Cleaning Soft Vinyl Toys

If you have ever had tried to clean one of these soft vinyl toys you know what a challenge they can be!

I purchased these Rody Jr. vinyl toys while living in Japan they are made of a soft flexible vinyl very similar to the popular smooth rubber playground balls and they sat on a shelf in my doll collection for the past 10 years and in that time they collected a bit of dirt and household dust.These toys can also feel a bit sticky when they are dirty which makes cleaning them even more of a challenge but I was determined to find a way to get them clean before I listed them in my store. 

First I tried a magic eraser which is normally the clean all miracle worker but it didn't work on these, then I tried spraying them with an all purpose cleaner I think it might have been 409 nope that didn't work either, then I tried some dish detergent on a kitchen scrubber sponge and water and that still didn't work. Hmm! These guys were a challenge! 

Here's what did work: 

I got some vegetable oil and rubbed it all over them and let it sit for a minute to penetrate into the vinyl then I took that kitchen sponge with a scrubby side and put a little bit of dish detergent on it to remove the excess oil, scrubbed and then rinsed. The vegetable oil loosed up all the dirt and conditioned the vinyl so that it felt smooth and clean and no longer sticky. Baby oil or other types of oil like olive would probably also work but vegetable oil was what I had available so that is what I used and it came out smooth, clean and shiny!

I have also found this works well on dolls with soft rubber faces like the large interactive Baby Alive dolls.

Please keep in mind that this method might not work for every soft vinyl toy and that these methods are to be used at your discretion.

Happy toy cleaning adventures! :)

Cleaning Stuffed Animals

When I first started selling stuffed animals on eBay I wanted to make sure I was properly cleaning them so I did an internet search on how to clean stuffed animals. Here are a few of the ideas that I ran across and why you should avoid them!

Washing Machine

The washing machine is probably what comes to mind first when thinking about how to get that dirty stuffed friend clean and fresh again.This could potentially be very bad depending upon the age of the plush, trimming and what the inside is stuffed with. The peach colored bunny in the picture above is a vintage bunny made in Taiwan and is stuffed with shredded clippings. I don't even want to imagine what throwing that little guy into the washing machine would do to him.

I don't want to say that this can't ever be done as there are stuffed animals that are made to go in the washing machine. The Fisher Price Doodle Bear, Babies and Friends are a great example of stuffed animals that are perfectly safe to go in the washer and dryer just be sure to check your tag. If it says Surface Washable Only I wouldn't risk it.

Dryer Damage:

This adorable pink plush is a 1989 Kenner Jellybean Bunny from their Yum Yum Collection of scented stuffed animals and is the perfect example of a dryer victim. This poor little guy used to have fluffy soft tuffs of fur on his head and tail but a trip through the dryer left them dry and frizzy. It also robbed him of his original sweet jellybean scent. :(

 Baking Soda Nightmare

 I ran across several You Tube videos and blog posts advising people to put stuffed animals in a large bag, pour in some baking soda and then just vigorously shake the bag and when you pull them out they will be fresh and clean. Sounds simple enough what could go wrong?

Reality: Although they do come out smelling fresh you will be shaking baking soda out of those stuffed animals forever! I had a large lot of stuffed Care Bears that I tried this method with and I spent a great deal of time trying to shake all of the baking soda back out of them. I even tried vacuuming all of the baking soda out and it still did not get it all! While baking soda is non toxic it is rather annoying to find little white flakes of it everywhere the stuffed animal goes.

So what's a dirty Stuffed Animal to do?

Build a Bear Stuffed Animal Cleaner to the Rescue!

Sorry if I sound like a corny commercial but this stuff is seriously the best product I have found so far. If you have a vintage stuffed animal you may want to check the tag before using but I haven't run across a stuffed animal that I couldn't use their product on yet. All you do is spray it on, give it a minute to work then give the little guy a scrub with a clean dry wash cloth and viola you have a fresh clean stuffed friend ready for more fun and adventure!

