And of course, its Hinamatsuri, The Japanese Dolls Festival. No self respecting doll blogger should allow Hinamatsuri to pass by without mention!

The Doll’s Festival is also a celebration of the young girls in the family, and well wishes for their health, growth and happiness.

Most Japanese families with girls have hina-ningyo dolls, set up on display once a year for the holiday. Here’s some pictures:

Hinamatsuri, Hina-ninygo Dolls

Emperor and Empress from The Strong Museum Doll Collection

Unfortunately, I am not an expert on Ninygo Dolls, so I won’t go into further detail. But I am the father of a daughter, and I make my living selling dolls: We have so many useless holidays in the US… I wish we had a dolls and daughter’s day here like Hinamatsuri!

It is my sincere pleasure to report that my friend Fanny Wong won the inventor/designer award at the fifth annual Wonder Women of Toys Awards, presented by Women In Toys and ‘Playthings’ Magazine, and I couldn’t be happier!

When Addie and I were just starting out, Fanny was a big help to us, because she was already manufacturing the ethnic baby dolls we needed for our customers. We had a good working relationship for years, and then she invented what we think may be the most perfect baby doll ever!

Nighty-Night baby doll

Nighty Night Dolls are perfect baby dolls because they are soft, safe starting at age 2, machine washable, are available in ethnicities, are absolutely adorable — dressed in their sleepers and carrying their teddy bears dressed in matching sleeper – are large enough for two or three year olds to play with yet light enough to carry etc. They are our most popular cloth baby dolls – year in and year out. here’s a 10 second clip from our YouTube video

Fanny designed them.

PS: For all you Sleepless in Seattle fans, I stay in the Pennsylvania Hotel each year when I’m at the show, and it’s just down the street from The Empire State Building… and yes they do light it up in red on Valentines Day! Here’s a picture.

The Empire State Building lit up in Red for Valentines Day!

Illustration from the book

We don’t sell Golliwog dolls, although we do sell dozens of black baby dolls. Golliwogs are still sold in England, by Trendle International.

Razz Golliwog courtesy Trendle Int'l

I guess the bottom line is: If someone gave us a Golliwog, would we be embarrassed to put it on the shelf with the rest of our doll collection? And if not, should we be?

©Ty

Let’s cut right to the chase. The first and only African American Ty Girlz © are named Sasha and Malia. Ty Inc. spokeswoman Tania Lundeen says the dolls aren’t based on the Obama daughters. She says Sasha and Malia were chosen because “they are beautiful names.” Really? Check out the Social Security Administration list of 100 top Baby names for the last 10 years? They are three to four hundred down. Nothing to do with the new girls in the White House? Hmmm.

Next we hear that Michelle Obama is pissed… she thinks it’s exploitation. Well she’s right, it is. But who is being exploited? Do you think that maybe there was a little political milage gained every time those two little ‘Daddy’s Girls’ were photographed living their “normal” little fishbowl lives for the last year? I mean after all, who didn’t know about the first daughters? Color me doubtful, but I think that there was a little exploitation of the girls during the campaign as well.

Dolls have been made in the likenesses of celebrities for forever. In fact one of our stores specializes in licensed dolls, everything from Sesame Street and Dr Seuss, to Fancy Nancy and Strawberry Shortcake. If I had to guess, I’d say Shirley Temple dolls were probably the longest running celebrity doll ever. Teddy Roosevelt wouldn’t shoot a tied up helpless bear at the end of an unsuccessful hunt and Teddy Bears have been the most popular toy in America ever since. There were Chelsea Clinton dolls, and Caroline Kennedy dolls (currently selling in the $300 range on Ebay). But of course we’re talking here about licensed dolls…. my guess is that if Michelle Obama and the US Attorney General want to make a case of it, Ty would have to buckle pretty quick.

So our take? We don’t believe that out of the 1000′s of African American girl’s names available that Ty randomly picked the same two names as the first daughters. Next? Michelle… chill. Be flattered and pleased that your daughters are such great role models. Life’s too short to be pissed at Ty. Make ‘em give you royalties!

As promised, the story of how a doll saved our business.

Back in 2002, the dot.com crash had hurt our ability to give as generously to charity as we liked, and we were looking for a new ‘stream of income’ from which to rebuild our charity gifting. So Addie and I started our first eCommerce stores, one of which we called The Happy Baby Basket, and which featured various themed baby gift baskets.

