Saturday, November 23, 2019

Doll-A-Day 2019 #326: Dolly Maker

  Today's dolls are sort of special. They don't start out as dolls. 

Ivy made these when she was little.

The whole thing starts with this thing.


This thing is the Dolly Maker oven. It's pretty grungy, but it has been through three kids making dolls with it,and has been stuffed away for years. It may be sort of familiar, because it is the same sort of thing that was sold in other sets for making rubber toys,like Treasures 'N Trinkets and Creepy Crawlers. For those of you who are older, you might remember similar sets back in the 60's and 70's,like the Thingmaker and Creeple People.

This is the oven and the tool used to remove hot molds from the oven.

Actually, I guess the whole thing starts with this stuff. This is the Goop, (It is actually called that.), that is used to make the rubber dolls. This is Dolly Maker Glamour Goop.

It's a bit furry around the cap because the Goop is very oily,and when I found the bag of stuff, I found that one of the tubes of Goop had a broken lid. It had leaked all over most of the stuff in the bag, leaving it oily and covered with the dust that had stuck to the oil. I wiped things down quickly to take the pictures, so I didn't do a thorough job. Believe me, what I am showing you here is a fraction of what the kids owned.

There was the Goop for the actual dolls, and smaller tubes with small tips, for fine details and decorations. As you can see, the Goop came in lots of colours and a few different types.


There was regular Goop,and there was Glitter Glamour Goop.


There was also Scented Glamour Goop. That was horrible. The stuff stunk anyway. 'Scented' didn't help. The kids didn't mind the smell. They even liked it. But I have a problem with smells, even if I think they smell good. My nose and throat get irritated, and I get a headache. At the most basic, I just get annoyed with smells after a little while. I also figured it wasn't healthy to be breathing this stuff, even though it says 'non toxic' on everything. So, the kids used to get mad at me, but I only let them use the Dolly Maker when it was warm enough to do it with the windows open! They always used it at the dining room table, and the window was right behind them. It still stunk, but it was better.
    There were metal molds for the dolls, and accessories. They were filled with the Goop and then 'cooked' in the oven. I taught the kids how to colour the eyes and mouths first,so the colour would be on the 3-D side of the doll when they were done.. This stuff was hard to do though. The colours ran, and it was hard to get a perfect doll.

These are only three of the molds the kids had. They also had a 101 Dalmations set to make dogs.


There were a couple of tools provided for removing the finished creations from the molds when they were cooled.


There were even some sets that came with wires for making bendable dolls.


That extra metal piece was used to keep the wires in place,if I'm remembering correctly.


There were also molds for making clothes and accessories.





Some sets came with dress forms to display the clothes you had made,stands for the dolls,shoes,and...what are those things for?


There were still several unopened packs of these things.


Like this one. The Dolly Maker was made by ToyMax,but as you can see,the set this came from provided the same brush that Barbie's came with.


Why did rubber dolls need a hair brush? Because the 'Real Hair Dolls Fashion Show' set came with ready made heads,complete with hair.




There was even a mermaid set. We never saw that one. Emma was the original owner of the Dolly Maker, and most of the sets are hers. Ivy is the youngest, so she was the last one with the set. Tomorrow we'll look at another of Ivy's doll. See you then.

14 comments:

  1. Yikes, sounds dangerous! I love this concept, though. Ivy could've made a green alien girl if she'd wanted!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I remember my daughter having something along these lines, but she grew tired of it in favor of "real dolls" w/ fronts and backs and hair and gave it to her cousin.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I bet even though it's non-toxic it's not great for you. And I bet it's near impossible to make a nice doll. I still kind of want one of these.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've never seen anything like this before, and wonder how the manufacturers got away with producing this for kids as they were using metal moulds and an oven! I wonder how many kids got blistered fingers LOL
    But very interesting idea and I'd have loved to have had this myself as a kid even though I wasn't into dolls back then.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're right. I thought they did away with the ovens like this way before Dolly Maker. The kids never got burned though. They were very supervised! I was always right there. I did a lot of the mold removal,and Emma was always a very responsible kid. She did most of the oven work eventually,for herself and the younger kids.

      Delete
  5. What cute little dolls you made.

    I love the Stormy Weather poster in the background!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a project Ivy did in elementary or middle school on Lena Horne. Ivy likes Lena and decided to do Lena as her project on an influential person. The kids had to dress like their subject,so ivy wore a vintage 40's dress and jacket I had.

      Delete
    2. Good for Ivy! I just love the story of her project. Lena Horne is one of my favorites also.

      Delete
  6. I wonder if those spare heads would fit on a Kelly doll body or something. Some of them look really cute, and it would be a shame to have them go to waste. Maybe you could pick up some of those cheap Kelly clone dolls they sell at Dollar Tree and start experimenting.
    Signed, Treesa

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They are cute, but unfortunately quite a bit smaller than a Kelly head. They're a little bigger than the 4 inch Polly Pocket doll's head.

      Delete
  7. I had an Easy Bake Oven and a rock tumbler. I don't even remember seeing these. They definitely had a lot of variety, but I can also see the frustration factor.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VERY frustrating! What kid was ever going to make them look like the pictures?!

      Delete
  8. The little white things held the clothes together in the back.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I had this and I absolutely loved it

    ReplyDelete

Thanks in advance for your comments.