Hey Doll Fans,

You may have been wondering what happened to me and why I have stayed away from my blog for so long. I must apologize for this. I have tried to restart this blog a couple of times now and every time I did it just didn't feel right. Not to mention I have had major changes going on in my life. I got a job as a virtual real estate assistant which didn't work out, got divorced after 15 years, started a second store, recently closed my second store, got a business office and recently have had to move my office back to my home. I didn't really have a goal or a clear image that I wanted my blog to be about since I don't really have time to sew much anymore until recently.

Doll Whispers on eBay is where I sell hard to find dolls, retro toys, books and other fun items. Sending items that are clean is very important to me and what I hope is one of the things that makes me stand out from other sellers. This has finally given me the inspiration for what I would like this blog to be about. I have found there are some right and wrong ways to clean toys and want to share what I have learned so that other people wouldn't make the same mistakes that I have in the past that may result in absolute heartbreak of a ruined collectible. 

Thank you for visiting!

Sincerely,

Marianne Apple

Welcome Doll Lovers

My collection of Dollcena dolls are going up for sale in my Ebay store. These adorable little cuties were collected by me while I was living in Sasebo, Japan between 2004 and 2007. They are hard to find and I only have one of each available. 

If you are interested you can find them at:

http://stores.ebay.com/dollwhispers/

I will be listing many more new and used dolls so please add me to your favorites list to keep an eye out for more dolly surprises.

Have a Happy Dolly Day!

Hi Doll Lovers!

I'm afraid my posts on here may be fewer and farther between than I would like at least for a little while. I have just started a second career as a Real Estate Coordinator and I'm still running both of my Ebay stores ~ Doll Whispers & Apple Dandies ~ While going through a long and not so nice divorce. My divorce is getting close to the end though so I wouldn't have that eating up my time for much longer. :)

Lots more dolls to love still coming up! :) Thank you for your support!

Doll Whispers ~ http://stores.ebay.com/dollwhispers

Apple Dandies ~ http://stores.ebay.com/appledandies0/

Hey everyone! I'm finally back! Lots of exciting stuff going on at my Doll Whispers store! 

Blythe Dolls Currently for Sale

 Blythe Clothes Currently for Sale

Doll Whispers

Hi! My name is Marianne it's been so long since I last posted on here that I feel I should reintroduce myself. My sincere apologizes for being gone so long some things happened in my life and I lost the focus of why I started this blog in the first place and now I have gotten that focus back since I have opened up a doll store on eBay called Doll Whispers.

The doll above is a Madame Alexander Sweet Tears Doll that my Great Grandmother allowed me to play with when I was a child and when I got older after much begging she allowed me to take her home. I am 43 years old now and have been a doll lover and collector my whole life. Dolls have and will always be a part of my life so I decided to open an online eBay doll and toy shop called Doll Whispers it's funny because at the time that started this blog I had no intention of using the name for a store I was just trying to show off dresses that I was making to fellow doll lovers. Right now I have dolls and toys on there but the toys are about to be moved to a second eBay store called Apple Dandies so that my Doll Whispers store will sell only dolls and doll related items like patterns or doll books. I have been selling on eBay now for almost 2 years and have over 900 positive feedback scores.

Sorry my Sweet Tears is not for sale but I will be posting previews of dolls coming up in my store like this Vintage Porcelain Alice in Wonderland doll.

Alice was found while thrift store shopping, yes I have a weakness for finding pitiful looking dolls and making them or at least trying to make them beautiful again. I have cleaned her porcelain body and gently hand washed her dress and pinafore. Her hair has been brushed and I will be making her a new black velvet hair ribbon since she is missing her original one. She has also been given a new metal stand since she was found without one.

Will post more about her once she's ready to go.

Thanks for visiting my blog and I hope you'll come back soon!

 Have a Dandy Dolly Day!

http://stores.ebay.com/dollwhispers

Another Doll Contest!

The Morrissey Doll pattern company that I usually buy all my doll patterns from recently hosted another doll dress contest! This time it was for Tiny Betsy McCall and they made a new sailor pattern for her that was used for the contest. The deadline ended on March 31 and I only had time to make one dress. The winner gets a new Tiny Betsy McCall doll called 'Everything Nice' limited to 1000 and she retails for about $60. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I will win. :) Winners wouldn't be announced until April 15th so 8 more days to go! I'm hoping that they will post the pictures of what everyone made soon as I am dying of curiousity! Anyway, I'm really happy with how it turned out and wanted to share. I've named my new creation Betsy Loves Cookies! One of the best parts about this contest is even if I don't win I still got a new doll because I ordered her just for the contest. :) Win Win!

