Having a little fun collecting Middletons and Doll High Chairs!

Today's post will be a fun post about my doll collecting.  I  recently found a doll high chair on Ebay that was very similar to one I had as a kid.  The only difference was that it had a red back where mine had been wood stained.  This chair has a decal of a dutch girl and boy dancing on the back.  Once I got it home I decided the idea of doll hich chairs was a neat thing to display dolls because it holds them up well and they don't take up a huge amount of room.  So now I am looking for them everywhere I go!

As some of you may already know, I LOVE Lee Middleton dolls!  I used to spend hours looking at them in the JCPenney Christmas catalog when I was a kid but just never got one because back then they just seemed to expensive for my wish list.  Middletons have virtually stayed the same in price over the years but now days $150 for a new doll doesn't seem as unreachable as it did back then.  As an adult I bought my first Middleton new on sale for $65 from The Doll Market.  Since then I have bought several pre-owned Middletons either off Ebay or from other collectors on doll chat boards.  A few I bought in pieces and reassembled myself.  I have gotten some great deals.  Last week a girl on a doll chat board was cleaning out her dolls and was selling them for $20-$30 each shipped!  She had several Middletons.  I had just sold my micro preemie reborn on Ebay and decided to treat myself to some dolls.  I bought 4 Middletons and 1 Ashton Drake doll from her.  It was like Christmas this week at my house when they came!

The first baby came earlier than the others, arriving on Wednesday.  Baby Boo!  I have always wanted this one but could never afford one as they seem to go high and fast on Ebay.   Here is how Boo looked when baby arrived.

 

After much thought I decided that serious face just looked more like a boy to me and since I don't have that many boy dolls I gave Boo a change of clothing and made him a boy!  Here he is now.  I also took his photo with my other Eva Helland doll, Buddy Bear who got changed to a girl when I got her.  She is one I bought in parts and refurbished a copule years ago. 







Friday my husband Mark took the day off and we decided to go to Monroe to the antique mall. We spent over 2 hours there! I bought 2 items.   I found another doll high chair only this one is just like mine as a kid! I was so excited! I also found this adorable little wooden chair with green upholstered cushions. Here are my 2 finds.







When I got home I had 4 doll boxes on my front porch! My other dolls I had purchased had arrived!

First out the box was my Mongolia Middleton. I love her so much and she was perfectly content to sit in the new little chair.  I can't believe I got her for only $30!



Next up was the AD Fagan Peach Blossom. Her body was pretty worn out and her stuffing all collapsed. I happened to have a body here that I thought would be perfect for her. It is a little smaller than her original body making her a smaller baby but I think it looks better proportioned with her limbs and it is new.    I removed her sand bags (I don't know why Ashton Drake uses cheap plastic bags of sand in their dolls!) and reweighted her but left her limbs stuffed with the poly fill for the softness. Here is her new body and her after she got dressed. One interesting thing I noticed about this sculpt is her right arm is shorter and a tad smaller than her left arm.  Probably no one but me would notice that kind of thing, LOL!  She is such a sweetie I think in her new body all dressed up!





The next baby I opened was little Peanut. Oh he is such a darling little boy! I felt sure the farm animals sleeper I had would be perfect with his eyes and it is! It is a tad snug so I think I will go back to TJMaxx where I recently got it and try to find it in a larger size later on.



Last baby to be opened was the Middleton Club doll.  I was told by another collector that they think she is  Baby's First Prayer from 2003.   She came in her original lavender and white striped bubble suit but I wanted to redress her and just decided on Christmas because I love this dress! She is a precious  baby.  Isn't she pretty all ready for Christmas?



I had also been wanting to get Mark's doll Jack a new body that didn't have leg caps because his legs were too long for his outfit. I made him for Mark back in 2011.  Mark always loved this Berenguer face.  I ordered him a new custom body and it came today so he got a new body where he can wear just a diaper in the summer.  I decided he would be the baby who gets to sit in the new high chair!





The last thing I will share is a Holly Hobby high chair I got earlier this week from off Ebay. It was not much and so I bought it because I used to love Holly Hobby as a kid since I am into the doll high chairs now. When it arrived I was disappointed that the back had been cracked in 2 places in shipping. It was poorly packaged in 2 boxes taped together and not one bit of packaging inside. I filed an Ebay dispute and Ebay gave me a courtesy refund and said I don't have to send it back. So I am going to try to figure out a way to fix it maybe. The blue parts will be easily repainted I just have to figure out what to do about the back. In the mean time, my first reborn to ever own is sitting in it.  She was a gift from Linda Deskins.

 







Thank you for sharing my fun day of doll collecting finds and I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post!