The First Day of School is always celebrated around here with a new DRESS!

Today is the first day of school around here and what better way to kick it off than to show you some of my sweetest girls in their “Back To School” dresses. Around here, the first day of school ALWAYS means a new dress on my dolls! How about yours? Do you dress your dolls up in their school outfits? Backpacks, lunch bags, etc? Just wondering if I was the only one? Now you know I don’t collect dolls like you all do, but I do always like to have at least one of my girls standing on the shelf in a pretty plaid or a fun school print when school starts.

I searched through my archived pictures and found a few I thought you might enjoy seeing… it brings back memories of that first day of school for my kids. Kristoffer went to K-4 and Kindergarten and 1st grade, and then when it was time for Rebecca to go to K-4, the school hired me as the assistant office secretary and I worked there until Rebecca was in 4th grade and Kristoffer was in 7th. Then we began homeschooling and I left the school to be their teacher. We homeschooled them all the way through high school! Rebecca is in her last sememster of college now…My how the school years have gone by!

Okay, enough of going down memory lane!

Here’s 11″ Bitty Bethany, by Helen Kish, in her red and navy plaid school dress…

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Tiny 8″ Ten Ping wore her school dress and sported a new pair of black “scholarly” glasses…

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I couldn’t decide who wore this best, so I’ll show it to you on all three of my 13″ Dianna Effner, Little Darlings. It was one of my favorite school dresses of all time. I guess you can see I liked this plaid fabric.

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Here’s Isabelle in another oldie but goodie…It was the first time I had ever put her hair in pig tails…

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Here was another pig tail cutie of a set…

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This is what Nyssa looked like on her first day of school. This wasn’t even my Nyssa, but a friend loaned me hers so I could begin making clothes for her until I found one.

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Molly looks awfully sweet with her book bag and her green school set!

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This is Riley, by Helen Kish, and she was the tiniest doll I’ve ever sewn for… at 7 1/2″ she’s a little bitty thing…

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…and of course, I can’t forget my newest, favorite, school dress… Lian gets the honors again of modeling it….

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As your little ones go off to school…or your grands, or your neighbor kids, I hope you’ll take time to dress your dolls in something for school today! Let’s make this “National Dress your Dolls in School Dresses Day!” Well, just a thought… :o)

See you tomorrow,
Blessings, Jeanne

10 thoughts on “The First Day of School is always celebrated around here with a new DRESS!”

  1. Oh yes, Jeanne, I do dress my dolls for the first day of school, except that we don’t start school until after Labor Day! My dolls are from the 40s, so that’s what I remember, plus I don’t have the time to dress them all for this week! School starts this week around here, but I’m just not ready!
    You were a school secretary? So was my mother, and she did that for over 25 years! This is always a nostalgic time for me, since I too, was a school teacher! You just never get away from that and the excitement o getting ready for a new school year, with the smell of new crayons and the fun of selecting school supplies.
    Your dresses are so cute, and I see a mostly red plaid theme in them. I usually have been dressing my dolls in Molly’s school outfit, the red plaid jumper, of which I have 3, but this year will be different. I have a chalkboard, and her school desk, so I have to get that set up too.

    Today is my last babysitting gig for a bit, but it’s back to Thomas the Train for today, dolls another day!

  2. It was the first day of school here in Southern California yesterday. Why so early? We don’t have snow days here. I love the plaid dresses too even though it’s so warm here. Lian’s dress is so cute as they all are.

    I didn’t think I would buy another doll, but I wanted one with short hair to be the mannequin for my sewing so I wouldn’t be messing up the hair on my other dolls while incessantly trying on bodices and sleeve length for fit. Well, I unexpectedly won a Kit doll on eBay that included the complete green bed set and dog for $88. Well, I’m sold. She is so cute, her hair is amazing and “I like her personality,” as Riya would say. She’s in perfect condition except for a small pen mark way high up on her left thigh, so a new pack of Magic Eraser is on my list as I’ve tried everything else in the house. Thanks for the tips I found on your Search, Jeanne, for removing marks. I just have to control myself and not buy accessories for her as her outfit is very basic.

