Tiny Clothes For Your Tiny Dolls: A Not So Tiny Post!

As a child, I had my fair share of Barbies and other fashion dolls and I loved them, but as time moved on they became less and less treasured to me. The dolls that really stuck with me were my bigger dolls such as American Girls, My Friend Dolls (By Fisher Price), Baby Sitters Club and other 16-23 inch doll types. I think it was mostly because their accessories and clothing wasn't so TINY and easy to get lost in a heap or their accessories weren't the size of my fingernail. Don't get me wrong tiny things are ADORABLE but somehow when things are shrunk down to that size they lose a lot of their detail.

However, when I moved into an apartment, my sophomore year of high school, my bigger dolls had to be put into storage and I wasn't able to get them out for a long time (I'm actually STILL going to pick some of them up later this month) because there simply wasn't room for them. Without the room for my big dolls my tiny doll love began to bloom again. I started collecting smaller dolls such as Flatsy, Dolly Surprise (Like the 80s solution to Chrissy hair grow dolls), Wee 3 Friends and other mini sized dolls.

Now that I'm back in a house where I can store as many dolls as I like (pft... if that was true I'd have to live in some huge mansion) I have a variety of big dolls and tiny friends. While my heart is completely won over by my 16-23 inch crowd my wee ones still need love and attention too. The only problem, as I mentioned before, is that everything is SO TINY. I've always been my dolls' own personal seamstress but when it comes to my tiny girls they always seem to get jipped.  It's not because I don't want them to look as cute as my big dolls, but the problem lies in the fact that sewing tiny details is HARD. I can sew an outfit for a Karito Kids doll in a jiffy, but if I have to sit down and sew an outfit for my Learning Curve Madeline doll I'm stumped. It takes less fabric, but always comes out looking like a sack.

So recently I've begun searching high and low to get my little girls some new clothes. Since I'm still not the huge Barbie fan I was when I was 8 years old, most of my tiny dolls are ones that only come with one outfit and have little to no extra clothes sets for purchase. My current biggest "problem" to clothe dolls are Madeline (by Learning Curve), Monday (what I call my Moni doll), Rina (a ballerina doll made by Corole) and my AG minis. Sometimes they can share clothes, but they all definitely share one common problem: lack of bust. These dolls are meant to look like young children NOT adult dolls so I wouldn't expect them to have more than mosquito bites on their chest when it comes to the boob department. So while this is normal for their molds, it doesn't make shopping for them any easier in a world full of bodacious Barbies and other fashion dolls whose bust size can be quite large.

Monday came from an antique store and was the only one available, looking very similar to the doll above. I can find limited outfits for her that were produced by Moni in the 70s and 80s (Moni are the Sasha lookalike mini dolls) online via ebay and doll collecting sites but there's one huge draw back THEY ARE EXPENSIVE. Monday and all of the other Moni dolls are only 8 inches tall, but these kiddos have a big price tag due to how much they resemble the popular collectible Sasha dolls. I already shelled out more than I thought I would for Monday (I got her for $25, not too shabby for mint in the box actually.) so I assumed completing her original wardrobe was going to have to wait.

I got Madeline as a gift from my Mom who brought her home from a big garage sale at her work used to benefit the hospital. Madeline came clad in her original red satin party dress, but nothing else unless you count the delicately applied coat of pink nailpolish on her tiny fingers and the lovely black scuff on the back of her left thigh.

Rina came to me from a garage sale where I scooped up 2 other dolls (One a mini AG Josefina I call Josie) for a total of $5 for the lot. She was wearing a slightly faded pink leotard complete with attached tutu and some tights (some people call them stockings or pantyhose) that had multiple holes.

My mini AGs, other than Josie, have all come from Sam's. I have Josefina (who I call Josie), Rebecca (who I call Beckie), Addy (who I call Addison) and Felicity (who I call Liccy). While the tiny outfits are very detailed almost exactly matching their bigger counterparts "meet" outfits down to the stockings, bloomers and even slips, you only get the one for each doll. I've been hesitant to "trade" clothes between the girls because I didn't want to mix up articles of clothing. Also Addison & Josie's shoes have tiny ties that whoever sold me Josefina, learned the hard way, are IMPOSSIBLE to retie. You can find tiny clothing on etsy and ebay for the mini dolls, but it gets to be pricey. At $6 for a pair of tennis shoes that would fit on my pinkies I think I'll keep my pocket book shut thank you very much.