We had an Irish themed basket with a stuffed Irish Setter with a four leaf clover hanging from it’s mouth; a New Jewish baby  Basket, with a Blue Teddy Bear in a kippa and the Star of David embroidered on its paw, and a basket for a newly adopted child with Ling, (shown above, wasn’t she cute?) etc. And for a year an a half we failed to sell a single basket. In fact, we couldn’t even find our site in the search engines!

So after a year and a half, we decided eCommerce wasn’t in the cards and decided to shut that portion of the business down. But since everything was already paid for, and our licenses had another 6 months to run, we decided to take the various items out of the baskets and sell them individually; to see if maybe we could recoup some of our inventory expenses at least.

So we listed all the items separately, the dolls, the silver piggy banks, the cute little 6 months custom tee shirts we had made up, etc. Now we had also been learning more about SEO and page ranks and everything else in that year and a half, and we must have done something right, because all of a sudden our Asian dolls were selling. ( Not for a lot mind you, maybe $12.95?… I don’t remember anymore).

Well, one of my favorite phrases is “you don’t learn a heck of a lot from the second kick of the mule!” and that was the case here as well. After a year and a half, something had happened, but what? So we called a few of the customers who had purchased with…”hi, this is the Happy baby Basket customer service follow up call. Thank you for your purchase… did everything go OK… and by the way, why did you buy that doll?”

And we kept hearing the same thing: ” We just came back from China with a newly adopted little girl, and we went into our local stores, and we couldn’t find Asian faced dolls. So we went online and found you!” We had found a niche market. Underserved customers with a need.

Today we have both PattycakeDoll.com and the SleepySoft.com as well as BooksAndDolls.com and MyAdoptedChild, selling Asian Baby Dolls, African American Baby Dolls and Hispanic Baby Dolls, and contributing thousands of dollars every year to children’s charities.

I have a pretty serious request for all my readers today. I am going to ask, no BEG! – you all to go to this link and sign this petition. The US government, in it’s attempts to increase toy safety, ( a good thing ) has written rules that require testing of all toys for children.

Unfortunately, that also means that if you handmake rag dolls here in America, and sell them to your local toy store or gallery, technically you need to get your dolls tested as well. Or if you make one of a kind Art Dolls. If you make children’s clothes, quirky, fun and original.

That will cost you from several hundred to several thousand dollars per doll. Even if you use all natural organic fibers and stuffings, these new rules still require testing! So Art Dolls, (if they’re to be sold,) Folk Art and Crafts Dolls Children’s quilts etc., all of us will be poorer for this rule. If not corrected, it could mean the end of home crafted dolls. Can you imagine a world with nothing but Barbie™?

This petition is to ask that Congress amend the law to exempt these small American Cottage industries that make handmade dolls and toys from this expensive testing.

please go here to sign this petition

Please visit here for more information The Handmade Toy Alliance

I’ve commented before on the Barbie vs. Bratz case, and followed it with interest, but even I was surprised with the severity of the final judgement:

If this is your first exposure to the story, let me summarize:

What was the crime? Getting paid by one company to design a doll, and then selling that doll to another company. Why is it a story? Because the Bratz dolls started beating the crap out of Barbie Dolls. What is the result? See above. But what I really want to know, now that they’ve won, is Mattel going to start selling Bratz?

But we are a little bit puzzled by the folks who are complaining that the toy industry advertises too heavily to children. And that during tough times, it’s not right, because it makes parents feel bad to have to say no! (Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood: http://www.commercialexploitation.org/ )

Nobody likes commercials, we’d rather watch the show without them. And the toy industry certainly does market to children… better get used to it – always has and always will.** That’s how children learn what’s out there.

But if you want to blame TV commercials for not buying your kid a doll… well then you really are in sad shape. Dolls don’t have to be expensive; better yet, make one yourself. Some old rags and needle and thread… a few hours and you’ve got yourself a doll.
Here’s one from Martha Stewart

Our advice? Don’t look for excuses or outside sources to blame. Little girls love their dolls unconditionally, it doesn’t matter if they are small or home made. And the smile on their faces when you give them a new doll? Priceless.

**Doll ads from Sears catalogs from the last century get lots of money from collectors; and fashion dolls were themselves originally advertisements. In the 1800′s dolls were dressed in the latest European fashions and sent to America so ladies could see the latest styles!

