Pre-Blog Silliness

This was/is a Facebook album from 2017 - inspired by Elf On A Shelf naughtiness.  

DOLL NUDITY AHEAD

THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING

Planning a party?  

Got the munchies.

Learning their history.

Zip lining.

Cannibal haul.

Escape attempt, foiled by a screen. 

Easter thievery.

GIRL SCOUT COOKIES! 

Must. Go. Shopping.

Game time.

We're gonna need a bigger pot.

Stowaways.

Drive/Ride in movie.  Man, was my old sleigh ugly. 

Gentlemen, start your engines!

Major Accident on the Beach Highway.

Take me to a rave! 

Rappelling to the grocery list.

Strip Poker.

It's homework, we swear!

Spin the bottle.

Barbiemania?

Bisexual Water Sports.

Building Families

When I decided to do a Barbie blog and thus spare people on the rest of my social media, I knew I wanted to do stories.  Most of my favorite Barbie blogs do that, with great variety!  Some are silly, some downright adult in content, and I wanted to join in on the fun.  

  I've not figured out how to divide this blog into sections like most of them.  They generally have an area for story lines, for character lists, and the like.  I found the idea of building Barbieville all at once intimidating.  Stephen King once said "The story is the boss", so I decided to simply let Barbieville evolve as the stories demanded.  

 At first, the only family I had developed was the Pike family.  Main characters, if you will.  A few of the family members I decided on had official names and I tend to stick to those.   Pike could be the dad's first name, so I had to decide if he'd stay Christopher and answer to his last name.  My other options were O'Dair (the twins), McKessie (Taylor), Roberts (Stacie), and Flintstone (Fred).  

I decided to make them a blended family since there are clearly two races represented.  It's been my experience that mixed-race humans do not remain so clearly one or the other.  I toyed with the idea of ex-wife drama, but that's been done to death.  Candy, Pike, and Rose-Grace love the kids and will not put them through the wringer. 

So Barbieville began with one big happy family.

The Smiths happened to give us a peek into Rose-Grace's life between husbands.  Since John was a widower, I found a couple of brats who looked like him.  I used the Dad's surname, as I had with the Pikes.  Roxy is technically a Stacie, so both she and Kelly should be Roberts.  There's some history between him and Pocahontas Nedakh to be explored.  Will she be the new Mrs. Smith?

The Eatons are named for the eldest son.  The only one with a character surname was Four (Tobias Eaton).  Esmeralda never had one.  Both the younger boys are named for former Mattel dolls that never had one.  Marcus was named for Four's dad in Divergent - but he's a much better person.  They evolved to further the KBV storyline.

The Montez family was almost accidental.  Joe was mentioned in a bit of dialogue and I didn't want another widower.  Gabrielle and Courtney were already sisters, at least in my head.  I noticed Courtney has very dark auburn highlights.  Batgirl has auburn hair!  Maybe her maiden name was Barbara Gordon.  Jenny joined on a whim.  

Violet needed a last name.   Her daughter Raven should make an interesting contrast - I see her as very easy going.  So they are the Baxters.  Raven is very firm in my mind as an only child, but does Violet have a spouse?  (BTW, the doll is the main character of "That's So Raven".)  

These two had a very sisterly vibe in the Disney films and I knew I wanted to bring that to Barbieville. When my Kida Nedakh died of Head Transplant complications, I made them her daughters.  Pocahontas left college to take over her mother's storyline amusement park and take custody of younger sister Nakoma.  Their father has always been absent.

Claudia Kishi is my favorite character in the Babysitters Club books and I named the Babysitter Inc Asian for her.  Ben is raising his little sister.  Why?  That remains to be seen.

These are my characters, short Peeta Mallark, with surnames but no assigned kin.  Midna was originally Sunburst of the Fairytopia line, so I made that her last name.  Brent Spiner had no name when I got him, but reminded me of the actor. Ken's official last name is Carson,  Hikaru Sulu runs a greenhouse - botany was a hobby of Sulu's on the original Star Trek. 

 Tris Prior, Mariko Nakano, Alex Russo, and Skipper Roberts in back.  Charmaine (originally Sharpay) Evans and Wendy Darling flank Wilma Flintstone.  What will become of them?  What will become of the Barbieville citizens without surnames?  Only The Story - The Boss - knows for sure.

**Of course, the disclaimer.  My characters share only faces and names with those of the copyrighted characters.  Well, maybe some personality traits.**

August Haul

This blog is six months old already!  Time flies, right?  This will be the last of my monthly haul posts - I think y'all have seen enough to get the idea of the sort of things I use for my dolls.  I've got some lazybones DIY on the proverbial workbench, some sewing for dolls and mending for humans, and of course I'm always on the lookout for new Barbieville citizens.

 

The Pikes snuck out between stories and hit the Appalachian Trail.

I don't know if they hiked naked, though... doesn't seem prudent to me.  

Found them a new kitchen table.  It's smaller than the old one but the legs are intact and it came with chairs I can use in other scenes. The seat cushions are missing, but that's no big deal.  I'll lazybones DIY them. From the Sweet Roses line - notice the rose at the top of the leg?  So pretty.  (I may have used the chairs in a most recent photo story...)

The mirrored table top is reversible and has a working Lazy Susan.  I really love that mirrored side, so I just popped the Lazy Susan off and it's a big veggie tray for parties now.  I think it was a veggie tray, but the stickers were pretty faded...  either way, it's a veggie tray now!  

