Cora

Cora was my 2018 Christmas present. I wished for her for a long time, she is so lovely in her beautiful dress. 

I am also impressed by her rooted curly hair! When I was a girl most of our dolls had short curly hair, so touching her hair was like coming back to the old days. 

She changed for the Christmas celebration. :)

Cora is trying on a new yellow dress. It is a vintage dress by Jerri Lee. It fits her very nicely. Isn't she is cute in this picture?
Ignore the background, my other dolls haven't changed for summer yet. :) Usually I would not use the picture, but I love her expression in this one! 

 

Also she was gifted a toy, a very cute giraffe made by Boyd's Bears. I always look for something special for each doll. 

I have a small collection of Boyd's Bears, but I did not know that the company made mini toy ornaments. A few years ago I liked and bought a small monkey toy from eBay. There wasn't a tag with it, so I did not know who made it. I gifted it to Anthony, my first Gregor doll.

This year I was looking for a toy giraffe and saw the same monkey toy but with a tag now. It appeared to be Boyd's Bears too. It is very interesting how sometimes information is gathered piece by piece from somewhere.  

The toys are very cute and nicely done.

They are jointed and small, around 3.5'' tall. 

Anthony with his toys.

Even before I purchased Cora, I was always very captivated by her dress. It has such a lovely combination of colors! 

In May, everything was blooming outside, so I took Cora to Van Cortlandt park with me. It was a lovely morning and I took many pictures with different flowers.  

The field was full of blooming dandelions. 

Pink flowers just like on the dress!

She found a tree with a heart. :)

So many violets!

My girls together!

Vera

This is  Vera. She is a #115S Sasha Blonde Tunic. I found her in one of the eBay Goodwill stores in June 2018. I love her extremely soft hair.

She is kind, she loves birds and animals. She is imaginative and likes all kinds of crafts. :)
Once I knew a girl named Vera, who was exactly like this. :) She even looks like the real Vera, except for one thing: the bangs. Vera did not have them, but always wanted some.

Just out of the box

After a shower. It was a long travel from Northern New England. Having a home is so much better than living in a Goodwill! 

There is a tag from The Tiny Touch Miniatures dolls teddy bears store. I wonder if she was in the store and it was closed down? Or if someone bought her from that store and then she ended up in the Goodwill.

I will probably never know. It does not matter, she seems perfectly happy in her new home. 

Thomas

My next doll was Thomas. I love dolls and from time to time I like to browse doll listings and see what is out there. Sometimes, I look for Sasha dolls, sometimes for other dolls (both newer and more vintage ones).

One day I was just looking and I saw this Gregor doll on eBay in December 2017. His expression looked different to me than the other boys I'd seen before, and I just loved it! It felt like he had a lot of character, I knew I had to adopt him. 

I was so happy when I won the listing. He came right before Christmas with a box labelled "301 Gregor Dark Denims", although he didn't have a wrist-tag. When I opened up the box, he was in excellent condition (strong stringing). 

At first, I was a little confused by the costume he was wearing: a red robe, not dark denims. When I checked my Sasha Identification book, it showed only blond Gregor dolls with blue eyes in red-bath-robe-and-pyjama outfits. I'm not sure if he is in his original box or not. I wondered, could he have been redressed? But then again, I would say the doll and clothes were all in mint condition.

I think he probably is the 301 Gregor Dark Denims doll, because he looks like one of the boys in the picture that the book includes. 

                    

A  few days ago I bought a set of Sasha dolls post cards. And there was one of a dark haired Gregor doll. The card says Gregor in outfit 803, so I wonder if maybe my Gregor had gotten redressed in outfit 803 at some point before he came to me.

I named him Thomas. Don't ask why. I just looked into his face and decided he would be a Thomas. :)

(Seller's image)

(Seller's image)

 Also, according to the Sasha Identification book, the type of boxes he came in (II-D) was produced from 1976 to 1978.

 

Antony is greeting Thomas. At that time we were still waiting for our apartment.

It was his first Christmas with my Sasha family. He got his very own toy, a kangaroo. Also, in this picture you can see how different they look!

I only expected us to be in that apartment for around 2 months, so I had decided that I wasn't going to unpack any of my dolls until we were settled into our new home. It ended up taking almost 2 full years for us to move in, and one day I realized how much I missed having them in my room. I took them all out, and we celebrated Christmas and New Year 2017 and 2018 as well on top of the moving boxes. :)
I might have given myself more work, having to repack them when it was time to move, but it was so worth it to see my Sasha family every day!

In the pictures, Thomas is wearing a green turtleneck that I made for Antony. But I think he looks much more interesting in red than green, I have to find a nice red yarn and make a sweater just for him.