I’m glad you all enjoyed the video of the doll convention that Dorothy shared with us… I found some time and got off by myself and watched the whole video and really enjoyed it… I can’t imagine how much fun it would have been in person to have seen all those dolls in that room… I saw some little Forever Virginia dolls that were adorable… and I saw those roller skates too and those felt hats… something for everyone!
Well, you are very fortunate that Linda sent me some pictures of her girls dressed up and ready for school. Otherwise I was going to have to share a few archived posts because my weekend was full. Karn left this morning and is back in PA. We have 13 days till the wedding and things are heating up with last minute details… and I thought this was going to be a “simple” wedding???
I didn’t realize it was still a problem but Joy mentioned if you click on a picture when you are in the middle of writing a comment, your comment will disappear when you go back to it. I’m going to see if can’t get that fixed…
This is what Linda shared with me…
Jeanne,
Here we go back to school, but we aren’t all there yet! My 40’s girls and the modern girls are still waiting for the bus! I will get their classroom set up in the next week or so.
Each doll has a backpack, school bag, or whatever her times call for, and of course, everyone has books, pencils, crayons, etc. They all also have lunch bags, all containing food, except for Felicity, who is home schooled!
I also fixed Molly’s table for her big breakfast before school! In case you really can’t see it, I have bacon and eggs in the frying pan on the stove!
You can’t see the modern girls backpacks, but they are there, both purple AG ones. They are wearing newer mix and match pieces from AG.
I included a picture of Betsy in one of my favorite dresses of hers, a smocked dress! LD dolls could also wear that.
Love to you,
Linda
Thanks Linda! Your girls look like perfect students and I bet they will all become the Teacher’s Pet!
Come back tomorrow to see a real live American Girl Fashion Show… just a few years old, but who cares… :o)
See you tomorrow,
Blessings, Jeanne
Thank you so much for sharing your pictures, Linda! I do have Molly’s schoolbag (and her lunch pail, too, I think)–somewhere!! Such fun. I remember carrying a school bag like that, only mine was red plaid! (I started 1st grade in 1952, for reference). I enjoyed the other pictures, too, and Molly’s kitchen is wonderful! I remember that table and chairs set, but never had the inclination (nor the room) to consider buying them. They are certainly true to the era, though.
Betsy’s smocked dress is lovely, but I think my favorite part of all your pictures is Betsy’s purse! It is just darling! Wherever did you find it?!!
Jeanne, hang in there. Two weeks from tonight, it will be all over and your life will (hopefully) get back to normal again!!
Thank you for showing my dolls, Jeanne! I love to figure out what everyone will be wearing, and dig out the school bags, lunch boxes and such! As a former school teacher, I always get excited at the idea of back to school,….. and the smell of new crayons!!
Charlotte, thank you for your kind words, and I too, had book bags, or satchels like you mentioned, also in red plaid! I started first grade in 1947, so have a few years on you! I never took my lunch, though, always ate at school. I had three other younger sisters at home so it was enough to have my mother get me out the door without making a lunch too!
Betsy’s purse is actually Nanea’s purse from AG! Betsy claimed that purse the minute it came!
Jeanne, take it easy, at least you are back to sleeping in your own bed for awhile!!
Dear Linda, your girls are so sweet. I always loved the excitement of going back to school.
For the first day of High School, Stephanie and Carol and I got skirts, blouses, shoes, and purses that were the same. We were triplets on that day.
Is Betsey wearing a Boneka dress? My dolls have a few of them.
Thank you, Dorothy! As far as what kind of dress Betsy is wearing, all I know it is from a lady who makes smocked dresses for dolls. I guess I wasn’t too observant when I bought it, but I just liked the smocking and the print. Isn’t Boneka a type of doll?
Thanks for sharing Linda’s wonderful collection with us. I know it takes a while to check out all the details. Like Barbara, Betsy’s little purse 👛 jumped right out to me. That’s funny what will all the wonderful details that’s one item that really drew attention of at least two of us. I always see something I don’t think I can live without in Linda’s pictures. Oh, dear. Thanks so much for sending them along, Linda.
It’s wonderful to hear you are having fun with the preparations for the wedding. No time to get seriously worried I hope. You and Rebecca are so organized. Enjoy!
