Childhood Treasures: Handmade Dolls Clothes

When my mother was a little girl, she had two special dolls: Chloe and Emily. Chloe was bought for my mum, and Emily had been my grandmother's doll when she was a little girl. Later they were both passed down to me and my sisters, and we played with them and dressed them in a lot of the same clothes my mother and grandmother had.

We were sorting through a box of old dolls clothes and other bits and bobs recently (deciding what to keep for my niece and nephew to play with, what to send to the charity shop, and so on) and I couldn't resist taking some photos of the loveliest handmade things to share with you guys!

My grandmother made this dress for Emily, using off-cuts from the outfits she made for my mum and her brother. "I had shorts and a blouse in that fabric", my mum says.  Aren't those tiny pockets adorable? You've got to love a dress with pockets.

Then here's Emily's silky pajamas, complete with pretty lace trim. I have very vivid memories of dressing Emily in these pajamas to "put her to bed" at night!

As well as Chloe and Emily, my mum had a few other smaller dolls which didn't survive to be passed down to us - but their clothes lasted and we used them to dress our modern plastic dolls.

My grandmother made this dress (with pockets and super cute piping details) for a doll my mother's aunt sent her from Canada. 

This outfit belonged to the same doll, but my mum isn't sure if it's one of her mother's creations. She remembers having some clothes in a very similar fabric as a kid, though, so chances are these were sewn by my grandmother from more dressmaking offcuts.

These clothes were sewn by my grandmother from a kit, for another small doll. Maybe someone in your family bought the same kit and stitched these, too?

Chloe had some handmade dresses too, of course!

A pretty yellow dress and matching knickers (love that collar)...

... and a floral print dress, with a stylish waistband:

When I was a baby, my mum knitted me this cardigan and matching hat, mittens and booties... and when I outgrew them, they were inherited by Chloe! I spent many happy hours dressing Chloe in these, buttoning and unbuttoning those buttons to get her ready for all kinds of adventures.

Finally, what did Chloe wear when we tucked her in at night? Not a chic pair of pajamas like Emily, but a sweet floral nightdress.

My mum took Chloe with her to boarding school - she had a homemade nightie in this floral fabric and a matching blue dressing gown, so my grandmother made a matching set for Chloe! How adorable is that?

Fancy reading about more of my childhood treasures? I've also blogged about Sylvanian Families (and the handmade furniture and other things we made for them as kids), my shell collection, my badge collection, my sticker album, my eraser collection, Fuzzy Felt, Keypers, lots of puzzles and games, some of my most beloved childhood books, and a bear I stitched for my sister when I was eight.

My Childhood Sylvanian Families Collection

More treasures from our attic clear-out: Sylvanian Families!

I definitely collected Sylvanian Families more than I really played with them as a kid.

My sisters and I each had one family - mine were the grey rabbits. My parents used cardboard boxes to build us an apartment block style dolls house, with one vertical row of boxes each which we could decorate as different rooms.

We used carpet and wallpaper off-cuts and mixed our store-bought furniture (all lovingly, carefully chosen after much deliberation and on a limited pocket money budget) with homemade things.

I just loved looking at all the teeny pieces. A bookcase with tiny books! A bath with a teeny cork in the plughole! A sink with a tiny bar of soap! A sewing machine with little scissors and reels of thread.

Drawers that really opened! Charming old fashioned furniture like a dressing table and a rocking chair and a fancy rotary phone!

It was such a joy opening up a box and finding all these things... especially as I'd also kept some of the handmade furniture and accessories we'd made. I'll blog about those soon, they definitely deserve their own post.

In the meantime, check out my posts about other rediscovered childhood collections:

My shell collection...

... my badge collection...

 

... my sticker collection...
 

... and my eraser collection.

You might also enjoy reading about puzzles and games from my childhood, more childhood treasures, Fuzzy-Felt Fairytales and beloved kids books.

Old Fashioned Delights: Pollock's Toy Museum and James Smith & Sons Umbrellas

For my Nice Day Out a few weeks ago, I took advantage of a day of winter sunshine and went for a walk through London. More specifically, I spent the day following the "Fitzrovia and Bloomsbury" walk in the excellent London's Hidden Walks, volume 1.

I love the Hidden Walks books. Each walk includes so many interesting things to see and places to visit, and loads of fascinating, quirky historical facts - and this walk was no exception. I learned lots of new things about familiar places and discovered lots of new-to-me places as well.

Of course, you'll have to buy the book if you want to go on the walk yourself (as you may have gathered, I highly recommend them) but I wanted to share a couple of the delightfully old-fashioned places I discovered thanks to this walk which I will definitely be re-visiting (and which I can't believe I've never visited before!).

First there's Pollock's Toy Museum - I haven't even been into the museum yet and I already love this place!

