My Barbie Dolls (Including Contest)

ADDITION: 06/25/08
Sometimes you do things right, sometimes you do things wrong. When I posted my contest around Christmas lots of people enjoyed guessing what my silly kitschy deer head was originally made for. I thought my Barbie dolls would entertain you as much, but from the few replies I've had so far I take it I'm wrong. So I've decided to make things a bit easier and make a statement as well. Please read:
1. I do NOT think Barbie is a good role model for girls (or any woman, for that matter), but fashion dolls DID help develop my creative skills when I was a kid and though I found them pretty, I don't think I ever tried to, or thought I had to, look like them.
2. I collect these dolls because other people throw them away and I'm proud to show what I rescue.
3. Of course I want to attract extra visitors to my blog and create awareness, but other than that the contest is only meant to entertain and with the above in mind, I hope you see the irony of it too.
4. Rules change: Any entry that has two out of four guesses right (three imitation dolls, one vintage doll) is in for the prizes. I do need your critique of my designs, so please visit my Etsy shop and tell me what you like (or not).
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ORIGINAL POST:
Finally summer is almost here! To celebrate I cooked up a little guessing contest again. Entries must be posted before 01 July 00.00 CET. It may sound difficult at first, but it is absolutely not! Clues are in my Etsy Shop and in this post, so I expect only correct answers!!

But before I continue bear with me and let me explain why I collect Barbie dolls. Because I'm not one of those who spend money on latest editions and official Mattel clothing. None of that, Im not a Barbie girl, but they just come to me and I still love making clothes for them (sometimes). You can read a little more about that and how Barbie helped me develop my creative skills when I was a kid here on my official designer's website.

My mom bought me my first Barbie dolls when I was four or five, so around 1967 or 68. Little did I know then that the 'modern' dolls with the rubber legs with a knee mechanism were on the market since 1966 and my mom bought me cheap leftover stock with the stiff legs on the street market. No matter how I begged later on for a Barbie with bendable legs, I never got one. She always claimed she found the new Barbies had ugly faces with to much make-up on, but obviously she found them too expensive as well.

Now my two old dolls are classified vintage and worth money and I'm so glad! I'm also very glad my parents never ever threw out toys and waited till we were adult to decide ourselves what to keep and what not. I left my dolls in their house for my nieces to play with. Only when they were getting to old for it too I took the whole lot including clothes (many of them hand made by mom) with me and then, just for fun picked up my child's hobby: dressmaking for Barbie! But then I started wondering if my dresses would fit the modern Barbie dolls, so I went to the thrift shop and found one very ugly one with inked hair and only half a foot for one euro or so. But as she only served fitting purposes she was good enough. I cut off her hair and gave her boots to make her a bit more presentable. But not good enough for pictures so I browsed the internet and bought some more second hand ones after all. Got a good deal and found there were many special edition dolls around and got one very pretty doll with a different body than the standard ones with them.

But I should have known then that I could have even saved that money. Soon after we switched from occasional curb shopping to really regular scouring the streets two years ago I started finding dolls. Some were damaged or had ugly hair, but some were just gorgeous and in mint condition. A clean-up and hair wash and combing made them all presentable enough for me. So here's the whole lot, believe it or not 14 in total (plus one of my own in the photo here)! I undressed them all, so the experts among you can recognize the various types. The accessories came with the finds as well.

There's a little catch here. Not all are real Barbies. There are three imitations, Simba dolls, in my collection. Do you recognize them? Well, that's my first contest question. As said, clues in my shop, you don't need to be an expert!
1
2
3
4
5
Here are five close-up shots to see better. Use these for your answer. There is no logic in the grouping of the dolls, I picked them randomly by three for the photo's. That left me with an empty spot of course, so I added one of my vintage dolls. Question two: which is she? It should be easy, there are two clues in what I wrote above. For your answer just give me the picture number and tell me if the Simba doll and/or vintage doll is left middle or right.
There's one more thing I want you to do for this contest. Go to my Etsy Shop, pick the item(s) you like best (not made by me category excluded) and explain why. Of course I'm doing this for marketing reasons, but your comments will be very useful for me. And you may end up winning that item! Maybe one of the Barbie dresses themselves? Your pick is by no means decisive and I can't give away the larger items for reasons of shipping costs, sorry for that, but feel free to comment on them if you like. If you win you get to pick any item up to 15 dollars that ships as a letter.

Like last time, there will be a lovely curb found second prize as well. Isn't this silk scarf gorgeous? It comes from the bags I wrote about in this post.