You are welcome, Susette! It’s the little things that make a scene so authentic, isn’t it? Being able to finish an outfit with shoes, purses, and hats make it more fun too!
Dear Susette, I got your message via Jeanne. I will send you a reply. Thanks for your kind words.
I absolutely love to see Linda’s displays. So much going on. The girls in their first day dresses with their bags and lunch boxes are so perfectly attired. The pups wanting to go along too are sweet. Everyone looks adorable. The Josefina here keeps pointing at the writing desk while still standing in her undies saying, I really need that! I don’t think so, Josefina. 🙂 The kitchen is an amazing piece of artwork. So exciting to see all of the details and special objects that contribute to the authenticity. The modern girls with their accessories are so sweet. Fun to see the historical changes. Thanks so much Linda and Jeanne for sharing back to school. Love it.
Such an exciting time in Jeanne’s neck of the woods. How time flies as they say. So much to do, so little time. But, I know it will all come together. Can’t wait to see some photos of the details after the wedding. 🙂
Thank you Joy! I thought my Josefina would never have a desk either, but luckily I found anTLC one for a price I was happy with. The lid hinges are broken, but if you prop it up against the wall, no one knows! I guess now everyone does!😊
The kitchen stays out all the time, and I have fun with fixing meals with all the food I have. I did have several of those Wolverine cabinets when a child, so they bring back happy memories. I still am looking for a sink, until then they use the wash machine, I guess!🤣
Maybe I’ll luck out some day and find a desk, and now that cute Nanea kitty purse. 🙂 I have a similar stove, not Wolverine, and would love to have the sink and refrigerator to go with it like I had as a child. Almost everyone I see has way too much rust. But, guess I should not give up looking. 🙂
Keep looking, Joy, like I am! One of these days my sink will come! And that cute kitty purse is included in Nanea’s Birthday Accessories on Ebay, and includes a camera and a Nancy Drew book!
Wonderful, wonderful pictures. I dare not let my dolls see them…they would be so jealous!
All the detail and beautiful dresses are over the top. Love the smocking and the prints.
The kitchen is just perfect. Every season’s theme can be part of a kitchen😉
Thank you for sharing!
Have fun this week with wedding stuff Jeanne… I may see if I can send “Bride” pics of my girls😉
Thank you, Kathie! I have been collecting for AG for about 15 years now, so that’s why I have so much! It takes awhile, for sure! And yes, I like to fix the kitchen table to reflect the seasons and different holidays, so much fun!
I love Linda’s dolly back-to-school pictures. Everyone looks so wonderful. The “Bus Stop” sign is great. And the kitchen set-up is absolutely wonderful. I’m not sure I’d have room for all that so I’m glad she does so I can live vicariously. The pictures remind me of my back-to-school days. I started first grade in 1952. Kindergarten was not mandatory back then and we didn’t have one in our area so I didn’t start till first grade. One of the things I always loved was the smell of the worksheets that our teacher ran off on the, I guess it was, Ditto machine. Betsy looks really special. There is just something about that doll that always makes me smile. I’m not sure what my Betsy will be wearing this year. It will be something she has because her mommy has been a bit derelict in the sewing area this summer. She has worn the same outfit for the past two years. Maybe she’ll borrow something from Taylor Jane or the LDs.
My grandson, Skyy, starts middle school today. He was a little nervous until he went to orientation last week. When I talked to him yesterday he was really excited. This year I got to participate in all the excitement of back-to-school shopping when I went with Dionne and the grandkids. I really enjoyed it. I can’t believe the cost of school supplies these days. We contributed to the fund at church for children of the local school because so many parents just can’t afford them. I gave Sean and Dionne some money for the grandkid’s school supplies, shoes, etc., like we always do, only to discover it was all spent on school supplies. Jaiden goes to a charter school and she had to buy all kinds of cleaning supplies along with the rest of the supplies. When I was in school, aside from school taxes which were very reasonable, my parents spent little on school things. We got a new dress and shoes to start school and a few other things if we needed them. Sadly it didn’t include a bookbag which I always wanted. Each month the school supplied us with a yellow tablet and pencil. Sometimes around Christmas we got a list to buy things to make decorations for our classroom, but otherwise there was little in the way of financial demands from the school.
