As my second daughter came along I continued to collect and eventually bought a brunette bubblecut from 1963 as my first vintage. Now I have more Barbie and family dolls than am willing to admit to. They are now out of the closet and in my doll room. We seem to always begin as a closet collector.
The art of customising has taken hold of me and I now do customising regularly to mostly redheaded Barbie dolls. I have grown weary of the standard blonde dolls and like the difference of the redheads. My favourite customising fabrics are satins, silks, and velvets. I also design and make my own Barbie jewelry to go with the dolls. Some years back I designed a seven doll series of Japanese kimono dolls from the Miko doll. In Europe this doll was sold as Marina.
Collecting fashion dolls has given me a closeness with my daughters and we share the hobby together. The hobby has taken me to new areas as I again began in 1990 to go back to my writing as a profession and for several years I freelanced as a writer for several doll magazines in the United States. I authored two books about Barbie dolls called "The Story of Barbie" and "The Story of Barbie Doll Second Edition" which made me the very first person to research the history of the doll.
Collecting Barbie and other dolls has taken me to places I had only dreamed of some day going and meeting the most wonderful people. I have been able to attend five conventions in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Canada and two in London, England.
I also have a few teddy bears since many years ago I had to give up my own teddies of my childhood at my mother's request. I love the new teddies with their soft plush fur. The newer bears are much more detailed than those of my childhood days.
I still have the very first fashion doll I ever had as a child which was a Coty Cosmetic doll fashioned similar to the Revlon dolls of the mid 1950's. Another prize is my own mother's doll from her childhood which had originally belonged to mother's aunt. She is a small porcelain doll only six inches high. Mother had made a whole box full of clothes for the doll. They are old and tattered but they are priceless because it was my mother's doll. Mother died in 1996.
I have been a member of the Barbie Collectors Club of Great Britain and now known as the Fashion Doll Collectors Club of Great Britain since 1997. I have made many friends within the club and although I am in the United States I still enjoy contributing to the newsletter and corresponding with club members.
Kitturah B. Westenhouser has written for both the collectors market and fiction.
As a writer for collectors she has contributed to many national and international
Ms. Westenhouser has written for newspapers in her early years which include the Columbus Evening Republican, Columbus, Indiana and The Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, Lancaster, Ohio.
As a noted ficition writer she has written the Keturahian Series
A novel, White Satin Nights began the Camelot Series. This series includes multiple books
Collecting fashion dolls is like an adventure into a childhood I never had. I began collecting Barbie dolls over twenty years ago when my oldest daughter was two years old. I had always wanted a Barbie and never had one. I began by buying a few dolls and tucking them away in a closet. The first Barbie was a Beauty Secrets Barbie. Later others came along always telling my daughter that they were Mommy's Barbies. She had Barbies of her own which she played with and clothes to change for them.
About The Author
publications including Barbie Bazaar, Dolls Magazine, Doll Reader, International Doll World,
International Doll World Price Guide, Collectors Showcase, Collectors Edition, Inside
Collector, Hearthstone, American Country Collectibles, Christian Standard, Dolls In Print,
Designer Dolls, Doll Advertiser, Fashion Doll Collectors Club of Great Britain
Newsletter, Doll Show Magazine and the Moody Blues Newsletter.
that includes A Soul To Comfort, The Nightingale's Song, and Daughter of the Realm.
including A Question of Illusion, A Distant Thunder, and Dreamer's Voyage.
The Camelot Series is expected to include seven novels when completed.
