A long post about dolls

I got a new job!

Baby X is leaving our home for good at the end of August, but I have a nice little side job to keep our budgeting going after he leaves. 

I am helping (and learning even more) to make Waldorf dolls for a lady that sell them here in Princeton. She just got a big contract from a toy company and needs help making them. I've made a few on my own, but I'm even more excited to help her. Her dolls are beautiful and so sweet, and I can't wait to learn even more from her.

 The 3 dolls I made. We only kept the bottom one.

Waldorf dolls are pretty special and expensive. 

They are made of all natural material and are filled with wool. (The wool makes waldorf dolls feel warmer than most dolls, since the wool gets warmed by your body heat).

 They have neutral facial expressions so that kids can imagine them feeling a range of emotions. Ella (the bottom one) for example is usually sad because she wants a cookie and I won't give her one. (Madeleine yesterday, "Oh no!! Ella sad!" "Why she is sad?" "She crying. No cookie. So sad.")

Usually since they are pretty expensive, a child only will have one or two dolls at a time. The thought behind this is with few dolls then a child will love and appreciate each doll more.

 We found this to be true in our home. Madeleine currently has four dolls, and it seems like the sweet spot for her right now. She plays with all of them frequently and we have enough dolls for when friends come over. If you want to read more about the benefits of having less toys, I recommend the book, Simplicity Parenting. It's a pretty boring book, so I didn't actually finish it, but the part I did read was amazing and has influenced my parenting. It kind of reads like a text book.

Waldorf dolls come in all shape and sizes. I have found that materials for a larger doll cost start around $60, and the smaller ones are closer to $40. But the real cost is the amount of labor that gets put into these dolls. Each of my dolls took me a day or two to make. I think this is pretty typical and dolls tend to start around $100 a doll. (I think the average is probably closer to $150. The toy store I think is selling them for $130 each) Some doll makers' work are incredible and they spend weeks on each doll. Their dolls are auctioned off to doll collectors that can easily end up over $2000 per doll. 

Here are some of my favorites.

This little doll is from Bamboletta, one of the most well known doll makers. She cost $135.50.  You can check out their page here.

You might not be able to tell but this doll is made extremely well!  Her face and body was carefully sculpted with needles. You can check out this doll maker facebook page here. If I remember right, I think her dolls run around $350-$700.

The queen bee of doll making is this maker in my book. She's incredible. Her facebook page is here. If you scroll down on her facebook page she has a video of her making the faces. She said some dolls take 80 hours to make the faces! Seriously so much work and love go into her dolls.

Now you might be like wow. Why would anyone spend that much on a doll? Well, Waldorf people in general appreciate and pay for people's craft. I like them for that a lot. But don't worry if you want a doll, there are also places to buy them used. You can get them as low as $30 and they are still in pretty great condition. We have bought two that way.

Also, there is also the option of making your own. There are so many people who have put their own patterns up on pinterest for free. They have great directions and if you have the time, it pretty simple. I used this tutorial for the first doll I made. She has a link to the pattern and everything.

And last but not least, I think, is introducing your child to a doll. Another amazing doll maker (seriously, I would love to see one of hers) put up this great way about how to introduce a doll to your child. 

http://www.figandme.com/figandmeblog/gandme.com/2011/12/meeting-and-friendship.html

It might be silly to some people to put this much work and money into a doll, but dolls and kids have strong relationships. Sophie is basically a member of the family in our house. Madeleine's dolls give her comfort when we can't and she role plays frequently with them. They have been potty trained, had their noses blown, and even given pep talks.

Dolls are special, and I really love the fact for these special toys are not something that is quickly bought.  They are generally carefully loved and thought out from when they are being made to when they are being presented to the child.

 One of my favorite things was taking a knitting class here in Princeton and mentioning that I wanted to make clothes for one of Madeleine's dolls. My teacher got excited and told me she had made her daughters some years ago. She brought them to the next class. They were so beat up. The hair was tangled and the skin of the dolls were broken. She told me that despite the fact her daughters were in college that these dolls were still loved and part of the family.