Nude Barbie

It is so easy to offend… and yes I am talking dolls. For instance, two little words, nude, and Barbie. Ten little letters in the English language. Yet put them together — Nude Barbie — and whole treatises could be written about feminism, pornography, nudity, little girls self image…. it goes on and on. And has in fact, in blogs other than mine.

Here’s another Barbie causing waves… Tefillin Barbie by Doll Artist Jen Taylor Friedman. Why controversy? Well until very very recently, Jewish women didn’t wear tefillin, or for that matter study Torah (Yentl the Yeshiva Boy by Isaac Bashevis Singer is set in the late 19th century).

Tefillin Barbie by Doll Artist Jen Taylor Friedman

So is this a feminist statement? A religious one?

But if you gave either of these dolls – without any explanation – to any average four year old girl anywhere in the world, (well maybe not in the Middle East), what would happen? She would take the dolls, and play. End of story.

So I guess I should rephrase my opening line.

It is so easy to offend… adults. How about you? Offended?

But to a large extent… new toy safety regulations passed in August by the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.

Lead:Scope: Materials and substrate of any children’s products.
Requirement: The limits on lead in children’s products will be established as follows and according to this timetable:
1. 600 parts per million (ppm) – effective 180 days after enactment of the Act
2. 300 ppm – effective 1 year after enactment of the Act
Lead in paint and surface coatings (Sec. 101, part (f))

Scope: Children’s products
Requirement: The limit will be reduced from the current 0.06 percent (600 ppm) requirement to 0.009 percent (90 ppm).

Testing: The Act allows for consideration of alternative methods of testing for lead in paint including x-ray florescence technology (XRF) when the total weight of the paint or surface coating to be tested is no greater than 10 mg or no more than 1 cm2 of surface area. Additionally, the Act calls on CPSC to study the effectiveness, precision and reliability of XRF and other alternate methods for measuring lead in paint and surface coatings – and if determined to be at least as effective, precise and reliable as other methods the agency may promulgate regulations governing the use of such methods.

Expense : Testing – Every Doll now has to be tested. That means you need the ‘sniffers’ that can actually detect lead content. Not cheap.
Expense : Reporting – Not only do you have to get good results, but now everyone down the chain has to have them too… from the giants like Wal-mart and Target, to little ole’ me and our three online doll stores.
Expense: Compliance officer. There is so much regulation, testing and reporting needed, that the manufacturers are hiring folks to oversee their compliance. And these folks need to go to China pretty often as well. Expensive.

Tracking Labels for Children’s Products (Sec. 103)
Scope: Children’s products
Requirement: Effective one year after enactment of the Act, manufacturers must place permanent, distinguishing marks on a product and its packaging, to the extent practicable, that will enable the manufacturer and ultimate purchaser to ascertain: the name of the manufacturer, date and location of production and identifying production information (cohort, batch, run number or other identifying information). This provision recognizes that flexibility is needed for different types of products and allows the manufacturer to use its own tracking systems.
This section also stipulates that advertising, labeling or packaging of a product, if it references a consumer product safety rule or standard, must be in compliance with that rule or standard.

Expense: Data Entry, Printing costs, Additional employees. Every baby doll, needs to be identified, labeled and tracked from the factory right into your hands. That’s every single, solitary doll.

Labeling Requirement for Advertising of Toys and Games (Sec. 105)

Scope: Retailers, manufacturers, importers, distributors, private labelers of toys and games
Requirement: Any advertisement that contains a direct means for the purchase or ordering of product, must also contain any and all applicable cautionary statements that are already required under the FHSA on or near the product. (e.g. If a game has a small parts warning, this cautionary statement must be repeated in any point-of-purchase advertising such as a catalog or online retailer.). The legislation stipulates the language, type style and layout that must be used in the cautionary statement in advertising. It is incumbent on the manufacturer, importer or private labeler to inform the retailer of such a requirement for the product in advertising and the retailer to inquire of the supplier. CPSC, within 90 days of enactment, must promulgate regulations related to this requirement. Effective 120 days after enactment for internet websites; 180 days for catalogs and other printed materials.

Yup, that’s Addie and I… we advertise on the internet, so we need to go back and check that every single product has the right wording, the right layout, the right type size and the right location as specified by this law. (We are still waiting to find out the particulars from the government)

There’s more, but we think you get the point. Even though we have never had a product recalled, even though we have always made it a point to do age recommendations, the rules are stricter and more expensive to comply with now.

But as inconvenient and expensive as this may be, we’re still for it. A child’s life is too important. We will do whatever we can to safeguard it.