TABLE OF
CONTENTS

DOLLS AND DESIGNS BY SANDI

IMPORTANT
INFORMATION

Dolls and Designs by Sandi opened for business in Morganton, NC in 1990. Prior to that the young enterprise had been a home based business begun by Sandi Walker in the mid ‘80’s while taking porcelain doll-making classes at Cleveland Community College in Shelby, NC. (Then the school was called Cleveland Tech).

Sandi decided to move out in to the business world and share her love and talent for doll making with the other doll lovers in Burke County. She began in an upstairs studio in downtown Morganton, offering classes sponsored by Western Piedmont Community College. When she was asked to teach Senior classes at the local Senior Center, she soon found that trying to move the dolls around so much was too big a task. She began looking around and found a house in Morganton that would accommodate the classes. The shop grew at that location for five years, till the owners of the building had to have it torn down to make a parking lot. Sandi relocated to another house three miles outside of Morganton, which proved to be a bad location. In January of 2000 she moved the shop to a much larger downtown location in a nearby town called Valdese. Sandi says “it’s a match made in heaven. The people and the officials of Valdese have been wonderful! I have become so attached to the town and its beautiful heritage that I have begun producing my own line of Waldensian dolls to honor the traditions of the founding ladies of the town.”

Moving to a much larger location presented a new challenge to the doll entrepreneur. This challenge was to fill a 4,000 square foot retail space and provide adequate staff to complement the shop. Bringing in some of Sandi’s friends and students quickly solved this. In addition to dolls in the shop, Sandi has Susan Dean specializing in Dollhouses and Miniatures and Edith Page a Custom Doll Costumer. The shop offers a full line of accessories and supplies to finish any of the over 300 doll molds in her collection. These include a wide variety of German and French Reproductions, Modern artist dolls, Character dolls, and lots of babies . For the artisans that prefer other challenges to their talent, the shop offers a selection of nearly 300 ornaments and figurines.

Sandi has just signed on again with Western Piedmont Community College to teach Senior Classes on Mondays. See below for dates, times, and costs for . In addition to the Senior Classes the shop offers Doll Making Classes on Wednesday mornings and Thursday evenings. She also offers seminars to complete a doll in a couple of days for those on a tight schedule.

“Doll making is a way of life and is the best therapy you can ever provide. A number of my students affirm that doll-making is a lot cheaper than doctor visits.” says Sandi. “I have students that have been with me as long as I have been teaching. We have all become one big family. We celebrate each student’s birthday with a covered dish lunch and all the trimmings.”

Sandi has made dolls for many years and just recently moved her store to Valdese after stays in Morganton and Oak Hill. She offers portrait dolls, where you bring in a picture of a family member or loved one and she'll recreate that person's likeness in a doll, complete with appropriate clothing.

PORTRAIT DOLLS
Child	Doll

A purchase of over $50 of greenware will qualify students for free classes.

There's more to D&D than just doll-making, however, also available for sale are other handcrafted items by the following artists:

To learn more about Dolls & Designs by Sandi, call (828) 893-0640 or come by the store across from the Wachovia Bank parking lot on West Main Street in Valdese.

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