To sum up the contest rules:
-Find the three Simba dolls.
-Find the vintage (before 1966) Barbie doll.
-Browse my shop, choose a handmade item (name the title of the piece or post the link) and explain what you like about it (it doesn't have to be a page full, but please try to use more than one word).
-Send your answer as a comment to this post. I will hold the comments back for publishing until the drawing date, 01 July 00.00 CET.

Make sure I can contact you through your blog or blogger account. If you don't have one leave your community ID (HGTV, Craftster, Getcrafty etc) or just tag the option to receive replies in your private email (address wil not be visible for me or others). Only if none of these options work for you leave your email address in the comment.

HAVE FUN!

Craft Fairs

I don't often sell my wares at craft fairs because I usually don't even get back the costs, but once or twice a year it's worth it because of the contacts I make and the selling experience as such (what items attract attention for example). Let me show you how I gear up for it without much extra costs (apart from traveling and the fee), using mainly curb finds and hand me downs. I use the few second hand items I bought for my Etsy shop as well, so those are worthwile investments.

Because I don't have a car and don't even drive I depend on public transport or a lift of others (and for this one, thanks to Julia Lomoro, check out here beautiful artwork here) to go to wherever the fair is (usually far out of of town) and I have to travel lightly. That limits my choice of display materials a bit and I can't take my dummies for example, but in the end I always manage to pack up everything in my two curb found super handy trolleys. Notice the one on the left is a real Samsonite, but the other one carries double the content.

This is just half of everything that came out of those two little suitcases! I'm not too happy about the polka dotted sheet I used as a table cover, as you can see all the stuff I have is such a splash of all sorts of colours already. It's a piece of cloth I took years ago from my mom's stock and the only one I could find that was four meters long! And I know I have a huge piece of purple viscose silk somewhere, but of course on the crucial moment I couldn't find it.

Never mind, let's move on. A pocket calculator is of course one of the things a salesperson can't do without. Not that I needed it for this market, but you never know, someone could just buy five items at once. Even if they don't cost much these days, every investment I don't have to make is one. I found this one in a box of toys.

For displaying earrings and necklaces I cut up a discarded conference presentation board up to fit in my suitcase and covered it with a piece of a curtain sample, also from my mom's stock. The board is made of a sort of hard foam covered with paper, so perfect to stick pins in to hang the pieces on.

To make the platform for my tea cozies, I simply covered the shoe boxes that I transport all the small stuff in with a nice piece of cloth. This is actually a small curtain from the fifties or sixties that a friend gave me a few years ago. Funny thing is the shoe boxes themselves are curb found! You see, I never buy new shoes. I usually get them from the thrift shop, but occasionally I find perfect fitting ones, just my style even in the trash. You can find a picture in this post. The pretty white teapot that goes with the red cozy is an original sixties Melitta pot in mint condition that I bought in a thrift shop for next to nothing.

Here's that curtain as a background for my new felted brooches.

To attract extra attention to certain brooches, I display them on sweaters or tops.

All reclaimed from the trash, some of which I also use for photographing my items. On top this nicely fills up the four meters of booth space!

You know funny thing is last year I even sold one of the sweaters (without the brooch)! I didn't mean to but the lady simply was in love with it!

But I actually sell some of the finds on purpose. Any really nice item that I can revamp somehow becomes 'handmade' and a proper item for my shop. Here's that cute clutch again I found on Queensday. I just exchanged the flower from the last photo.

This is the second used item I bought. I found it on Etsy. Being inked on the display head was so cheap it was even worth paying the fairly high shipping fee, which with the profitable dollar exchange (for me) made it still a better deal than I could get locally.

But all this Suzy Kin needed was a bit of (curb found) paint to be pretty again.

If you sells hats, earrings, necklaces and such you should have a mirror on your table. I would love to have a pretty hand mirror, but this ugly old make-up mirror serves the purpose just as well. And how do I make those dolls stand up? I just place them with one leg in a small glass soda bottle. The fashion dolls are curb finds as well. Like the clothes, I will sell them with the doll dresses if people are interested. These two are just some of the average models (and only one is a real Barbie) and I don't really mind parting with them. Which brings me to my upcoming guessing contest. The other day I counted all my found dolls, photographed them all together and came to the stunning number of 14 pieces! So I thought it would be a real fun idea to set up a little contest around them. After all, even if you're not a total Barbie fan (believe me I am not that type of girl at all), which girl has never played with them? I plan to post this coming Sunday, promise!

Queen's Day 2008 (and More Clothing)

Last April 30 was our national celebration again. If you don’t know yet what Queensday in Holland is all about see my earlier post about that here.

