Happy Birthday Gene Marshall!

Today is April 17th, traditionally  the birthday of Mel Odom's sweetheart of a doll, Gene Marshall. In the book 'Gene'  he had her birthday as April 17th. I forget the significance of this date. Here are photos from my archives of Gene and friends celebrating her birthday. 

Va Fashion Doll Club April 2026 Meeting

 Yesterday I attended my Va. Fashion Doll club meeting. Our club meeting challenge theme was to create a room out of the magnetic boxes that you can purchase from Michael's or Hobby Lobby with props and dolls, and also to bring the 'first' doll that started you collecting Barbie. It was a very fun meeting , as we received this challenge in February at Scarlett's home so I have been working on it a couple of months. I decided to do Skipper's bedroom since I had most of the props and did not have to purchase very much except fabric. 

I will start with the box challenge photos- below is my box challenge with Skipper and Fluff's bedroom- a 1970's mod little girls teen bedroom 

                        

Next Up is Janice's wedding scene which was amazing- (her box is not visible because she wanted to use Debbie's garden as a backdrop. Our club president has a Florida sunroom where we put all of our displays. )

 Next up was Allison's amazing bee box Randolph Macon bee college room-Allison went to Randolph Macon. She made all of the outfits on her vintage dolls. The furniture is from an artist in Latvia? overseas 

Next up was Leslie's KenVention store and she used a box from a Ken with accessories from different kens-

Next was Jodie's Mid-Century living room

Next up was Scarlett's bar 

Next up was Nita's library 

Next up was Christina's historical revolutionary parlor 

Next was Linda's Tutti and Todd's ice cream parlor 

And last- was Debbie's teenage bedroom 

We were asked to bring our 'first' dolls that got us into doll collecting- I brought my 2002 Mattel Wizard of Oz Dorothy - when I first dived into purchasing Barbies just because I liked them - by 2006 I was had a whole hoard of dolls. 

People brought a bunch of different various dolls, different reasons, it was fun to hear the stories, and jokes surrounding the outfits and dolls. 

Refreshments galore! I brought Chocolate Easter eggs made by my Eastern Star chapter that are a big fundraiser and a squash pie. 

Debbie's Easter decorations throughout the house were lovely as always.

We also had a few Show and Tell items-

Debbie's restored Hair Fair pieces

I believe this was Allison's doll 

Scarlett's silkstone 

Janice's ponytail in black and white,

I believe Allison's bubble cut in the nautical outfit 

Leslie's Ginger Gilroy W club