Blame These Toys for My Fashion Sense Today

Did you guys have Fashion Plates? Holy Smurf they were awesome, as I have mentioned on this blog before. I got them when I was six from my Aunt Darla, who, in fact, wore a fierce white hat to her wedding, but I digress. Fashion Plates were stencils of hairstyles, tops and bottoms/shoes and you could put together outfits! There was even a tennis outfit! I didn't appreciate that outfit then, but it influenced me, because I now walk around in a tennis outfit at least once a week, and on other days I find my self wanting to wear a big floppy sunhat or a plaid jumper with boots! Okay so maybe not the jumper, but I do love plaids around Christmas.

 Ohhhhh, hold me back. Hold me back. I can barely talk about the toy of ALL TOYS: The Golden Dream Barbie Fashion Face STYLING HEAD! There were other weird looking styling heads in the late 70s, early 80s with super long necks and alien heads, but this one was so awesome! I still have a thing for pink and gold. *exhales*. ANYWAY...This particular styling head had gold wire mixed in with the hair (They called it "Quick Curl" hair) and a little curling iron (held together by a rubber hand) and you could CURL THE HAIR!! I made so many bad ass hairstyles that I nearly went into a manic overload- it was just too glorious.

Did you guys have Fresh 'n Fancy!? I had one of their makeup kits- it wasn't this one above- it was one where you actually shot creamy goo into hollow, fat, pink pencils; waited for the goo to dry, and then sharpened those suckers. The lipsticks were NEON bright, deep pink, and a glowing red. The eye pencils were super bright creamy blue and of course lavender- what else?! I also had Fresh 'n Fancy hair extension kit where you could make streaks in the extensions and stick them in your nine year old hair. Uh, YES PLEASE!

Anyway, I have continued to have wayyyyyy too theatrical of make-up for everyday use, and I blame it on both this toy, and the Barbie Head- the makeup that came with it was meant for Phyllis Diller.

All right, off my chest.

Love you guys! Had to disable comments because I was getting depressed from so many people hating my guts- but for those of you who don't, thank you!!

80's Time Capsule Opened...

I have a little Hello Kitty chest of drawers about eight inches high by eight inches wide- and would you believe that I haven't touched the stuff in it since..well..1985? It just things from my girlhood desk and my room- the usual stash of erasers, pencils, stickers and gum wrappers. The thing above the music note eraser is a shrinky dink ring that is upside down.
I was into Garfield of course, and I remember liking those little hello kitty record stickers so much that I never used them! They were too special. And here they are! That little compact with a candy cane on it was peppermint lipgloss, but I used to talk into it like I was a spy.

Check out the green paint splattered earring! And that plastic cookie opens to a little tin of brown lipgloss that smelled just like cookies. It still smells good, actually.
These things were my hopscotch markers- except that teensy pencil- it would've rolled...
And this tiny Triple Yan Yan pack of pencils was my pride and joy. They hung on the end of an oversized pencil as a charm or something. I must've spent hours staring at that little case in school.

Girl's Toys of the 80's

Did you guys have Fashion Plates? Oh man...It was the best! You put these little raised templates underneath paper and rolled a black crayon sort of thing over them and it made an imprint of the outfit you created. The plates were divided up unto tops, bottoms and heads with hairstyles and hats. After you created a design you got to color in the outfit you created! I didn't use those hateful colored pencils it came with. I used my neon crayons, which were the very best. I was not into understated beiges and sands and creams- no sir-ee! I was straight up Versace and shit! I remember I liked the hoochie outfits best. Yikes!

Okay, I showed you all a picture of the box of the lovely BARBIE PERFUME MAKER, but here is a picture of the actual toy, which I would consider one of my very favorite toys I have ever owned. You put the little "scent sticks" in water, cranked the wheel and the scent/color infiltrated the water in the little cup. Then you could pour the scent into the bottle of your choice and even BOX the thing up! My favorite scent was Strawberry Fields.

