Happy Valentine's Day!

 Happy Valentine's Day!

Below are some recent and from the archives Valentine's Day photos of the dolls- and a recent one of my cat Fluffy wishing everyone a Happy Valentine's day!

                                          Enjoy!!

New doll- Barbie Extra Deluxe Doll

I gave in yesterday while shopping and purchased this doll. I have been impressed lately with the playline of dolls known as 'Barbie Extra' but I especially liked this one the most- Barbie Extra Deluxe. I have been eyeing her for a while and gave in to my wanting her . 

Warning- My Walmart had her listed for $34.99, but if you use the Walmart app scan code- she comes up at her original price $29.99. I alerted the clerk at the register while checking out and she changed my price to $29.84! I didn't argue since I was checking myself out. 

This doll comes with extra clothing and shoes and sunglasses and a cute little cat wearing a crown. She just really appealed to me. But the packaging was a pain to get into. Here are the photos before I starting cutting into all the plastic. 

She is held into that plastic by more plastic and elastic ties and string.

That hair had itty bitty little plastic ties that are hard to see that hold her head in place. Within the plastic dome is another plastic sheet in front of the cardboard that holds her clothing and accessories that holds the doll. There is some sort of thick plastic 'handle'?>? that keeps the whole package stable and from collapsing. 

Her hair is a little upset from the packaging, but she was the last one on the shelf and I think I can fix the few stray hairs. For now I am going to keep her clothing on that convenient cardboard wheel and it might look good in a boutique diorama. She is so cute in her stock outfit I don't really want to change her out of it. She also stands pretty well against something and is articulated; her joints work smoothly. 

Hope you enjoy the pics and review! 
 

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.