My All Time Top Ten Posts as of January 2020

  Don't forget to check our Facebook page,(Except for you Dorothy.) for the latest posts, which include a really cute stop motion felt video!
  A while back I did a post reviewing my top ten posts of all time. I thought it would be interesting to look at that again and see if anything has changed. So what are my all time Top Ten Posts?
  Well the number one post hasn't changed. It's my post on Mrs. Beasley,her history, my life long love, and a Yard Sale Tale.

My Beasleys.

Who would have thought Mrs. Beasley would still draw such a mob?! I always wanted a Mrs. Beasley. Apparently, I'm not the only one with that obsession.
  The second place post is even more strange,because they are dolls I think few people have even heard of. They're Violet Pickles and Ruby Buttons.

Maybe the creator of Violet and Ruby is the draw. He's E.J. Taylor,a doll maker who decided to write and illustrate a book series, Ivy Cottage, on Violet and Ruby,two live rags dolls who live with Miss Biscuit, the old lady who made them. 

E.J. Taylor makes beautiful dolls,with a  lot of personality.
 

Or maybe it's just the words 'Ivy Cottage' that are the draw! If you Google Ivy Cottage a lot of shabby chic stuff comes up.
   The third place goes to my post called Happy Beatles Birthdays Part 2. I covered various things including Christmas ornaments and figures. Oh. And Tammy's shirt.

Up at number four we have Little Miss No Name.

She was one of my favourite childhood dolls. I still love her, even if Ken thinks she looks like Ignorance and Want from "A Christmas Carol" and can't look at her!
  Coming in at number five is an Ai doll,Bee Balm.

I've done posts on several Ai dolls, but none of them have reeled in as many views as Bee Balm. I have no idea why.
  Number six is another doll few people have heard of, so his position on the list surprises me. He's That Kid.

That Kid and Mrs. Beasley are the two dolls I longed for the most as a kid. I have three of these boys now, including the one I finally got that still talks! I did a post with video so everyone could hear him, since I don't think anybody has posted his voice online. My video doesn't seem to work, but one day I'll get that fixed. He did come with his box and instructions, so if anybody is interested you can see that post HERE.
  Number seven is another of my childhood dolls. She's Newborn Thumbelina.

My newborn Thumbelina,me, my mom,and my sister,Christmas day.

I asked for this doll one Christmas after spotting her at the local Hart's store. I think Mom and Dad must have bought her that day behind my back.
  Number eight is a strange little kid. If you thought That Kid was weird looking, check out this Ratti Tjorven doll.

She's one of those dolls that you like, but, on the other hand... A lot of people seem to like her though.
Number nine is a real surprise. But maybe it shouldn't be. Maybe it's because a lot of people my age remember Topo Gigio fondly from the Ed Sullivan Show.
 

On the other hand, it could be because, unbeknownst to me, he has been popular all around the world since before the Ed Sullivan Show, and he still is in many countries.
  It has just occurred to me that I should have started with number 10 and been counting down. Oh well. Too late now. So here's number ten. Another fairly surprising one. It's my post on Penny Brite.
 

Penny Brite was a doll made in the 60's by Deluxe Reading, but I don't know of many people that remember her, or collect her. I have my childhood doll, and my sister's...and a boat load of others now. (That's the boatload above.) I have posted another Penny, and a couple of clones, but this post tops those by a long shot.
  So those are my all time top ten most popular posts. I last did this in 2016. Most of the top ten from that list are included here, even if some of them have switched their places around. At least one dropped off the top ten list. Penny Brite wasn't even on it the last time. I wonder what will be the Top Ten the next time I do this.

Doll-A-Day 2019 #4: Newborn Thumbelina

  Today's doll is Newborn Thumbelina.

She's 9" tall. This is her original outfit. She also had a beaded baby bracelet like newborns used to get in the hospital. The outfits were pretty much the same on all the dolls, except the tights also came in chartreuse,yellow,and pink,and hot pink,and I have seen a few with white ribbons on their shirts, instead of yellow. 

