The Other End of My Flickr Trade; "Wonderful things."

  A few posts back you might remember I talked about a trade I was doing with a friend from Flickr. (For those of you who haven't heard of Flickr,it's a photo sharing site.) I showed you what I was sending her HERE. Well, I received the box from my friend,who we will refer to by her Flickr name,Odd Mod,last week. In this post we're going to look at what she sent me.
  First of all, if you want to see Odd Mod's great pictures of her amazing 1/6 scale dollhouse,you can check out her Flickr account HERE.
  Now,to get to my package. I was so afraid that nothing I was going to send was going to be good enough for Odd Mod. She has the coolest,most realistic looking dollhouse,and she has great versions of everything you could want for a dollhouse. Well when my package arrived I felt really awful. The box was HUGE,and filled with,as Howard Carter said the first time he looked into King Tut's tomb and was asked what he saw, "Wonderful things.". Not only were the things wonderful,but so many of them were handmade,some by her,some by her and her husband, and some by artisans she bought from at her local 'miniature fair'. (I think what she refers to as a miniature fair would be a doll show over here,as they have things in 1/12 dollhouse scale, and 1/6 Barbie sized scale.) Tammy World was so excited she unpacked everything right there on her front porch and dove in.

 All of the smaller items arrived in these pretty little bags.

There were stacks of books,made by Odd Mod herself.

Tammy was so thrilled to receive her own copy of the book Odd Mod made from her Flickr photo story starring the residents of her dollhouse,'The Retirees'.

She was even more thrilled to find that it had been signed to her personally by The Retirees.

Odd Mod must be psychic. I really wanted one of these books!

Tammy and I were also really excited to receive pastries from Ullanpulla,the bakery Odd Mod made that features in some of her Flickr photos. (You can see it HERE.)

 

"Yeah! Two bags full!" Uh,Tammy, you will remember to share those,won't you?

The white cupboard was handmade by a man who makes 1/12 scale miniatures.The cupboard is actually 1/12,but looks really nice in a 1/6 setting too.

The little shoe boxes are by another miniature artist.

This glass bowl,filled with pears,was handmade and purchased at the miniature fair. The framed saying and the 'Be My Friend' nautical decorations were handmade by Odd Mod.

 The rocking chair was also hand made.
 

Odd Mod made the mini doll boxes.

She and her husband made this ladder shelf just for me.

The rugs were handmade and purchased at the miniature fair,as was this beautiful little sweater. 

 It has embroidered flowers and real little buttons.

The little straw goat is called a Gavle goat,and is a traditional Scandinavian Christmas decoration.

It's all so nice! I love tiny books,and I am obsessed with furniture. All these beautiful handmade things have inspired me to get busy making things. I have all kinds of ideas. I should be making things anyway.For one thing, I think I owe Odd Mod a lot more to make us even. I didn't realize she'd send so much. It was so nice of her, but I feel I short changed her. I had a few other things I was going to send, but they wouldn't fit in the box,and I am collecting other things to add to them. Ken and Emma are going to England next summer. (It was supposed to be this summer, while Ken's place of work got remodeled,but the remodel got moved to next summer.) I'm going to pack a bigger box for Odd Mod and send it along to England with them to be mailed. It will be cheaper to mail from there, so I can send more.

Maybe Tammy will have read all these books by then.

Flea Market VS Thrift Store Part 3: Tiffany Taylor

  Here we are, finally getting to the end of a day that happened weeks ago! It's taken a while. Apart from the fact that I have had other things I had to do, I have been dragging this summer. I am always really tired. At first I thought it was the heat, but I have been that way even when it's cooler. It's not quite as bad when it's cooler,but it's always like I haven't slept or sat down for about two days.
 To take up where we left off in the last post,we're going to look at the other doll  bought at the thrift store that day. She's this beautiful lady.

I think she needs her tooth space painted though.

She's Tiffany Taylor.

She was made by Ideal in 1974 and 1975.
 

She came in both Caucasian and African American versions,although both had the same head sculpt.

Tiffany is 19" tall. Like the smaller Tuesday Taylor,(which you can see HERE.),Tiffany Taylor had a hair gimmick: her hair colour could be changed by rotating her scalp. The Caucasian Tiffany had hair that changed from brunette to platinum blonde.The African American version has brunette and auburn hair.

Tiffany has rooted eyelashes.

She originally came in a sparkly gold bathing suit with a long chartreuse skirt cover up,and chartreuse mules.

 

This doll is wearing the right shoes, but she's wearing the dress that originally came on Country Fashion Crissy in 1981.

The other weird thing is her hair. It's in curlers!

I wouldn't think so much about that except she's not the first I've seen in the curlers and plastic.In fact, it's not even the only one I've seen with the hair curlers and the Country Fashions Crissy dress! After I got her I looked her up to see how rare she might be. One of the first things I found was one on Ebay who was nude, but wearing the curlers and plastic. After that I found one in the curlers and plastic, wearing her own shoes and the outfit from the Electraman doll. It was on this very informative site about Crissy dolls,which also has a lot of information about Tuesday and Tiffany Taylor: Crissy and Beth,The Ultimate Guide on Crisy Family Dolls  According to that site,the doll was sold at an Ideal employees store to liquidate the last of the Tiffany Taylor stock.You can see the Tiffany dressed as Electraman HERE.
  During further research I found another in curlers and plastic. She was wearing the wrong shoes, but she was also wearing the Country Fashions Crissy dress! This is a sale listing from 2011,so I don't feel bad about showing you the actual photo here. The blog it's from is no longer active and I'm sure you can't still buy the doll.

So it seems that the dolls sold in the employee stores were also dressed in the Country Fashions Crissy dress. The weird thing is,Country Fashions Crissy was sold in 1981 and 1982. As far as I can see, Tiffany was long finished by then.
  Whatever the case, this doll is absolutely beautiful,isn't she?

