The Un-Unsentimental Niece

  Regular readers of the blog may have read mention of my niece,which I refer to by the code name Unsentimental Niece. I call her that because, amongst other reasons, she sold off bits of her childhood for a few dollars at yard sales. However, I recently found out that she's not totally unsentimental.
  When my niece was about 5 her parents divorced, and soon afterward a close friend of the family gave her a stuffed Garfield the cat doll.

Like this one I found on an online auction. I'll remove the picture if asked.

  The giver of the doll soon became her mother's boyfriend and my niece was very fond of him. She loved Garfield until his stripes wore off. She took him to Kindergarten everyday. Soon her father became jealous of the boyfriend and gifted his daughter with a stuffed bear she named Bear Bear. My niece gave up Garfield. Bear Bear became her special toy. You know. that one toy you keep forever.
  Over the years my niece has moved around a bit. She is 38 now, and she has lived in California, North Carolina,Ohio,and repeats of the same, plus who knows where else. On her last move from California she misplaced Bear Bear. She thought he had been accidentally thrown away in the move. That was 5 years ago. She made a trip to visit a friend in California a few weeks ago and guess what?

  Said friend had been holding on to Bear Bear for her for 5 years. Unsentimental Niece was overjoyed to have him back. Maybe I will have to give her a new code name...   

Recent Acquisitions: Barbie's Dream Kitchen and Dinette and a Really Strange But True Tale

   UPDATE: Regular readers will know we are taking a trip to England soon, (A treat from Ken's sister.), so he will be off work without pay for two weeks. In view of this, and our shrinking space in the house, we have decided to sell the Dream Kitchen to help with the house payment that will be due not long after we get back from England. You can find it now on Ebay. I'll let you know what happens with it.I'll be sorry to see that tiny Corning Ware go, and I could have used that kitchen step ladder in my Dreamhouse! Oh well...
UPDATE TO THE UPDATE:The Dream Kitchen has sold. That will help alot. Thanks to the bidders!

 To start off, there are quite a few followers that have somehow slipped in without getting the traditional welcome. So, here goes. Welcome to Joyce Swanger,lollylocks,Deanreen,Allenoel,rodrigo_argentino, valerie shakhov, Marcy G, and of course, Miss L Spooky, our giveaway winner.If I've welcomed you before, you just got welcomed again. If I still missed you, send me a comment. I really wish these names showed up in my dashboard in the order you joined so I could keep track better.
  In my post updating you on what I've been doing recently I forgot to mention that I started a Flickr account a while back. So, if you are interested in seeing some of the pictures from the blog without all the yap, check it out HERE.

  Today I'm showing you an item I found at the Hospice Garage Sale a couple of Fridays ago. It's the hard to find Barbie Dream Kitchen and Dinette.

The original catalog listing for the Dream Kitchen and Dinette.

This is the paper that originally came on the Kitchen and Dinette. The picture is borrowed and I'll be happy to remove it if asked. I wanted to give you an idea of what it looked like new and with all the pieces.

It was just sitting in the driveway and I picked it up as I came up the driveway and kept on walking.
According to some of the sources I found,The Dream Kitchen and Dinette was produced in 1964,two years after Barbie's first Dream House,and the same year as Barbie's New Dream House.

Other sources say it was produced from 1965 to 1966. 

The above catalog ad says the 'toys on pages 441 through 673 can be ordered from now until September 1,1966'. I would say that means this is a 1966 catalog.or late 1965 at the latest. Of course, the Kitchen and Dinette could have been in the catalog for more than one year.  But from the look of the Kitchen and Dinette, with it's bright colours and more modern design, I would say the later date is probably more accurate.

The dining room.

 Skipper's Dream Room was also produced about the same time. Gee, these guys sure dreamed alot.
The only part of the actual structure that's missing from my Dream Kitchen is the small piece of wall to the right of the built in oven that has the fridge on it. I guess you can't have everything.In this case, no refrigeration.

There are two stools for the counter and a kitchen step ladder. I think the step ladder is my favourite piece!

All the curtains are there.

And I have all the cloth items except the tablecloth.

"You might want to put this apron on before you start those dishes."

"Thanks. Here Midge. I'll wash and you dry." There are two tea towels and an apron too.

And these three pot holders.

Two place mats and two napkins.

  These were no sew pieces you cut out yourself.
I think I also have all the furniture: kitchen table with two chairs...

  Most of the accessories seem to be here too.

The toaster really pops the toast out. The knives are real metal. I have a fork too, but the tines are broken. The cups and plate are the  same ones that were sold as part of the Barbie Go Together collection.

I also have two casserole dishes with lids...

I love these, but isn't the little one really too small for Barbie?

...and the matching coffee pot you can see way above and coming up.

...the table service for two, in blue.
There's one cooking pot you can see above and below too. I'm not sure how many originally came with the set.The green cups and telephone were also part of the Barbie Go Together line of furniture and accessories.

There's also a phone book and Barbie's cook book.

There's that coffee pot. That pink thing with holes is the open dish washer.

One of those counters where you can sit and eat or talk to the person in the kitchen.

Ok, now here's where it gets weird. Also in this kitchen/dinette were these little homemade boxes.

Some kid spent a lot of time on these. I'm wondering if they had a pattern for these, or if they were totally the kid's creation. But I digress. 'What's so weird?', you're wondering. Well, I was looking at the little boxes and I noticed there was a 'Happy Aniverseary' one.(The kid's spelling, not mine!)

Nice handwriting though. Better than mine!

Whose anniversary? (Sorry, aniverseary...) Oh, here's a box with some names on it.

Oh. Must be Barbie and Don's 'aniverseary'. Barbie and Don?! Where have I heard that before? Ahhh!!! Remember last August when I went to Salvation Army and found a Barbie's New Dreamhouse that they practically made me take home and only charged me 10 cents when I insisted on paying for it?