She was made by Ideal in 1968.

She has rooted hair,a stuffed cloth body,and vinyl head and limbs.

 

She's a pull string doll, but she doesn't talk. (You can see her pullstring loop on her back.)

Instead her pullstring operates a movement mechanism that makes her 'squirm',supposedly like a baby. Really all she does is move her head. Hopefully you can see this is the videos below.

  Newborn Thumbelina came as a Caucasian blonde and redhead, and also as an African American. The African American used the same head sculpt. You can see the African American version in my post on my childhood Newborn Thumbelina. If not, you can see that post HERE.
  See you tomorrow for another doll.

Merry Christmas! And the Sum Total of my Childhood Christmas Pictures

  Some of you may have been wondering why I did five posts on my friend Lori's Christmas pictures. Well, to be honest, she got so much great stuff,and also,there are very few pictures of my childhood Christmases. Apparently my mom only took Christmas pictures on two or three Christmases. Most of those were posed pictures taken after all the presents were opened.  The other thing is, you will have seen the ones with toys in them in previous posts. However, I'm going to go ahead and show you the sum total of all my childhood Christmas pictures. There  aren't many.
  We'll start with Christmas of 1964. I was nearly three at the time, since my birthday is at the beginning of March.
  I'm guessing this is Christmas eve. There are no opened presents under the tree, and our hair isn't curled. Mom used to curl our hair Christmas eve so we had curly hair on Christmas. She was always disappointed that she didn't have curly haired children.

Me on the left. There is one of our inflatable reindeer. It looks to be Rudolph.  My sister and I both had a reindeer. Mom made us pretend to be looking up the cardboard fireplace for Santa Claus. As young as we were we protested because we thought it was stupid to look up a cardboard fireplace for Santa. It didn't even go anywhere!

Christmas morning,1965. My sister got Barbie's New Dreamhouse,(on the left),and I got a set of metal kitchen appliances. I wore the washing machine out. It really agitated and had a hose to drain the water out. There was also a sink, stove, and a refrigerator, plus an extra piece that must be just a cupboard. I remember the fridge and the washing machine best.
 

Plus I think the thing laying on the shelf to the right of my butt is a little wooden rolling pin. I know I have one, but I don't remember if it came with this stuff or something else.

  I also got a set of pink plastic cups with a matching coffee pot, and white dishes, with white cutlery. The pink box in the foreground had my Tiny Thumbelina in it. I don't see her anywhere. She was my second Thumbelina. I had had a white haired one before, one of the larger ones I think. Mom threw her away. I don't remember why. I do remember her laying on top of the trash pile in the woods, where we had to put things that didn't burn because there was no trash pick up in the country in those days. I do remember begging Mom to get her down. Gee, this is getting sad! Moving on! I did get another Thumbelina, my Newborn Thumbelina, which I did a post on HERE. I still have both of the last two. Thumb's pink box was used to keep those dishes in way into the 70's. 
  Ok. Wait a minute. Our hair is curled here! These pictures are print dated March and May of 1965,meaning they were all taken the Christmas before. Maybe some are from a different Christmas and it took Mom a whole year to get them developed? We look the same size though.

This is obviously after the present opening because of the loose paper under the tree. My sister and I had matching sweaters in green and blue. Mom only wore that sweater on Christmas, and still had it when she passed away in 1986.

Here are my sister, and me, with our hair still curled. I'm holding the Christmas elf, or pixie as we called them then, which my sister got me for Christmas that year. He was one of my favourite toys and I played with him a lot. I still have him, and he got his own post HERE.

Here we are in my sister's room.

