Doll Collecting, I know it’s a bit weird.

If you’ve been following this blog you’ll probably have seen that I like to collect dolls. I’ve mentioned it in three of my haul posts, I wrote a blog post about unboxing toys and I shared how I made one of my dollcraft projects. 

Well, today it is one year since I bought my first doll, Tiana from Princess and the Frog and funnily enough I also bought Jasmine from Aladdin this afternoon.When I bought Tiana I was adamant that I wasn’t going to start collecting dolls. It's not really a surprise that Tiana was the one responsible for it all, she is the best Disney Princess. 

That resolution not to collect dolls only lasted a couple of months until I was buying a Merida off eBay. I still tried to convince myself that I wasn’t actually going to collect dolls, I was just buying my favourite Disney Princesses. At first it was just my favourite Disney Princesses that I wanted to collect (Pocahontas, Mulan, Tiana, Merida and Rapunzel plus Elsa and Anna). 

I think it was by the time I’d started to hunt down a Megara doll on eBay that I finally accepted that I’m a doll collector. By far my best doll find so far is my Hercules doll. He’s a 1997 original doll who I found in a charity shop for just £1! And best of all is that he was in near perfect condition when I spotted him.

When the DC Superhero Girls launched in this country I had a new line of dolls that I wanted to collect. DC Superhero Girls is such a cool toy line for a feminist geek, there was no way I would have been able to resist buying them!

Doll collecting has become a hobby for me but it’s also a hobby that has reignited some of my other hobbies. I make outfits for my dolls, sometimes inspired by their signature looks and other times just whatever I feel like making. This has really restarted my love of sewing and textiles – something that I had sadly let slide. I also make rooms, furniture and props to display my dolls with, most of these are inspired by tutorials from MyFroggyStuff on YouTube (seriously that woman is amazing she made a Christmas doll room out of a gift bag!) I used to love crafting when I was younger but much like my love of sewing it was something that I just sort of let slide.

There is a somewhat surprising number of male doll collectors out there who are proudly sharing pictures of their collections on social media. I find it interesting to see just how many #DudesWithDolls there are on Instagram and I do share pictures of my collection in that hashtag.  I’ve also noticed that quite a few of these men are gay. Side note, I have a theory that gay men are more willing to try stereotypically feminine hobbies (like doll collecting) because after coming out of the closet we no longer care if people judge us for what we like. We just want to enjoy whatever makes us happy.

Basically I know it’s a bit weird and unusual for a guy my age to be collecting dolls but I don’t really mind. It makes me happy and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. Why would I? There’s at least three more dolls I need to get!