I planned on sewing last week but got sidetracked again. This time it was while in my sewing room. I was giving some thought to getting the girls back to school. I realized I have several dolls that wear the same size shoes but they were in several different clothes boxes. I was trying to figure out how to get them all in one spot for instant visualization – and to keep from buying the same shoes twice. I bought a few of the small craft boxes for the smaller shoes but needed something else for the bigger ones. I dropped by JoAnn’s yesterday and bought three of the shallower ArtBin boxes with the adjustable inserts. They worked perfectly. It was more than I wanted to spend, but I had a coupon and ended up getting one of them almost for free. Because of my space limitation in my sewing room, I use these boxes in all sizes for a lot of things. They’re stacked on floor dollies so I can move them whenever they are in the way of something else.
The problem with losing a comment when you enlarge a picture has always been a problem for me. I learned to copy my comment if I wanted to double check something by enlarging.
Thank you, Barbara! My husband made the bus stop sign for me and it has proved to be one of the easiest scenes to set up…….just dress them and stand them at the bus stop!😊.
Oh yes, the scents you remember of those back to school days! Crayons, papers, and that white paste that came in big jars, that some kids even tried to see what it tasted like! I wonder if years from now, today’s kids will smell wipes and sanitizer and think back of their school days!
Thank you for the nice comment on Betsy McCall. Although she is not what I would call a beautiful doll, she has that cute, impish and innocent smile that makes everyone love her! She makes me smile every time I look at her!
Oh I hope our children have better memories than wipes and sanitizers but that was some of the “school supplies” my granddaughter had to have this year.
Hi, Barbara,
Thanks for sharing your shoe organizing solution; sounds perfect!
One thing I love about Pinterest is that I can create a board for each category of doll clothes and shoes that I own. All I have to do is go to my Pinterest board for whatever I am looking for to make sure I don’t do duplicate purchases. It also helps me to see what colors I have in outfits so I don’t pile up on pinks, for example.
You are so fortunate that you got to participate in the back-to-school shopping with your grands this year. Bet you are a pretty fun grandma. How wonderful that your church has a fund to help out families with needed supplies. I love that! Applause!
Sally
Barbara, we must be the same age, as I started first grade in 1952, also. However, I did go to kindergarten–we were living in Wisconsin Rapids at that time, which is/was a fair-sized town.
And yes, it was the dittoes that you remember the smell!! I remember it, too–both as a child and from when I learned how to make ditto masters in college, and then made and ran them off when I taught school!!
Always so much fun to see Linda’s displays. Her dolls are perfectly dressed and never lacking for any of the “little extras”
Your 1940’s girls look sweet waiting for the bus and I see they have their pets to keep them company until it arrives.
Josefina is lovely with her school setting. Her trunk certainly is pretty. Cecile and Kirsten hopefully won’t be too distracted by those adorable kittens. I see you found Kirsten’s school supplies and isn’t that QT lunch nice? That was one of the things I won last year.
Felicity will be busy trying to learn while watching over Polly.
My, my, what a huge breakfast Molly is having and I do see the bacon and eggs.
Your modern girls look nice and I love Betsy’s smocked dress. Smocked dresses are lovely on little girls. thanks so much for sharing them all, Linda.
Thank you, Laura! I do love it when people notice the little things! Sometime I wonder why I do all this! There is really no one here at home to share it with, so all of you lovely couch sisters are perfect!
Yes, I thought the QT lunch was perfectly fine for Kirsten, considering she was a pioneer girl, and the price of her “real “ lunch from AG is way more than I am willing to pay now on EBay!
I too, am a pet lover, so always include a couple of pets in my scenes. They make it more fun and realistic, I think! I wasn’t crazy about Kirsten’s kittens that AG made for her, so got the QT one, plus a little kitten I had from somewhere.
Yes, that big breakfast! I guess that Molly’s father will help eat all that!😊
Thank you for showing your lovely doll displays, Linda. It is the kind of thing I would love to do with Ashley but there is no room here, I have a relatively small house. Loved seeing them though.