If you look closely, you'll see that I have Pixie tucked down beside me in the chair. That's my sister's Miss Revlon or maybe a clone doll. She does still have her. The chicken in the basket was actually a pot holder, made by our Grama I think. I have a green one. I didn't realize they were potholders until my sister told me recently! My mom had the red chair reupholstered one year and gave it to my sister's daughter for Christmas. I don't think they still have it though. I do still have the toy phone on my sister's dressser.
  Ok,I think I solved this mystery. Here's another picture of us in my sister's room. I know we got the giant dogs for Easter. (Mine is blue.) Maybe this one is Easter? That would account for the date on the pictures. But I still have Pixie with me. The weird thing is, if this is the same day as the picture above, why did my sister bother to move the phone from the dresser to the bedside table. Wow! Were there originally two of those?  I only remember there being one, and there's only one now. It does have the remain of a battery compartment and some wiring though, so maybe there were two and you could talk to each other?

  That bed had metal head and foot boards and when you accidentally hit your head on the headboard it sounded like a gong. (Trust me.) My mom later revarnished the night stand, which was originally one side of a vanity,(Thus there are two of those nightstands. She cut the middle section out so she could have night stands.) I still use them by my bed.
  I remember this picture being taken. It's Christmas evening. Dad had just arrived. There's Pixie on my lap again. I seem to have been playing with my Tonka camper and the plastic farm animals when Dad got there. Still have both of those too. I always loved that camper because the windows slid open and the door really opened and you could put toys in it.

Here we are the next year in our next house. I loved this place. It's my favourite place I have ever lived. Our hair is in curlers in preparation for Christmas morning. That's why we have things on our heads. Mine is a hand me down nightcap. It is white, with small red stars. I still have it, and my kids occasionally wore it too.

My mom wanted a fireplace so badly, that one year she left this cardboard one up all year! It had an electric light behind the cardboard fire, with a metal wheel that sat on top of the bulb. The warmth from the light made the wheel spin, which was supposed to give the effect of flickering fire light. The light and wheel are the only parts of the fireplace left, and are in my attic somewhere, as is the spinning wheel planter on the mantel. My kids sang Christmas carols from that carol book my sister is holding. That's my bald baby picture on the wall behind the tree.
  Ok! Christmas morning. I'm working on getting into my new doctor's kit, probably to eat the candy pills! Those were a really bad idea and aren't made these days. I got a metal ironing board, a metal wash tub, a metal and wooden wash board, (because I am THAT OLD!),wooden clothes pins, and an umbrella style clothes line. I have said this before, but my sister took it apart and stole the bits that held the line up to turn into finger cymbals. Say, why did I need the washboard and stuff when I got a washing machine the year before?

You will have recently seen this picture in my post on the Barbie Suzy Goose Regal Bed. (If not, you can see it HERE.) That's it there in the middle of the floor. That's Tearie Dearie by Ideal laying on the bed. Her pink cradle/bath tub is in the left foreground. And that's my  great Remco Tiger Cat jeep. I played that to death. I still have the doctor kit and the contents,(except for the candy pills!),the Regal bed, Tearie Dearie and her cradle.my clothes pins and washboard, and the radiator from my jeep! You can't see them here, but I got clothes for Tearie Dearie too, as well as a little white haired doll and some clothes for her. 

 I'm holding the white haired doll. I think she was a cheap generic doll. Notice all the shipping boxes. I think Mom did most of her shopping by catalog. I know that's how we picked out what we wanted. In fact, before I could write I used to just cut out the pictures of what I wanted from the catalog and glue them to a piece of paper. As you can see, my sister got a red doctor kit just like mine. Later I used it as a case for my Sesame Street finger puppets. I don't think they're still in there though, because Emma used to play with them when she was little. The guitar next to my sister was something I think Mom really wanted for herself. She's the one who played it most. She always wanted to play guitar, so she bought one for my sister! She taught herself to play "Uncloudy Day", which she would play standing on the register,(heating vent), for the acoustics! When I was about 9 she kept asking me, "Wouldn't you like to have one of those little organs?" This was when the small electric 'chord organs' were popular. I kept hemming and hawing, until I realized she wanted it. Mom and Dad never got presents from anybody except me and my sister, and we bought those at the Five and Ten or made them. So I told her yes. We both played it until it wore out.    
White haired girl can be seen in Tearie Dearie's bed with her in the picture below.

