Kid Stuff

This season's black doll bonanza has yielded unexpected treasures.

Dollar Tree has been selling white fairies with this mold for several years.  This season they have even shown up in other discounters like Roses/ Maxway but yesterday was the first time I had seen black and Hispanic versions of these dolls. 

The fairy dresses are irredeemably cheap and tacky.  Still the doll comes with an impressive array of accessories -- fairy wings, a fairy wand which you can use to blow soap bubbles, a brush or comb, a purse, and a pair of slippers.

Mattel and other manufacturers of branded dolls make plenty of baby and toddler sized black dolls.  While their record on producing Hispanic and Asian dolls is not as good, doll families of any ethnicity can readily include small children.  Finding 1:6 scale ethnic school age dolls is another story, so I was delighted that Dollar Tree has provided some options.

Phyllis,

and Carmen

are modeling Bratz school uniforms that I found on clearance at Target last week. 

 

Even though their bodies are made of stiff, hollow plastic with skinny matchstick legs that don't bend, they make adorable second graders.

In 2005 I found these articulated child dolls at a mom and pop dollar store on the West Bank of New Orleans. 

Each doll came with a bicycle, which I thought would be useful. 

I also thought the articulated bodies would be perfect for doll videos.  Over the years I have tried different techniques for making children of color out of these dolls.  First I tried coloring one body with a brown Sharpie.  The doll ended up looking like she was made of wood and I couldn't find a child head that was  good match in terms of size and complexion.  Next I tried painting over the Sharpie color with acrylic paint.  Unfortunately the paint flaked off the soft vinyl head. 

Lunette's new body needs a few more coats of paint and sealer but now that I have found a source of heads at Dollar Tree, I can finally make use of the other five bodies I bought seven years ago.

Dollar Tree also had some black toddler dolls. 

I scalped this one so Lunette could have a baby brother. 

Oliver has a hollow plastic body that isn't even jointed at the hips but the bicycle makes this set worth the money.

Roses is currently selling these dolls in fairy or pajama party sets:

I bought several sets of these twins from Family Dollar in  2005.  At that time, dolls with this mold had soft vinyl legs and bendable knees.  Their hip joints are a little weak and their arms are a bit short but I thought that if only their heads weren't so large, they would make cute "teeny boppers." 

I put an adult head on one to make the diminutive Beulah Knapp.

In general, however, adult heads made these dolls look too old for junior high school.

Daneese's turtleneck disguises the fact that this body is not a good complexion match. 

Still I will be using these bodies and Dollar Tree heads to make five more classmates for Daneese.

I found Cordelia's body in a bargain bin at a doll show last May. 

Her grandmother washed, pressed and curled her hair, but she's been playing hard and the ringlets are starting to fall.

It's been a long time coming but I am overjoyed to have found these child dolls.

À Bientôt