I brought this fabric back from Japan with me and it had been sitting waiting (about 4 years now) for the perfect inspiration to use it. I love Japanese fabrics! They have such adorable prints and the perfect print size too!

The tiny heart buttons on the front and the cookie cutter looking embelishments both came out of a package of buttons that I had picked up at Michael's a couple of weeks ago. I didn't buy them for the contest but I thought that they worked out perfectly once I started getting ideas.

I sewed tiny pink seed beads evenly spaced in between each cookie cutter and the cookie cutters where sewn on using silver thread.

I love challenging myself and this contest definataly fit the bill! For one I've never made a dress this tiny before so just getting used to working with such small pieces was the first challenge. The second was deciding on the color scheme and what to embelish with. I kept changing my mind and then changing it back. I also got a lot of ideas for future dresses so I'll have plenty to keep my busy for a while. One of my ideas involves felting so I'll have to learn how to do that first. New craft! And another involves punch needle which I also need to learn how to do. New craft! I keep adding to my ever expanding list of new crafts I need to learn! Needless to say it may be a little while before I actually have time to getting around to doing all this. But with my husband's deployment coming up right around the corner it may not be THAT long.

Whew! Well Betsy and I are exhausted after all that hard work! Time for bed!

More to come soon (I hope).

What to do when you have no money to buy dolls.

Why you just sit right down and make some of course!

Introducing Trixie Pixie!

Trixie was made using Peggytoes Pillow Pixie pattern which is available on Etsy. ;)

Next up we have Raspberry Fluff!

Raspberry Fluff was made using a Dumplin Designs Lollipop Lane doll pattern. Eventually I plan on making all 24 dolls. There are 12 Lollipop Lane patterns and 12 Cupcake Corner patterns. I have all the patterns just need more heads and hands. :)

Dining Room Redo!

Ok so this is what I look at everynight while I do dishes. Boring!!! I had just found a couple of things that we had bought in Japan but had nowhere to put them so I thought hey I could redo the dining room with all this stuff!

Now! Ta da! And I didn't spend a dime to do this because this was all stuff that we already had. I actually have spent a little bit of money since I did this though. I bought a Betta fish and a lucky bamboo plant. Oh plus I redid some pot holders to match the Asian theme.

Updates!

Ok well I didn't get a new doll. :( But I did get a new table. Kinda.

It's actually a pool table that I bought for my Hubby for his birthday! :)

(Sorry for all the clutter in the background. But you get to see one of our 3 guinea pigs!)

One thing that I did get though is new Dolly Dolly magazine. I've been collecting them since we were in Japan and I managed to find all of the back issues while we were there and got up to issue 14 before we left so I just got issue #15. Yay!!!

Pining away for a new doll!

Well we got our income tax money and so now I've been wanting to order a new doll. But which one to choose. Our income tax money is mostly gone on bills and tires and such but I think I should at least get just one before it's all gone.

Which one to choose though since they are all so great!

First there's Delilah Noir Dark and Difiant!

I absolutely love her outfit and her pink and black hair!

$125.00 on Ebay

Next up we have Ellowyn Wilde Moody Blues

Just love her black curly ringlets and her expression. I've been wanting to get an Ellowyne doll even longer than a Delilah Noir doll.

$129.00

And my third choice is an Ellowyne Wilde basic doll.

I love her hair and since she's a basic doll I could put to use a couple of patterns that I have for her out of my doll magazine collection. Plus the price is great at only $74.00.

Oh the agony! How can I choose just one!

Happy Groundhogs Day!

Well I haven't been getting very much sewing done lately but I did just finish up this little guy for Groundhogs day. This is the second crochet along that I have done and I must say I'm much happier with the way this one turned out than the last one. :)

New Dolls!

