Display Cabinets

We're adding a puppy to our family (he'll be here tomorrow!). In preparation, I needed to make sure that all of my Sashas are somewhere safe. My sister had picked up a second display cabinet for me on a trip to IKEA, which sat in boxes for ages before my husband kindly assembled it for me. He also drilled additional holes in both of the cabinets so that I could create smaller sections at the top and bottom using the adjustable shelves. I plan to buy some archival binders and boxes to store my paper paraphernalia and special clothing in those spaces.

It took me a while to decide where everyone should stand, with lots of shuffling. Since almost all of my dolls are in the cabinets now, I decided to share some pictures. One cabinet contains my Gotz dolls, and the other contains most of my English dolls (my five "dressing dolls" are elsewhere in the house).

Here is the Gotz cabinet, grouped by age:


Here is the English cabinet, grouped by hair color (alas, poor Giselle's stringing is too loose for her to stand safely):


I'm really pleased with how these look so far. After the holidays I plan to spend some time organizing all the bits and pieces.

Collapsible Chairs

Most of my dolls are displayed in a case, but the five 80's girls (seven if you count Boo's two) just stand/sit/lie around the house. I've been thinking it would be fun to buy some props and create little scenes with them. I found these nifty chairs on eBay recently. They're similar to the chairs my family uses when camping or watching soccer, and they're just the right size for Sashas. Since there are two chairs and Boo has two dolls, I think Calla and Rose may claim these as their special seats. Now all they need is a campfire and some marshmallows to roast. Or perhaps someone else will sit in the chairs and watch Calla and Rose play soccer.

ID Bracelets

You may have noticed that the dolls were wearing bracelets in my last post. I made a bunch of ID bracelets using kits I purchased online from bead*bee. Each bracelet uses 10 7mm beads on an elastic cord. The pink and blue beads here don't indicate gender, but coordinate to their original clothing - Enid is a Gingham, while Layla is a Party.

Sasha Addict!

There is no longer any question in my mind -- I'm addicted. As you will see from my upcoming posts, my Sasha collection has branched out quite a bit from my original intentions: a doll or two to play with plus a dozen Later Gotz to display, no make that 16 and add a 1960's showpiece ... I now own five "playing" dolls from the 1980's, 18 Later Gotz (almost all with their original outfits), three 1960's Trendon (plus my showpiece 1968 Fringe who is still on layaway), and four 1986 Trendon (their final year). I'm limiting myself to the number of dolls I can store in my new display case plus the "playing" dolls already in my possession. I'm still looking for a few specific dolls, then I'm going to have to stop buying. This will make both my husband and my bank account happy. I may need some sort of twelve-step program to help me resist temptation. Is there a Sahsas Anonymous? After all, a Sasha collection can never be truly "complete".

Here are a few pictures of my collection in the display cabinet:

Bottom Shelf


Middle Shelf (front row)


Middle Shelf (back row)


I'll be introducing the dolls who are currently on the top shelf in upcoming posts. I'm not including a group picture here, so as not to spoil the surprise when you meet them individually.

Display Cabinet

I finally purchased a display cabinet from Ikea for housing my Sasha dolls. My plan is to remove the three adjustable shelves, giving me three tall sections to arrange them in. Hopefully there will be enough room, both space-wise and height-wise (it's about 3 feet wide and almost 7 feet tall). Now I need to find time to assemble it, which will probably require my husband's help (both of the boxes are very heavy). It will be nice to have all the dolls out where I can see them together, but I think my husband will be shocked when he realizes just how many dolls I've acquired. I may be shocked too. Here's a picture of the cabinet as shown on Ikea's website:


UPDATE: We assembled it today! Actually, my husband assembled it today while I alternated between keeping the kids occupied and handing him the correct hardware. The middle section is the "shortest" of the three, and plenty tall enough for Sashas to stand in. The top and bottom sections have quite a bit of excess height. I was hoping to partition each of them into two sections -- one tall for Sashas and one short (at the top/bottom) for document/project storage boxes where I could keep tags, booklets, original clothing, etc. Unfortunately the "adjustable" shelves are only minimally adjustable, with all the pre-drilled holes near the midpoints of the sections. Fortunately my husband says he can drill additional holes to give me the configuration I want. He's a pretty handy guy, and so very tolerant of my doll habit. :-)