I like the non-disposable nature feeling that it gives these dolls. I like that they are eco friendly. I feel like they line up well with some of our goals, and I'm so excited to make them.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Plastic free July

This month my zero-waste facebook group wanted to take the Plastic free July challenge. (If you click here, you'll find all of the rules and details.) Since I run the group, I figured I definitely should take the challenge. For the most part, I feel like Matt and I have reached a pretty good point between producing less trash and living in our budget. But for this month only, I decided to take it a bit farther and try out the things that we choose not to do.

So here are some of our weak spots for plastic.

- Candy bars

- meat and cheese

- diapers

- condiments

- yogurt and hummus

- bread

- straws 

- berries

- junk food in general 

Candy bars 

We LOVE milka bars, so much so that Madeleine will walk past the whole isle of  American candy bars to the International section. Then she stands on her tiptoes and grabs to milka bars and sticks them in the cart. We have been able to avoid these so far by making more sweets at home and loading up on berries.

Meat and Cheese

I found out that our whole foods will wrap meat and cheese in paper.  (Well kind of. The cheese guy wrapped it in plastic and then paper.) The only thing is it's expensive. Not really worth it. But the cheese we got was amazing! I also found a local butcher who will put meat aside on slaughter day, but again out of our budget. But it's nice to know those are options. Whole Foods does do meat specials regularly so maybe I'll start looking at those more often.

Date night at the Butcher's market

Diapers

We've been a lot better about cloth diapers this month! They are super super easy with our new washer and dryer.

Condiments

I've been better at making them and buying them in bulk this month. 

Yogurt and hummus

I still haven't found a good yogurt starter or a good hummus recipe. Working on these.

Bread

Whole foods and the bakery across from the library will give it to me plastic free. I'm going to try yet another recipe though this week. At this point I can make it, just Matt want one that taste better like Trader Joe's.

Straws

I really don't pay attention to this one. Going to work on it, since it's so easy.

Berries

It's berry season so we've been able to pick our own! And I froze some for later this year.

Junk food

I feel like we've been doing a lot better with this one. I broke down and got some from book club but other than that we've been doing great.

So far we have had 3 bags of small trash in the kitchen and 2 large ones in the bathroom. The bathroom has Baby X diapers too though, so I don't have complete control over it, and I feel like this is pretty good considering that we've had three parties/get togethers at our home. The next thing I'm going to try to work on is getting a compost going since this apartment does have one. 

A small note

On this whole journey to zero-waste thing, I keep running into beliefs that I don't share with many in the zero-waste community. I wanted to address three of them very briefly, and if you believe differently, I'm 110% okay with that.

1. We don't try to only eat organic.

What we do, do is we do try to eat local.
 Some of our local farmers are organic and some of them aren't. We support all of them. Madeleine and I have actually been to most of these farms in the last year. I know the farmer's values. One thing that I actually love is that many of these family farmer's live on their farms. They are the ones that actually have to breathe and live with all the chemicals that surround their homes. It's not just food for them. It's also their home.

 I've done a lot of research on it, and I decided that there isn't enough research for me to care. Also, I've read enough about getting certified and the label "organic" that I don't think just because something says one thing that it's true.I think we do tend to eat more organic food than many people since often they have less packaging. The uberly cheap vegetable and fruit bins just happen to be at an organic store. But when it's all said and done, normal food is cheaper and we can eat healthier food on a small budget and that's what really matters to us.   

2. GMOs

Similarly to organic, the biggest problems I have with GMOs is that it seems that some of the companies are bullies and that we are getting a smaller verity of different crops. As for health benefits, the biggest argument that I keep finding is "We don't know what GMOs can do to us." We honestly don't eat the big GMO crops that frequently, and the research again is too weak for me to pay extra money for non-GMO food.

3. We aren't anti-plastic.

We are moving away from buying new plastic stuff, but I have no issue what-so-ever with older plastic stuff. BPA and other harms of plastic again don't worry me. I am trying to avoid buying things that can't decompose. If it already exist and we want it though, I have no problem buying it used. 

I am planning on a "No Impact Man" week in January, and he discusses all these points it seems at one point or another. I just wanted to have this down for the record before I introduce that project in January. I would love if a few friends would do it with me, so if you do it, let me know!