Who Doesn't Love Victorian Dollhouses

Laura Diana's Victorian Dollhouse Part 1 (of 2)

Laura Diana's Victorian Dollhouse Part 2 (of 2)

I have always wanted to build a dollhouse and had high hopes that I'd be able to do that when I had my own house.  I didn't want a plastic toy type house.  I wanted a Victorian wood house with wood floors, wallpaper, working lights, miniature Victorian furniture, miniature rugs, etc.

I did have high hopes for this earlier on.  In fact, when I was in my twenties I used to but little miniature Victorian furniture kits for making furniture like a miniature Queen Anne dresser, Miniature Queen Anne sofa, etc.  I never made them and haven't seen the kits in years.  I'm not even sure if I still have them.

Unfortunately, 50 years go by rather quickly, and I haven't built my dollhouse.  I still want to.  The problem is one of time.  If you want to build a dollhouse, like the one I want, you need to reserve a whole block of time for it.

Since I won't be making my dollhouse any time soon that doesn't stop me from looking at all the beautiful dollhouse eye candy on my "Dollhouse and Miniature Creations" Pinterest board.

Dollhouse  and Miniature Creations

I just LOVE dollhouses and have always wanted to create one of my own. Someday I will and will look to these beautiful works of art for my inspiration.

If you love my Dollhouse  and Miniature Creations board please follow my board by clicking on the link above.

Aren't they all beautiful?  It would be hard to choose which one is your favorite - don't you think?

When Id do finally make my dollhouse I'm hoping that all the tutorials, patterns, how-to's and videos I've been collecting on my "Dollhouse Tutorials & Miniature Dolls & Crafts Tutorials, Video's, Patterns, How-To's" board will be helpful.

Dollhouse Tutorials & Miniature Dolls & Crafts Tutorials, Video's, Patterns, How-To's

I just LOVE dollhouses, miniature dolls and miniature crafts. Someday I will make a dollhouse of my own. When I do perhaps some of these tutorials, video's and how-to's will be helpful.

If you love my Dollhouse Tutorials & Miniature Dolls & Crafts Tutorials, Video's, Patterns, How-To's board please follow my board by clicking on the link above.

Have fun making your dollhouses and miniatures.

Who Doesn't Love Paper Dolls?

Image Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ballerina and Bloomer Girls (Prima Donna) Paper Dolls

Publisher:Littauer and Boysen

Purveyor:Dennison Manufacturing Co. (New York, NY)

Date:1890–1905

Medium:Lithographs

Dimensions:each: 14 3/8 × 6 1/8 in. (36.5 × 15.5 cm)

Classification:Prints

Credit Line:Gift of D. Lorraine Yerkes, 1959

Accession Number:59.616.403a-g

I don't know if you're like me or not, but I like to reminisce about my childhood and the dolls, toys, or items that I loved to play with. In doing so I always say to myself, "Why didn't I save them?" I wish I had saved all of them. Some of them would be worth a fortune today.

Unfortunately, we moved a few times and old toys were discarded. Plus, what child thinks about saving something so they can have it 50 years down the road? None, that I know of and certainly not me. So, all my old toys, "Barbie" dolls, other dolls, and "paper dolls" were thrown away.

Today, with the advent of computerized doll makers and graphics "paper dolls" are making a comeback. You can create your own doll online or in your own graphics program and then print it out on your color printer on cardboard stock. Then just cut it out just like you did as a child. You're all set to play. How great is that?

In the paper, scrapbooking, stamping, and mixed media area there are so many gorgeous paper dolls being created and supplies generated to help you with that. In the mixed media and scrapbooking arena paper dolls are becoming an art form. Some of the creations are just astonishing. If you'd like to see some beautiful paper art dolls my" Paper Art Doll  Creations" Pinterest board is here.

Plus, with the advent of the computers, paper dolls went virtual.  You can create your own avatar dolls and virtual doll worlds. Over the years I've created a few avatars of my own, like my YoVille Linda shown below:

 

The Linda avatar on the left is the original YoVille (now known as YoWorld) avatar I created back in 2006.  The Linda on the right is the "Punk" version.  DollZ, which is what digital dolls are now known as, are extremely popular with numerous websites devoted to them.  You can create the dolls, create their clothing, their homes, their worlds, their friends, etc.  It's mindboggling.

I would have loved having everything that is available nowadays for paper doll creating when I was a child. I can remember sitting on the floor for hours with my scissors and painstakingly cutting out pictures from fashion magazines, which I used as paper dolls. Or, cutting out the "paper doll" pages from my mother's magazines. Cutting precise lines with the round tip children's scissors was a little difficult if not downright impossible. However, I did my best which is all anyone can ever really ask of you.

