Mystery in the Briarberry Woods

   I am still alive. I've been cleaning away soot and trying to get our things unpacked from moving back from Emma's. You accumulate a lot of things in a year, and especially if you are bringing things from before the year started. I had brought a lot of things to Emma's to clean up, or save from the unheated house, and also art supplies for the various things I made while I was there. 

  I feel I am never going to get done with this, and I am feeling daunted by it. I don't know where to start. I got this fortune in my cookie the other week.

I should be, but can I?! I kept it to inspire me, but I think I need more fortunes...

  We also took a couple of days off this week to celebrate Ken's birthday. One of the things he wanted to do for his birthday was go to a bin store, because he hadn't been to one for a long time. We had a few things we needed, including some of that plastic stuff to put on the bathroom window, since the window that came from Lowe's was supposed to be frosted, and wasn't. This might not be such a big problem, if the window wasn't IN the bathtub. Anyway, so that was on our list, along with dog poo bags for my sister, and squeezable treats for her cats. Also, I wanted wallpaper, because we'll have need for a lot of that. So those were all on my list, AND WE FOUND ALL OF THEM! What are the odds of that?!  Okay. The universe let me down a little bit, because the wallpaper was ugly, but it was there! 

Today we are  still getting snow, after a pretty full day of snow yesterday. But it's warm in here now, and we know our boys are not freezing. All three spend a lot of time with us. At night they fight and drive me crazy though.

  Anyway, as I was packing up Ivy's kid books I came across a lot of doll booklets or catalogs. She has some really old American Girl catalogs, a My Twinn catalog, and some booklets that came with dolls. If anybody is interested in seeing the My Twinn and American Girl catalogs, let me know. I can photograph the pages and do a post on those. Today I am showing you a Briarberry booklet. I could have done it as a Doll Book of the Month Club post, but it goes with all the other doll booklets I found in Ivy's room, so here we are.

  Does anybody remember Briarberry? Briarberry was a line from Fisher Price in the 1990's. The line included plush, jointed bears and other animals, old fashioned looking furniture, carded fashions,  and a tea party set, etc. I always thought the bears were cute, and the furniture was really nice. The clothes were nice quality. Some of the dresses and things were made of a heavy velvety velour, as were the cushions to the kitchen chairs. The bears were soft plush, with jointed heads, arms, and legs, and plastic faces with flocking. Through the years I've had, (mostly through second hand finds), the armoire, the canopy bed, the couch/bed, the table and chairs, the tea set, the stove and accessories, and a boatload of the bears of various sizes. I'm pretty sure I sold most of the stuff, but I know I still have a canopy bed in the box, and maybe an armoire, and I came cross some bears in our stuff just the other day. There are probably more somewhere. I don't think I've ever found any of the non bear animals in the wild. They came out later, and maybe they didn't make as many of them. There was a lamb and a bunny, and a dog and a cat.

  Ivy had a Briarberry storybook magazine in her stuff. I don't remember where it came from. I don't know if it was a promotional thing handed out somewhere, but Ivy didn't have any of the Briarberry stuff except a couple of the outfits I got on clearance that she used on baby dolls. So I don't know where she would have gotten it. Maybe it was an insert in a magazine. Possibly it was an insert in Good Housekeeping or something, because Ken's stepmom used to get that. Anybody else have one of these?

  I'm going to start by showing you the back cover, because there's some information on it. For one thing, the baby bears and the Briarberry Friends, which were the non bear dolls, were introduced in December of 1999.

  There was a website.

  Now for the story. Here's the front cover.

The story is fully illustrated with photo scenes with the toys. 

There's that stove.

  The last page is a big two age spread, so the wording is shown smaller and harder to read. So I have shown it in full, and in individual pictures of the pages.

  The story manages to showcase all the dolls and some of the accessories. Of course, it also shows a bunch of things that weren't available.

