Happy Valentine's Day! Some Antique Cards,Betsy McCall, and a Yard Sale Tale

  Before I forget, welcome to our two newest followers,All About Boog and Susan from Susan's Mini Homes . (Her blog has lots of really cool dollhouses and associated stuff, so have a look.)Thanks for joining us guys!
  Happy Valentine's Day everybody! Ken gave me a big box of my favourite chocolates, Russell Stover, which I didn't need, and shouldn't have. But he did it out of love. He wanted to go out to eat today, and I would have obliged, since that's what he likes to do and I love him,but the weather was so bad I really didn't think it was worth the extra trip out on the extra snowy streets.
  In honour of the day I wanted to show you a couple of vintage cards I have.The first one is actually a proposal...

...at least that's what the inside says.

Who proposes by card?

The little cupid guy on the front has a little message under him that was hard to see until I enlarged the pictures.

"Ever thine". Aww.

There are some spots and yellowing on the card, but there is also beautiful detail and I love it.

 The other card is three dimensional.

Open...

Loving Greetings.

...and closed.

Looks very romantic, yes?

The back has a different message though.

"Papa and Mamma"

Papa and Mamma must have loved their little someone very much to give them this beautiful card.

Arg! It's sideways!

  Today I'm also showing you a doll. (Surprise!) She's all decked out for her big day. She's Betsy McCall.

I may have told the story of this Betsy before, but I can't find it in my old posts.She's NOT the Betsy I got at the flea market for a dollar...

But she looks a lot like her.

Just in case you haven't heard the story of how I got her, I'll repeat it. It's a pretty amazing...
                                                        

  We have a local couple who go to a lot of auctions, so they have at least one yard sale every year, sometimes two. One year Emma and I went to their sale and while shopping their garage we spotted loads of dolls. There was a big wire rack filled with dolls, doll clothes, cases. We  could see a Tammy and Barbie feet.  Tammy's original gym suit and Ken's Sleeper Set pajamas were on little hangers hanging on the wire shelf. Emma and I found the owners and asked about the dolls, which we couldn't actually reach because there was a lot of stuff in between us and the wire racks. Well, she might as well have used thumb screws on us because the torture was just as bad. The stuff, she said, wasn't for sale, because they hadn't gone through it yet. Made sense, but don't SHOW me the stuff!
  Anyway, new scene. It's the next year. Emma, Ken, our youngest, Ivy, and I go to a doll auction. We buy a few things, some of which I will let go so I can afford to keep what I really want. Emma and I stand, watching the Betsy McCalls go for hundreds of dollars. "Oh, she is so cute! I want a Betsy McCall!" Emma says. "Yes, me too, but look at those prices. We'll never get one of those." I say. Emma tells me that she drove past the place that had the not-for-sale dolls last year on her way home from work last night and it looked like they were getting ready to have a sale. We make a note to get up early and check it out in the morning.
  In the morning, for some forgotten reason, we don't get out quite as early as we should. When we do we head straight for the place. Their sale is indeed on. We walk into the driveway and there sit the metal racks. They look untouched. Even the Tammy gym suit and the Ken pajamas are still hanging on their little hangers on the shelf. We start taking things off the racks and making piles. A Fashion Queen Barbie for me. The wigs for Emma. A Bubble cut Barbie for me,a case of stuff for Emma. Blonde crew cut Kens for both of us. Platinum Tammy's for both of us.(**You can see my platinum Tammy HERE.**)
 A titian straight leg Skipper for me. A Toni doll for Emma.A Miss Revlon wanna-be for me, along with loads of gorgeous handmade clothes, Barbie accessories,including Barbie's dominoes,a few pieces of clothing,including the hat from Studio Tour, and the ever elusive Cap n' Crunch bosun whistle----for each of us. I took a paper bag off the shelf and looked in. Sleeping in the bag (On account of she was on her back so her eyes were closed.) was a sweet little brunette Betsy McCall. She's missing the lower half of one leg, but when we go through the stuff I find we have both her barrettes, her bridal dress, veil, and white shoes, along with the vest from Pony Pals. (We realize Emma bought the rest of Pony Pals in the box at one of their previous sales.) Emma and I made pretty much a clean sweep of the shelves between us. Our final combined cost? $65.
This is the wedding dress we got at the same sale.

