Hi there all,

This is my first attempt at blogging. For those of you who don't know me I am from the world of porcelain doll making. My husband Ken and I were in business together for 28 years manufacturing and selling gourmet doll supplies including over 450 plaster doll molds, my Jean Nordquist signature system china paints, Collectible Doll Fashion patterns and my Victorian Paper Designs for dolls. These include workbooks and projects using designs from my antique paper collection shrunk down to dollie size for dollmakers and collectors to accessorize with their dolls. We sold all of these goods under the business name "Collectible Doll Company" out of Sequim, WA and before that Seattle, Washington.

I use the word "were" in business because in March of this year (2007) we sold this aspect of our business to Beckie Decker of Cedar Hill, Texas. She is also the very same person who purchased the Bell porcelain and mold lines out of Clermont, Florida.

Beckie also assumed all our distributorships for most all of the other products we offered worldwide to our many customers including doll wigs and eyes from Global, doll jewelry from Cat's Paw, knit and crochet patterns from Doris Thurlow, bodies, and any and all other sorts of doll accessories.

One of the main reasons we sold the manufacturing part of our business was that we have been planning for years to join the rest of our family in Spokane, Washington. We have two children and five grandchildren who live in Spokane. We finally made the big move in May of this year after no less than four semi loads of our business left for Texas and Beckie. That left one semi load plus extra freight for us to move with us...and also left us needing a lot less space. We moved from 9000 square feet to 3000. Sure made house shopping a lot easier.

We both turned 65 this year. Seemed like it was time to start stepping back a bit from our arduous work schedule of 24/7. But we still consider ourselves too young to retire. :) So we retained the antique aspect of our business plus my workbook designing. And these are the items that we hope to sell through Auctiva on ebay. We are used to doing about 10 doll shows a year. In displaying our doll samples to show off our mold line, we would set up using lots of antique toys, games, and furnishings to "suggest" to our customer base what they could make using our products. Display quickly changed into selling antiques along with our manufactured product.

I am still designing with my antique paper creating projects for dollmakers to use with their dolls. And I still love to make reproduction dolls. That activity is what lead Ken and I into the manufacturing to begin with...you know how one thing can lead to another. I started in 1979 making and teaching porcelain dollmaking. My first street fair in 1980 brought me over 150 people who wanted dollmaking classes. It also brought me wholesale accounts with shops that wanted my finished dolls for sale. So from 1979 to 1986 I taught hundreds of people dollmaking out of my home and sold thousands and thousands of finished dolls. Always looking for another new face to reproduce as a finished doll and to sell as greenware to my students is how I found our mold line in 1985. A very small company that sold molds to me told me they were interested in selling their line and that became the beginnings of Collectible Doll Company molds. Molds led to dolls needing costumes hence Collectible Doll Fashion pattern line evolved. Then the dolls needed better face paint and so came the china paint line followed by videos (now discontinued) and finally the Victorian Paper Designs for doll accessories. All the while I was also travel teaching porcelain dollmaking all over the U.S. using my molds, paints, patterns, etc. This I still do but only in two studios in California now in Santa Rosa (Katha Engblom's Dolls from the Heart) and Jackie Chimpky's wonderful studio in Castro Valley.

But now a bit more about selling wonderful dolls, toys, and etc. through Auctiva and Ebay...I am just now starting to add to my auctions. I also knew, when we decided to sell Collectible Doll Company that I would want to still sell on ebay. I established myself as a power seller in just over 60 days from November 2005 thru February 2006 about two years ago just to see if I could do it. At that time I set up my ebay store but then allowed it to languish while I got back to the manufacturing, show, and seminar schedule. So now I am starting up again and just starting to list items. So please stay tuned as I add to my store and live auctions. Today I'm adding my first Auctiva item, a wonderful vintage toy grocery store. It's taking me a bit of time to learn Auctiva layout and so on, but it does seem quite easy at this point. I just love their colorful layout templetes and their active auction previews that show in all my listings now. Stay tuned for more updates and auctions. Bye for now from snowy Spokane. Jean