Va. Fashion Doll Club Meeting January 30, 2022

Our Va Fashion Doll Club Meeting kicked off on Sunday, January 30th with our raffle and then our Sears Exclusives presentation. It was alot of fun. 

 Here are the raffle items -

The raffle items were wonderful, I won't go into explaining them. The theme was All About Ken- since it was his 60th Birthday so you could do anything you wanted to with Ken. I did a grilling theme like I already went into a previous blog post here. 

I won a reflocked Ken who was a mirror of Picnic Barbie, done by Jodi. I was really happy with my raffle win. 

It included this vintage page of picnic Barbie framed and I can hardly wait to bring the repro version of her home, since I haven't yet purchased her yet and she will look so cute with this version of Ken. His shirt is made from fabric purchased by Bradley in Paris and his pants are vintage as well as his hat, which was a vintage Barbie hat reshaped to fit Ken. Jodi made his basket and his pole. 

Our Presentation was on Sears Exclusives from 1964 to the years of 1973 and the dolls that were representated: Barbie, Ken, Jaime, Francie, Skipper , Chris , Todd, and Stacie . There were 47 exclusives and Barbie had 18. 

Joe Blitman's book has the most comprehensive research on packaging and items included and why collectors have different sets of different items- why there is no identical set of exclusives and different fabrics, etc. So I recommend you invest in that book as well as Sarah Eames' book which my club President and other officers used. 

I hope you enjoyed the photos, 5-6 members contributed dolls and outfits for this presentation. 

Projects I have been working on...

I have been working on small projects here and there- and usually, my Va. Fashion Doll club has a raffle in October of every year where the club members get together and each member creates a raffle item for the theme of the raffle. Members purchase a roll of tickets- 30 tickets for $20 and we can put tickets in the kitty of our choosing for what ever raffle item we want to bid on and that way, every member is guaranteed to go home with at least one item. 

This year's theme is Ken- All About Ken- since it is his 60th birthday. Our raffle has been moved out to this month of January due to scheduling and Covid restrictions/problems. 

 I had originally thought of an indepth project for this raffle but decided against it because of problems with materials- finding them- and also time , and weather restrictions. I work outside alot and the weather from September and October onto December was just too cold, rainy and wet to cut foamboard, use spray paint, etc. I had thought of creating a hot dog / hamburger stand and creating the stand out of foamcore- I even had drawn the measurements out. I was going to create the food and some of the accessories would be easy enough to assemble with the Ken doll dressed in a white Soda Jerk costume. When that fell through- I thought of the Country camper that I was working on a few years ago, unfinished but scrapped that thought when my last year's roombox  raffle did not go over because it was so large. Many people would probably not have room for a Concession stand vehicle in their collection.

So I decided to 'dumb it down' and just do a small scene like this. 

Ken is a vintage 1960's Ken doll who has been cleaned and reflocked by me. His outfit is also vintage, except for his shoes. The greenery plants are not included in this raffle but the square tile is.

The Bamboo plastic bar opens and the cooler opens as well, the grill 'flips' to reveal cooking meats. These are all mattel pieces as are the pieces on top of of the cooler- the Mustard bottle, the water bottle, the oven mitt, the flipper in Ken's hand, and the two plastic plates on top of the cooler as well as the little daschund dog. 

The Star of this raffle item are the two hot dog plates with fries and the cake which I made. Each french fry is individually colored with paints/chalks and can be taken off of the plate and put in the dolls hand as if they are holding the fries. The hot dogs are flavored with 'mustard' . Since it was Ken's birthday I have included a cake on doilies for this picnic/ cookout. All the items can be used for someone's diorama/ or dollhouse patio. Ken also has a black stand . 

I will have more photos after the meeting happens. Enjoy.