  Emma played with the white haired doll for a while when she was little, but the doll had gotten brittle with age and her legs fell off! Side note: See that multiple corner on the wall by the telephone niche? One day I woke up from my nap to find that my sister was already home from school and was in the kitchen,(The room beyond the corners). I was so excited that I jumped off the couch, which was sort of the direction this photo was taken from, and went running for the kitchen, calling her name. Well you might notice that the rug stops just at the corner of this chair. After that there was wood floor, and then a section of linoleum that was printed with small bricks. The linoleum continued on into the kitchen. I did not take naps in my shoes, therefore I was only wearing socks. I think you can see where this is going. Once I ran out of carpet and hit the linoleum, my butt hit the floor and I slid on it straight into that multiple corner, which I hit with my head. The walls were plaster, but I swear those edges were steel enforced. I have an invisible dent in my forehead I can feel to this day, that I'm sure is because of that corner. Second side note: That's the recliner I hid behind when Chris Jennings turned into a werewolf on "Dark Shadows".
  Here's a rarity. It's a picture of my mom and dad on Christmas.

That flowered couch actually has a cover on it. When a spot would wear out, my mom,  grew up during the depression, would snip a piece of fabric from the back of the cover, neatly patch that hole with a piece of plain green fabric, and use the piece she had cut out to patch the front!
  Below is another picture of my sister with me. It's another of Mom's posing ideas. We're supposed to be reading a Christmas book or singing carols or something. This may actually be after Christmas, when mom left the fireplace up all year. Notice my clown slippers. I think I only had one pair like that, but I had two or three pairs with duck heads on them, and one pair with white kitten heads. I don't know for sure about the duck heads, but I know for certain I still have the kitten heads off of those! I was always a sentimental pack rat, even as a kid. As proof of that fact, I'll tell you this story. During first grade I used an old lunch box of my sister's. On the last day of school, instead of me riding the bus home, Dad picked me up, which became a tradition. Part of the way home I realized I had left my lunch box behind. I insisted we go back to get it. Dad said not to worry about it, that he'd just buy me a new one for the next year. But, at seven years old, I was thinking, "But that was my first lunch box! I want to keep it!" When I just kept on Dad went back and we got it. These days I use that metal 'states of the U.S.A.' lunchbox to store family mementos, like my grandfather's pocket watch, one of my dad's dog tags, and my grandmother's locket.

My mom made the magazine rack to my right. She kept looking at the 'baby cradle book rack' in the catalog and wanted one really badly. Finally she decided to make herself one. She drew a template and cut out the pieces, sanded them, and put it together. This is before she stained it. It's dark brown now, and at the moment has records in it.

  Here were are on Christmas,1968. That's my Newborn Thumbelina In my hand. I saw her in the store and wanted her so much. You can see my post on her HERE. She was made by Ideal. She has a pullstring which activates movement that was supposed to look like she was squirming like a real baby.

 
  And that's the last of my childhood Christmas photographs.  Everybody have a good Christmas, or whatever it is you celebrate. See you soon.

Doll-A-Day 26: Newborn Thumbelina by Ideal

Today's doll is Newborn Thumbelina, made by Ideal in 1968.

Thumbelina was originally produced in 1961, to compete with Vogue's Eloise Wilkin Baby Dear.

Personally, I think Thumbelina was much cuter. Baby Dear has a much grouchier or 'grunt face', as Unsentimental Niece used to say. Thumbelina was made in 18" and 20" sizes, and had a wooden knob in her back which made her wiggle when it was cranked. (You'd wiggle too if somebody stuck a wooden knob in your back...)The later, smaller Tiny Thumbelina's had a plastic knob. Newborn Thumbelina had a different face mold from all Thumbs that came before or after them.