Emma lost one of her barrettes.

 When we got it it had some rust stains on it. I got them out easily with Stain Devils. I really should do a commercial for them...

This lace thing was in the stuff too. But is it her veil?

It doesn't work completely well as one. For example, it looks really dumb when you do this...

But it can look ok worn off the face. 

I'm sure I saw this veil with this wedding gown online, but I can't find it now. The only veil I can find looks way different. (And you can see through it...) Does anybody know if this veil is a Betsy veil?
  Betsy is really pretty,

...and in pretty good condition, but as I mentioned, she does have one problem...

She does have both white shoes though!

Luckily it doesn't show in this long dress.
Her hair is nice and full, but could have been glued a little farther over to the left side. Her molded hair line shows there.

One of these days I want a red haired Betsy. I can't really complain about my two brunettes though, considering how cheaply I got them.

Frozen Frozen Everywhere and Not a Drop to ...Drink? I Make a Yard Sale Score

  Ok,I was pretty excited because last night I finally ordered my Frozen dolls, before The Disney Store sold out of all of them again. (It's taking longer this time, although some of the dolls still sold out before I had a chance to look. And thanks to Beastsbelle from the Never Grow Up blog for the early warning, or I would never have known at all!) But, I was a little worried about having spent so much money. Then look what I ran into today!

I got all this at one yard sale for $26! The Barbie house is just about the most realistic and cool Barbie house I have seen, although some of it is obviously from the same molds as the High School Musical high school. The front doors have school style door handles. (Should have shown you I guess.) The house, and a huge trash bag with furniture and accessories for the house, plus bags of of clothes,shoes,pets and supplies, and a bag of Polly Pockets and their clothes and cars, and some Polly sized Disney Princess dolls and their stuff,and all kinds of accessories was $20!

If Draculaura ever finishes, Liv Sophie is waiting for a turn in the tub.

The little pandas are finger puppets, and the elephant, and maybe the bear, are Only Hearts Girls.

Why does the computer do this sometimes?!

I'm not sure who those glasses actually go on, as they fit Liv, Monster High and Moxie Girlz, but I love them.

I got the dolls, (Three Liv dolls, a Moxie Girlz, a Monster High Draculaura, and Frozen Anna and Elsa.) for 50 cents a piece, except for the one Bratz and the one Bratz Kidz doll, which were in a bag of shoes/feet, clothes, accessories, and the two Moxie Girlz styling heads,for 50 cents! The really cute little high chair was a quarter.

I don't know who it's for or who it will definitely fit, but it was so cute and cheap.The bag of clothes contained the outfits for the Draculaura and Liv dolls, and some Moxie clothes. The bag of shoes ended up being 52 pairs and two odd shoes!

Barbie, Liv,High School Musical,Moxie Girlz,and Monster High.

 That's a lot of shoes! The house actually seems to have most of it's original stuff too. It's in pretty nice condition with one break in the plastic that doesn't affect it structurally, or even show very much. Everything was very clean and well taken care of. So,I can sell the house, (even though it would be nice to keep it, if I had space. It has lots of really neat, realistic features.), and help finance my Frozen purchases. They will take up less space than the house too! So that makes me feel a bit more relaxed about buying things for myself. I'm also happy to have the two Frozen dolls I got today.

I was glad to have them, even though Anna was missing her skirt. When I checked out the bag of stuff with the house I saw that there were bags of clothes and shoes in it, and asked TLWRTS,(The Lady Who Ran The Sale), if she would sell anything out of the bag. She immediately said no. I thought about it,(Ok, for a split second.), and decided it was such a good deal I might as well buy the bag and house for $20, even though I knew Ken would freak if I brought home another huge doll house. (Actually he was really good about it.), After I bought it and was on the way home I realized Anna's skirt was probably in the bag. And it was! They have their shoes/boots too, and their hair has never been taken down, so, good deal for $1.00 total!

