Until recently just about every doll in toyshops had fair skin, curly blond hair and blue eyes. If a child wanted a doll that looked like themselves, and they happened to not match this phenotype, they were out of luck.

Times are changing and thanks to a Devonshire parish doll maker Ann Johnson, Bermudian toy-lovers can now custom design a doll to look like just about any child imaginable.

Mrs. Johnson runs a home-business called ?Auntie Ann?s Doll Adoptions? which assembles doll kits imported from Apple Valley Doll Works in Midland, Michigan.

The dolls, some with glasses, others with their thumbs in their mouths or their tongues stuck out mischievously, are so life-like it?s eerie. If the dolls ever wanted to go the Pinocchio-route and become ?real? boys and girls, they wouldn?t have far to go. The realness is one of the reasons these dolls are adopted and not bought.

?I was talking with my daughters, Sharon (Miller) and Wendy (Holt), and we were looking for ways to make it just a little different,? said Mrs. Johnson. ?We decided that rather than sell the dolls, they would be adopted.?

However, Mrs. Johnson admitted that sometimes it is the doll who adopts the child. That is how her doll making business began in the first place.

During an interview with e at her house on Sousa Estate Road in Devonshire, she pointed to a red-haired doll standing on a ledge in her dining room.

?See that little one over there,? she said. ?I picked her up from a craft store in Daytona Beach, Florida and made it myself. My brother?s daughter saw it and fell in love with it. It was more like the doll chose her, so I made one for her. My daughters kept telling me I had to go into this, because everyone loved my dolls.?

Mrs. Johnson found the Apple Valley Doll Works through the Internet, and became a Bermuda distributor in 2002.

Apple Valley sends her the body parts and clothes and she assembles them. To learn to make the dolls she watched an instructional video.

?They come in a kit form: heads and a body pack that contains the actual body and arms and legs,? she said. ?You have to attach the limbs and the head. Before you do the head you have to stuff the body. I don?t like to stuff them too hard, because I want them to feel soft.

?The hair is a wig. You paint the whole head with glue. Then it is a pain in the you-know-what, trying to get the wig on without getting the hair caught in the glue. I really enjoy doing it. It takes me about an hour to make one. I don?t have any attempts that went horribly wrong. There is nothing to really go wrong.?

The dolls have been marketed in Bermuda, mainly through word of mouth. ?I started out by going up to the bowling alley on a Friday night with the dolls and a catalogue, because my daughter bowls,? she said. ?The ladies went crazy over them. In December, 2002 I was at the Christmas craft fair in St. George?s and sold quite a few there. People were looking for the doll lady and I hadn?t left any business cards. It was word of mouth.?

It was then that she decided it was time for her dolls to move out of the nest and into new homes. This Christmas she will have about 75 dolls available for adoption. Custom-orders may take some time if she doesn?t have the desired parts in stock.

Naturally, there is an adoption fee, usually somewhere around $125. Mrs. Johnson also sells extra clothes to go with the dolls including hand-knitted sweaters sets for $25.

?In previous years I have had a lot of interest for Christmas,? she said. ?They are available for adoption right up until Christmas Eve.?

Mrs. Johnson or ?Auntie Ann? as her business cards read, said she never got over her childhood love of dolls. As a child, she would receive a new doll every Christmas. ?I don?t know how my mother did it, but she always found a doll that looked the same,? she said. ?It always had blond hair and her eyes opened. Her eyes were always blue and she?d just make it from one Christmas to the next. I have always loved dolls.?

She said her 22-inch tall dolls have been bought for children of all ages, but she thinks six years old and upward is appropriate.

?In my opinion, two is a bit too young,? she said. ?It is more of a collector?s doll than something a two year old will drag around by the leg.?

The dolls have been a little too real to some of her younger clients. One small child who received a doll on Christmas morning was petrified and wouldn?t go near it. The problem was solved when the child?s mother brought her to ?Auntie Ann? on Boxing Day and she picked out another, smaller baby doll.

?She was very happy with that,? said Mrs. Johnson.

The dolls are made to strict Apple Valley specifications. To keep the brand name associated with quality, Apple Valley does not allow its dealers to sell the doll for less than the company recommends.

?Some people in the United States were doing deep discounts to get rid of their stock and selling them for as low as $75,? said Mrs. Johnson. ?That is a ?no, no? ? you could lose your agency.

?I have to sell it for what I import it for, plus cost plus a little to import the next doll. You can choose the complexion, the colour of the eyes, style of hair and the body type.?

For example, a ?num-num? body style allows for a doll to suck her thumb. The different parts are interchangeable so it is unlikely that a child will find another child on the playground with exactly the same doll.?

?Once they look at the catalogue, sometimes they come right to my house and we put it together,? she said. ?I have a drawer full of heads. That looks a little weird, I have to tell you.?

Mrs. Johnson started making the dolls as something to do in the evening while she watched television.

?I have been knitting baby clothes and baby blankets, not because I have grandchildren coming around or anything, but I like to knit,? she said. ?I am doing now all the things I wanted to do and didn?t have time to do when I worked full-time.?

She previously worked for Winter Cookson Petty before they closed the business in May, 1998. After that, she and her daughter Sharon formed a business partnership.

?She did the secretarial side and I was doing the accounting side. I worked for a few companies and did much of the work from home. That really pleased me. I could get up at 6 a.m. in the morning in my pyjamas and work. Then I was the bursar at the Whitney institute. I retired from there in January.?

Her youngest daughter, Wendy, just got married, and Mrs. Johnson has no grandchildren.

?I am not one of these women who say ?when are you going to give me a grandchild?? I take out my mother hen instincts on the dolls,? she said. ?It is just something I really love to do. I can?t foresee giving it up anytime in the near future.?