…with Akvis Artwork. I’m in my software-junkie mood and here are some of my experiments with the trial of Akvis. You can apply a “oil paint”, “cartoon” or “Pen and Ink” filter to your pictures. The program is extremely easy to use, I’m not so sure about the results for the moment

I like the carton filter:

but not so much the oil painting effect:

and definitely not the Ink and pen:

On the other side the software has a quite a range of settings you can play around with (including the thickness of the strokes just to mention one) so most probably I was just too lazy to try a bit harder and I should have a good look into them.

Finally we are having some warm days and today we enjoyed the sun. My husband  and I went together with my sister-in-law for a nice day out, here some pictures:

Check for more pictures on Amithi and my flickr stream

So…here is the rest I picked up  today at the flea-market: lots of Vintage My Little Pony by Hasbro. I do not collect them but for the price I paid I guess I could always re-sell them on Ebay. I have to say they are terribly cute, I like them more than the modern versions

I got the doll from the same seller, she’s marked Mattel 1989 and she’s in quite good conditions considered the fact that the body is made of stuffed fabric.

That’s all for this weekend but next Sunday is again Flea-market time so come back to see what I found.

This weekend is going to be fully packed: food shopping, hairdresser, barbecue at friends, cooking, family reunion, dolls day…but could we not find some time for a small flea-market? Especially when the weather is so gorgeous??? Of course not!

So this morning we got up early and off we went Here is part 1 of my finds: Barbie and a couple of “fashion dolls”. In part 2 I’ll show the remaining toys.

Here the first 3 dolls I found, 1 euro each: Jessie and Woody from Toy Story plus a cute brunette Peggy (Petra’s sister):

Then all the below stuff for 15 euros, included 2 pregnant Midges (the 2 face variations) and the grandmother from the Happy Family, plus a couple of nice My Scene Barbies and tons of Barbies and accessories (all from the same seller):

Stay tuned for part 2 and I hope you all are having a great weekend as well!

Here below is the rest of the stuff I found today. Nothing so exciting as the Growin’ Hair Barbie but still cute stuff for very nice prices

Let’s start with the shoes ( my girls are as much shoes-obsessed as I am):

fashion and accessories:

this was just 1 euro together with some of the shoes so I took it:

The dolls below are pretty recent ( end of the ’80, ’90) but I loved their sweet faces and they are in lovely conditions:

Sindy needs some cleaning up but aside from that nothing wrong with her:

vintage furniture are always worth, especially for a couple of euros:

and I really couldn’t leave there this cute fellow for 50 cents:-)

So…what was inside this 10 euros Barbie case…

well…THIS! :

yessss!!! a nice vintage minty mint   Barbie, complete of original outfit, accessories, stand (you cannot see it in the pictures), instructions  booklet, all obviously never played with. Isn’t she a beauty?

Even the clothes she’s wearing are so crisp, you can hardly believe this girl is 40 years old.

Together with her and the dress she has on came the  original dress, shoes, hair accessories and instructions:

other 2 fashion sets,  a couple of pair of shoes, 2 booklets and some hangers, all in mint conditions:

If you want see an NRFB doll, check it here and stay tuned for my last post about what else I found today, nothing as exciting as this but still cute stuff

I’m a May child, still few days to go to my birthday, but I already received my gifts

My husband bought me 2 June Pullip (the small ones) from the Alice in Wonderland collection, they are so adorable, still debating whether I should debox them or not, but most probably I will do:

Yesterday I got Jabob from my sister-in-law and he’s definitely going to be deboxed, the girls can’t wait!!!

and this is one of the gifts I bought myself

she’s a fierce beauty!

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.

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 ).