So…what happens when you put together the beginning of the flea-market season, holidays and my upcoming birthday? Dolls of course!!!

Here are the first finds of the seasons, all in need of some cleaning and loving care. Al together the stuff below came up to around 40 euros, a bit less actually. Not extremely cheap but still ok:

I have no idea who the two beauties below are, but I love them. The small dolls is marked Mattel, clearly from the ’80 and in need of rescue

then a gorgeous red-haired Petra:

another Superstar face from the seventies:

and some miscellaneous:

I think the gifts deserve a new post

It looks like Mattel is going to release this year a modern version of the Superstar doll and Quintessential Barbie.

Here is Barbie Superstar:

To be honest the doll looks cute enough but not as the original, ok…ok…the original was MY DOLL as a child so perhaps I’m just sligtly partial. Still…what should I say? I’m not thrilled about the short dress and the big head.

I love instead the Quintessential Barbie:

I’m normally not a big fan of the model muse body but I find this doll so chic in her simplicity. The eyes paint looks amazing and I love the dress and…OMG..did you see the bag? She’s just Barbie: pink and glamorous. I hope she makes it to Europe and I’ll buy two of them, one to debox and one to keep NRFB.

I was browsing today around (what a surprise) and I saw pictures of the Basic Barbies redressed by CDFA designers, I love them!!!

Look at this amazing group pictures, are they not the apex of glamour and fashion?

My favourites of the bunch are the Justin Giunta Barbie:

and Betsey Johnson‘s doll

I especially love the necklace on the first doll, such a chunky funky chaos of chains and the gown of the second doll.

They are all so in tune with the fashion of the moment.

I think the people as Asos got inspired and they decided to “redress” Barbie as well (found via impossibleprincess)

And by the way, they are selling the dolls as well, at around 30 pounds, I think it is the cheapest price I saw in Europe at the moment.

I saw yesterday the new trailer of Toy Story 3 and I can’t wait to watch it!!! From what I can see the movie looks amazing!!! But best of all two of our favourite characters make their appearance in it: Barbie and Ken!!! They are both dressed in what are clearly eighties clothes, I mean…look at him:

He’s definitely Animal Lovin’ Barbie Ken from 1988, see for comparison here the doll how it appears in the original commercial from 1988:

She’s Great Shape Barbie:

isn’t she gorgeous?

In the background you can clearly see what looks to me like the Barbie Dream House from 1983:

the scene where they meet is so “cheesily” sweet

but then something obviously goes wrong along the way since he’s spotted gambling:

and at one point she seems not so happy with him anymore, it looks like they had already their problems back then:

I just wonder why he changes clothes and she doesn’t

Can’t wait for summer to come and watch it

Most probably I’m the last one amongst dolls collectors to have seen her but in case I’m not  here she is:

Computer Engineer Barbie!!! The 126th doll in Barbie’s I can be serie!!! The laptop unfortunately looks quite…welll…you know what I mean, but I LOVE the top she’s wearing and I would like a closer look to the bluetooth headsets. And here below she is together with the News Anchor Barbie, I think I could like her as well. Both dolls are scheduled for release in winter.

Thank you to Impossible Princess for the heads-up about them and here some history about the doll (by the way I think I could get addicted to this blog ).

The toys/dolls situation here around is pretty miserable but Saturday I decided to check in Kaufhof what they had and behave and behold!!! They had all the 3 Barbie in Pink dolls for 9.99 euros. For the moment I picked up only 2 of them:

I admit I  wanted them mostly for the clothes and accessories than the dolls themselves, this is why most probably I will end up buying the third one as well.

Then I found this adorable Beatrix Potter duck or 2 euros at TK MAXX, I couldn’t leave her there all alone

and this cute San Valentine mini teddy bear in a book shop for 5 euros:

The girls were delighted;-)

And what have you all been buying recently?

My sister-in-law and I had a dolls day a couple of weeks ago. We took lots of pictures, talked of course about dolls and …Played around

Here are some pictures of the meeting, Dani was just totally taken by Brad (who wouldn’t?):

As you can see he got quite a warm welcome The dress she’s wearing was made by Ursula.

The other girls in meantime were taking coffee and pastries:

Arianna also showed them some new pieces she acquired for the house:

and at the end of the day Ursula even prepared a super-funny comic read it here.

Not sure if any of you still hasn’t seen the last incarnation of our favourite doll, but if you didn’t check it here, just amazing!

On the flickr stream of the artist you can even find a tutorial on how some of the Alender McQueen inspired shoes were made.

I love paper and fashion and what can be best than the 2 combined? After seeing the beautiful work of Eloise Danch, and reading the great post from The Crafts dept, I decided I NEED this book:

“Paper Illusions: the Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave” brings to us  the beautiful creations of the belgian artist, recreation of  the fashion of the past in paper. The few pictures I saw look astonishing.

And here the video I found on youtube, it has been filmed in her atelier (sorry, it is in german).

Alson on my shopping list (since a while!), “Barbie sogna Caterina de’ Medici”:

The book describes step by step the creation of an OOAK Barbie as Caterina de’ Medici, created for the event “Pitti Bimbo” in 2008. The text is english-italian. I found here a nice article but in italian, sorry  :-(

If you didn’t check it out yet have a look at the current Barbie catalog here. So many nice things I was fascinated by the shoes the Christian Louboutin doll comes with:

The doll itself I could even pass on but my girls NEED the boots. I mean…did you see them??? Love them

If you didn’t see yet all the gorgeous pictures from the ad campaign check them out on Refinery29, I’m saving them just now!