  This is my baby. I got her for Christmas of 1968.

And here she is on the day.

Christmas, 1968.Cocoa, me, Mom, and my sister.Cocoa is obviously the favoured present of the year.as she made it into the posed photo!By the way, it's Christmas, so Mom obviously made me wear my hair down. It was normally in a ponytail like Tammy World's.

 She's wearing her original clothes; a blouse and tights. She has lost the flower applique that was on her yellow ribbon,and she was apparently wearing one of those beaded Baby ID bracelets. That's possibly around here somewhere. I know I still have the one from my Tiny Thumbelina.The outfits on all of the Newborn Thumbelina's are pretty similar: the same blouse, with maybe a couple of different ribbon colours,(occasionally white but usually yellow), and hot pink,pink, yellow, orange,or chartreuse tights.

Zooming in didn't help much. I guess my dad wasn't much of a photographer. It's not something he did a lot of.

  I saw the Newborn Thumbelina dolls in a bin by the check outs at a Harts store the year I got her. (They were apparently supposed to come in open front cardboard boxes, but I remember all these dolls being loose.) There were all sorts. I remember thinking the blonde ones looked cold and ugly, and falling in love with this girl

My sister named her for some unknown reason. She called her Cocoa, and I went with it. I was 6. Most of the names I thought of were still so weird and convoluted I had a hard time remembering them, so it's just as well.

 Newborn Thumbelina only came in the 9" size. I had had two other Thumbelinas, the large 18 or 20" doll, and the smaller, 14"  Tiny Thumbelina. By the time I received Cocoa I was a single Thumb owner. My first Thumbelina had been relegated  to the trash pile in the woods near the house years before I got Cocoa.(That's where unburnable trash went in those days, as we had no trash pickup out in the country.) I don't know why my mom threw her away, but I can still clearly remember her on top of the trash pile. She had white hair and I begged my mom to let me get her down.My second Thumb (That's what we called her.) is still here, in my closet usually. She's the kind with the plastic knob you crank to make her move 'like a real baby'.Of course, my mom threw her knob away. Anything that wasn't attached and looked useless or broken was history if Mom found it.I didn't leave Thumb's knob in her back because I used to play with it as other things. It was frequently a sucker.(Don't ask me why.) Newborn Thumbelinas didn't have a knob. They were all modern, with pullstrings in their backs.

Her arms and legs are vinyl, like her head. Her body is cloth, and very soft.Most of her mechanism is in her head.

 Cocoa's hair is still in amazingly good condition.

It's a smoother hair that doesn't get crispy and break off like Tiny Thumbelina's.(My sister made Thumb a wig from one of Mom's old stockings and some yellow yarn. Her heart was in the right place, but it looks like a thatched roof and never stayed on very well.I still have it though.

Cocoa still works. Not as well as she did before I let Unsentimental Niece play with her for a while. When her string is pulled she moves her head slowly, (accompanied by a mechanical whirring sound that would set any real baby bawling.)

  Like most people who collect, I don't usually leave something good behind when I find it at a yard sale or thrift store, even if it isn't something I want for myself. At a yard sale a few years ago I found a blonde Newborn Thumb and  bought her for a quarter or whatever. I took her apart, cleaned her, put her back together. She worked. I sold her to a lady who told me this story: When she was a little girl she had seen the blonde Newborn Thumbelina in a store while out shopping with her dad. She wanted her badly. Christmas was coming,but things were hard for them at the time, and there were a lot of kids in her family. She knew she would never get the doll, but she still wanted her. Here it was, almost Christmas, and she had spotted my sale and it all came out again. Now she could give herself what she had wanted for so long. She was so happy. When she told me this, before I had mailed the doll, I wrapped Thumby in Christmas paper and put a tag on her; "To **** From Santa". She sent me an email when she received her in the mail. She said she had put her under the tree just like that and wasn't going to open her until Christmas morning. She was so excited. It was so nice to make someone so happy. That's one of my favourite stories.