Sunday Surprise: Mommy-to-be Judith Dolls!

I realized yesterday that there are only two Sundays left until Christmas.  Two.  Can you believe that?  It took me totally by surprise.  It's much more typical that I'm waiting and waiting for Christmas, moping around the house because I feel like the big day will never come.  Things seem to be happening faster than usual this year for some reason.  Anyway, this realization threw me into a panic because I have a bunch of different Sunday Surprise toys that I wanted to chat about before the holidays, and now I can only look at two of them!

Today I want to show you something called the Mommy-to-be Judith doll.  This doll was developed in Europe (I think?) and introduced into the United States in 1991 (back when I was a kid).  There's not much information about these dolls on the internet, but there's a Chicago Tribune article from 1992 that's been archived online.  This article states that Judith is believed to be the first pregnant play doll distributed in the United States.  That's pretty cool!  Of course Mattel came along a decade later with their pregnant Midge doll, but the Judith Corporation was apparently first on the scene.

So why is Judith a good doll for the Sunday Surprise?  Well, because the gender and appearance of her little baby is a mystery!  And, what makes this doll unusually fun is that the company put boy babies in half of their dolls and girls in the other half (according to the Tribune article).  So I have an actual 50:50 chance of getting a little boy today!  Better yet, I'm going to de-box two Judith dolls, and while this won't change the odds of either baby being a boy...at least I have two chances.

Mommy-to-be Judith doll (1991).

A Saskia Project Update

My youngest son and I are on the road for a few days, driving all over the Northeast.  We spend a lot of time in each other's company at home, but we tend to stick to our routines.  We're hard-core homebodies and creatures of habit, he and I.  So, this trip is unusual for both of us, but it's so much fun!  I love road trips: chatting, listening to podcasts, eating too much food.  The only downside is that hotel-hopping leaves little time for blogging, and I've been really eager to show you my progress on the Saskia Project.  At the moment, my son is catching up on some homework, so it's the perfect chance to give you the scoop!

For anyone who stumbled on this post but isn't familiar with the Saskia Project, I'll give a quick recap: my idea for this project was to purchase and complete a reborn doll kit--something I've never done before.  These kits are popular (and can be expensive) and they only include the basic components necessary for making a baby doll.  For example, my kit included unpainted vinyl limbs, an unpainted and eyeless vinyl head, and an un-stuffed cloth body.  To successfully complete a reborn kit, a large investment of time and additional materials is necessary.  I was curious about how accessible (and expensive) this whole process would be for someone with very little experience.

In the first installment (which you can read here), I was able to find Saskia some glass eyes and paint her limbs and head.  After I painted her head, however, I got frustrated with her mouth and tried to erase most of the paint I'd applied.  This is how she looked at the end of the last post, with her arms and head perched on a drying rack (or rather a paper towel roll holder):

The Saskia kit by Bonnie Brown (partially completed).

Sunday Surprise: A Few Loose Ends!

This week's Sunday Surprise is a mixed bag of goodies.  First of all, I promised that I would find a way to share my remaining Toy Box Monthly subscription boxes with you, so I'll start things off by quickly (?) revealing those items.

The second part of the surprise will be a revisit of Magic Nursery dolls.  The Magic Nursery poll is over, and it was a very close race!  In the end, 211 of you guessed that the blue doll would be a girl while 179 bet on another boy.  I'll de-box that baby at the end of the post, and also share another little Magic Nursery cutie who will help get us into the holiday spirit:

Magic Nursery Holiday Baby (discontinued).