Doll-A-Day 2023 #170: Violet Pickles Figure and Goodbye E.J. Taylor

    If you've been reading the blog for a while you may have seen my posts on Ivy Cottage dolls. Ivy Cottage was a book series by dollmaker E.J. Taylor, about a retired nanny named Miss Biscuit, and her live rag doll, who move to the country to live in an old ivy covered cottage. Violet is lonely, so Miss Biscuit makes her a companion named Ruby Buttons. 

  There were several sizes of dolls of  the main characters from the books, Ruby Buttons and Violet Pickles. I read the books to my kids when they were little. Emma and Ivy loved them, and Emma had a set of Ruby and Violet dolls.

Like these.

  I also posted about a set of dolls based on a couple of  the lesser characters from one of the books, Cecily Thistle and Rag Bag Annie. These dolls are a lot less known. In fact, my set is the only one I've ever seen. I found it online one year, and Ken got it for me for Christmas. 

  Something I've mentioned before, but never posted about, is the small PVC Ivy Cottage figures. They were also made by Horsman, like the dolls. They were approximately 2 1/2 inches tall. They were carded figures, and we found them in Canada when Emma was very small. She already had the first book and the soft dolls, and she loved playing with little figures, so we bought them for her. She had Ruby Buttons, Miss Biscuit, and their goose, Hanna Honk. But we never managed to find Violet Pickles. 

  Years ago I mentioned the figures and the Ivy Cottage Pop Up Playhouse mentioned on the back of the doll boxes. We never found it, and had no idea if it was a playhouse for kids, or a house of some sort for the dolls or figures. A kind reader named Christel messaged me that she had, in fact, had the Ivy Cottage house, and offered to send me pictures.

You can read what Christel had to say about The Ivy Cottage  . She didn't think much of it, but I'm sure Emma would have loved it. As Christel and I were emailing about the house, I mentioned that we had never managed to find Emma a Violet figure. Christel was so unbelievably nice that she sent Emma her extra Violet Pickles!

That was, as I said, years ago. The package was in better condition then!

The front of the package shows E.J. Taylor's illustration of Ruby and Violet as they look in the books.

Except their clothes are different colours!

The back of the package tells a bit about the story and characters.

Funny that the package doesn't mention the Ivy Cottage Playhouse. I read about it either on the packages of the figures, or of the dolls. Maybe it was only sold in Canada?

  Here's Violet. She comes with her bear, which she loved, and a book, her other love.

In the books her dress is always light green, as were the doll dresses. The figure is in purple, like the illustration on the package.

The back of the package shows all four figures that were available.

Ruby is still dressed like the book illustrations.

Ruby loves animals and has a pet mouse.

Violet.

Miss Biscuit.

Emma called hers by another name. I knew she knew who it was, so I asked her what she was calling it. She told me and I nearly died laughing. The figure bears a great resemblance to a man we knew, and that's what she was calling it! She was only about 2 maybe, but she was absolutely right!

The 4th figure is their goose, Hanna Honk.

 Violet is unopened, and will probably stay that way a while longer at least. Emma was 24 when she was sent Violet, and very happy to have gotten her.

  In doing this post I found that E.J. Taylor passed away last December from complications from diabetes. He was very talented, and created amazing art dolls. You can see his memorial on the NIADA site HERE. The Ivy Cottage books were just a side project. It seems they have an almost cult following though. The post on the Ruby and Violet dolls is, in fact, one of my all time highest viewed posts. People ask me quite frequently if I have any Ruby or Violet dolls to sell, as they read the books to their kids when they were little, and are now reading them to their grandchildren and want to give them the dolls. Or some people had the books or as kids, and now want to share that with their children. The books were published in the late 1980's, so the fact that they are still living on over 30 years later is a testament to the warmth and love they hold.

  That's the doll for today. See you again tomorrow.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #169: Baby in Pink

   Today's doll is a simple one. It's this baby.

Okay. His hair seems a little long for a baby. But he has a bottle mouth and when I got him he had a blanket It's somewhere else right now.

This baby is unmarked, and about the size of a Pee Wees doll. Maybe a little taller.

He's made of cheap plastic. I'm guessing him to be from the 60's or very early 70's. That's based on the look of him, and the load of stuff I got him it at a yard sale.

  That's today's doll. Tomorrow we'll see another one.

Doll-A-Day 2023 #168: Coraline

   Today's doll is Coraline.

