Did you play with dolls as a child?

I played with dolls as a child. I wasn't the most careful little girl, but I did manage to keep most of them intact. XD I loved dressing them up and making up stories in my head. One thing that frustrated me, though, was that I couldn't get them to pose well (Barbies are very stiff, and their knee joints could only be moved so much).

When I found out about BJDs, I was amazed by their posability, and I loved how life-like they could be! Now I'm pretty much adopting every cute face I see. XD

 

Oh yes. I was such a little girlie girl. Barbies, Bratz, American Girls, Chou Chou... along with all the dresses and gowns and nighties and shoes and toy bottles you can imagine.

 

When I was little, I was half tom-boy, half girlie girl. I loved dolls, especially if they looked like they came from the Victorian age. I did have my fair share of Barbies and baby dolls though!

 

I sure did! Loved playing with Barbies as a kid. ^__^;;

 

Oh my yes! Dolls are HUGE in my house. I had a ton of barbies, my sister had a ton of Bratz, both have been inherited by my little brother. Probably why my mother wasn't surprised by the Blythes (I made one special for my brother). When I announced I was getting a BJD she didn't even bat an eye.

 

I was a big fan of dolls like barbies!
I had more than 10 dolls! and then I thought I was old enough so let them go..
But I have BJDs now.. its little funny :p

 

This thread is really neat to looks through, I've been wondering how doll collecting starts in people Most of my doll interest started in the past year, with the beginning of college, when I joined a forum that happened to have a lot of doll people.

As a kid, I did own lots of barbies because that's what my family thought I'd like, but I didn't exactly play with them. Usually, my sister and I played with lots of toy animals, and might pretend one barbie had been raised by wolves, dogs, horses or whatever We'd usually kill off any adult human characters in our games.We did put some of the barbie clothes on the animals/ use barbie houses and cars for them/ etc.

 

Yes, I played with dolls as a child, notably Barbie and similar.
I wasn't as much into dressing them up or making clothes for them, as I was in making stories. Fantasy, action, detective... whatever genre I could possibly think of, and played some scenes with my dolls and other toys.
Then there was a period I didn't play at all, got more into "collecting" phase, and began to write stories, rather than play.

I guess BJD now combines both, collecting and making up stories. ^^

 

My mother is continually bemused by my BDJ collection, because I never played with dolls as a child. Although actually, that's not entirely true.

I strongly preferred stuffed animals and animal-type toys, but there were some dolls that I played with. I liked action figures (loved my He-Man action figures, although admittedly my prized possession of that lot was Battle Cat and his adorable removable saddle ), Troll dolls, and miniature dolls like Polly Pocket (who ran around with my Littlest Pet Shop animals and sets, back when both were itty bitty choking hazards instead of the larger versions you see today).

I emphatically did not like Barbie, or the color pink, but people were always giving Barbie dolls to me for my birthday and Christmas. This always bummed me out, because I felt like I would rather receive nothing at all than something that showed how completely unfamiliar the giver was with my personality and preferences. These days I can sympathize more with people who give a child whatever toy the shop recommends for that gender and age range, because I have to agonize over what to get my niece and nephew, but as a child I expected adults to use their God-like omniscience to pick a gift, and felt like the Barbie-givers just didn't care enough about me to exercise this amazing grown-up ability

Baby and child dolls tended to have this huge-irised stare that creeped me right out, and I preferred playing Robin Hood to Mommy, anyway. I had an American Girl doll, but the fact that she had a set back story made her difficult for me to play with, although I loved her stuff, and used it frequently when I played with my stuffed animals.

My stuffed animal collection was, and still is, epic.

 

I had dolls as a child and I do remember playing with them often and liking the collecting, dressing, and posing of them but I've also always had an interest in miniatures so my fascination with Tinies is really more about the 'small' than the 'doll' at this point.

 

I loved dolls as a young girl but as a child I wanted paper dolls, and that's what I feel came more into play. I loved dolls and wanted sets because I got dolls from a series, not just barbies. I loved my Harry Potter dolls, Winx Club, and Legend of Zelda Action Figures; but it was always loyalty to the characters, not just creation. However, when I was younger I'd typically spend $10 a month on little sticker dress up books, spending days getting the girls in them to look just right and how I saw their personality reflecting in their clothes and hair. I'd even come by months later to make sure the personality hadn't changed. I loved dolls, but begging my sister to make me paper dolls, or my father to buy me some, is where I feel my urge for character creation started

 

i know when i was younger i hated dolls i would break off their heads and was terrified of porcelain dolls xD but its funny how now im addicted to getting dolls like bjds of course, pullips, obitsus, volks, etc. even now in walmarts or kmarts some asian looking dolls catch my eye and i want to get it xD

 

I was never too fond of dolls but I was madly in love with doll houses. I finally got one when I was eight or nine.
I think my fondness for BJDs came from the idea of 'look at all these cute miniatures... OMG That doll is a miniature!'
That and articulation. That probably explains my transformers collection too.