I used to love to scour the flea market, but these days I can’t stand crowds anymore, so as usual we stayed home, just enjoying the holiday while the rest of the country was out celebrating. But like every year, towards the end of the day we ‘do’ a few streets near our neighbourhood to taste the party atmosphere and to see what goods departed vendors have left behind.

As it is I’m still in the process of a giant decluttering of my house so I didn’t want to take too much. With so much stuff found over the past few years I can afford to be selective. But it’s a tradition now that we bring our Queensday Trophy home. It’s our way of celebrating.

As always there were lots of books, but I didn’t even stop to look at them. Though in passing I saw some interesting titles (one Oriana Fallaci for example). If you remember my post about books you know I still have a complete case to read. Well I haven’t had much time to read with all that blogging :D and I haven’t even finished my first Ludlum yet (progressing though!).

Then when we took a left turn into a narrow street (I think it was the same one where last year I found my orange H&M tank top) I saw a trash bag full of textiles that seemed worth looking at and I picked out a this fine long jeans skirt and an all natural looking clutch made of some sort of rope.

I’m not so keen on these bleached out leg marks but in reality they don’t come out as strong as on this photo. When I tried it on it turned out to be the stretchy fabric, so it feels a lot more comfortable than it looks too. Oh and yes, amazingly as always, it’s just my size and fits me like a glove. It’s not even too long for my short legs!



The clutch isn’t for me, I don’t use that type of purse. Just plain it was a bit dull, but with one of my crocheted flowers in a matching natural colour added it’s perfect to sell in my Etsy shop as a reclaimed/handmade item.

The BF picked up a black beret somewhere (he’s hat-crazy) and that was that and we went home. We’re not greedy…

Nooooooooooooooo… Just after writing my concept for this we went on our Sunday trash excursion and I came home with two large trash bags stashed full of clothing. They weighed a ton! At home I found out why. It was for 90 % brand new tightly folded clothing, some even with tags still on them, probably leftovers from a shop or so. It all smelled a bit musty from storing it for years in a humid place but still had that shininess of new fabric. Now what did I say about decluttering? Well I want to keep only the cutest items for myself, but there’s also a lot that’s not my style that I’m seriously thinking of putting for sale in my Etsy shop as well. Really gorgeous blouses and tunics! They don’t weigh much, so it won’t be too expensive to ship them overseas.

If you hadn't read yet about why I wear and collect discarded clothing you can find that post here.

Planters and Plant Boxes

My tulips were in full bloom last week so a good reason to show my curb found planters and plant boxes, since I potted some bulbs and that looks really nice.

When I see people coming out of shops with brand new planters I can't help feeling a bit pity. Don't they know? There's no need to buy any! Planters are probably THE most often trashed items in the world and nine out of ten are in good condition. So here are some I rescued.

They come in all shapes and sizes, from the simple plastic round pots to the rectangular balcony or window plant boxes, from pretty terra cotta ones to the decorative indoor cover pots. I now only take them when they are too pretty too leave or when I really need some. Last summer I found so many I haven't used half of them yet. If I would take them all I could fill a shop, really.

This is just so cute. It's handmade in Italy. It has a crack, but I don't care.

This rectangular plant box came including the hang-up hooks.

Remember my phloxes?

This is what I potted them in.

My neighbour left this huge pot behind after she moved, but I know she didn't buy it in a shop.

With a little patience you can even collect a series of matching pots.

Nothing growing yet, but I sowed beans in here. The picture isn't very clear, but if you watch carefully you can see that's little ducks on the framework.

Apart from the tulips, almost needless to say all the plants showed themselves were curb found or otherwise for free. If you want you can read more about that when you select all my garden and plants posts here.

My T-shirts

I have tons of plain simple curb found t-shirts in all shapes and sizes and colours. Oversized or tight fitting, long or short sleeved, I haven’t bought one in years and all are in excellent condition.

Here’s a brand new cute tiny black one from H&M.

You wouldn’t be bothered to see them all I guess, we all know what a t-shirt looks like, so I’m just showing these two that are a bit different from my standard wardrobe.

Usually I’m not a fan of tops with texts or pictures on them, but these are fairly neutral and quite stylish and in a colour that suits me.

If you had not read my introduction on clothing from the trash yet, find that here.

Some Bicycle Accessories

I'm not always looking forward to getting up and out at 10 pm to go curb shopping. I'm not tired of it yet, but right now with spring in the air but the nice warm weather unwilling to come I really need BF's motivation to get me going. On top I need to reorganize my stuff before I go on adding to it, but the cold, rain and wind aren't a help for that either.

