Current Mood : Happy, if tired.
Spent on dolls : $3.
Spent on patterns : $4.
Spent on sewing stuff: 50c
Current Image Notes : Mini Barbies ! Squeeeee !
Flea market ! And from what I heard from the sellers, the next three weeks are also Flea Market weekends ! Wheeee !
It was uber-crowded today. There were pigs being shown, and from the patter of the announcer, evidently being sold. Each one was just perfect for breeding, for ham, for bacon, whatever. I heard more about porcine bone structure while digging through doll boxes than I ever thought I would - or ever wanted to. Yep, the pig show/sale was in the same building. In the parking lot and the main Fairgrounds building was the twice-weekly Farmer's Market and this week, a craft show and sale. Lazy me is used to parking right outside the tin barn the Flea is normally in, but today, I had to hoof it for about a block. Lots of parking, which is good - I just hate that I needed it !
Spent $3. at the dollar-toys lady's booth - got a Ballerina Aurora in her glittery tights under Ballerina Ariel's tutu (now I have two of that tutu !), and a gorgeous Snow White in a lovely blue gown. I'd swear the gown was Fashion Avenue, but it has a standard ‘Genuine Barbie' tag. How their hair is still in the factory set but is completely destroyed is astounding. I also got a cute red Barbie romper with gold braid trim, a purple jacket that's probably from a Happy Meal doll, and a jade-green t-shirt with doll-size dog tags attached. You know I had to have that one !
And you're gonna laugh at me for this. After years of swearing and cursing at the patterns in Johana Gast Anderton's book Sewing for Twentieth Century Dolls, vol. II, I actually bought Vol. I today. Well, it was only $4., and frankly, I've always wondered about Vol. 1. If the first volume was as bad, how did there get to even be a Vol. II ? Perhaps the first wasn't so awful and useless ? Plus, if you have the second of a set of anything, ya usually want the first, if you can find it cheap. And I did. Used, this book normally runs about $20. plus shipping. My curiosity could wait at that price, but $4. was good !
Wandered through the craft show. Ugh. Tons of tulle little-girl tutus with $20. tags on ‘em, a field of hairbows, and the usual three or four booths selling over-scented candles. Someone has begun a screen-printing business, but $25. for (again) over cutesy kidswear seemed a bit high. Especially when the shirt's manufacturer tags had been cut out, and replaced with the company's name one. They probably don't want anyone to know the shirts came from Dollar Tree - since those all have split tags, denoting seconds or overstock. Or maybe that's me being snarky, since clearly, I'm not the target audience. I don't see m'self putting Dearest Son in a t-shirt that reads ‘My Mommy is Foxy !!' any time soon. There was so little there that wasn't designed for little girls that I had a pink overdose and had to leave. If it hadn't said ‘craft fair' on the signs, I'd have thought I'd stumbled into an overpriced kid's boutique.
As it was, I gladly wandered the Farmer's Market, to wash out all that pink and brown in my brain-vision with some green. Most of the booths had nearly sold out, and several were packing up. I snagged a nice bar of solid, local beeswax for 50c - it really comes in handy for many things. Especially hand-sewing - push your needle through beeswax (or even a bar of soap), and it glides through even thick fabric. I've seen folks do that with leather.
My funds - right down to the change in Molly-car - depleted, I came back home. After a nice leftover lunch, I started in on Aurora's dreadlocks. Much like her sister Belle ballerina, who was purchased from the same seller, her hair was wooly and dreadlocked. It took me over an hour to brush it out, and that's with conditioner and rinsing ! Much as I hated to straighten her curls, there was simply no way around it. Maybe I'll curl it back up some day. Like Belle's, it frizzes out alarmingly about halfway down, and it's unmanageable at the very ends. So I took off about a half inch. Much better. Her bangs brushed and curled becomingly, and her hair's nearly dry already.
I had another surprise waiting for me when I removed her tights - she's been facing the wrong way for who knows how long ! Yup, her twist waist goes all the way around, and there's very little delineation between ‘front' and ‘butt'. It's there if you know dolls, though. She looks much more ‘upbeat' facing her front instead of her behind ! For now, though, she's resting, and doing what Disney Princess dolls are born to do - look cool in Barbie clothes.
Let my arm rest a bit before taking on the over-shellacked hair on Snow - I think she's Sparkle Princess, due to her red and gold hairbow and vivid red lips. I just couldn't resist her, she has stars in her eyes ! Since that seller doesn't care if I switch clothes, long as I pay for my choices, I put them each in what I wanted from her selection. And yes, I did redress the dolls I stripped nekkid. That's only fair to them. It was kind of funny at the Flea - I'm digging eagerly through two boxes of various dolls, and about two feet away, two ten-year-old girls are exclaiming "OMG !" every thirty seconds over her pile of costume jewelry.
While attempting to ID my new Snow, I saw that mini Barbie set. OMG ! Dorrie wants ! This was on Entertainment Earth, and it's due to hit shelves in September, probably for about $20. - $23. or so. EE wants $27., and they routinely have prices about 10 to 15% higher than Mal-Wart or TRU. Far as I'm concerned, this is my ‘Barbie's 50th' souvenir. I also got to see several Princess and the Frog dolls from the upcoming Disney release - very pretty !
I also learned that there's upcoming My Favorite ‘Swirl' and ‘Peaches and Cream' repros coming out, a ‘Vintage Career' assortment that sounds like ‘ ‘repro' line to me, Italy and Russia DOTWs, a 30th Anniversary African-American Barbie Heritage doll, and ‘Barbie as' Cyndi Lauper, Joan Jett, and Deborah Harry dolls ! Whew ! No photos yet on any of this, but there're not on the Barbie Collector site either. Well. I may have to start saving the pennies, in case half of these are good ! The ‘Vintage Careers' I was especially interested in - in hopes they'd do ‘Stewardess'. The year I got the Friend Ship airplane, I got the Get Up and Go costume sets for both my Malibu Barbie and Ken, and a vintage repro would be so sweeet ! Of course, they're doing ‘Student Teacher', ‘Candy Striper' or ‘Registered Nurse', and ‘Miss Astronaut'. Oh, well.
Snow didn't take near the effort or time that Aurora did. Her hair was just shellacked at the factory, then squashed in the back. Clearly, she wasn't played with much, if at all. Main reason I got her was because she reminded me of Dawn Wells (Mary Ann, Gilligan's Island), so I brushed her hair down, removed the rubber band. That helped her eyes look a bit less huge. Not sure why there's this black tinsel-glitter stuff rooted in her hair, maybe that's part of her Sparkle that's not her dress. Oh, and I've confirmed once again how cheap Mattel is - her gold-and-red hairbow ? It's only gold and red at the top of her head. The ribbon tying it around her head is thinner, cheaper, and has no trace of gold edging. Now, even the edged stuff can be found for four or six spools for a buck (about 24 to 36 yards), so I'm not sure if this even saved them a whole penny. Even cheaper than that, the cheap ribbon wasn't tied - it was sewn together !
And ya'll thought I was cheap !
