About Sherrill - Polly Dolly Doo Dah Limited

All About Sherrill

Hi there…. I’m Sherrill, the creator of everything Polly Dolly Doo Dah!

You may be wondering how it all happened and how I arrived into the wonderful world of doll making.

Well here’s my story for you.

My life has been pretty full-on to say the least and it’s quite a long tale to tell … so sit back and relax with a nice cup of tea and I’ll tell you all about it.

Sherrill xxx

Just a Simple Craft Book

It all started with a simple little 1960’s craft book, that I still have, that inspired me as an 8 year old to make my very first little ragdoll. All stitched with love on my Mum’s Singer sewing machine. In the book I still have the traced out pattern pieces that I used from all those years ago.

I then became hooked on crafting and my Auntie Lena taught me how to knit and crochet at the age of 10 years.

For my CSE school exam in needlework I made two immensely huge ragdolls – Raggedy Anne and Raggedy Andy. I loved making those dolls with their funny little faces and traditional ragdoll attire.

Dressmaking Services

My passion for sewing was now well and truly set, and at the age of 16 years I started making clothes for my friends. They would choose something from the ‘Freemans’ catalogue and I would knock it up for them at half the price. No pattern needed, I just did a rough sketch on newspaper, cut it out and hey presto a replica was made.

So the next chapter, from about the age of 17 years I started making soft toys. All different types of cuddly bears and animals. My Mum and her friend took a stall on the local market once a week and sold my toys for me. It was a great way for me to earn some extra money.

Moving on a couple of years, I became engaged to be married. I think I’d only been engaged a couple of months when I decided to make my wedding dress. Talk about premature! So out came a sheet of newspaper and a pattern was created. My wedding dress that I made certainly inspired another new path to follow, so I started advertising in the local paper and my order book for bridal gowns and bridesmaids dresses started to fill up.

The Strelli Collection

In 1983, when I was 22, my family and I opened a retail shop in Eastleigh, Hampshire selling bridal attire. We named it The Strelli Collection, and the business grew exponentially. In the beginning I was the only one designing and making all the bespoke wedding dresses and bridesmaid outfits, but that didn’t last long as we realised that we needed to take on other people to help me out. Over the next 8 years I managed a team of some 40 dressmakers who were all actively making gowns. I had no formal qualifications in pattern cutting or dressmaking but I could just look at something and work out how to make a pattern from it. We expanded wholesale and rented a unit on an industrial estate and after doing the big UK trade shows we started selling my Strelli designs to outlets in Europe.

One of the highlights during the time of running The Strelli Collection was the marriage of The Duchess of York to Prince Andrew. On the day that the wedding took place I sat there at home watching the TV coverage and I thought ‘I can make that’, so I did. I sketched out her wedding dress in full and over the next two days I cut a pattern (onto newspaper) and created an exact replica of what she’d worn only two days prior, full long beaded train and all. It took centre stage in our shop front window and landed myself a cover photo and write-up in the local paper. That’s me above wearing it!

Since meeting Sarah in 2022 and producing many Polly Dolly’s for her, she was amazed to learn how I’d created a replica of her wedding dress and how it took centre-stage in our shop front window all those years ago.

Crazy Busy Life

During this time I had two children, Ashlea in 1985 and Asa in 1987. When I look back at these years I realise what a crazy busy life I led. Two young children, a husband and a home, a shop and a wholesale unit to run, dressmakers to organise and I was still actively making wedding dresses as well. To say I burnt the midnight oil was an understatement. And if all that wasnt enough for me I started making and selling curtains. This little business I called Country Furnishings.

By 1990 I was all burnt out, I just couldn’t do it anymore. Fed up with sewing, hated it, disillusioned we decided to let the shop and wholesale business go. Plus the late 1980’s recession had just hit, mortgages sky-rocketed and people just couldn’t afford to get married in these uncertain times. The Strelli Collection was no more. Country Furnishings however continued to run for a few more years and one of my Strelli dressmakers continued with the work.

So now in 1990 I needed to find a new path to follow. It wasn’t going to be anything to do with needle and thread as I hated sewing so much now that even the thought of sewing on a button made me feel sick.

Looking for something completely different, and now aged 29 years, I trained as a nail technician. The beauty industry was awash with French polish nail extensions and I though ‘I can do that’ so I did. I enrolled on a training course and I then rented space in my brother’s beauty salon and started doing nail extensions, and I loathed it. This business I called Natural Nails which basically only lasted 3 months!!! I continued, however to do my own nails from then on.

Mimicks Face Painting

In the summer of 1990, the year I also got divorced (I don’t think Trev could keep up with me, poor thing) I stumbled upon something that I fancied having a go at. Face Painting. We were on holiday and I saw this lady working her magic on kiddies faces, and I thought ‘I can do that’ so I did. Mimicks Face Painting was born. Little did I know that this would turn out to be one of the most amazing business I’d ever run, with longevity.

