Okay, I've got it going...

I've got my mind made up at last. I know what I'm going to do about getting my dolls and their accoutrements out of my hands and into yours! I'll start listing all I dig up out of the many boxes in the storeroom as the stuff comes to light. I then will entertain offers. Just send me a list of what you want and how much you want to pay for it noting whether what you offer does or does not include shipping and what sort of shipping you want. I will take the best offer or the best story of why you want a particular doll or outfit—depending on my mood. 

My example: I want "Unsung Melody" Madra Lord because it was the first of the Gene Marshall family of dolls that I got. My husband gave it to me because I am a retired opera singer and that doll was Madra playing an opera singer who had lost her voice. I could relate to that doll. I hadn't lost my voice but I had quit "big" singing to marry him. So she is NOT for sale!

So maybe you just want a particular doll and/or outfit because you love it, or you need it to complete or fill a spot in your collection or because you have decided to use a matched set for bookends...whatever!

I want the space these dolls and their stuff are occupying. I need the space, more accurately. But they are not just stuff. They have meaning because of their beauty, the people I've met in interacting with the dolls, the wonderful doll weekends spent at the conventions, the people I've met there, the people I know as names and personalities on the doll lists, and finally just because life is grim in so many ways all over the world and has been for so much of the seventy-seven years I've been on the planet. It's a place we can go to bask in the beauty and fantasy of these little perfect women who are pampered and have "lives" free of the care and worry of real life. They can be alter egos. They can be a three dimensional escape into an on-going fantasy life impossible to us out here slogging through the sweat and frustration and sorrow and labor of reality.

Enough with the philosophy! I will list starting next post, what I have uncovered. So far what is available and ready is the hatbox. I already have an offer for the doll and the box. If you want the whole thing, speak now (make an offer) or forever hold your peace! I would rather get rid of the whole thing and have told that to the person who wants only the doll and the hatbox. The only thing that supercedes her offer would be an acceptable offer on the whole thing. 

I will be posting this "essay" on the doll lists as well as here so no one will mistake my purpose or plan. 

To reiterate slightly what I have been saying all along: I have this bunch of Genes et alia because I have long wanted to make mini-copies of my concert performance gowns—the ones I actually wore to sing with the Seattle Symphony and various other orchestras primarily out here on the West Coast but also in places like Osaka, Anchorage, Panama and Pittsburgh! I also have my Valkyrie costume from the first Wagner Ring Cycle in Seattle. 

So what does that mean? It means that I am going to chop up these dresses (which I made in the first place) and the Valkyrie costume (which I didn't!) to make copies for the American Model Goth girl (finally finding a doll who was big enough for the required amount of detail) so I can rid myself of the human-sized dresses etc. that take up space but are currently of no use to me except as memories. I will have a LOT of material left over from each outfit so I thought I might make Gene- and Vita-sized copies as well out of the left over yardage and while I was at it, copies of the patterns for same. I, of course, would do that in order to share all that stuff with y'all—should you be interested.

I said earlier that many of my dolls had not been deboxed. However, after searching the internet and looking at eBay for a while  I've decided that most people are more interested in playing with their dolls than just having them around to look at or as an investment. Therefore, I am going to offer the clothes and dolls separately. We mostly play with these dolls anyway, don't we?

So. Off to the boxes and boxes and boxes that have all these things in them. By the end of the weekend I should have a good number of them listed. I will try for photos. I have gotten a new "chip" for my camera. Now all I need is a space in my doll room cleared for a "studio"!

See you again SOON!!!