Click here to skip Kim’s commentary if you’re here just to enter the giveaway.
I used to be an avid Barbie collector. I had all of the Happy Holiday Barbies (1998-2016), new in boxes, and had them displayed in an extra bedroom (the photo below is from 2006). I hung the shelves for my precious Barbie dolls high enough so that my kids couldn’t reach them!
Not only was this bedroom considered the guest room, but it was also the room that housed my daughters’ Barbie houses and all of their vehicles and accessories.
When I was a little girl, I longed for a Barbie doll house. I remembered circling all the things I wanted for Christmas in my grandma’s JCPenney catalog. I double-circled and put stars by the yellow and red A-frame Barbie dream house (this was in the 1970s) as I wanted that toy the most. I knew my parents couldn’t afford it, but my grandma and grandpa usually spent a little more.
I never received that Barbie doll house and was super disappointed. I eventually saved all of my birthday and babysitting money and was able to buy the Barbie Townhouse that had the elevator. I didn’t like the background of the house because it looked too “rich” (my Barbies lived poor lifestyles like me), so my mom wallpapered the cardboard with leftover wallpaper scraps for different patterns for the different rooms. I loved that house and played with my Barbies for hours and hours. I wish I still had that house, but my mom let my little sister play with it, and she eventually threw it away!
Anyway, when I had daughters, I vowed that they would have Barbie dollhouses! The house on the left I got on sale, but it broke during a move. The house on the right I commissioned my friend’s stepfather to make for the girls. I think I paid him $150 for it back in 1998. The room opens up for storage that the girls used as a garage for the Barbie Volkswagon Beetle. I had plans to wallpaper it as well as add curtains and carpet, but the girls never seemed as interested in Barbies as I did. The house is now in my basement and played with by my nieces and nephews. I still have the two fold-up houses and a couple of the vans as well. The wall art was a collage made of cut-out Barbie photographs from catalogs and magazines in a clearance frame.
I never let my girls play with “my” Barbie dolls. My Barbie collection actually consisted mostly of my mother’s old Barbies. Above is her Ken and Midge. Ken is wearing an outfit we got at a craft fair, and my grandmother made the wedding dress for my mother. I believe I got the Christmas Kelly dolls after Christmas on clearance. I used to collect the Hallmark Happy Holiday Barbie ornaments as well.
When I moved in 2015, there was a room in the basement with garden window sills that went all around the room. That was where I decided to display my Happy Holiday Barbies (my brother got me the new one every year for Christmas). But eventually, the window sill filled up and we stopped exchanging gifts for Christmas. A couple of years had passed before I realized I didn’t have the latest HH Barbies. It was then that I realized that my Barbies no longer sparked joy for me. Marie Kondo may have put that notion in my head!
So I decided to sell my complete Happy Holiday Barbie Collection NRFB (never removed from box) 1988-2016 which included 29 dolls (I had some brunettes and all of the blondes). This was before there were Facebook Barbie groups, so I listed them on eBay. They sold for only $500, and I was foolish and offered free shipping. FedEx shipping cost me over $150. And after eBay fees, I lost money considering I had paid a pretty penny for the first few dolls in the set. I wish I had hung on to them longer, but the past is now the past.
I sold most of my other MIB (mint in box) Barbies on garage sales (for way less than I paid for them) and gave many to my nieces for Christmases. Don’t worry, I still have all my vintage Barbies! But I recently found a few MIB Barbie dolls that I didn’t get rid of, so I decided I want to give them away to someone who will appreciate them more than me! If this first giveaway goes well, I may plan to do a monthly giveaway! And maybe someday I will buy myself that vintage Barbie house I wanted and/or fix up the wooden dollhouse in my basement.
This month, I am giving away MIB Angelic Inspirations Barbie (Special Edition 1999 Mattel #24984).
This beautiful doll is in a golden gown with billowy overskirt and roses at the waist. Her cascading hair with its ribbons and roses frames her sweet face. Comes with white dove.
Enter below for your chance to win this Angelic Inspirations Barbie. Plus come back daily to earn more entries. You can’t win if you don’t enter! We will update the post with the winner after the contest ends on July 31st, 2022. Good luck!
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Rules
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