For the Love of Honey

I have no idea when exactly I got the Honey Hill Bunch clubhouse set.

 I had to have been little more than a toddler. What I do recall is that is was this line of dolls that implanted my love of dolls, and more specifically, little dolls.  Yesterday, I went through a bucket of my old toys I had sitting on a shelf near my desk.  2 of my Honey Hill kids were in there. 1 was Darlin' and the other was Li'l Kid. Darlin' is missing her smock and her nose. For some reason, I have a feeling I was the one who bit it off.  Anyway, I washed all the toys in the sink, including these girls. I put a touch of Fructis conditioner in their hair and it came out amazing. I have to say I've conditioned a lot of dolls hair and Fructis gives the best results.  The above pic is of them today after they've dried.

Lil' Kid has some staining.(probably from spending umpteen years in a bucket with my rusty Coca cola transport set)


But other than that, their clothing is bright and strong. I am extremely impressed. See, while I have always loved my dolls, I was also a bit of a tom boy. These dolls went in the sandbox, in toy cars on mud "racetracks",  took baths with me,  and shared my pillow. And they probably did those things daily over the course of a few years. I know I didn't play with them for spans of time in those years, but they truly were favorites of mine. And how I loved that playhouse.  There was so much for the kids and I to do! And of course they interacted with their often times neighbor, and another favorite of mine, the Tree Tots Firehouse.

I remember there being some kind of import placed on that The Honey Hill Clubhouse was just my set, not a hand-me-down from my 3 older siblings, and not something for them to play with.  That probably basically meant that my oldest brother would catch heck for taking their heads off and hanging them along the basement stairs the way he did with my sister's Barbies.

Maybe something about this set being "just mine" spurred my love for it.  But I think that the interactivity of it, along with those soft little bodies that still feel good in my hand, and great hair for hair play really made it a toy with lots of playability. And, perfect for me, it combined dolls and tom boy things. Spunky was a character  from the set that i really identified with.

I still have some of the pieces of the playset. The felt tree canopy and  tent cloth have long ago disintegrated , but the rest of it could be brand new with good washing.  I remember having 2 Darlin's, too. So of course they were twins!

Besides the  clubhouse set there was a later, Baskin Robin's Ice cream shop set and a couple vehicles. I had all the characters shown on the Clubhouse box, but there were later releases of others as well.

There was also a paper doll set and coloring book, which I am sure I had as I was a major investor in the paper doll and coloring book markets as a kid!


Thank you Mattel for the smile on my face now, and the hours of smiles as a child the Honey Hill Bunch gave me.