Hey Everyone! So sorry that I didn't get to finish my 31 dolls for Halloween. I should've known better than to try that with my husband coming home and upcoming trips. Maybe I can try again next year. We had a great time at Disney! Sorry for the lack of pictures. I'll try to get up at least a couple soon. Also last week we went to Knott's Berry Farm (one more place knocked off of our have to go to list before we get transferred from San Diego). Love, love, love the rollercoasters there!!!! Awesome! They have a special going on right now where a military member and a guest get in for FREE and up to 6 more people for only $15 each, so since our daughter was the only one we had to pay for it only cost us the gas and $15 to go! Couldn't pass up a deal like that! Anyway at the end of the day we decided to do a little browsing in some of the cute stores they have there and wouldn't you know they had one full of dolls. Unfortunately we are really broke right now and most of the dolls were around $100 but then I saw this little sweetie and couldn't belive she was only $32.99 so I couldn't resist she just had to come home with me. Plus I got the other tiny little 5" doll for only $6.00. Woohoo! They are both porcelain which I don't usually collect but I just couldn't resist their sweet little faces. :)

Halloween Dolls #14, 15, & 16

It's a trio of Nightmare Before Christmas Dollcena Dolls!

1st up we have Dandy Pumpkin Great

the middle doll is Pure Patchwork

and the last one is What is Christmas?!

Very very early Friday morning we are going to Disneyland for 3 days so I might possibly come back with another Halloween themed doll to show you. We are really happy to be going to Disney during Halloween! The Halloween decorations, food and of course the rides are going to be awesome! The first rides on the agenda are Space Mountain, The Haunted Mansion, The Tower of Terror, Finding Nemo's Sub, and Toy Story! Yea!!! We will also be taking a ton of pictures and trying as many of the special holiday treats as we can. :)

Halloween Dolls #12 & 13

Disney's Halloween Dollcena dolls by Tomy

Flying Witch Cat & Bat in the Dots

These were the last two Dollcena dolls that I was able to get from Toys R'Us in Japan before we transferred. I'm so glad that we were there long enough to get these two cuties!

Here's a link to a gallery of all of the Dollcena dolls. I'm missing 12 of them. Guess I need to get busy ordering them before the prices start going up more.

http://cid-cb5a568fa8aa6809.skydrive.live.com/browse.aspx/.res/CB5A568FA8AA6809!203?ct=photos&sa=614769591

Halloween Dolls #10 & 11

"Who are you?" said the Caterpillar.

Alice replied, rather shyly, "I-I hardly know, sir, just at present-at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."

"What do you mean by that?" said the Caterpillar sternly. "Explain yourself!"

I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir" said Alice, "because I'm not myself, you see."

Oh how I simply adore Alice in Wonderland! She has been one of my favorite characters since I was little. So I simply couldn't leave Alice out of the Halloween Doll list.

Here's a cute little Alice video. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLstcgU6XNQ

Toys R' Us Exclusive Cute and Curious Neo Blythe & Petite Blythe Marmalade Heart

I bought Cute and Curious Alice from the Toys R'Us in Nagasaki while we were living in Japan.
They didn't have Marmalade Heart so I had to buy her off the internet.

Halloween Doll #9

Shiver me timbers mates it be Treasure Hunt Petite Blythe!

You need to be checking out this Blythe treasure hunting video or you'll have to walk the plank! Arg!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9wzAonnmCo

Halloween Doll #8

Dal doll "Tazca" by Jun Planning

My wonderful hubby bought this doll for me from the Valley of the Dolls website while he was in Iraq on deployment for my birthday. Yea! He knows what I like so well! :) I still need to get Lipoca though. Maybe for our anniversary. hehe. Isn't she great!

Halloween Doll #7

Dal "Angry" Doll by Jun Planning in collaboration with h. Naoto

Hangry & Angry

My husband got this little sweetie for me from Valley of the Dolls back in March before his deployment when we took a day trip to Los Angelos. We managed to stop by the shop before we had to head back home. The people there are really nice and they let me take lots of pictures and even brought Bianca out to let me see her and take a picture. Bianca is a $600 doll so not really in our budget right now but definately on my wish list! I had originally wanted to get Lipoca but couldn't resist Angry as soon as I saw her! We paid $138.00 for her at the shop but they have her for $115 on their website. Still need to get Hangry to but don't see her on their website anymore so will have to head over to Ebay when I'm ready to get her.