So after the BF's 'Come on, get some fresh air, the walk will do you good!' I sometimes just follow him pro forma thinking 'I'm NOT taking anything!', but then somehow I always do. It's easy to leave the big things for other people, but there's always the small handy items, like last week's box full of bicycle accessories.

There were a number of perfectly in order pump hoses, two brand new tire tubes and a load of elastic binders from which I chose these three for my own bike. They were the newest and nicest colours and already on my bike now, so no addition to the mess in my house. In fact they were just what I needed!

My Teddy Bears

It all started with one giant teddy bear I found lying face down on the curb. The BF wined 'You don't need that', but I just couldn't leave it behind.

Now the BF even brings me bears and other stuffed animals when he sees one in the trash.



A while ago I found Teddy & Pencil's blog. Teddy and Pencil are two little bears who talk about their adventures and their concern about this world. When I wrote them I rescue abandoned bears they dedicated a post to it, which you can read here and where you'll also find some more pictures of my bears. Thank you so much, little bears!

Unfortunately not all stuffed toys are worth keeping, but that doesn't mean they have to be thrown away altogether.

I really wanted to save little Piglet here, even though after washing he still looked very used. But only then I noticed the ugly suction cups and decided he was going to be cut up.

Poor Piglet, but I needed his insides to make these cute felted pin cushions. These are another result of my use-up-all-my-old-wool project, which I talked about in my post about discarded knitwear. Now for sale in my Etsy shop.

The Television

When I wrote about our couch I already said that between earlier and later photos of it, the television in the picture had changed. Here's how:

After we had found the couch my BF was bragging about it to a friend who then, looking around him at the table, the dresser, and some other stuff asked: What are you still looking for on the curb, what more do you need? Th BF replied: A larger TV! Sure, said our friend, like the neighbours are just going to hand it to you. True, even when on several occasions elderly neighbours moved to a home and left us with a fridge, vacuum cleaner and cooker, their tv's were sold or they kept them.

But a few weeks later when we almost finished our tour and turned the last corner we saw a man coming out of his house carrying a huge set. Before he even put it down we asked him if it was broken. He said only the scart socket was a bit loose. So we took the chance and I went for our cart.

At home it turned out the scart connection was really bad, but a makeshift repair with tape and toothpicks solved it. And we went from a brand 'X' 50 cm (which the BF now has in his bedroom) to a Panasonic 70 cm screen.

Technically it has never been in the trash, as the man literally handed it to us. I just had to buy a new remote for it. We forgot to ask...

My Laundry Baskets

If you read the post about My House you may remember the BF and I are neighbours. That means we have to have a lot of stuff double, but we share the washing machine. It’s in my place for practical reasons, but I don’t mind doing his laundry as long as he cooks for me. Which is pretty much every day since we freecycled a cooker with an oven for him from an old guy next door.

The only disadvantage is it involves using a load of laundry baskets. Four at least: one to collect my laundry, one to collect his, one to bring his clean stuff upstairs and one extra just in case I forgot to bring the empty one down again. Luckily I didn’t have to buy any. Of course they don’t cost anything retail, the other day I saw them on sale for two euro’s, still I’m thinking that’s a total of eight euro’s not spent and four plastic items not made especially for me.

This yellow one is from the fifties and I found it twenty years ago. They still made strong stuff those days, it’s simply unbreakable. But I’m afraid it’s not very eco-friendly. So I think if I ever decide to get rid of it I’ll have to bring it to the chemical waste depot instead of leaving it on the curb.

This grey one had a few cuts already, but it was still perfectly usable, but guess what? The evening after I took the picture I was able to replace it with another in the exact same model and brand new.

A few days later the Gods of the curb rewarded me for my frugality I think when I found this extra large basket. It’s nice to have things in natural materials and this one certainly can’t have been cheap and it’s in mint condition. It will be very practical for the summer, when I often have two machines full hanging to dry outside in the yard.

My Tank Tops

Tank tops are such basic garments; who doesn't have at least ten or more? I couldn't live without them in summer, but in winter they are comfortable under warmer tops or blouses and can add a colourful touch to your outfit. They are timeless and therefore don't need to be of top designers quality. At least not for me. As longs as the fabric and seams are good I don't care what brand name I find on the label. So I really don't understand why people would throw them away before they're worn out, unless it was maybe a size problem.

I chose to show these orange ones because I love the colours. They always do add colour to my otherwise mainly black outfits. This stripy one was in the trash heap right by my front door. It came with some more cute black T-shirts and a skirt.

This one is a H&M by the way, so no complaints about the quality! It was actually a Queensday find: once a year I pick up left behind goods from the flea market on the celebration of the birthday of our queen. You can read more about that here.