So up until this week none of these lovely dolls have had a wardrobe change since arriving home. I always felt terrible when I went to change their older sisters into new outfits that I didn't have something for the tiny girls. And then this week I hit pay dirt!

While searching at my local Walmart for a few last minute gifts for my friend Babs' dolls, (Which by the way are suppose to arrive TODAY in the mail so *fingers crossed* we can post about them soon!) I happened upon a few Lalaloopsie outfits that were sold separately from the dolls. Everything but the size of the armholes looked like it MIGHT fit my Best Friends Club doll, Rachel (formerly named Noelle by MGA Entertainment).

Lucky for me the manufacturers of Lalaloopsie originally thought to call the dolls Bitty Buttons, but unlucky for them, the name didn't stick. The packaging for the extra clothing still bore the Bitty Buttons logos so they were trying to sell them quick and they had a nice sale price $2.50 a piece! I snagged two of the "fashion raincoats" thinking I could try one on my Rachel and if it fit send the other off to Babs for her Gianna doll. Unfortunately, Rachel's thumb kept getting stuck at the end of the sleeve, and there was no pushing it through. I wasn't disappointed, though, because I had only invested $5 in the outfits and I was sure I'd find a doll for them to fit. From the moment Rina slipped on the raincoat I knew it was made for her. I had recently put a new pink bow in her hair and the detailing on the raincoat (which actually looks more robe-like with it's terry cloth fabric to me) matched it PERFECTLY. She hasn't been back in her dingy ballet costume since! The shoes still fit none of my dolls, but we are keeping them for when we get a doll with hard to fit feet.

Then since Tuesday I've been in recovery from having my tonsils removed. Not a fun process for a 21 year old, as it takes 14 days to recover. I've got some good meds keeping me relatively pain free, thankfully! I can't be out for more than an hour at a time or I get dizzy. Plus, I haven't felt much like doing anything but sleep, watch movies and knit. I'm lucky that my recovery is going fairly smoothly, but I still have to take it easy.

So I've only made it out of the house twice this week. The first time was to go to the thrift store to drop off some clothes, which actually ended up with me coming back with about as much as I walked in with in doll clothes (More on that in a later post) but I also walked out with quite a light head and had to lie down as soon as I got home. The second "adventure" was  a trip to Tuesday Morning. I don't know if you are familiar with Tuesday Morning, but they have EVERYTHING in that store for bargain basement prices. Rightly so, because it's organized about like you would your storage basement with things haphazardly placed anywhere there's room. I have found many a Gotz doll, some smaller Teeny Bellini friends and even a Karito Kids doll there before, all at less than half the original price. Mom had been taking my sister to a friend's house, but she was only able to stay for 45 minutes. So I was asked if I'd like to run to Tuesday Morning while we waited to pick Kendall up. I figured I could handle a tiny break from the house so I hopped in the car.

What did I find there but America's Next Top Model doll clothes at only $1.19 an outfit! What a bargain! I wasn't sure they'd fit my tiny friends, but I knew that the ANTM dolls had much smaller busts than Barbie. I got one of each fashion and headed home with some other goodies. When I got home I was so happy to find that ALL of the outfits fit my dolls (besides Rina who is a bit larger) and some looked like they were MADE for the dolls I put them on.

Well enough of my babbling, I'll let the girls model their new duds!

Monday has on a ANTM halter that really brightens up her white shoes. Beckie has on a boat neck lavender dress and shoes she borrowed from Addison. Madeline still looks best in the dress she came in, but now she's able to borrow Beckie's black tights. And finally Rina is in her Lalaloopsie fashion raincoat, looking adorable.

Monday & Beckie took a few solo shots. Beckie's hair is rather hard to tame, so please ignore the poofiness. I was planning on taking some shots of Monday in the white dress with red and yellow flowers as she looks the best of all the girls in it, and then a few other clothing swaps, but my camera died. Bear with me over the next couple weeks as I finish my surgery recovery and start back with school! 

Final question... if you have smaller dolls, where do you find extra clothes for them? How about shoes? I'm really having a hard time finding shoes that fit my tiny dolls at the moment. Thanks for reading this rather lengthy post about a few tiny dolls!