As I suspected, yesterday the PM told us we were staying in lockdown until Friday and Auckland till at least Tuesday next week.. We will find out at 4pm Friday whether it will continue for us in the South Island or not. So far we haven’t had any cases down here so if that is still the case on Friday then I expect us to go down to level 3 at least (would be good if it was level 2 but I am not hopeful).I think there are a lot of parents out there who would like the children to go back to school and Uni students who need to get back to study. We are getting close to all end of year exams and assessments for senior students and it is certainly worrying my older granddaughter who desperately wants to leave school at the end of the year and go to a training college but needs NCEA level one to do that. She is feeling a bit better after getting a text from her Dean yesterday explaining how they will help them all get the credits they need.
So far we have had over one hundred cases all from one person, They still don’t know for sure how that person got it but they know from Genome sequencing that it came from one traveler from Sydney who came down with Covid in managed isolation and was transferred to a quarantine facility. Somehow it was passed on during the transfer. (The first person was unvaccinated but his wife had had both jabs and didn’t get it). Of the 107 cases up to yesterday they said that 14 had had at least one jab. The rest were unvaccinated. No one is in ICU though and no one has died which is really good news. Only 5 in hospital. From Sep 1st anyone over 12 can get a vaccination. Up to now it has been the older groups who have been able to get it but Delta seems to be hitting the younger people more than the original virus (Maybe because so many of the older population had had at least one jab). So far over 70% of over 40’s have been vaccinated which is really good. Sydney has finally gone into full lockdown like us but with nearly a 1000 new cases everyday and several deaths a day it is too little, too late I fear. We certainly don’t want to be in that position.
Jeanne, the next 13 days will go in a flash and you will be able to relax and get back to sewing. I am looking forward to seeing the photos when it is all over.
Dear Linda,
Gosh, these scenes are a real treat. Thanks to you and Jeanne for sharing these. All those little goodies make doing these vignettes so delightful and it is very clear to me that you AND your dolls are having a blast. (I see you have Ivy. I am so glad I got her, too. And is that Ruthie next to your Molly?) I, for one, think you have made EXCELLENT use of your kids’ bedrooms. Smart lady who is having so much fun. I especially loved the wringer washing machine and the mixer. Thank you so, so much. Keep having these good times for years to come, Linda!
Hugs,
Sally
Whoops, Sally, by the time you wrote, I was sound asleep, so did not reply! Thank you for the compliments, Yes, that is Ruthie next to Molly, And I use Ivy for one of my so called “modern” girls! I can’t think of the 70’s as historical! I do have fun with my dolls, they certainly give me many happy times to remember!
Thank you Anne, for the comments! My house is on the smaller side too, but when my two children moved out, I had two rooms for dolls!
So nice that your country has a sensible plan for combatting Covid!
Most of us agree with the lockdown under the circumstances and the vast majority comply. Although it is tough on businesses they do get some support and economically it seems to be a better plan than just allowing the virus to run rampant..
I watched the video just now. I think most of those small dolls must have an unhappy childhood there is hardly a smile amongst them! It was lovely to see everything though and the hats were just wonderful.
I just subscribed to DiannaEffnerPrivateCollection.com in preparation for them auctioning off Dianna’s collection. This auction will begin in September. I’m sure there will be many bidders who don’t mind spending big bucks for this but I thought I’d give it a try anyway. You never know.
Dear Barbara, yeaaaa! I have not been so brave yet. I will sign up though. Thanks for this update.
Dear Jeanne, thanks for keeping the sofa open during this busy time for you. We are looking forward to celebrating with you.
Linda, thank you for sharing your “girls” dressed for school. I was also a teacher and when the American Girls were released I was drawn in like a moth to a flame. I still have my daughter’s Kirsten school collection. Kirsten had the smallest desk and the easiest to store. I had to sell Molly and Felicity’s desk due to space limitations. When I have to chose between furniture and dolls, the dolls always win. My “new” Felicity in the lavender gown arrived today. She is a beauty!
Jeanne, the wedding will be here before you know it! Enjoy this special time with your family.
Debbie
Thank you, Debbie for the compliments! So another teacher in our midst! I find the Historical dolls make a wonderful “lesson” in teaching history! I’m sorry you had to sell the desks you had. I have Molly’s desk, it is just like the one I used as a child in school. It makes me smile every time I set it up!
Congratulations on your new Felicity!