    My children and older grandchildren went to Christian schools for the first few grades, and the youngest are starting Catholic school in West Virginia even though they are Hindu. Apparently this is not a problem now as it would have been 50 years ago as I recall. Happy Back to School days for the dolls as well as the children.

  3. Another retired teacher chiming in. I taught preschool while our girls were there, and then moved on to resource teacher. When our youngest started kinder, it was in my school. Then, I taught art and eventually grades four and five, so I was around until they moved on to junior high aka middle school.
    Love when the new school supplies come out. I’m in need of some pencils!

    1. Kit’s first version of her school supplies have pencils that really write and the crayons are real wax as well. I have that set and absolutely love them. Samantha can use the crayons as well.
      I also found a set of adorable colored pencils in 12 colors from a seller on ebay

  4. Until the year before last I only had Samantha, but I did put her in her Buster Brown dress for school. This year I can also dress Felicity in her laced jacket and petticoat. I have their school supplies as well. For Marie-Grace and caroline, my Civil War girls, I have Addy’s school supplies for them, love the abacus!! I imagine they are privately tutored. My dolls won’t get into school dresses until September.
    Well, you know I homeschooled as well. I taught my daughter from kindergarden all the way through 12th grade. It was a lot of fun and I really miss those days, especially the early years.
    All your dolls look sweet in their school dresses. Plaid is so iconic. I went to a Christian grade school, so plaid uniform jumpers were the fare of the day.

    1. Laura can take credit for getting me started on the accessories. I have Felicity’s school supplies which are really cute, the inkwell and quill, etc., and Molly supplies. All your fault, Laura.

      1. LOL. Glad to be the happy enabler. Felicity’s are incredible, especially that little silver sander I bought a bunch of accessories for my Felicity that my daughter never had/wanted. The school supplies are one of my favorite accessories for my dolls followed by party treats, the summer things and the little “extras” such as Felicity’s Shrewsbury cakes and Samantha’s stereoscope. I’m glad I limited myself to collecting only for Samantha and Felicity and only things I absolutely loved, not completist, with a few stray items from other historical collections (Kirsten, Kit and Addy )thrown in.
        I don’t know if you are on AGPT, but members will “help” you “need” various things. Seeing Caroline and Marie-Grace in other historical outfits convinced me I needed them, but managed to not be ensnared by anything else from the collections except Caroline’s travel basket and skiff.
        Congratulations on your new Kit. My daughter has her. The only item I had to have of hers was her original reporter dress and reporter set for when my Nellie travels to the 1930’s and plays Nancy Drew. You might find you Kit needs them, too. *smiles and winks*

  5. I’m with Joy on enjoying seeing and sometimes purchasing “new school supplies” when they come out.

    Beginning school days make me think of my own, heading off to our rural grade school, hearing the bus driver talking about the baseball teams playing, the seasons changing enough that one knew that autumn was making it’s way around the corner, and new school books. Your pretty school dresses are a beautiful touch to those memories. Thank you, Jeanne.

    Blessings.

  6. Like Linda and others, back-to-school time is very evocative of my happy days as a teacher. I miss the eager and expectant look on the faces of my young students, and like many of you, I have countless wistful memories of my own children’s school days — new outfits, fresh supplies, waves at the bus stop, lunch box notes, shared classroom tales, proud accomplishments. It was definitely a hopeful and exciting and time!

    Your little scholars look very sweet in their charming school dresses, Jeanne. The plaids are such a familiar and traditional element of back-to-school clothing. Though warm temperatures often betrayed our folly, who among us did not beg to wear our new wool plaid skirts or jumpers on the first day of school? I think that desire is symbolic of our yearning to keep moving forward in life.

    I come from a locale that did not begin school until after Labor Day, so I will not be dressing my dolls for a couple more weeks yet. I have a lovely little dress and pinafore set with apples on it for Patsy, complete with a matching apple necklace. I look forward to getting her ready for school, but she and I both will enjoy these last days of summer, as I hope you and all of your readers will too, Jeanne. Thank you for the wonderful back-to-school fashion show. I can’t wait to see the new school dresses you will create!

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