The French Doll Fashion Collection At The MET

If you follow my Victorian Dolls, Victorian Traditions, The Victorian Era and Me Blog you know that I just LOVE the Victorian Era, love history, and love to do research. In doing all of that I ran across the Metropolitan Museum of Art website the other day and fell in love with their collections, the ability to see everything they have in their collections, and the ability to set-up my own "My Met" space to bookmark items at the MET that I love.

Well, while "Moseying At The MET!" last week I came across items from their French Doll Fashion Collection and fell in love with them.  Now all you have to know as to why I would fall in LOVE with them is they have to do with dolls and have to do with the fashions of the Victorian Era and periods before and after that.

They are in fact a collection of fashion dolls displaying French fashions from 1715 until 1906.  There seems to be 42 dolls in the collection and they give you a wonderful picture of the way French fashion has changed through the ages.

Each of the doll pages has information of the fashion year the doll was created for, fashion designer who created it, date created, culture, medium, dimensions, credit line, and accession number. They also include a description containing information on the collection and information on the dolls design.

For example,  the 1715 doll shown in the picture above and at the top of this post had the following descriptive information on her design: The inspiration for this dress came from the painting L'Enseigne de Gersaint by Watteau. Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) was best known for inventing the fete galante, a genre characterized by outdoor parties and bucolic scenes in idyllic settings. L'Enseigne de Gersaint was actually completed in 1720, five years after the date of the Rochas design. Watteau created this work for his friend and art dealer, Gersaint's shop, where it is believed to have hung in the window as a sign. This painting, in addition to being an interesting study of everyday life in an art dealer's shop, is an excellent example of the famous "Watteau pleats". The fashionable women in Watteau's fete gallants were so often depicted wearing this style, that they became known as Watteau pleats.

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art the reason for the collection was as follows: - In 1947, in response to the suffering of post-World War II France, an American grassroots campaign organized a large-scale relief package. The following year France, moved by this generosity, organized a gift in kind. As the aide was sent to France housed in boxcars and dubbed the "American Friendship Train" the French created the "Gratitude" or "Merci Train", a set of 49 boxcars filled with gifts of thanks. Each of the 48 states was to receive a boxcar with the 49th shared between Washington D.C., and the Territory of Hawaii, which had contributed sugar on the Friendship Train. A wide array of items was included in these cars, from handmade children's toys to priceless works of art.

The Chambre Syndicale de la Couture de Parisienne, who, to raise money for the French people, had two years prior organized the Theatre de la Mode, a group of fashion dolls dressed in clothing from the 1947 couture collections, chose to create a new set of fashion dolls, this time representing the evolution of French fashion rather than the current season. Once again, the Syndicat tapped the most talented and well-known fashion designers, hairstylists, and accessory designers of the time to create these miniature masterpieces.

The unique design of the fashion doll, originally created for Theatre de la Mode and used again for the Gratitude Train was conceived by Eileen Bonabel, the plaster head by the artist Rebull. Each doll measures approximately 24 inches tall, with bodies made entirely of open wire. Human hair was used to fashion the hairstyles. Each designer chose a year between 1715 and 1906 for which to dress his doll. Their varying sources of inspiration included works of art, literature, and historic fashion plates. The Gratitude Train fashion dolls represent a unique moment in the history of couture as they represent not only creative interpretations of historic fashions by the greatest designers of the period, but also are infused with the unparalleled skill, care, and attention to detail that would have been applied in their full-size counterparts.

I would have to agree with the MET, but would add that viewing this collection in it's entirety would be visual eye-candy for anyone who loves the fashions of those periods.

The collection is not on display so, of course, I set-up a French Fashion Doll Collection Page and a set collection in My MET so I could view all the dolls in the collection at any time.  And, if I wanted to read more on any particular design all I would need to do is click on the image for that doll's page at the MET.  How great is that?  I LOVE it.

Both of my pages are shown below:

My Pinterest Page - French Fashion Doll Collection 

My MET - The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Set Items - Historical Fashion Dolls

I can't quite decide which is my favorite doll of the collection as of yet.  I have to read through all the descriptions first and then maybe I'll decide.   Or, I'll never decide and just enjoy each of the dolls for her beauty and the attention to detail on her amazing costume.

I hope you enjoy the collection as much as I do.

I LOVE Victorian Dresses

It's no secret that I LOVE Victorian dresses. So it should come as now surprise that I've got A "Victorian Fashions" board on my Pinterest page.  In fact there's quite a few boards over there that have to do with my love of the Victorian Era and Victorian Fashions.

In finding pins for my "Victorian Fashions" board I happened to stumble across the Metropolitan Museum of Art which has an astonishing collection of Victorian Fashions. It took me close to an hour to go through all the wonderful fashions and, of course, to pin most of them to my board. If you've been following my blog you know I haven't found any Victorian dress I haven't liked.