  I hope everybody enjoyed this. I have a few more booklets to show you, of other dolls available about the same time as the Briarberries. We'll see those soon. Also, there's a doll show next weekend! I need the fun, but definitely not more dolls. I'll go anyway, and try to show you some dolls, but I promise I'll ask before I photograph them!

Doll-A-Day 2019 #72: Lapsitter Natalie

  Lori and I are headed south today. I have scheduled the rest of the week's posts to go on,and Ken will make sure they go on one way or another. I wanted to give a heads up to anybody who was tempted by the post on Hair Fair barbie the other day: We went to Tuesday Morning on Sunday (?!), and they have the reproduction Hair Fair Barbie,as well as some Silkstones.
  Now for today's doll... Oh no! Not another Lapsitter! But I found her at Goodwill recently, and look how nice she is!

She's Lapsitter Natalie.

She was made by Fisher Price in 1974.

She is the nicest Lapsitter doll I have ever found.They usually tend to be a bit grubby.with messy hair and their clothes often missing.But Natalie is perfect!

Their bodies are made to look like clothes,but they have outer clothes that go over that. Natalie has her dress,and even her bonnet.

Beautiful silky hair.

You may have seen my posts on other Lapsitters HERE,HERE,and HERE.

  That's it for today. Check back tomorrow to what(and if!) I post!

Doll-A-Day 2019 #6: Baby Ann Lapsitter

   Today's doll is this little girl.
 

Her name is Baby Ann.

She was made in 1974 as part of the Lapsitter line by Fisher Price.
 

The actual official name of the line was originally Little Girl Dolls. After the first year a boy, Joey, was added. That may be why they stopped being called Little Girl Doll. (That and the fact that it doesn't sound like a doll line, just like...dolls. Now days they are known as the Lapsitters.

The lapsitter dolls have vinyl heads and hands, and soft stuffed cloth bodies.

Her shoes and socks are part of her body and not removable.

This is her original dress. Most of the dolls in the line had removable outer clothing,and bodies that looked like they were wearing pajamas.

You may have seen my other lapsitter doll, Joey, HERE. You can see the Lapsitter Audrey I bought HERE.
  See you tomorrow for another doll.

Flea Market VS Thrift Store Part 1: The Flea Market

  So last Saturday Ivy and I got up early and drove an hour and a half or so to a flea market. It was called the Picker's Paradise,and was supposed to be HUGE. I say, 'supposed to be'. It wasn't nearly as big as the ones Lori and I go to. I don't know if it was just not full this year because of the weather,or if the advertising exaggerated.
  When I say the weather,I'm referring to the rain we  had nearly every day for three weeks. The sky was black and practically every day it rained on and off,if not all day. Even though the flea market was quite a way from here,the rain was there too. We got rained on on the way there, and once there the flea market was deluged with rain. Most people covered their stuff up to protect it, so there wasn't much to look at. The buildings were so crowded  with people who were just tramping around in a circle,not even looking at anything, that those of us who wanted to look at the stuff couldn't. The ground was nothing but deep puddles and mud. Ivy wore boots,so she was ok. I don't own any boots except a pair of pale gray faux suede ankle boots I bought for winter. So my feet were soaked and my shoes were covered with mud. When we tried to leave, much earlier than I would have thought,we got stuck in the parking lot and had to be pulled out by the flea market bulldozer.
  But back to what I found. I went around the flea market for ages before I found anything. We did pass a table that was covered that I could see boxed Barbie's peeking out from. I said to Ivy that we'd try to come back when the rain had stopped, but I doubted we'd find it again. As it turned out,the place wasn't so big that we didn't find ourselves back there eventually. But the first thing I found,(Finally!), was this.

Isn't it cute? It's an actual Radio Flyer mini tricycle. It's the perfect size for 18" dolls.  I have a wheel problem. My front wheel needs turned around, but it's stuck.
  I got some more little 1/6 scale vases at the flea market. 