So for the next 30 years, Mimicks was my absolute passion and it went from strength to strength. It became well established very quickly and became the market leader for anything and everything face painting. We attended the biggest and best country shows and festivals across the whole of the UK. Every weekend we were out in our motorhome with our staff face painting, hair braiding and henna tattooing. It was a great life and I absolutely loved it.

International Published Author

In 1996 I contacted 21 publishers with a view to producing a face painting book – I received 20 firm ‘no thank you, it’s not for us, but 1 yes please, we’ll publish your book. This was Random House … it went to print and was republished by Sterling Press in New York and eventually went on to sell internationally. Mum and Dad were on a world trip the following year and they saw my book on the book shelves in Australia.

With so much knowledge and experience in face painting and as the industry was now thriving, what a great idea I thought it would be to write a couple of books on how to set up a successful business in it. There were plenty of design books out there but no actual business books on the industry and I felt that there was a gap in the market for this, so I thought ‘I can do that’ and I did. They took a couple of years to write and I self-published and launched 2 of them at a trade show.

College Lecturer

During this time I also worked in some local colleges teaching accredited theatrical makeup courses and then beauty therapy courses. I gained all my teaching, assessing and verifyer qualifications between 1996-2000. Mimicks was still thriving and expanding and I now had 28 staff on the books.

When I was 39 years old, in the year 2000 Roger came into my life. I’d known him from school and he was a very good friend. We married in 2002 and are still going strong. He took to my face painting way of life with ease and as he came along to all my events we soon realised we needed something additional for him to sell as a sideline.

The Worm Factory

So The Worm Factory was born. At all the fairs, shows and festivals kids were buying these novelty toys called wiggly worms (basically a long piece of fur on a stick that they would waive around and have great fun with). Yeah we could buy them in to retail, but oh no, not me, I had to go the extra step and manufacture them (because I could do that)! At one point we were only one of two UK suppliers making them and we couldn’t keep up with the demand for them from other traders. In one particular year we sold some 80 thousand of the little blighters. This business lasted for 5 years and then I sold it on, lock stock and barrel – including the 4 outworkers – to a local circus company.

Once Upon a Party

In 2006, when I was 45 years old, we rented a large retail shop in our local town and Once Upon a Party was born. We completely refurbished the building and built the most wonderful fairytale party venue that you could ever imagine and hosted princess, fairy, pirate and wizard parties to name but a few. This was an exceptional business and my plan was to do 90 parties in our first year, but we far exceeded this and we ending up hosting 340 parties in that first year. It was incredible.

Mimicks Face Painting was still running but on a low-key scale, and my teaching and training had basically ceased.

Once Upon a Party really took it out of me though and I was exhausted. The stress was unbelievable, not just down to the work involved but the huge financial loss we suffered. I had two huge bank loans and had maxed out on 8 credit cards. We had to sell our house and down-size to re-mortgage and pour yet more money into this bottomless pit. We decided to sell up in 2010, even though the debt was still owed, we just has to cut our losses and luckily the family from the shop next door took the remaining lease over from me as a going concern. In those 4 short years I had ploughed some £120K into this business and this was a massive debt that still needed to be paid off.

So what to do next. My choices were to go bankrupt or to pay off the debts, and I thought ‘I can do that, I can pay off the debts’ so I did. I kick-started Mimicks Face Painting back into action and went back to teaching in colleges again to pay off the massive bank loans and credit cards. And that’s exactly what I did.

Lipstick Powder & Paint

Moving on to 2014, Mimicks was still going strong, but I felt that I just needed something more!

With teaching being a big part of my life I knew I wanted to open my own VTCT accredited training centre at some time running Level 2 & 3 makeup and beauty courses, so I thought ‘I can do that’ so I did.

We were finally now completely debt free as I’d paid off all the bank loans and all the credit cards. I resigned from teaching in colleges that year (at the age of 53) and we moved house, out of the area and down into the New Forest. We found the perfect home suitable for mass refurbishment that came with an outbuilding that we could convert into the most perfect training studio for me – and Lipstick Powder and Paint was born.

From 2014 to lockdown in 2020 I was running makeup and beauty courses in my studio and had a couple of other lecturers teaching alongside me, I was still very much involved with Mimicks Face Painting and I now had 8 freelance staff working for me who took care of most of the events that came in.

Shezaray Shelties

It was also now time for me to start breeding my Shelties on a more serious scale. We’d had a couple of litters with previous dogs but we decided the time was right to further this lovely opportunity. Litters were arriving every year and by 2018 I had became a registered breeder with the New Forest Council and have gained a 5-star rating. We have 4 beautiful Shelties at the moment of which 2 have now retired from breeding.

