Bent arm barbie

I'm not a fan of the 80s style bent-arm Barbie body, but they are good in one way...

The easiest pair of barbie pants you'll ever make

When summer rolled around, I cut all the sleeves off of the long sleeve pajamas for my 3 year old.  And being a fabric hoarder, I didn't throw them out but squirreled them away. Today I found one and thought, "Pants!"  So I turned the sleeve (with cuff attached) wrong side out, sewed two parallel seams for legs (not exactly even, next time I will draw them first instead of free handing them). 

I cut up the center, turned them right side out, and pants!

Good loungewear for the casual barbie.  Could also add a cute little decorative drawstring so Barbie can have yoga pants. 

1:6 world bleeds into 1:1...

Am I the only person that ever forgets for a minute that real life doesn't work like doll life?  The other day I was having problems with my hair and for a split second my mind went to pouring boiling water over it so it would lay down. 

Clones....CLONES!

This may be the oddest Barbie clone item I've ever seen.  At my local Dollar Tree they have what appear to be clones of the Fashionista Swapping heads.  But they don't appear to have any method of removing them from their "bust" so you can put them on a doll, plus no bodies available to accept them.  So what you have is the head and shoulders of barbies with no bodies, or the tiniest styling heads ever!

Sorry for the crappy camera phone pic.  But they had a ton of them, and no bodies.  Maybe other Dollar Trees have bodies to go with them--can anyone confirm?  Either way, it was a very odd sight.  They're not well done, but I was tempted to spend the dollar to get one just to see if they were useful in any way.  Oh, and their jewelry is glued on.  Very odd.

Sometimes princes need to be rescued too.

At first I thought it was just an isolated incident.  Maybe an accident.  Random. 

Then I found another.  Yes, something is going on in the Memphis area.

Someone is mistreating Disney Men.

It's okay, take a minute to compose yourself.  I was shocked too.  It started when I found a Pocahontas John Smith in the Bargain Barn at Goodwill.  He had been gnawed on by something or someone and had a bad haircut. 

I brought him home planning to revamp him later.  He got put on a shelf and forgotten for awhile. 

Then at a church yard sale (a CHURCH of all places!) I found poor Li Shang who had been similarly abused. 

 Not only had someone given him a bad haircut, but they gave him a Hitler mustache. WHY?  Why would you do that to him? 

I mean come on!  Who would DO such a thing to the poor guy?  I had to rescue him.  So then I had two Disney men fallen on hard times. 

So I started with Li Shang, since his body at least was in decent shape.  First, I cleaned his face with an alcohol-based hand sanitizer.  Then I got him ready for his haircut.

Haircuts are not my forte, so I just gave him a trim to even him up, and gelled him a little.  I may revisit if I get better at cutting hair, but for now, he's at least presentable. 

Next I turned my attention to Mr. Smith.  His body was in bad shape, and it was one of the older ken-style bodies with almost no movement, so I decided to body swap him.  When I bent poor John's head back to get a look at the connection, his neck ripped!  His day just keeps getting worse! 

So my first instinct was to just glue his head to his new body (I've done this for my kids' barbies) but then I was inspired to make a neck-join to try to keep some mobility. 

Basically I made a post out of some plastic packaging and glued it down on the little 'post' that sticks up out of the neck.  His head actually fits on pretty snugly, and since he wont be played with by kids, this is acceptable for now. 

"Yay!  Look at me!"

I washed his face and decided to tackle his hair. It is a strange texture and I don't have a lot of donor blondes, so I didn't find an exact hair match.  Luckily, it was only about 10 plugs in the front that needed to be replaced.  I found another doll who could lose a few strands without missing them, and rerooted the front section. 

Quick douse with boiling water to lay it down.

And they're all done!  

Now that shirt/ pants combo could be considered abuse, but it's all I could find at that moment.  Soon enough I'll get them all dressed up and ready to find some thrift store princesses. 

Barbie RV, work in progress

Last summer I found a yardsale selling a ton of old 70s/80s barbie stuff.  I doled out most of it to my kids over the past year, sold some, kept some.  This is one thing I was going to give to my daughter, but it's massive and there's just not room for ANOTHER huge vehicle in her room.  Especially one made of fragile 70s plastic.  I had already started transformation on it (hence the red paint and the pink flocked seats) before I decided not to give it to her.  Now I'm going to start renovating it for my own use:D 
This is one of the original commercials for the Barbie Star Traveler. 
Here is my spray painted one: 

Now my goal is to refurbish it completely, aiming for a traditional 70s color palette.  I spent the morning scraping off old stickers and scrubbing unidentified 80s-era goo out of nooks and crannies.  I did find it was a LOT easier to work with when you take it completely apart.  

I have had trouble finding pictures of the interior, but I'm sure I'm missing a few pieces.  No matter.  This GMC motorhome is my inspiration:  here

I can't wait to get really started...and hopefully since it's in 4 pieces, I can work on it without my kids insisting that they'd LOVE TO HAVE IT!  I'll let them play with it, sure, but some toys are strictly mommy's.

Beautiful OOAK dolls with awesome hair--link

Saw this on a friend's FB page--now I'm wondering if she's a dolly person?  How does one go about asking that without the other person coming away from the conversation thinking you're crazy if they're not?  I should probably just be out and proud about my dolliness, but I'm still chicken. 
BUT!  Check out this site--FB page for natural dolls by Beads, Braids and Beyond

If you're not on the FB, you can see their main site here:  Beads Braids and Beyond
Big beautiful afros!  I have used Kristl's afro tutorial but have never been able to get it quite right.  I don't know what method Beads Braids and Beyond uses, but all of their hairstyles are AWESOME.