friends, is when I posted the draft. So this morning I decide I am going to go finish a few more recent drafts and go into my drafts folder and realize I had neglected to write this one! July is when we boarded this roller coaster of a ride that is first renovating our house because we'd decided to move in August. Well, as you can see, God, as He has a great tendency to do if you press into Him and try to seek His will, slowed us waaaaaay down for our own good. Twice He saved us from the wrong houses! But today, November 8th, I am sitting on the floor of my living room because our house has no more furniture in it... It's all in the truck! Because tonight is our last night in this house!! Woot!! Ok... So enough about my 'real life'... Just explaining why I am only now finding this post again and getting it written finally, in November.

So in late June I was at a Thrift Store and happened upon this Our Generation 18 inch Hair Grow Doll. I have to admit I have never liked hair grow dolls, they've always kind of creeped me out with their hair grow mechanisms because invariably there is a knob or button somewhere on their body that releases the hair and, well, just creepy. However... She was cheap ($2.99 I think? I doubt I'd have paid more) and I loved her outfit so I picked her up. 

She had a really pretty face, as most Our Generation dolls do. Her hair, however, was a nightmare. I mean, nightmare. Dolls with regular long hair are kind of hard thing for kids to care for, add in hair grow extensions and, well, this is what you get.

Tangles! And a doll that never gets played with. Which was good for me, because her outfit was in lovely shape. 

Even though she creeped me out, I had her home, and so I decided to try my hand at sorting her hair. It was a long process of, section by section, from the bottom to the top, brushing out the tangles. I find sorting out doll hair to be somewhat therapeutic. Plus it's so satisfying to bring a doll back from the Toy Box Tangles into some semblance of the doll dignity. Dolls have feelings too, right?!

See, here her hair is half done and you can see her creepy knob in her back.

My implements of torture, um, I mean beauty! You can see, she lost a bit of hair in the process...

But she had no shortage to begin with! So here she is! Tangle free!

The very bottom of her hair was still a bit frazzled looking and she still had the creepy plugs but I did my best! I re-dressed her in a different dress (I save the dresses I don't like when they come on a doll 2nd hand) and sent her back to Goodwill with a nice tight braid so hopefully she is now in the hands of a little girl who can take better care of her. Her outfit was worth the price and it was fun to clean her up!

That's it for now doll friends!! 

Till next time!

XXOO 

Effanbee Dolls: My New Infatuation

Greeting Doll Friends!

As I've mentioned before, I had a little doll collection in my adult life, prior to children. It consisted of a few dolls I owned in my childhood, such as My Friend Mandy by Fisher Price or Kimberly by Tomy, and some I bought here and there in my early 20s because I loved them when I saw them, like my Heidi Ott dolls. Well, three of those dolls were 11" Effanbee dolls. Here is a (bad, predigital) photo of the ones I had then.

This is a photo from a scrapbook page of mine where I am discussing my hobbies. It shows my collection of "My Friend" dolls and the three Effanbee dolls I owned at the time. This was before I did much doll shopping on eBay but as I recall, I got these three on an auction on eBay. I loved them at the time even though I knew their costumes were incomplete. They had such pretty faces! As I've reported before though, when I had my kids when I turned 30, I lost my mind and got rid of all my dolls (other than the ones I was going to "save for my kids to play with"). The Effanbee dolls went then...

So recently I was thrifting and glanced up at top shelf and who did I see staring back at me? The same Effanbee doll from before! Ok, not the same one... Not even the same model... But the same pretty face mold. This one had dark hair and was still in her original box! So I plunked down my $3.99 and brought her home.

Isn't she pretty? She arrived named Holly but I already have a doll named Holly and so my dear daughter renamed her Hope.

She is 11" tall and has sleepy eyes. She'd never been removed from her box and I was thrilled to get her! I realize as I write this that I didn't unbox her step by step to show you how she was packaged but it was pretty standard.

The costume is interesting in that the collar, cuffs and sash are all separate pieces from the dress itself. All top notch costume, very well made. I love her. 

So... Not long after that, again, thrifting, I made a very interesting discovery. I was lucky enough to get to Goodwill just as they were bringing the new stock carts out from the back. All the really good stuff at Thrift Stores usually never makes it off these rolling carts out, people take the best right out of it and put it in their own carts! I am no exception. When I saw a load of dolls, all in plastic bags and tagged like they'd been in an estate sale, I grabbed every single one up into cart. I knew I wouldn't buy them all but it gave me a chance to look them over well and make decisions. All of them were Effanbee dolls and it was literally the first time I realized that Effanbee made dolls with faces other than the pretty one above. Uh oh. That would likely be dangerous knowledge... But I'll get to that later. I decided to buy four of the seven they had there. I left a Mae West, a Charlie Chaplain and a Winston Churchhill doll there because I've never been into dolls of adults. That left me with these.

As you can see, Hope is standing in middle of the four I bought. I got them in bagged sets for $3.99 a bag!!! So they were only $2 each!! I love thrift stores! Aren't they fabulous?!? To the left there is Flossie and Freddie, twin 11" dolls and to the right you see 13" Lotus Blossom and Little Tiger. They are all vinyl, with poseable arms and legs and are made very well, as is their costuming.

I was having way too much fun checking them out and didn't take as good a pictures as I might should've but here is some of me checking out Lotus Blossom's costume. It's so lovely! Every detail is made so well!

Here is the mark on the back of her body. She was made in 1982 and her doll artist was Jan Stafford. 

Here is Little Tiger in costume (minus shoes, one was broken) with his little kite.

Here is Lotus Blossom with Elizabeth (18" Just Pretend doll) and Simone (14" Heart for Hearts doll) all redressed with Simone wearing her outfit, which fit like a dream! More on them all later, just had to come show you how my latest obsession, Effanbee dolls, got started! I will come back and show much better details of the dolls later! I kept Freddie and Flossie's original names because they just seemed to "fit" but wanted something different for Lotus Blossom and Little Tiger because those are a mouthful! I decided it'd be cute to keep their names if I could come up with them in an alternate language and so decided to try Chinese first. It was perfect! So Little Blossom became Ha'n and Little Tiger became Hu'! Perfect!

Well, that's it for this time Doll Friends! See you next time!!