Well remember what I found in it?

"You are invited to our wedding tomorrow at 6:30 pm. Sincerly, Barbie and Don"

How weird is this??!! And lest you think it might not be the same kid, look at the B's and 'r's in 'Barbie' and 'Barbra' and the D in 'Don' and 'McDorm'.

The outside of the invitation.There were a couple of the old metal Barbie stands and a Skipper/Skooter stand in the Kitchen Dinette too. They must be  Barbra, Mardge and Scooter McDorm's stands!

This is so strange! I got the Dreamhouse because while I was in Salvation Army shopping somebody dropped it off and it was still outside when I came out. I happened to see it as I was putting my stuff in my van.  They were going to throw it away because it was in pieces and needed reassembled. They thought it was trash! I didn't get to the Hospice sale as soon as they opened , although I was pretty early. There were about 4 Hospice sales in that little housing development, and we went to the other three first. The Kitchen and Dinette was sitting there when I walked up and no one cared. What are the odds I would find both of these Barbie structures, belonging to the same kid, at two different places, a year apart?! Why was the Kitchen still sitting around to be donated a year after the Dreamhouse was donated to Salvation Army? Really weird! Now what I really want to know is, where are this kid's dolls?! Barbra! Mardge! Scooter! Don! Wait for me! I'm coming!

Happy Father's Day! The World Family is Back

   Some Dads are great storytellers.

"...and the dragon came puffing around the corner. The knight held his shield up to block the intense heat from the fire the dragon was breathing..."

Wally World holds his kids spellbound with his tales.

"And then the dragon sneezed and blew out his fire..."

"Well since there's a pause in the story while the dragon heats back up, here Dad.", says Simon, "This is for you.It's from all of us."

 "Because, see, not only are you the best dad in the world," Tammy explained, "you're our dad, and you're the best. So either way, you're the World's Best Dad!"

"Oh ha. Keep the day job Tammy." Todd snidely remarked.

"I will, 'cause my day job is punching you in the face!" Tammy snapped back,starting to step toward Todd.

"That's enough." Dolly said, trying to stop them before a war could get underway.

"Cool off. You're going to ruin Daddy's day." soothed Dolly. "I'm sorry." Tammy said.

   Wally looked lovingly on his brood. "Thanks you guys. It's easy to be the best Dad when you have the best kids...Well,except when you're trying to kill each other..."

                                   Happy Father's Day! From Planet of the Dolls and the World family.

Recent Acquisitions: Some Miscellleneous Goodies and My Very Confused Dollhouse

  As I mentioned the other day, today is World Doll Day . I hoped to find something amazing today while yard saling, and I did, but none of it was dolls. (Although there was some doll related stuff.) I have found some pretty neat things this Spring though. (It's not summer until the 21st of this month, but it sure feels like it here today!)
  Yesterday I got this beautiful embroidered hanky.

Don't have anybody whose name starts with P. Don't care.

   Today I got this cute tin.

Aww!!

 Last week I got this little Marie Osmond Paper Roses doll for a dollar or less.

 And today I got this awesome lobster trap in about 1/6 scale.

When I asked, "How much is the lobster trap?"  the lady selling it said, "Oh. Is that what it is? It has a giraffe in it. I didn't know what it was, so I put a giraffe in it." That makes sense...

  My dolls are all vegetarians, so we won't be trapping any lobsters, but it will look great in with all the 1/6 scale nautical stuff I've been gathering, like this store front.

Nothing comes between a man and his lobster trap. Nothing.

Don't mind him. His pants are in the wash. Got him recently too.The scale looks a bit off in the picture. The trap's not as big as it looks. Although he did need some help holding it up.

A couple of weeks ago I found this cute Cabbage Patch Norma Jean mini doll for a quarter at a yard sale.

She is just hanging out in one of my dollhouses, and having some tea with Chelsea, who has apparently just won the Olympics. The tea set came from a junk store the same weekend.

It was a dollar. When I got home I discovered it was made in occupied Japan.
  At the same yard sale where I got Norma Jean I got these three girls.

They're actually Christmas ornaments I guess, because they have loops sticking out of their heads to hang them by. They were 25 cents each too. And yes, this room is in the same dollhouse as the pictures with Norma Jean. I didn't put in the wall paper and carpet. I bought it with them already in. I only supplied the furnishings and the area rug. This room is usually occupied by a late 1800's lady.

Ken and Ivy commented that it was sort of weird and I said it was like that one room at Collinwood on "Dark Shadows": a whole different timeline was going on in that one room. She even has Quentin's gramophone.

 The kitchen is sort of 1920's/30's.

You might have seen it before when the room looked like this. But Dollhouse Lady got bored.

She decided to make cookies.

Looks like they might be oatmeal cookies.(Except what is the meat grinder for?)

I don't know what you'd call the other two rooms.

There's some heavy duty playing going on here. Girls, make sure you put all those toys away when you're done.

This room just has so much wrong with it. Raggedy Andy and Alice hanging out with a dollhouse lady who has a serious chocolate problem, (There's a box of Whitman chocolates next to her.), and an ex-mermaid who hasn't found anything to wear yet. (But she's waiting in the dollhouse until her wardrobe comes in.)

 'Mixed' I guess. The other three coexist a lot better than the room with the 18th century lady. That room is just sort of out of place.
  Today I found this awesome thing too.

When I asked the lady how much it was I expected some outrageous price, but she said $1! I said 'Having!'

It turns out to be worth a lot of money though, so I may not be 'keeping'! Ken doesn't get paid when he doesn't work and we'll be in England for a couple of weeks.
  Stay tuned for more recent acquisitions coming soon.