There were ten of them,but I was able to buy just the six  I like. One of these days I am going to put together that 1/6 scale antique store,and all my tiny vases and plant pots will come into use.
  We did eventually come back around to the lady with the Barbies again. The rain had stopped by then,so she had uncovered her stuff. She had some pretty good prices. Her stuff had the original clothes and accessories,but most of the boxes were damaged or dusty. I don't care much about the boxes anyway. I bought a very pretty 'big eye' Skipper.

She's Cool Tops Skipper.
 

She was from a line of dolls that had little Reebok covers for their shoes, to make them look like Reebok sneakers.The 'Cool Tops' must be all those shirts she's wearing.

How eighties is she?!

It's way too hot for that many shirts!

 

The same lady also had some older stuffed toys in a basket. The poor things had been soaked in the rain. I found this girl buried in the bottom of the basket.

She's a Fisher Price Lap Sitter doll named Audrey.

She needs her hair done.

She was made in 1973. The Lap Sitters were a series of soft bodied dolls with vinyl heads and hands,and some removable,and some made-to-their-body clothes.

Audrey has removable bibbed overalls. You may have seen my Lap Sitter Joey in his Doll-A-Day post.

  The only other thing I bought at the flea market,(besides the funnel cake with strawberries and whipped cream,that Ivy and I split.),was one vintage hanky. I was tempted by a plastic version of the Pity Kitty paintings by Gig that I loved s a kid. It had it's original hang tag and old piece of rope around it's neck.

Like this picture I had in my room growing up.

I wish I had bought it actually.
  After we left the flea market and been towed out of the mud to the exit by the bulldozer,we decided to try for the nearest Toys R Us. We'll hear about what happened after the flea market in the next post.

Latest Thrift Store Finds: Fisher Price Woodseys

  To begin with, I have to say welcome to my two newest followers, Mommy and Me Dolls and Jenkypoo. Thanks for joining us!   
  Last week I made several good finds at thrift stores here in town. Since there were so many good things, I'll be showing them to you over the next week. First up is this Fisher Price Woodseys playset and family.

Their house is a log. It's a padded nylon type fabric with hard rubber ends and handle.

A closer look at the furniture.

The Woodseys came out in the late 70's and early 80's.

That would have been Unsentimental Niece's childhood. I bought her a lot of toys, and would definitely have bought these if I had seen them. I love this stuff! It's so cute. And I did always buy her stuff I liked!  (Fortunately we had a very similar taste in toys!)

  The playsets came with Woodsey books too. I'm not sure if they were sold separately.

 

Borrowed from the internet. I'll be glad to remove it if asked.

  The books were illustrated by Cindy Szekeres, who has written and  illustrated many popular children's books. She's well known for her illustrations of anthropomorphic animals,(Animals with human characteristics.), especially mice.

On the left is the little boy, on the right is the Dad. One end of their log house has a window.

And the other side has the door and a small window. The Mom is in red and has a molded plastic mob cap. The guy in green is Uncle Filbert. (A 'filbert' is a hazel nut, for those of you who don't know. Now you get the joke. He's a squirrel see, and...oh, you know.)Uncle Filbert runs the airport.

Or maybe he's just a pilot.

The door is supposed to close tight, but this one's fit is a little off and the door won't stay shut.

This is the outside of the fold down side. I love the artwork.

The inside is printed to look like a room.

Velcro keeps the front flap closed so the house can be used as a carry case with storage for the whole family and their furniture.

The handle on top is made to look like part of the log, complete with a cut off branch.

  The triangular thingy is the airport.

It has one of those airport windsock things on top.

The side.

Inside tools and a workbench are printed on the fabric.

The Woodsey logo on the bottom of the airport.

A closer look at the windsock.

  There was also a plane made of the same squishy padded fabric.
  The Blue Bird is V. B. (For 'Very Blue'.) Bird.

He's the mailman apparently.

 

This is from the internet. I'll remove it if asked.

  I would have wanted this set when I was a kid. I totally love the little log house. I always had a soft spot for books about mice and other tiny animals wearing clothes and making tiny miniature houses and furniture.
  There was also a Woodsey store playset and some other characters.
  Later this week we'll see some more thrift store finds I made recently.