Sesame Street Players

Like many children of the 1970s, I was a huge fan of Sesame Street. So this paper doll set, The Sesame Street Players (1976) got a lot of use.

The players are Bert, Ernie, Roosevelt Franklin, and Betty Lou.

The set came with a theatre curtain (long gone) and clothes and props for two stories: Little Red Riding Hood, and Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

Here is Little Red Riding Hood walking through the woods to her grandmothers house.

What big teeth you have grandma!

Bert shows off the wolf costume.

There was a huntsman's costume, but it is also long gone.

The Three Bears set-up is missing the table with the porridge and Baby Bear's broken chair. I must have been very destructive with this set of paper dolls.

Roosevelt Franklin is dressed as Baby Bear and Ernie is dressed as Poppa Bear.

Bert is wearing the Mama Bear costume and Betty Lou has on the Goldilocks outfit.

Do you have any paper dolls from your childhood still?

Itsy Bitsy Baby Beans: Poofum and Piffle

Poofum, Pidgy's sister, is not in as good shape as Pidgy. Her neck has been taped, but is still weak.

I think this means that I played with her a bit more than Pidgy. Of course I did, she has curly red hair, so I pretended she was me.

Piffle, Poofum and Pidgy's baby sister, is missing completely. I have no idea what happened to her. Her outfits are really cute, but don't fit the other dolls.

Itsy Bitsy Baby Beans: Pidgy

While unpacking, I have come upon my childhood paper doll collection, or what is left of it, since I sold my Raggedy Ann and Andy paper dolls and Valentine Girl paper dolls years ago on Ebay.

Over the next few days I am going to share them with you, starting with Pidgy - from the Itsy Bitsy Baby Beans Paper Dolls Book, 1975.

John, Paul, George, and Ringo Chime In

Even the Beatles think she is cute.

Barbie Fashionistas

I admit it, I have jumped on the Barbie Fashionista bandwagon. I just couldn't resist this doll's freckles and super curly hair. She is way cute. 

I switched out her original accessories for the cat accessories, and it works really well. 

Love the cat bag!

She could be my Barbie avatar.

Grandma's Cabinet

Our final shipment finally arrived last Monday. These were the items we had stored in the US while we were oversees. This means we got our large furniture items: china cabinets, table and chairs, etc. It also means we got lots and lots of boxes. Our house is overflowing in boxes and junk. We are going to be able to have a huuuuuge yard sale when we finish unpacking.

One of the items that I got in this shipment was my doll cabinet. Hooray!

My great Aunt passed this cabinet down to my grandmother in the 1930s. It was passed to my parents in the early 70s, and became mine in the mid 80s. Once upon a time, most of my small dolls fit in this cabinet, along with my Smurfs. 

Now it holds Madame Alexander, Ginny, and other like-sized dolls. And it is full.

Moving them over freed some of the book shelves up.

Yep, one last group of Barbie dolls still need stands. Of course, when they get stands they will need another shelf.

I even got some of the Tonner and Wilde dolls unpacked today (not shown). I am almost done.

Blue Skies

The souvenir doll from the Dinner Dazzle event is the lovely Blue Skies Barbie.

This vintage styled Barbie by Carol Spencer is lovingly dressed in a blue and white taffeta outfit.

The lemon yellow hair is one of my favorite parts of the doll. It really pops against the shiny blue.

Dreaming of Cissy

I have recently been looking at Madame Alexander Cissy dolls. There are some lovely ladies out there. Some of the ones I would like to add to my collection are:

Velvet Deco Dreams Cissy

Image taken from Amazon

A Beautiful Nightmare Cissy

Image taken from Amazon

and America the Beautiful Cissy.

Image taken from Worthpoint

Malibu Barbie

My poor, poor, Malibu Barbie. She has seen better days.

Here she is, wearing part of her purple suit (probably not Mattel). It originally had a white button down shirt with a dark red tie, but it finally died ten years ago, or so. She would wear white Barbie boots with it.

Malibu Barbie was introduced in 1971. I received her (with Ken) for my fourth birthday.

The first thing I did with her was lay her on the window ledge to tan, since that was what she did. Not long after, I removed her bathing suit and had her tan all-over, since I did not like the bathing suit lines.

I used and abused poor Barbie. She went to the pool, the bath, and the beach with me. After all, she was in a swim suit, she was meant to swim. And swim she did. She was still accompanying me to pools when I was 12. All that swimming, caused havoc with her hair, since I combed it straight again after each dip. She now is almost bald, and her facial discoloring is probably some what caused by the chlorine in the pools.

Her legs still click in 4 positions, yay! But she has some mystery marks on her legs and at least one spot where I can see under her top layer of skin.H

And yes, her feet have chew marks. I'm going to blame my younger brother. And maybe the cat. I would never nibble on her delicate toes. Even if they felt neat rubbing over my gums.

What do I do with her? Do I get her re-rooted and redress her? Or do I buy a good condition Malibu Barbie and display then together?