 

For the most part dolls were public enemy when I was little girl. I had one doll who looked like a Chernobyl survivor, and she was the only doll who lived to tell the tale. She had a cloth body with a vinyl head, arms and legs. I can't remember her ever having clothes on, her fingers were all chewed off, she had some sort of crazy haircut courtesy of whatever sharp instrument I was able to get my hands on and her face was covered in decorative war paint...crayons, markers, stickers and a rock that got lodged in her mouth where a pacifire was suppose to be. She was mess, but you'd be hard press to find any picture of me between the ages 1-6 that she wasn't in; I was either holding her or she somewhere within reach.

My grandmother would hand wash her and hang her outside on the clothes line to dry, and Id sit playing by the back door for hours waiting for her to come down off the line. Over the years she underwent several surgeries and repairs and lost her stuffing pretty early on. I don't know if polyfill just wasnt in existence for people to purchase when I was a kid or if it was that we couldn't afford it, but baby suzie lost her stuffing pretty early on and it was replaced by cut up strips on my old flannel feetie pajamas which actually made her better and evenly fluffy all over. At some point after I started school she just sort of disappeared, I dont really know what happened to her.

After that I couldn't have cared less about dolls until I was about 10 when my mom started teaching me to sew and I learned to make rag dolls and doll clothes, which I still make today.

 

I used to play a little with dolls as a child... until the Barbie head came off and scared the beejeebers out of me. It did not help that the barbies I owned were well-worn and handed down from cousins... when I mean well-worn, it means their hair was falling out and make-up scarred >.<

So instead of dolls, I played with soft-toys mostly XP

 

i played with dolls. i still have (though never use them now, and once they are cleaned they will be going to my younger cousins) about 30 or so barbies.

but i never 'loved' them like i do my bjd's

 

Yes, I played with dolls. In fact, I never stopped. Ever. I just switched the types of dolls.

^^

Rini

 

I played with Barbie dolls, but not that often. Playing outside, or with my brothers' toys was more enjoyable, and I was already into computers from s young age as well so there wasn't much time for doll-playing.

My favorite was a Barbie set that had Belle and the Prince (human form) from beauty and the beast in wedding outfits. My next favorite was a workout Barbie because instead of being strange bendy rubber or rigid plastic, she had ball joints! You could move her every which way and it was awesome! Haha, it figures I'm still into similar dolls several years later :P

 

I loved dolls so much; like a lot.
I had so many barbies, even other dolls like the Disney princesses. I even had them up until the age of 13 xD and i was upset, more like i felt empty when i had to give them away when i reached the age of 13.

 

Did you play with dolls as a child? I both played with and collected dolls. I had Barbies, ranging from the relatively inexpensive ones meant mostly for playing with to slightly more expensive collectors' dolls that came in those big display boxes (think like Medieval Lady Barby, which I remember salivating over for months and finally managed to get her by convincing my parents to skip giving me several weeks' worth of allowance in exchange for paying for her). I played with the collector ones too, but at the end of playtime they always went back in their original clothes (of I had changed their clothes) and back on their stands on my shelf. I also had baby dolls and American Girl dolls, which I played with, and a few porcelain dolls, which I did not. I think I was a bit of a doll connoisseur from a very young age. I can remember being in kindergarten and seeing these very nice, anatomically-correct baby dolls someone brought in to show us one day and begging my parents for them. I don't remember how much they cost but I do remember having the impression that they were quite expensive, at least in comparison to other things my parents were buying me at the time. I can also remember being keenly interested in the actual collectible Barbies, like the ones with outfits by famous designers, but feeling like there was no way I could ever afford them.

Why or why not? Because I wanted to and thought it was fun.

If yes, did your childhood love of dolls get you into BJDs or was it something else? What got me into BJDs was discovering them and thinking they were gorgeous. I think coming from a history of loving dolls as both playthings and collectible objects helped and made it so that stepping into the BJD world wasn't weird (and may even have been the next logical step), but I didn't get into BJDs because of the other kinds of dolls. In fact, if I hadn't discovered BJDs, I don't think I would have any kind of current doll collection (except for the childhood dolls I kept) because I eventually got to a point where barbies and porcelain dolls just didn't interest me as much anymore. Even now, I went digging for some pictures of the Barbies I had to use as examples here, and while some of the outfits on the collectible ones were stunning, I found myself wondering how I could re-create those outfits for a BJD rather than wanting the actual Barbie.