My husband has named the packing experience "Hoarders Light." He's not kidding. It's not surprising that this underscores what I have known for a while. I have been completely immersed in the doll world to the exclusion of the rest of my life for the past 7 or so years. Packing the dolls is the easy part - except for the props. The furniture for the 16" dolls is a nightmare to pack except for the items whose original boxes I saved.The real problems are dealing with the equipment and tools from the arts I've been involved in for the last 25 years - outside of the doll world - darkroom photography, painting, woodworking, miniaturing, jewelry making, enameling, faux finishing, sewing, embroidery, casting...you wouldn't believe it. I should have been trying to sell this equipment but I didn't and it's all nicely packed up waiting to come along to the next location. OMG.
Craig's list is going to be very familiar with me soon, I hope. Or will I get obsessed with something else and ignore the need to divest myself of these things that have become burdens?
I have lately been enjoying and participating in Pinterest which has inspired me to get back to the other arts. Even doll collecting has opportunities for me to create. I've tried my hand at repainting and that is not something I can do successfully other than retouch or enhance but I can make wigs. I can create instead of accumulate. I love my dolls and I get a great deal of pleasure from looking at them and touching them and posing them but it's gone too far. They keep coming and then what? Thank goodness I've been selling all along or I'd have to get Rudy a job.
Inspiration is what has been lost but it's temporary. And it's the season of change. All is well.
Back to packing.
Terri, I'd say at this point, go for quality over quantity. Harder said than done, true, but as I see my collection becoming unmanageable, I've gone that route.
ReplyDeleteA few beautiful BJDs, trumps all entries in a yearly collection. I'm more into buying fashions for dolls I do have, since the returns for dolls are worse than cars. Even older convention dolls aren't doing well.
And if I did buy anything, it would be an older Grail of mine, not new. Still looking for Zoe Washburne and Inara from Firefly (which was on Prego, but at mid-month, NOT a good time, $$$$-wise).
"go for quality over quantity" Good advice, Steve. I've been trending that way. It's just all the other stuff I'm forced to deal with during the move.
DeleteI just shared the Hoarders Light comment with my husband (who is standing, tape gun in hand, assembling more boxes for our pending move), and he was amused. It helps that he has his own hoards (guitars, and all the computer and video editing paraphernalia).
ReplyDeleteLuckily I packed all the doll stuff for the house showings. But I feel your pain about the other parts of artistic inspiration. I just pared down to 3 large bins of fabric and sewing items, plus there are 4 bins of scrapbooking materials, and 9 boxes of photographs. And I ran out of boxes earlier today, so there will be more...
Craigslist, doll boards and eBay have been my friends lately, but I'm going to have to take a pause - I need to pack our house, not pack to send to someone else.
You were lucky to be able to pare down your fabric collection. I just finished packing the sewing room. I was heavily into that and I will sew again. I did give away some fabric...some...hehe.
DeleteToday was a good day. Lots of progress.
I haven't been collecting dolls long enough to have reached this point, though I do have too many to justify. But they are so dang beautiful! Love the 'moving tip' graphic.
ReplyDeleteMary...stick around long enough. Hehe. You will have lots more dolls than you know what to do with.
Delete'Tis the season for this line of thinking. Both me and Cat from The Doll Affinity felt the same way and took a long break from the doll world. It can be a little much. But moving is a blessing in helping to totally reorganize!
ReplyDeleteI agree. It can be a blessing - in many ways. We want to move.
DeleteMy husband was laid off last October, and I can't work due to health issues, so I had to really evaluate and cut down on my dolls, and refocus my collecting. He finally got a new job that starts on the 25th, yay, but now I feel like I still really need to go through the detritus of fashion doll collecting since 1993 and divest myself of a lot of stuff, whether it's through goodwill, garage sale, the local doll show in the fall, or doll pages/the boards, I feel like I'm finally ready to let a bunch of stuff go. It's actually a nice feeling, in most ways. My biggest issue is all the pink box stuff that you buy as a cheap fix along the way, especially in the beginning. How many blonde beach doll Barbies do you need, anyway? hehe. Anyway, my point is, I understand where you're at, here. My new focus is clothing for my nuface/misaki/poppy dolls, mod/70s Barbie and Francie, and Erin dolls, with the ocaisional other NuFace/Poppy/Misakis thrown in, but I need to stop doing normal size FR girls, I love the ones I have, and I still want a Ginza Kyori and a couple others, but I am just way more into street and avant guard fashion at this point, so my normal size girls don't really get the love they deserve. Ack, sorry, didn't mean to write a huge post here, sorry Terri!
ReplyDeleteNo need to apologize, Liz. I love reading other peoples' experiences. Those quick fixes...they're killers. Luckily I stopped doing that this year. The quick fix turned into a few Sybarites. Of course that's not a quick fix but it fixes having any money left over! I'm kind of glad Integrity changed the faces and then added characters that don't appeal to me because I don't have to have any of them now. Not that I didn't have a huge pre-order. Sigh. I still like my little dolls. The problem is that I love my bigger ones, too. Oh well.
DeleteI'm happy to hear that your husband is going back to work. Thank goodness. Mine just retired. EEK! This will be a new experience.
T
I can relate.
ReplyDelete;)
lol
Best Wishes!
V.