I'm a mother of three who lives north of the Polar Circle in a Swedish town called Kiruna. This used to be the world biggest - by area. Now Los Angeles have passed us along with a few other cities across the world. Kiruna is only 100 years old as a city and was built after they found iron ore in the ground and our mine was developed, LKAB. Enough about that now, I didn't make this page to talk about the town, but me and my collection.

My collecting days sort of grew upon me, I wasn't collecting when I bought the first dolls. Actually I bought them to give as presents for my two daughters, but somehow they ended up in mom's future collection instead.
I made clothes for the kids' dolls and went for my own childhood dolls from the moving boxes in the basement. They followed us to Kiruna in 1991, when we moved from Falun in Dalarna and in 1994 the dolls moved up to the apartment to serve as models for my sewing.

Somehow I couldn't persuade my heart to give my childhood dolls to the children. My thought was: Have they survived for these thirty years, they sure deserve to live a long life after, which they probably won't in the hands of the kids.
In the same time a friend of mine, Li in Falun got the idea to start collecting (and she doesn't have the kids to "blame" with three boys) and we ended up as members of Barbieringen, the Swedish collector's club where I made friends with another wonderful woman, BrIAn. With her, I share another aspect of doll collecting... The world of Patterns!

Today (written in May 2001) my collecting has turned into another direction. My interest has grown rapidly towards the tiny folks of the Pink World and I almost buy nothing but those 4" dollies anymore. My face collection is of course my lifelong mission but the fun part is to play with Shelly/Kelly and her tiny friends.  Make scenes and dioramas and make cartoons/stories of them. I do that a lot and share almost everything on this site with you if you are interested. This is what doll collecting is all about - to have FUN!

My husband has never been able to understand this Plastic Mania as he calls it, but I think he has overcome the most of his disapproval. Perhaps he realized his wife is caught by a lifelong bug...

Hugs / Kat :-)
 >^..^<