I’m a Nanny

In 2016 my beautiful grandson Milo was born. Oh my goodness, pure joy. It then started this little desire deep down inside of me to do ‘a bit of knitting’ (like all Nanny’s do). So up in the loft I found Auntie Lena’s knitting needle bag, and I bought one ball of wool, just to see if I could still knit.

And yes I could, and I loved it. So I knitted him a little cardy, that I must’ve unravelled at least 5 times. I never did finish it and it’s still in the cupboard drawer. I tried my hand then at crocheting him a little bunny rabbit. He loved it so I made a couple more for friends and then went on to make him a crochet dragon and a crochet blanket for the garden.

I have another grandson due in October 2024, now where did I put that unfinished cardigan.

The crafting bug was well and truly back and I wanted to do more.

Dear Little Dolly

As the crafting bug had returned in 2018 I started looking at textile dolls with their painted faces, and I thought ‘I can do that’, so I did. I spent time perfecting a lovely little doll, and I launched a new business called Dear Little Dolly. I even made a replica doll of Jennifer Hudson when she was on The Voice. I posted it out to her at the London TV studio and she was videoed opening the parcel. She put it on her Instagram and it got 68,000 views. Nice!

Yes I loved this little dolly, and yes I knew she would sell, but it wasn’t quite where I wanted to be in pattern creation. I needed to make something more simplified that I could design a pattern for and sell. After all pattern designing and teaching others how to do something was where my heart was.

I then turned my hand to making Waldorf dolls but knew that to create a pattern in the traditional manner of a wound wool ball covered in wool roving would be too difficult for customers to replicate consistently. So on went my engineering brain to create something that others could follow in a fail-safe manner.

So for the next 18 months or so I worked on many prototypes to produce and construct the sweetest little dolly that I could with the main aim for it to be easy for people to replicate by following my step-by-step instruction manual.

Polly Dolly Doo Dah

I did it, I knew I could! By late 2019 I had completed the final prototype and she was just perfect. Polly Dolly Doo Dah was born on January 1st 2020, I was 58 years old (nearly 59)!

Choosing the new business name was again somewhat challenging, I did however have 12 or so on the shortlist. The name came from Polly being one of my nicknames at school and the Doo Dah bit came from my Nanny who used to say ‘doo-dah’ if she couldn’t think of a word. Another favourite of hers was thingamajig, but Polly Dolly Thingamajig just didn’t have the same ring to it!

I launched her on this website and opened a Facebook Page. The first couple of months were fairly quiet but that was okay as I was still running the face painting and beauty training businesses. And then all of a sudden lockdown happened and it catapulted Polly Dolly like nothing I could have ever imagined. Everyone was now staying at home and looking for something to do. Talk about getting the timing right, and being in the right place at the right time – you couldn’t have written it.

With Mimicks Face Painting now having lost all the bookings for the year and the training studio doors shut tight as lockdown was in full throttle I was able to put all my passion and energy into the creation of this little dolly that we’ve all become to know and love so well. Mimicks Face Painting and Lipstick Powder & Paint ceased trading almost immediately and I’ve turned my training studio into fully stocked and functional workroom/warehouse for everything Polly Dolly.

My Wondeful Family

As well as being grateful for my business achievements over the years I’m immensely proud of my children.

Ashlea, from a young child, came to all my face painting events and eventually started working for me as a face painter. She was also the lead hostess for me at Once Upon a Party and took charge of all the events as my number one Princess. Overtime she became an internationally recognised Face Painting artist and has amassed some 95 thousand combined followers on her Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Some of her tutorials have racked up over one million views on her YouTube channel. Do go check her out and view some of the amazing Face painting tutorials that she has on YouTube … (AshleaHenson).

She now helps out at Polly Dolly HQ overseeing the orders to be sent along with doing the photography on the dolly’s and all the shop products for our website and social media presence.

My son Asa went to university and trained in teaching. He is now deputy head for the PE department in a private independent school in Southampton, Hampshire.

I certainly have proud mummy moments when I think of with what they’ve both achieved.

And as for Roger, well he’s been there right by my side in many of my business ventures, the good ones and the bad ones, and is now affectionately known as my Mr Doo Dah!

It’s all down to you my lovelies!

The success of Polly Dolly Doo Dah is most certainly down to my wonderful customers who have belief in the product that I supply. I thank you all for your faith, your enthusiasm and your love for Polly, Ollie and Baby Molly. I couldn’t have done this without your support, along with a bit of ‘I can do that’.

I have a favourite saying which I often call on (and which I instilled in my college students) … ‘Whether you believe you can or whether you believe you can’t, you’re always right’. You see it’s all about mindset and being positive in all you do. If you don’t think you can do something, you won’t be able to do it, and if you believe you can, you will. Simple really.

My CAN DO IT mindset has taken me through all my business highs and lows, and yes I’ve had my fair share of failures along the way but these have far exceeded my success stories. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this one!

You can indeed do anything you set your mind to when you dream big…… I did!

Sherrill xxxx