This is the beginning of my nice long weekend and tomorrow we are heading to the Barbie fair in Hamburg, I can’t wait!!! Hopefully I will find some nice bargains and post pictures next week.

I meantime I’ve been dolls-surfing and here is a small selection of what I’ve been looking at:

MiniaturesMadness photostream on Flickr: just amazing!

Miniature interiors by Michael Paul Smith always on Flickr: stunning!

Alpenfieber blog: I’m so delighted I found this blog, she’s obviously around my age judging by the subjects of her posts. I still din’t figure out how to leave a comment though since I have no google blogger account and it doesn’t accept my credentials as open ID, ohh. well…I will leave her a comment in some ways

And what have YOU being up to?

Like all women I love shoes and I also love miniature shoes This evening I was surfing around and looking at miniature shoes when I found this!

The artist, Carlos Molina, made them with paper! I find them awesome: miniature paper shoes!!! You can have a good look at them on his flickr photostream.

Time again to tidy up and try to sort my toys out so I put some stuff on ebay, here are my auctions. The plan would be to put on even more in the next weeks but then every time I get so stressed with posting the parcels that once I’ve done the first batch I never list again for some months. Well, let’s see…

Today I went to the big flea-market here in town, alone because my husband was working. So, once there, I got lost after 20 minutes, since I have no sense of direction, and I lost track of where I was. Still I managed to cover a good 80% of it or at least I hope so.

This time I was more successful than a couple of weeks ago

I found this sweet looking Barbie and the fashion fever outfit (complete of dummy) for 3 euros:

I normally do not buy modern/recent barbies at flea-markets but I really loved her face, she’s perhaps the nutcracker ballerina, not sure. Here a close-up:

Then I got a Petra’s little sister (Peggy) for 50 cents, not in amazing conditions but what the heck! 50 cents:

and one Hasbro Sindy, complete with ballerina outfit and accessories, plus a nice Skipper from the ’80 for 2 euros each:

By one seller I got the nice lot below for 5 euros:

I really love the coca-cola bags and towel. I picked up two lifesavers because I think Pauli needs a proper one (the ones above are inflatable).

And then what else?

Ah…yes. Always for 5 Euros a Barbie horse from the’80, almost mint complete of box and accessories (I didn’t take pictures of these ones):

By the way, if you need some infos on Barbie horses (and not only), check this site out, it is amazing!

and a super cute Kelly house. I was not sure whether to take it or not but when the seller asked 2 euros I couldn’t leave it there. Here it is closed:

and here opened:

and now I’m going to clean my new dollies

I hope you all are having a nice weekend as well.

I love the stories of queens of the past like Elizabeth the first, Sissi from Austria or Marie Antoinette. At the moment I’m reading “Queen of fashion: what Marie Antoinette wore to the Revolution” by Caroline Weber:

I really like the way she tells Marie Antoinette story, with a fresh perspective on the social and cultural implications and impact of the clothes wore by the queen.

To celebrate the reading of the book here is a nice free paper doll I found, of Marie Antoinette of course!!!

from Totally Severe, thank you so much, I really like her

I also would love to get the DVD of “Marie Antoinette” movie from 1938 with Norma Shearer and the paper doll inspired to it, the costumes look just awesome.

…one the Bratz managed to sneak into Momoko and Arianna’s house and she was totally thrilled by the loft. Obviously the girl loves toys, here she’s gaping at some of the teddies:

and look at her cheeky grin here:

she was even curious about Momoko’s stereo-set but not the very keen on the Beatles ‘ LPs:

Obviously she didn’t sneak in alone since somebody took the pictures!!!

After dinner I switched  the TV on and started zapping around. I caught on a kids channel the last part of Pinocchio 3000 K. Obviously it started much earlier and so I could see only the last 20 minutes of the movie but I really enjoyed it. Watch it!

As the title suggests it is an adaption of Pinocchio novel, just set in the distant future and the wooden puppet is now a robot. Really lovely. I checked on youtube and they seem to have the whole movie in parts (why  does this always surprise me?) Here is part 1

While watching it I was not actually remembering the Disney version movie, as most probably many other people will do, but the italian version with real actors from the ’70, directed by Luigi Comencini.

Here is the clip where Geppetto (Nino Manfredi) wakes up the night after creating the puppet and finds out he has be given “life” by the blue fairy:

The story is quite close to the original one written by Collodi, as far as I remember, but since almost the beginning Pinocchio is actually played by a real child.

Of course these were still not the only TV/cinema adaptions of the novel. I remembered for example having watched a sweet cartoon in the ’80, always based on Pinocchio’s story, here you can see the first part of the first episode. According to the description on youtube it is a japanese production from ’72, strangely enough this is the same year the italian TV serie with real actors was released.

And another great version was the one from 1947, always an italian production, directed by Giannetto Guardone. I never managed to catch the movie on TV in Italy and I don’t think there’s a DVD available, but here you can watch the scene where Pinocchio and Geppetto are trying to escape from the whale’s belly.

While I was writing it also came to my mind Benigni’s movie but that really would deserve a post of his own LOL.

And you, my friends, do you know any other TV or cinema adaption of the novel by Collodi?

Wow!!!Have you seen the new video from All Doll’d Up? A tour of Barbie Malibu Dream House by Jonathan Adler:

I just wished the shoes in the closet were not all the same model

Today I decided to have a better look and take some pictures of the Teen Trends dolls I purchased few months ago (actually I think it was almost 1 year ago).

I bought them off ebay since they were hardly played with (the shoes were still kept in place by the elastic bands), complete of everything (included boxes)and very cheap (less than 2o euros for all 3 of them).

After I bought them I actually read this interesting review of the dolls and today I decided to have a closer look myself.

Here is Kianna:

and here Courtney:

I like their face painting very much, especially Kianna’s, and it is indeed true that they are more poseable than a Barbie and her clothes much better quality but…there are quite few of buts…

The hair are cut unevenly and tend to be really frizzy. I don’t think it is due to the fact the dolls were not NRFB since you can  see that the child who owned them hardly played.

The clothes are very good quality but the shoes are just molded plastic. For dolls of such a scale I would have expected for example trainers with a bit of fabric on them and not 100% plastic clearly molded out of a single piece.

It is true that these are supposed to be play-line dolls but it is also true that in Europe they were sold initially for something about 30 euros, so not exactly on the cheap side.

I will try to take other pictures of them in the future and if I keep of the same idea I will most probably sell them.

I hope you are all enjoying your Easter. We had a nice lunch, a walk and we are now relaxing reading and surfing. I also found time to snap some pictures of my finds from the small flea-market we went to yesterday.

I found this cute Mattel doll for 2 euros:

I think she’s a Lil Miss Makeup. She has a really sweet face and she just needs to be washed, here a close-up of the face:

Then I’ve got the todler girl from the Sunshine family. I actually own already another one but she’s not so easy to come by and she is wearing her original outfit so I took her. She was also just 2 euros:

and then I found a lingerie set and a dress made for Barbie. I already have the dress but I like it very much and it was basically mint and just 1 euro so I bought it:

And wthat About you out there? Anybody started to go to flea-markets already?