Does your family complain about your dolls cluttering up the living room? Are boxes overflowing from the closet into the hallway? Has your spouse had it “up to here” with your collection?

From my experience, the best way to negotiate your collection is to show your spouse how much worse it could be.

For example, if you spouse thinks your display is cluttering up the living room, move your display throughout the rest of house: into the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, office, dining room — at least on a temporary basis, until he stops griping. If this doesn’t cure the problem, make sure you’ve posed the dolls so they appear to be staring at you when you enter the room.

If you suffer from overflowing boxes, get rid of the shippers. I used to keep them, thinking I might resell my dolls. But let’s be honest. You aren’t going to resell them anyway, and shippers just take up space. Now I keep only the boxes in the garage.

If you have too many dolls to display all at once, rotate your displays. This is called the “diplomatic approach” or “compromise.” I learned about this technique from a woman named Rosemary, who has a wonderful system of displaying her dolls each month by color. It’s both artful and lovely. Additionally, it gives you the opportunity to shop for more items for your dolls, if you’re short on a particular color.

I hope you found this article useful. My blog’s aim is to simultaneously make your marriage run more smoothly and grow your doll collection. Ingenious, isn’t it?