She's so original that it seems a shame to take her curlers out. But wouldn't she be gorgeous with her hair down,and a nice outfit on?

  Next time we'll see what I got in my trade with my Flickr friend.

Flea Market VS Thrift Store Part 2: Thrift Store and Yard Sales,Dollikin,and Some Cabbage Patch Stuff

  So many posts have been sneaking in ahead of this one. One thing comes up and then another. And seriously,it has been too hot to do much of anything here.Plus I helped my friend Lori clear some stuff out and she sent it home for me to sell for her. I wasn't expecting that.So I had that to work on too. Then I took a break when the weather cooled to make the mini Pippi you saw a couple of posts ago. Then it got too hot to breathe again. And somewhere in there I went to the Ear Nose,and Throat specialist. He thinks, and I agree with him, that I have LPR Reflux. It's not quite acid reflux,because normally it doesn't involve heart burn,although it can. Here's how it's described on one web page:
"LPR is caused by gaseous reflux. Little droplets that contain acid, bile, and most importantly, the stomach enzyme pepsin. They spread in your airways during inhaling and exhaling. That is why LPR is sometimes called airway reflux or respiratory reflux." Basically,you get pepsin in your airways,where it does it's normal job,digesting,only it's digesting your airways! You can read about LPR Reflus disease HERE.
  The symptoms I have had: persistent cough,trouble breathing,trouble swallowing, choking episodes,constant throat clearing,hoarse voice,post nasal drip,the feeling of a lump in your throat,all scream LPR reflux.
   I had to have a barium swallow test today to make sure my problem isn't something else. In the meantime the doctor has put me on medication,which is pretty much just heartburn medication. I wouldn't even worry about taking anything,because as far as the symptoms go,I can live with the effects. The problem is, when left untreated for a long period of time LPR can turn into cancer,because of the constant irritation of delicate mucus membranes that aren't made to handle that kind of abuse. It seems that the best thing I can do is lose weight to limit the pressure that causes the reflux. In the meantime I am not supposed to eat spicy foods, onions,tomatoes,or chocolate! That's most of my diet! I already don't eat animals. Leave me something!
 So, getting back to the story of the day Ivy and I went to the flea market:It took us a while to get to the town where the Toys R Us was,and some miles through the country. So as we passed we stopped at some yard sales. I didn't find much at those either. I did find this.

This little Cabbage Patch tricycle is really cute.
 

It has the long handle so the child can push the doll along on the tricycle. 

This vintage CP toy was sitting outside in the rain getting it's decals wet.

So I needed to rescue it. I also had to take the wet price sticker off the front decal before it dried on there  and ruined the decal.

  It was made in 1985. It's a doll version of the almost identical child's Big Wheel style  Cabbage Patch tricycle that was sold the same year. 

 

I probably won't keep it,  but it's fun to play with for a while.
 

It's being enjoyed by this girl I recently couldn't pass up at my favourite Goodwill.

She's just so cute!

I don't have many Cabbage Patch dolls,in fact she's only my second stuffed one. I have a couple of the large vinyl ones and a BUNCH of the mini versions of the regular ones.My other stuffed one is the standard yarn hair version, and you might have seen her HERE.

This girl is marked Play Along 2004.

She has the 'cornsilk hair',in platinum with pink bits.
 

  Once we had finally made it to Toys R Us there wasn't a lot to be found.I passed up a very pretty wrestling doll,which isn't my sort of thing, but she was pretty,and she was somewhat articulated. We went to another Toys R Us a day or two later and I caved. We'll see her and all my Toys R Us buys in a later post.
When we left Toys R Us we went in search of a place to eat. On the way we stopped a couple of other places. Finally we decided on either Taco Bell or Little Ceasar's cheesey bread,so we headed off to find one or the other. During the search we drove past a thrift store. It wasn't a national chain like Goodwill or Salvation Army. It was just a local charity shop. I decided to double back.(I hadn't found either food place anyway and I was running out of town.) Of course, Ivy threw a fit,because she hates thrift stores. I said it was somewhere we should stop because it was a new town and you never know what you're going to find in a thrift store. When I went in it  proved how right I was. They had an extra long counter which ran almost half the length of the store. Behind it the wall was lined with vintage dolls. Most of them were Miss Revlon types,but there were several Tiffany Taylor dolls,and right in the middle there was a Tessie Talk like my favourite of the three I have. (You can see my Tessies HERE.)Unfortunately Tessie was way over priced,so I left her there and went back to the toy section, not daring to ask the price of anything else.
  I found a cute Goodnight Starlight Mooshka doll. She was very clean and mint,but also unpriced. I was afraid they'd have put some ridiculous price on her, but I took her up front to see anyway. She turned out to be really cheap, so I dared to ask how much some of the other vintage dolls were, Typically, some of the other dolls were priced less than they were worth. There was also a display case on the wall near the entrance that was also full of vintage dolls.I ended up with two.
  One doll I bought was this girl.

She's a Dollikin by Uneeda. You may have seen the Dollikin I posted a while back HERE.

She's about 19" tall.

Dollikins this size were made from 1958 to 1962. There were several other sizes made well into the 70's though.
  

She's wearing her original outfit minus the blouse.

Dollikins are super articulated.

She is jointed at the neck,shoulders,elbows,wrists,waist,hips, knees,and ankles.

This girl was cheap,but then she does have a problem,which you might have seen above. She's missing her right hand.

It's not like Dollikin parts aren't around though,so she can be fixed.

Otherwise she's in nice condition except for a little looseness in her left hand.

She has earrings. She also has red flowers in her hair.Does anybody know if they are original?

We'll see the other doll I got that day tomorrow.