Playing Dolls with My Girl!

Allison loves her 18" dolls more than ever these days.  She does their hair, makes clothes, and sets up scenes to take their pictures.  All of her dolls have been given to her over the past five years.  No, none of them are American Girl dolls.  They are Springfield Dolls and Proverbs 31 Dolls.
These dolls are looking much better these days.  A couple of weeks ago I wrote about rewigging and restoring hair.  The Springfield Dolls are nice, inexpensive dolls (especially with a 50% off coupon at Michaels), but their hair doesn't stay nice very long.  Now that we've learned to replace their hair with good wigs, all is well with the world.  You might be wondering which dolls' hair was restored and which ones have new wigs.  The two dolls in the middle back had hair restoration.  The rest of the dolls have gotten new wigs. Our favorite wig stores are Kemperdolls, BAVAS International, and Ruby Red Galleria.  We've only purchased from Kemper so far, but have read wonderful reviews from all three stores.
Now, about making clothing for them.  Allison and I have made the outfits three of these dolls are wearing.   The pink jumper is from our Simply Lovely Dress.  We are working on a major update with the child size version of that dress now.  It will include bodice patterns for sizes 2-8 and a skirt cutting guide, along with updated pictures.  The colorful dress on the end is our Pretty Peasant Dress.  It's update is at the testers now and will be re-released sometime next week.  The colorful skirt in the front is our Sweet Skirt tutorial.  It makes a wonderful beginner project.  Allison has plans to repurpose some of her outgrown clothes into doll clothes for sale this Spring.
We also made two pair of shoes.  You can only see one pair in the picture.  We made the glitter ballet flats using a combination of a glitter tutorial and a Liberty Jane pattern.  The second pair of shoes we made are Toms from duct tape.  We used this tutorial at Dolldiaries.com.  You could easily spend hours at Dolldiaries learning all sorts of doll things to make with your girl!
As our pattern line is updated, all of the patterns will include doll size patterns.  You can also find doll sized patterns by searching for books by Joan Hinds at your local library.  If you don't see any on the shelf, ask your librarian.  She'll be able to find some for you.
My next doll creation project is to make a mini me for my girl!  She's been asking for a doll that looks like her.  The two main sources for mini me dolls are way above our budget.  So, the plan is to use a Springfield doll and a curly wig, or maybe a straight wig made curly to make my girl a mini me for Easter.  I've got the doll and now I'm working on how to do the hair...oh the hair. ;)  Keep watching to see what happens with this project.
We hope you have fun playing dolls, too!
Blessings,
Debbie