Sunday is the Denver Doll & Toy Supershow . I reserved two tables in the fall. Since the holidays I have been pricing, sorting, organizing, researching, labeling, and generally getting my collection ready to sell. I learned how to use Canva to make a poster for the booth. I have a one-time sales tax license, a Clover for credit card sales, a QR code for Venmo, two printed inventories, and a slideshow of all the dolls I am bringing. Over the weekend my mom and my eldest turned my cross stitch patterns into kits to sell. If I'm not ready, it's not for lack of trying. In an ideal world, I will come home with empty boxes. In a more realistic world, I will come home tired, invigorated, having made new friends, and carrying a significantly reduced collection. Wish us (this is a joint endeavor. All hands on deck) luck!!

 As a little girl, my Grandma was a constant presence in my life. She lived two hours up the road but spent most holidays and many summers with us. The summer I turned 12, she moved to town and lived in a retirement home up the street. She gave up driving, so there was lots of ferrying Grandma back and forth to our house. As a junior high kid, I would spend one Saturday a month at Grandma's playing board games, eating lunch, and talking at her for hours. She knew all of my friend drama and always asked after my friends even into college and later. Grandma had worked for the US Department of Defense, stationed in Germany, and she bought me many of my first Barbie toys. I had the 1974 Barbie Dreamhouse - complete with working elevator. I had the 1972 Barbie Friend Ship - complete with flight attendant cart and Ken's pilot's costume. But as much as I associate Grandma with my Barbie toys as a girl, this blog is really about a different side. Grandma liked her sweets and whenev

 This weekend a friend and I went through the clothes and the dolls that I played with as a kid (and she has an amazing memory on the clothes. This website is quite the resource if you're interested: BarbieWorld.it  ). I had A LOT of Barbies and accessories. There was the Barbie pool, the piano, the three-story townhouse. I had an RV, an airplane, and a boat. And then there were the dolls themselves. Yes, I had lots of Barbies but there were also Skippers and Midges and Christies. But today, we have to talk about Ken. This is my first Ken Doll: Roller Skating Ken c.1980. The short tight shorts, the shiny purple jacket, the Addidas style roller skates. He's so retro, what's not to love? I can't pretend to remember why six-year old me needed a Ken doll at that point. I was never as gung-ho about the guys because for me Barbie was about Fashion shows and climbing mountains, and sleepovers. But there were definitely days Ken was part of their entourage. I didn't have Ro

 If you're a certain age, you surely remember the ubiquitous United Colors of Benetton ads from the late 1980s and early 1990s.  The bright primary colors, the diversity on the page, the quirky yet stylish fashion. I loved the ads, but the clothes were much too urban, cool, ...expensive for me and my high school vibe. I remember the "cool" girls in my class all dressing in simple primary color t-shirts and standing together for the senior class picture so they were easy to pick out. Keep in mind, it was also a short year or two before the grunge revolution which was much more my style heading to college. While Benetton fashion was not in my world, Benetton Barbies were, of course  My mom had two different male friends who traveled to London semi-regularly. One was a theatre director and went to see the shows. The other owned a travel agency and visited London for work. They were both game to engage in my Barbie fandom in the era. (not to stereotype, but one was openly gay

Happy New Year! My goal this year is to finish inventorying and photographing all of the Barbies in my collection. And I have reserved a table at the Denver Doll & Toy Show in March to sell most of my dolls.  Going through the boxes of the less common dolls I come across some that are worth highlighting. These two are perfect given the time of year: At the height of the collectible Barbie craze in the mid-1990s Mattel released some of the more unique and distinct Barbies to date. Not all of them have aged well and some of them have very strong 90s vibes. But the Happy New Year's/Oshogatsu dolls are cute and fun and a shift from so many of the high fashion western designer dolls.  I'm not going to pretend to have a nuanced opinion on cultural appropriation and simplification by an American company that many of the Dolls of the World fall into (there are individuals and websites that have taken that debate on in a worthwhile, meaningful way). I recognize that kimono have a

 Two fundamental things about me:  I have had Barbie dolls since before I was two years old. They were a stable part of my childhood long past the age many kids played with dolls. I grew up doing crafts. My mom and grandma taught me to cross stitch, needlepoint, and knit (although I have long ago forgotten that particular craft). I don't sit still and if I'm watching TV there's a good chance I have a needle and a project in my lap. ( okay, let's be honest, it's 2023, there are definite evenings it's a mindless puzzle game on my tablet. ) Which means that while I have extra time on my hands I took the opportunity to combine those two aspects and created two Barbie cross stitch patterns this fall Both projects are smaller than 4" square and are perfect for a crafter who has never done cross stitch. They're simple and can be finished in a short amount of time. But they also are quintissential to today's Barbie love and the resurgence of attention becau

 It has been in the news recently that Mattel has released Barbie as Mariah Carey and as Stevie Nicks. Both of these dolls continue a long tradition of recreating Barbie as iconic stars who will appeal to kids, to the parents who buy dolls for their kids, and to adult collectors. For what it's worth, both dolls are currently sold out on Amazon and already listed (as of November 17) on eBay for $150. The collector's market and upsale of collectibles is alive and well. This series of dolls is intended to represent role models as well as fashion icons. I have to say, this line of dolls has never appealed to me over much. There is nothing wrong with them, but I have always gotten Barbies that were not "Mattel-style-doll-recreated-to-resemble(ish)-someone-famous." When I was looking through my collection in storage last week I came across two other iconic Barbie recreations from 25 years ago. Barbie Loves Frank Sinatra and Barbie Loves Elvis. In both of these Box Sets the