The Snoopy Snow Cone Machine was awesome. I would sit there cranking the little cheese grater, trying to shave down a rock hard ice cube for 20 minutes. I would be dripping sweat afterwards. But I didn't give up- I still tried to sell my weak sno-cones to the mailman for 25 cents!
Here is the actual ad for Cabbage Patch Kids in the Sears Catalog, where my mother got all of our toys.
Remember how AWESOME sleeping bags were? They had such colorful ones back then. Sleeping on the floor with my friends was always so fun. My friend Erin had a Garfield one and mine was the Shirt Tales.

Was there anything more incredible than Strawberry Shortcake dolls back then? The white and red and pink- it was always looking like Valentine's day and I didn't even mind the red. Her strawberry scent was so yummy! And she had all these cute little friends with fat heads and freckles! I wanted Angel Cake (was that her name?) so desperately!

Did any of you have this house? I didn't even know this existed. The little girl in the ad is totally eyeballing her mother and trying to tell her with her eyes " I WANT THIS FOR CHRISTMAS."

I played with this one a LOT. My sister and our friend Erin would always play dentist. The playdoh molds had little cavity faces on them. You made a bunch of teeth, most of which were like, supposed to be rotted, and you put them in this old guys mouth. Then you went to work on extracting those bad boys! We would be so detailed in playing dentist, that I would draw up an invoice and bill your ass for my work.

THIS. IS. THE. GREATEST. TOY. EVER. (deep breath) You guys...I am serious...I think it was my uncle who bought me this and thank heavens he did- I got to make my own MAKE UP!!!!! I also had the hair extension one and dyed all of the hair pink. Did I already tell you about that? Anyway, it was a GREAT toy for those of us who loved make up. I love make up to this day thanks to Fresh n' Fancy.

Cabbage Patch Kid commercial

another

Strawberry Shortcake commercial:

Tinkerbell Play Cosmetics

TINKERBELL PLAY COSMETICS! Or, Tinkerbell play make-up! Whatever it was called! It was what all of us little girls wanted. There was the one and only Tinkerbell cologne, there was Tinkerbell Powder, lotion and bubble bath. Dude, I swear, if any one of my relatives ever got me these Tinkerbell products, I became so happy my head shot off into the sky. They are no longer with us, because there was some issue with Disney and the use of the name Tinkerbell, which I can understand. But damn I wish I could still find this stuff somewhere! Remember the peel off nail polish!?

The bottles above and below appear to be the ones I had from the late seventies, early eighties, but in searching for pictures, I can see some from other decades...

This one below appears to be from the sixties or early 70s...

These bottles appear to be from the late 80s or 90s, maybe when a different manufacturer took over...

Here is that "newer" version of Tinkerbell, again, from the late 80's early nineties (above). I am including it just for nostalgia's sake, in case someone is dying to see it.The ones below are from the late 70s early 80s- those are the ones I had!

This one looks like it's from the 60s, same as below

the back...

Then we have some below that appear to be from the 60's again, maybe one of you can tell me, I am not sure, but there was a plastic daisy on top!

Cute, huh?

I have never seen this version- Is this super old? Can anyone tell me what year these were made? They look very retro!

Here is another little pack of goodies!

 Some old school powder that was on eBay!

More 60s Tinkerbell that was on eBay-- it will be gone QUICK!

Late 70s, 80s-- MY FAVE!

These, again, are the ones I had from the late 70s, early 80s...

Here is a close up of one of the atomizers- I pumped the hell out of this thing! I think I even bit it, which is always what I was tempted to do with anything textured.

90's

Remember these?

These two are too modern- I should take them out...

Here is another that looks more modern-but that's okay, Tinkerbell is Tinkerbell!

Here is a little lipstick and two dress up dolls and reusable

sticker clothes!

Here is that awesome peel-off nail polish that your mom allowed you to wear! It was so thick!

I had a peppermint tub of this lip gloss and I opened it and talked into it as if I were a spy! I still have the thing...

Here is an ad, I think it's from the 90's though, toward the end...

R.I.P. Tinkerbell make up! We LOVED you! Gah. I have to find some more pictures of this stuff- I know there was some lipstick or something else. I will get back to you guys.

Update: Okay, here is the lipstick. It looks to be from the late 80s