Coming Soon: Katie and Hayden from Liv World

Meet the best fashion dolls you've never heard of: the Liv World gang.

Photo from 2009 press release

Briefly marketed from 2009 to 2012, the Liv World dolls were extensively posable, had flat feet (no perma-high heels!), and were pretty without being painted as utterly vacuous.

My mom found a mysterious blond fashion doll, highly jointed, at a thrift store. We researched and discovered it was an early Sophie.

Since then, we've been keeping an eye out in the places that remaindered dolls show up -- which means Tuesday Morning, Big Lots, and the sorts of decaying Toys R Us that haven't reorganized their shelves since late 2010 -- for more. As a result of this vigilance, I will soon be getting a Katie (the one in the hat) and a Hayden (not shown, as she joined later) in the mail.

What this really constitutes is an excuse to build fashion-doll-sized furniture.

It turns out that 1:6 lends itself to an attitude of "let's build furniture from random household trash and dollar store items!" Given enough spray paint and hot glue, all things are possible. I'm figuring a can of beige, a can of white, and a can of black should be sufficient to make anything look like it came from IKEA.

To know more:

• Liv Dolls Forever Wiki, a community effort to document the full Liv World line.

• Toybox Philosopher's first Liv review, in great detail, plus a review of Hayden's House at about the time the product line was abandoned. (There is a ton more Liv content on that site, if you care to wallow.)

• DIY Barbie Furniture, a Pinterest collection of tutorials for 1:6 furnishings.