A while ago I posted about dolls I had thrifted for my playroom. That post was about BIG dolls and their thrifted clothes. This post is about small dolls. I have tried to find dolls with unusual faces and chubby bodies. The two little boys in front and the dark skinned baby behind them were made by Berenguen. Dolls made by this company include many little dolls who look like newborns with wrinkly faces and skin. When dolls are this small, the only clothes that fit them are the preemie sizes. Both DI and Savers have a good selection of preemie and newborn sizes most of the time. At DI each piece is generally $1. It is trickier to find little stretch pants for this size doll because if the clothes have truly been used for a live bitsy baby the baby has probably been wrapped up and not dressed in something that would be tight on the tummy.
The little dark skinned baby is adorable and in perfect condition. He is about two thirds the size of the other two. All three have the name Berenguen embossed in the back of their necks. I especially love their tiny teeth.
(I like to wash the dolls with a Magic Eraser.)
This is also a Berenguen doll. She is about half the size of the two little boys. The smaller the dolls, the harder it is to dress them without taking the time to make the clothes. I have always been impatient making teeny tiny doll clothes but I can certainly try and probably will after Christmas.
(Look at that wonderful little lower lip.)
Now and then I run across something really unusual. I have no idea where these dolls came from. They were together at DI in a Ziploc bag and each has a tag around the neck with a name for the doll. The little boy in the blue overalls is named Reed. They appear to have been in a box for all of their lives. They are porcelain, hand painted and have jointed and movable arms, legs and heads. Each doll is about 5 inches tall. Some are boys and some are girls. They have a distinctive ethnicity which just may be Central American.
Their faces and hair are hand painted.
I don’t have many breakable things in my playroom. These obviously are and so they live in a little box on the top shelf of the closet. One day, I will show them to an older child and give them away if one of my granddaughters wants them.
Whomever made these itsy bitsy clothes gets my respect.
My fingers feel clumsy just looking at them.
Below is a beautiful porcelain doll about 6 inches in length. Her features are also hand-painted. She is a music box doll. When the key on her back is wound, it beautifully plays I AM A CHILD OF GOD. She has two similar friends. They all live together on the top shelf of the playroom closet.
There was a time when all a little girl could expect for Christmas was a homemade doll. That is one of those “be grateful for what you have” things that Grandmothers say. Whether today or 100 years ago, I imagine that any little girl of either time would be fascinated by this tiny, fragile music-box doll.
“The past is not a package one can lay away.”
-Emily Dickinson-