 

It's just off the Tottenham Court Road and comprises a small museum of mostly Victorian toys and a very charming toy shop.

The shop is filled with things that would make great gifts for the kids (and not-entirely-grown-ups) in your life, I expect I will be doing lots of Christmas shopping here in future! I'm also really looking forward to exploring the museum itself.

Then there's James Smith & Sons Umbrella shop. Just look at this shop!

The Victorian shop front has apparently hardly been altered in 140 years, and the family business still makes and sells handmade umbrellas, sticks and canes.

How wonderful it would be to buy your umbrella from an actual umbrella shop?? 

You can read more about James Smith & Sons here. I also recommend their guide to umbrella care which concludes "It is inadvisable to lend your James Smith umbrella to even your closest friend. Give them our address instead."

Fuzzy Nostalgia

Remember all those puzzles and games hidden away in our attic? Well, brace yourself for a bit more childhood nostalgia because...

 

... we found a box of Fuzzy-Felt!

What fun this stuff was!

We spent hours and hours and hours as kids re-arranging these little felt pieces and using them to tell all kinds of stories.

Sadly they don't stick to the board any more, and some of the pieces are definitely showing their age.

It feels totally wrong to just throw them away though, so I'm thinking maybe I should make something from them? Maybe combine them with some plain felt and patterned papers to make some nostalgic cards to send to my friends? Hmmm...

I shall add the pieces to my box of "random things that might be useful for a crafty project sometime" (every crafter has a box like that, right??) and see if/when inspiration strikes!

P.S. You might also enjoy these posts about board games, toys, books, erasers, badges and stickers from my 80s childhood :)

A Wave of Nostalgia: Puzzles & Games from My Childhood

This weekend I fell down a bit of a nostalgia rabbit hole. I was doing some decluttering and re-organising of my stuff, playing lots of old mixtapes while I worked and getting frequently distracted by reading old letters, etc.

Meanwhile, my mum was clearing a few more boxes out of the attic - retrieving more boxes of things from our childhood that were packed up many moons ago. Some of this treasure will be (finally) given to charity shops, but much of it is destined for my new neice and any siblings and cousins she aquires over the coming years :)

I remembered a lot of the things that emerged from these boxes, but there were a few that hit me with such a strong wave of memories that it was slightly overwhelming (in a good way!). I thought you guys might enjoy a peek at some of the games I loved in my 80s childhood - maybe you had some of these too?

Picture Pairs & Animal Friends Dominos: I must have been really young when we first started playing picture pairs but those pictures are imprinted on my brain. The watering can was always my favourite.

Snakes and Ladders - a classic!

 

Foxwood Tales and Brambly Hedge jigsaw puzzles: I loved these books (especially the Brambly Hedge series) and spent many happy hours looking at the pictures, and (when I was a bit older) trying to draw some of the charming little things in them.

Teddy Bears Picnic: I had 100% forgotten that this game was a thing that existed and I have no clue what the rules might have been, but when it came out of the box from the attic: POW! So familiar!

 

Something else I'd totally forgotten about: Victoria Plum's Adventures. I loved this book and all the cute pictures, especially as my BFF at the time was called Victoria:

Huff-Puff: My mum tried to get rid of this game when we were deciding what to keep and what to charity shop. "It looks really boring!" she said. "What's fun about building these fiddly little card houses?" But we were having none of it. Building little card houses before the wolf can blow them down = very fun indeed!

Another fave puzzle: I absolutely adored this picture and remember doing lots of paintings with mountains in them just like those.

There was also a box of older-kids games. We spent sooooo many hours playing Guess Who over the years, including many games auf Deutsch with visiting German friends. Once you've learnt the German for things like "does he have a moustache" and "do they have brown hair?" you can have hours of fun...

Finally, rediscovering this card game hit me so hard in the feels I can't even. Old Macdonald Counting Snap! So. Much. Cuteness.

Hello from Rob

I've got a lovely work experience student helping me out this week, and today he's going to do a guest post while I put my feet up and have a cuppa! Enjoy :)

-------

Hello everyone! My name is Rob Jones, I'm on my second year of illustration at the University of Gloucestershire and I have recently been getting work experience in the world of crafts! I've already been at Stuffed Nonsense with Bex and El, who make really nice toys and were very kind for letting me get in the way in their shop for a couple of days!

And now for the last two days I have been working with Laura , I have learnt so much about crafts in this time by annoying her with my many many questions and helping out where I can, Laura runs an amazing business and is also a very busy person so I would like to thank her for taking the time to help me over the last two days :)

The animals that have been posted are my first attempt at handstitching toys, they are pretty much the starting point of my final major project which is going to be based on British eccentricity, they are also helping towards my first stop motion animation which is a very scary thought!

Anyway.. all of my development will be on my blog at some point soon so I look forward to any comments if anyone finds it interesting :) - rob