I also found two Victorian fashion websites that sell fashions from the Victorian era. These included "Maggie May's Historic Clothing" and the "Antique and Vintage Clothing" website.

According to the "Maggie May's Historic Clothing website they sell "Custom and Ready-made garments for the museum, exhibit, and film industry since 1994 featuring historically documented fabrics drawn from museum collections across the United States and Europe!"

According to the "Antique and Vintage Clothing" website they sell "Original Antique and Vintage Clothing for Sale from the 1800's through Today!" What I really liked about the "Antique and Vintage Clothing" website is they had a ton (and I do mean ton) of close-up pictures for each dress. If you click on any of the images I have from their on my board you'll see what I mean.

I also have a few images from the Philadelphia Museum of Art from several of their "Costume and Textiles" collections.

I also found an Etsy shop "Christine Hall Designs" which sells beautifully custom made Victorian dresses.

I just love going to my board and looking at all the beautiful and historic creations. If Pinterest.com is all about the visual then, hopefully, you'll enjoy your visual visit to my board as much as I do.

There are a few dress that aren't technically "Victorian Era" which was during the reign of Queen Victoria and which ran from June 20, 1837 until January 22, 1901. They pre-date that, but were so beautiful I had to include them. They're more American Colonial than Victorian.

I'm going to continue to add to my "Victorian Fashions" Pinterest.com board so be sure to stop by every once in awhile to see what I've added.

Victorian Fashions

The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from June 20, 1837 until her death on January 22, 1901. I for one am fascinated by Victorian Fashions and LOVE seeing them on display. Here's a few I'd LOVE to see.

If you love my Victorian Fashions board please follow my board by clicking on the link above.

My Victorian Images, Ephemera and Vintage Images and Victorian Doll & Craft Tutorials, Shabby Chic & Vintage Tutorials, Video's, Pictures & How-To's Pinterest Boards

It is no secret that everything and anything Victorian is my passion. I just can't get enough of Victorian dresses, Victorian crafts, Victorian history, and Victorian images. I absolutely LOVE it all. And, I absolutely want to make everything I find.

I look at the beautiful Victorian dresses display on all the museum websites and find myself wanting to make a miniature version for a doll of mine. There are so many beautiful Victorian dresses out there it would be nearly impossible to make them all. That doesn't stop me from dreaming about it.

I also love Victorian images and saving all the Victorian images that I find on different websites that are sharing images in the public domain on my Pinterest board. Here, too I find myself dreaming of beautiful mixed media crafts I could make with them. I wish I could use each and every one of them. Use them all - I can't. Collect them on Pinterest - that I can do.

Victorian Images, Ephemera and Vintage Images

I just LOVE Victorian images, ephemera and vintage pictures - especially Victorian images that I can use with my mixed media creations and pictures of flowers or little girls and their dolls. Here's a few of my favorites.

If you love my Victorian Images, Ephemera and Vintage Images board please follow my board by clicking on the link above.

I also love searching the web for all the wonderful tutorials, patterns, articles, how-to's and printables there are for making Victorian arts and crafts. Some I have tried to make. Some are on my wish list. But, they are all fabulous and I want to make them all.

Again, this is impossible but I can continue to collect them on my Pinterest board. When I dream of Victorian crafts and want to see beautiful Victorian eye candy I can always visit my boards.

Victorian Doll & Craft Tutorials, Shabby Chic & Vintage Tutorials, Videos, Pictures & How-To's

I just LOVE everything and anything Victorian, Vintage, Shabby Chic or Cottage. I especially love watching video's, reading tutorials, patterns, articles, and how-to's on making Victorian dolls & crafts. I hope you like some of the ones I've found.

If you love my Victorian Doll & Craft Tutorials, Shabby Chic & Vintage Tutorials, Video's, Pictures & How-To's board please follow my board by clicking on the link above.

Victorian Bride picture courtesy of The Graphics Fairy

My Victorian Fashions Pinterest Board and My Historic Periods Fashion Pinterest Board

One of the things I absolutely love about my Linda Walsh Pinterest boards is I can collect all the Victorian and Historic Periods fashions I love in one neatly organized place.

Well, now Pinterest has a wonderful widget that allows me to add a snippet of my two boards within a blog post or on the sidebar of my blog so I can easily share some of my boards with all of you here.

 Victorian Fashions

If you'd like to see more of my Victorian Fashions Pinterest board just click on the board above or CLICK HERE.

Historic Periods Fashions 

If you'd like to see more of my Historic Periods Fashions Pinterest board just click on the board above or CLICK HERE.

I added the Pinterest widget to the sidebar of my my Victorian Dolls, Victorian Traditions, The Victorian Era and Me Blog. so you can visit my Victorian and Historic Periods Fashions boards whenever you visit my Victorian Dolls, Victorian Traditions, The Victorian Era and Me Blog.