This Coraline was made by NECA in 2009, the year the "Coraline" movie was released. There were three dolls in the series, this raincoat doll, a Coraline in a striped sweater, and one in pajamas. They all had different faces. 

  The movie was directed by Henry Selick, who also wrote the screenplay, based on the novel by Neil Gaiman. Selick directed the Tim Burton movie "The Nightmare Before Christmas", which, like 'Coraline", was a stop motion movie.

Coraline is 7 inches tall. I've been after this doll, or maybe not, for a while. I didn't like the movie that much. (Too creepy for me.), but I loved the puppet, and I wanted the doll. When I say, 'or maybe not;, what I'm referring to is that there is a 7 inch Neca doll in a box, who is described as 'bendy', and a 7 inch Neca doll on card, who looks exactly the same, and came in the same outfits, who is described as 'articulated'. But were they the same figure? I still have no idea.

                  

I got this doll for free, because I won a gift certificate at a doll show a while back, and Coraline is what I got with it. Here she is once her box was opened and the insert was slid out.

Once removed from the insert, her head was still tied to this plastic shell with very tight t-ended ties.

 

I finally got her out of her shell, (Ha.), and she figured that since she had a raincoat on, she would go out in the rain soaked outdoors. She brought her stand, which is just a black plastic circle with a little nub on it that fits into a hole in one of her boots.

She has a fat head, so she falls over if you don't get her balanced just right.

And yes, her hood can go up. Her coat closes with Velcro under her chin.

In this picture I hid her stand under the vegetation that had floated into a divot in the cement, 

 along with the rain. The lantern is one I got recently in a bunch of miniatures at a Bin store. It had no handle on it, so I had to make one.

  Her boots have fake mud on them.

Other than her raincoat, the only other thing she's wearing is a pair of jeans. In the front they have a fake fly and fake pockets.

Take note of that hand.

The back of her jeans has fake pockets too, and the Velcro closure.

  When I was posing her I noticed something. It felt at least, like she had some really nobby knees...

I was right.

I was, however, impressed that they had bothered to give her the nobby knees. They also made her super skinny because that makes her look right in the clothes. As with a lot of dolls, she has to be that skinny to be the right size with clothes on.

They also bothered to give her a...

  She has translucent blue hair, decorated with a dragonfly barrette.

You'll notice that her eyes look a bit like inset eyes.

You can see through her hair, but not all the way through it. I guess that is the definition of translucent.

  So is she articulated, or just 'bendy'? Well, she doesn't have joints. She is just bendy. But she is very posable, and she holds her poses.

And she can hold that lantern. Well, she could until HER HANDS FELL OFF! Yes! Her hands fell OFF. First, I tried to make her fold her arms and her right hand fell off. I put it back on, since the hand  has a post and the wrist has a hole. Should be okay, right? Well it's not. That hand just keeps falling off. I keep putting it back on, and it keeps falling off. Then, the next thing I know, the other hand falls off! It won't stay on either. You have no idea how many times the hand fell off without me realizing, and I was lucky enough to notice, and even more lucky to actually find it again.

But anyway, her feet didn't fall off, and her legs are very posable.

Had to lean her here.

Hid the stand with vegetation again.

She can't sit very well though. She doesn't bend at the waist, For this picture, she had to bend at the upper thigh, and put her hands behind her to prop herself up.

She's still barely sitting.

One thing she can do, is tilt her head. It can turn side to side, and tilt side to side.

She can also look up and down.

"See this hand? It's this close to falling off."

I had read one thing about the articulated Coraline that I was curious about, and I had read a review of this doll that said the other stuff I had read wasn't correct. But I see a seam under her chin, and I am willing to test a theory. Does this Coraline's face come off? (And yes, her mouth is very badly painted.)

 

Yes! It does! 

And why would you want it to? Because you can move her eyes and change her expression.

Of course, it takes a little practice to get it right...

You don't have to move the eyes as much as you would think. You can very easily move them too much.

The other thing about being able to remove the faces is that you can switch faces from one doll to another, so that your raincoat doll can change her expression by borrowing the face from pajama Coraline or sweater Coraline. Since you can't change her clothes, because you can't get her skinny jeans over those boots, it's nice to have the option.

So yay! She has the movable eyes and changeable face! The only thing I am disappointed about is that her hands won't stay on.

I'm still not sure if the articulated dolls are a different thing altogether, or the same doll in different packaging. (They also have a different stand. They have a clear one with a long arms that holds the doll up better than a disc with a peg.)

  And that's today's doll. See you tomorrow for another one.