Barbie-riffic Garage Sale

Well, it’s been a pretty good month of garage and estate saling so far.  We bought a box full of vintage Barbies, clothing, and the Fashion Shop a couple of weeks ago at a garage sale.  We have split up our goodies to sort and identify.  There are lots of outfits where Kathy has half of them and I have the other half.  We’re mending and washing as fast as we can. Last week, Kathy found a Suzy Goose bed and I picked up a Suzy Goose hope chest and shook it—just reflex at this point.  Imagine my surprise when it rattled.  I slid it open and, lo and behold, there were lots of the little extras that go along with vintage Barbie outfits.  There was a shower cap, an electric razor, a hot water bottle, sunglasses, pearl necklace, and lots more.  All for $2, which is our perfect price point—no bargaining required.  It’s amazing how something small like that makes our whole day just a little brighter.  If you want to see all of our Barbie bits and bobs, check out our Facebook page on Sunday.

Here’s your clown warning.  It’s at the very end, and creepy, of course, but not too scary since it’s Barbie-related.

Kathy wanted the #3 Barbie, so I took the more recent blonde ponytail and Roman Holiday, an outfit from 1959, Barbie’s first year:

   

We have more pieces of Roman Holiday (leftmost doll) but I didn’t have them (black glasses, belt) for the picture.  The outfit comes with a lot of little fun things for her purse: compact, hanky, and comb.  There is also a drop pearl necklace, gloves, and a hat that weren’t in our lot.  The lady we bought them from says she has more Barbie clothes in the basement.  She has our phone number so our fingers are crossed!  The redheaded bubble Barbie is the other doll that I got from the pile of dolls.  Kathy took a blonde bubble, so neither of us are deprived.

This hat from Picnic Set is why we love vintage Barbie outfits:

This hat still has its little frog, flowers, and ribbons attached.  There wasn’t a good reason to put that little frog on the hat, but they did, just for fun.  We love all the little details.

There were other little dolly things at the sale:

Kathy carried this around for a while, until it became clear that we were going to spend some real money on the dolls.  She also bought a present for her dad, which was a little more expensive, so sadly Betsy McCall’s case went back on the table.  It sure was cute, though.  She also had some Ginny doll things, but we won’t go there.  We collect more than enough dolls as it is.

There were lots of other things at the sale to enjoy.  I loved this ceiling light cover:

I’m not a huge western fan, but this would be adorable in a little rootin’ tootin’ cowpoke’s bedroom.  I love all the brands on the diagonal ridges of the glass.  It’s a fun decoration, although I might feel differently if I were a cow!

Not everything at the sale was wonderful:

If you read our blog with any regularity, you know how we feel about avocado green, and the 1970s in general.  That piping on the chair just adds to the overall badness.  If those cheesy side tables are made of real, solid pine, I will eat them.  Just saying.

This furniture grouping has some good and some bad:

Honest to God, those lamps are pretty alarming, and the oak table that they’re sitting on is nothing to write home about.  I’m thinking that the lamps might be someone’s wood-working project that took a turn for the worse.  On the other hand, I do approve of the head and foot boards, and that little table to the far right of the group is pretty cute and handy.  I’m sure that the sellers are really worried about our approval of their furniture.  If you were furnishing your first apartment, and got a good deal, you’ll find that paint (properly applied) goes a long way to fixing these things.  When you’re ready to buy better furniture, have a garage sale!  I hope no one buys the bedroom furniture and paints it; it just needs some polishing to look good again.

Besides the Barbie finds, I also bought a few postcards and some fun poodle pins:

   

It’s a nice little pile for $2.50!  When I got home and looked at the pink hat and coat wearing poodles, I noticed that their legs swing back and forth.  I put their legs in two opposite positions in the picture on the left.  They don’t move a lot, but we have shown in the past how gaga we are about pins that move.  I didn’t think that the black enamel pin at the top of the picture was old, but Kathy said that they are older than you think, so in he went.  ( Kathy here, the black poodle dates back to at least the 60s.  I have seen that stamping and a variation of it in a circle, on belts, pins, necklaces and a purse! )  It amazes me that with all the vintage poodle pins that I own, there are so many more out in the world to find.  Just like Scottie dogs, poodles, and dachshunds are overrepresented in the vintage world.

I was taking a picture for our vintage Halloween board on Pinterest:

It occurred to me that you don’t see a lot of the vintage Barbie, Ken, and Skipper Masquerade outfits on Pinterest Halloween boards.  That had to be corrected immediately, so I dressed our new Skipper and Ken up in the Masquerade outfits and snapped their picture.  My goodness, Ken looks like a serial killer in that mask!  I apologized to Skipper for putting her next to him.  Her side-glancing eyes are protecting her from even knowing he’s near.

Thanks for reading; hope you enjoyed seeing our new vintage Barbies.  We could do a whole year’s worth of posts on our vintage doll collection, but we won’t.