I really wanted the articulated Disney Store ones, but I thought I was going to have to resort to these anyway. As it was, Elsa was sold out before I even checked the site out last night, so this will probably end up being my only Elsa doll. I was thinking I was going to have to wait until the Frozen dolls hit the yard sales, but I didn't think it would be this soon! To prove my theory about girls stopping playing with dolls early these days, the little girl who owned this stuff was 11!
  After this I came home for more money,because I had only taken $20 with me, and went to the church sale I started to go to in the first place. While I was there I started feeling REALLY lousy and decided to get home as SOON as possible. When I came home I ate something, because I thought that might have been part of my problem, and then just kind of sat and felt awful and finished the Dr. Livingston documentary I started A WEEK AGO. With driving everybody back and forth to work and having to pick Ken up at 2 or so in the morning and then get to bed, I haven't been getting enough rest. So, check out that Skipper Saturday post, cause I'm going to take a shower and get comatose for a while until I have to pick Ken up.

  Check out my other post today for Skipper Saturday.

Doll-A-Day 73: Tammy in Fur 'N' Formal and A Yard Sale Tale

  Today's doll is my only platinum Tammy.

Thanks go again to my friend Connie, who gave me the Tammy case.

She's wearing the Fur 'N' Formal fur stole and dress. I got the dress and the stole at two different places, and the doll at a third.You'll notice you don't see her feet. It's that dreaded 'no shoes' problem again.But I'm working on it. I just don't have any dress shoes.

This platinum blonde was part of a load of stuff I got at a yard sale...

Tammy's always look like they need some sleep. They have little bags under their eyes.

 Yes, it's a...

  We have a local couple who go to a lot of auctions, so they have at least one sale every year, sometimes two. One year Emma and I went to their sale and while shopping their garage we spotted loads of dolls. There was a big wire rack filled with dolls, doll clothes, cases. We  could see a Tammy and Barbie feet.  Tammy's original gym suit and Ken's Sleeper Set pajamas were on little hangers hanging on the wire shelf. Emma and I found the owners and asked about the dolls, which we couldn't actually reach because there was a lot of stuff in between us and the wire racks. Well, she might as well have used thumb screws on us because the torture was just as bad. The stuff, she said, wasn't for sale, because they hadn't gone through it yet. Made sense, but don't SHOW me the stuff!
  Anyway, new scene. It's the next year. Emma, Ken, our youngest, Ivy, and I go to a doll auction. We buy a few things, some of which I will let go so I can afford to keep what I really want. Emma and I stand, watching the Betsy McCalls go for hundreds of dollars. "Oh, she is so cute! I want a Betsy McCall!" Emma says. "Yes, me too, but look at those prices. We'll never get one of those." I say. Emma tells me that she drove past the place that had the not-for-sale dolls last year on her way home from work last night and it looked like they were getting ready to have a sale. We make a note to get up early and check it out in the morning.
  In the morning, for some forgotten reason, we don't get out quite as early as we should. When we do we head straight for the place. Their sale is indeed on. We walk into the driveway and there sit the metal racks. They look untouched. Even the Tammy gym suit and the Ken pajamas are still hanging on their little hangers on the shelf. We start taking things off the racks and making piles. A Fashion Queen Barbie for me. The wigs for Emma. A Bubble cut Barbie for me,a case of stuff for Emma. Blonde crew cut Kens for both of us. Platinum Tammy's for both of us.

Her hair is so curly!

A titian straight leg Skipper for me. A Toni doll for Emma.A Miss Revlon wanna-be for me, along with loads of gorgeous handmade clothes...

... Barbie accessories,including Barbie's dominoes,a few pieces of clothing,including the hat from Studio Tour, and the ever elusive Cap n' Crunch bosun whistle----for each of us. I took a paper bag off the shelf and looked in. Sleeping in the bag (On account of she was on her back so her eyes were closed.) was a sweet little brunette Betsy McCall. (You can see here in all her glory HERE.)She's missing the lower half of one leg, but when we go through the stuff I find we have both her barrettes, her bridal dress, veil, and white shoes, along with the vest from Pony Pals. (We realize Emma bought the rest of Pony Pals in the box at one of their previous sales.) Emma and I made pretty much a clean sweep of the shelves between us. Our final combined cost? $65.

  I had another platinum Tammy that I bought in a shoe box full of grungy dolls and stuff at an antique store on vacation once. I sold her to help finance the vacation.This Tammy is actually the nicer of the two anyway.

A closer look at the case graphics.

See you tomorrow for Skipper Saturday.