A Jolly Dolly Friend

jollyvolley on Instagram

I want to apologize sincerely to all my doll readers; I know it's been ages since I wrote any doll-related posts. I've been in kind of a funk lately. I haven't been able to find a manufacturer for my eyes. Although I have a large inventory of dolls to restore the ones I have finished haven't been selling much at all for years now, so it's not really worth it financially to spend my time restoring them. The things I enjoy are designing and making my own dolls and fashion and thrifting. I'm really good at making things and I have a good eye so I'm good at finding abandoned treasures. In fact, my biggest finds from my out of town thrift trip last month, the Wedgwood plate, ARTEL cowboy hat, and Peter Millar cashmere sweater vest, all already sold and provided a great return on investment. The problem is, I have so much inventory to list, from my kids' outgrown clothes and toys to a huge consignment lot I just got and another on the way, I can't really justify buying anything else. Our dining room has once again been taken over by inventory, so I need to move it, but I just can't seem to find the motivation. My oldest heads back to college in just a couple weeks, and then my younger kids will go back to school, and I've been focusing on spending the last bit of summer with them as much as possible. I'm considering just sending whatever I can off to thredUP and selling the other clothes in big lots. Even if I don't make as much profit it may be worth spending my time on something more enjoyable so I don't get burned out.

In an attempt to wake up my doll sales I have an ad running online through Google Ad Words. Unfortunately, instead of increasing my sales it's mainly just turned up people wanting things from me. So far I've had many responses from people wanting me to purchase their marketing services (these messages in particular are ALWAYS misspelled... WHY would anyone want to buy marketing from people who don't even proofread their own marketing messages?!), feature their product in my blog, or to buy their dolls. It's incredible the number of people who have monster collections of dolls, 3000 in one case, and then decide they don't want them. They want to sell them but they don't want to do it themselves, so they email me and beg me to buy them and when I tell them I don't have the money or the room they insist they don't want much for them. So after days of begging and pleading I will agree to view some photos. The dolls ALWAYS need restoration. And they are ALWAYS all the way across the country so shipping will be ridiculous. And then I make my offer and the people get mad and decide they aren't selling them to me. It's just such an enormous time waster for me. So, if you are considering emailing me and begging me to buy your dolls, just don't. PLEASE. I can assure you, if you bought your dolls prior to 2014 you paid too much to get your investment back in today's market and I don't have the space to keep thousands of dolls until the price rebounds, if it ever does.

My ad did turn up one good thing: a new friend! Amanda Volley, of the Jolly Volley blog, featured me as an expert in her recent post about a walker doll she picked up. Her blog is wonderfully funny and well-written and I sincerely hope you will check it out. At the very least you can get the doll posts you desire until I get it together and start restoring dolls again. You can also find Jolly Volley on Instagram (the profile is shown above). I will soon begin my holiday trunk sets soon. Last year I sold out by the first week of December, so I'm trying to make more this year. At least it's good to know dolls are still popular in trunk sets, even if it takes a long time to make them!