Time For Another Doll Show

   I am getting so far behind with posts! I still have some doll show finds, some toy show finds, and an antique mall trip to show you dolls from! My sister and I have been busy lately too. We went to see the Pee Wee Herman bike, we went to the afore mentioned  toy show, we have a Q& A showing of Napoleon Dynamite this week. But last Saturday we went to a doll show. My sister, who still says she doesn't collect dolls, went home with three more this time! We'll see some stuff I saw at the show, and  I'll show you what I bought in the next post.

  This show is kind of weird. I know it's because they have twice as many dealers as fit in the room, but there is a whole doll show when you walk in, before you ever get to the table where you pay for your tickets. So we started looking as soon as we walked in. One of the first 'things'  we spotted was Mikelman. Some of you may remember his doll line, which included Candi, Charice, and Dominick. We chatted for a while about the aches and pains of getting old, since I was limping around with my bad leg. I'm not sure, but I think Michael is younger than I am. When I first met him, I know I was in my early 30's. We have changed a little bit!

  It's not a huge room, which explains why the dealer tables were puking out into the hall and beyond.

  I spotted this doll. She's a Japanese Skipper. You can tell because she has those black iris'. 

  I think the girl on the left is a convention doll. I may have photographed her before, because I do remember her, and I like her. I'm not sure about the couple on the right.

  Just a couple of Blythe's hanging around, watching Fashion Queen Barbie hawk some bracelets.

These girls have been on here before.

  This lady was interesting, if not attractive.

This is a Mimi doll, made by Remco in 1973. She sang when you used the records that went in a slot in her back. Someday I'll dig out the one we have and do a post on her. By the way, she sang "I Want to Teach the World to Sing", in many languages. The song was originally a Coke commercial, but was so popular, it became a real song, with the references to Coke removed and replaced by other lyrics. 

  I struggled to get a picture of this schnazzy Draculaura doll without interference from glare. You also get a view of her neighbouring doll, a Frankie Stein, I believe.

  Scarlett O'Hara?

  My sister and I both loved these Jar Lu and Ten Ping dolls. They were out of our price range though.

  This is a stern looking bunch. They're Poppy Parker dolls by Integrity Toys. The two on the right are convention dolls. I thought the one on the far right was the most interesting. She's called 'Stay Tuned', and she's in shades of grey. like she's in black and white.

  I was trying to take a picture of the little guy! The Silkstone is nice too though.

  This is a pretty group/. There's a very stern looking Tammy's mom top left, several Shirley Temples, and some Madame Alexanders I think my favourites are the two Betsy McCalls: the girl in red, and the girl in blue and white plaid. 

  One the other end of the shelf there was an interesting old lady, and a Sasha doll.

  I like the bride Grace Kelly. It really looks like her.

   More Silkstone Barbies.

  Anna May Wong! If you haven't heard of Anna May Wong, look her up. She was the first Chinese American star, back in the 1920's and 30's, and she was pretty cool. She was honoured by having her likeness on a quarter in 2022, the first Asian American to do so.

Next to Anna May is Emmy winning producer, actress, and Transgender icon Laverne Cox, and designer Vera Wang.

  I know this Ken is a Day of the Dead doll, but he's creeping me out.

  Another version of Betsy McCall.

  Malibu Barbie shared a table with a lovely Mitzi doll in lace, and another Barbie clone.

Mitzi and friends were on the table below these girls. An African American Velvet doll, and a little girl in green by Berdine Creedy Designs.

These two little stuffed dolls are also by Berdine Creedy Designs. I like the tiny one.

  The little guy on the left is a Kish doll, but the girl in peach is another Berdine Creedy.

  The lady on the left is a Toni. The other two are competitors.

  Any of the dolls from this table can be bought from Lizsdollhouse. The information is below. She's also on Ebay as Lizdolling.

   Liz told us the amazing story of how she was legally blind since birth, but now has 20/20 vision, (other than needing reading glasses), because she was fitted with permanent lenses. I didn't even know they could do that! Apparently it's like having contact lenses surgically placed in your eyes. Wow. It's an expensive process though, and she said insurance doesn't pay for it. Typical. 

   Okay. That was the show. But what did I bring home? We'll see that next time.

I've Got Darkness, On a Sunny Day: We Got the Total Eclipse!

 Okay. I might as well post my eclipse pictures. I already posted them on the blog's Facebook page, (Which you can find HERE. I repost extra stuff from elsewhere sometimes, so check it out.) 

  We were really lucky. It was supposed to be cloudy and overcast, but instead we had a beautiful, sunny, blue sky-ed day. That meant we were able to see the eclipse perfectly. We left town and went about a half hour away to get a few extra seconds of totality. It was almost four minutes, but it seemed much shorter. Here in this hunk of Ohio we got total eclipse, but it wasn't pitch dark like I thought it would be. Another reason we left town was to find somewhere where there would be minimal artificial lighting. We watched the eclipse from the back parking lot of a craft and antique place with a veg market and cafe. We even had a nice little pond there, which I photographed to document the gradual darkness. It didn't really show up in the photos until it got really dark though. 

  I had no polarizing filter for my camera, so I did the only thing left to do: I held my disposable eclipse glasses over my camera lens! It worked. I also took some pictures without them when it got to the point that was safe to view with the naked eye. I probably should have used them though, as I got a huge glare, which looks more like the sun than the sun did at tat point. (In those pictures, the sun and moon are actually the little blue ring and not the huge white ball. The white ball was something that only appeared in the photos, and not in the sky when I was looking. (I'm not stupid people. I knew when to put the glasses back on.)  Ken was really upset with himself for not bringing the appropriate filters. He hasn't even shown me his pictures yet.

  These pictures are in order, to show you the progression.

Sunny sky. Just starting the eclipse.

Getting dark.

The sun/moon is the blue ring you can see just below the lens flare.

I'm wondering if the light spot at the bottom of the ring is the hint of the solar flare that showed up on the bottom of the sun during the eclipse.

Glasses go back on about now, as the sun begins to reappear. The 'diamond ring' effect seems to be going on here too. See the slight white bulge at the top left of the ring.  

You can see the outline of the glasses on this one. I trimmed it out of the others.

Getting light again.

  I'm glad I got to see it. There won't be another here until 2099, at which point I would be 137 years old. I'm guessing I'll miss that one.

  Another doll post soon.