The disco ball was missing from the Monster High when I got it.  This one's not a Skullette, but it will work nicely.  The yard sale I got this at had several real human sized disco balls!  I didn't get one - ceiling's too low in my apartment.  

Rusty got some new britches.  You're jealous.  Who doesn't want black pants with shiny stripes? As usual, I did have to take the waist in. Skinny thing, my plastic daughter.

Boys and Dolls

I'm not a fan of gender roles, to put it mildly.  Neither do I believe a doll has the power to alter a child's perception of themselves or their future sexuality.  I've had many male minions who played with my Barbies and, to the best of my knowledge, none of them is gay and none of the females developed eating disorders.  Something I have noticed is the boys play with them differently than the girls do. Whether that's society or brain wiring, I don't know.

Two of the guests at my Halloween party last year crashed the doll's Halloween party. Kitty Cat played with them "correctly" but Pikachu...  He started off here with the stroller.  It was the first thing he spotted with wheels! After a while, he discovered the ATVs and thought he'd gone to heaven.   Male minions in the past had them eaten by dinosaurs, fighting alien invaders, and even exploring wild terrain.  Female minions tend toward PG soap operas.  Unisex groups tend to mix the two - a family fights off the alien invaders together, maybe.  

This is what my dolls look like after a visit from minions of either sex.  I don't mind picking up after them. In fact, I prefer to do it myself.  So I can find stuff later.

The minion who currently spends the most time here is a 13 year old boy.  He had a couple of friends with him today.  Older boys are funny -  they act like the dolls are going to somehow contaminate them at first but after I rub a doll on them (I'm very mature, ya know) they loosen up.  

 

This is what they do after they get over the fear of contamination. I won't show you the bedrooms.  Because I want this blog to remain PG13.  They did get yelled at for the ransacking of the kitchen but I've learned over my 40 years of Aunting that the plastic orgies simply aren't worth the fuss.  If it wasn't orgies, it'd be mass murder.  As it is, Candy has her head in the oven and Wilma has been hung with the shower!  

Rusty is glad she was spared.  This time.

Story 10: Something's Hit The Fan

Candy has used her credentials as a photojournalist to convince Violet to show her the back room at American Splendor Print Shop.

Violet: Exactly what sort of story are you doing?  Local businessperson profile?

Candy: Actually, I'm investigating your verbal abuse of young teens.  

Violet: I firmly refused to give them private information on a client.  No more and no less. One of them is the sister of an employee and --

Candy: And you threatened to fire him if he didn't...  (checks her notes) "control" her.  Is that right?

Violet: It's time for you to leave.  And I'll be speaking to your employer, if you are even a journalist.

Candy (who is freelance):  Thank you for your time, Ms Baxter.   

Rose-Grace: You didn't! 

Candy: I did.  Here's the weird thing, though.  She didn't recognize me as Pike's ex.  If KBV is so on top of things, why didn't she know who I am?  

Rose-Grace:  That is strange.  It's not like there are many photojournalists with green hair walking around town.

Candy:  She got really defensive when asked about her threat to fire Ben.  The girls may have exaggerated how nasty she was to them, but that part I'm willing to bet is spot on. 

Rose-Grace: We didn't hear that part from a "bunch of teeny-boppers".  She had to have known the store wasn't empty.  Ben was waiting on him while she talked to the girls.  But seriously, Candy, you could blow my chances at reelection.  

Candy: KBV's already claiming you used your daughters.  People are less likely to believe you manipulated your husband's ex, a grown woman.  Besides, I don't know why you'd want to be mayor of a town that believes KBV. 

Rose-Grace:  You don't know why I'd want to be mayor of anywhere.  Just like I don't know why you do what you do.  Woman, you were getting shot at last week!  

Candy: No, other people were.  I was just in the vicinity. (shrugs)  Anyway, you can disavow my actions or something mayoral. That should appease the masses.

Claudia: (crying) We got Ben fired.  He's got to find another job fast because if we end up on Welfare, they'll take me away from him.  I'll have to go live with my psycho aunt.

Taylor: I bet Dad will give him a job at the store.

Nikki: It isn't our fault that hag fired Ben.  

Gabriella: Yeah, she likes to mess up other people's lives.  She fired Dad for no reason when Mom was pregnant with Courtney.  Not that it was such a great job in the first place, but the county doesn't pay for maternity leave. 

Courtney: She fired Zenobia, too, for dying her hair blue. Anyway, Nikki's right.  It wasn't our fault.  And I bet Ben gets a job soon.

Claudia: I hope he does.  

  

Violet:  What are you doing in here?  This is an employee only area!

Esmeralda: I was looking for the restroom.

Violet: We don't have a public restroom.  

Esmeralda: But I'm about to burst!

Violet: I don't care.  Get out of my back room.

At the diner

Pocahontas: Wow, I can't believe how many people bring in flyers for that discount.  It might actually hurt my profits.

Midna: I know, right?  I'm going to have fireplace tinder for the rest of my life!

Pocahontas: It must be nice to see those lies go up in smoke.  (changes subject) And speaking of lies, John tried to get me to go get coffee with him after the meeting.  Can you imagine?

Midna: He has grown up a lot since high school.  

Pocahontas: I really believed he was only dating her because of his folks.  Then she got pregnant.  You can't tell me he did that to appease the parents.  

Midna: It was a long time ago.  I think you should give him another chance.

Pocahontas: I don't have time to date, even if I wanted to.  I'm running an amusement park and keeping Nakoma from repeating my mistakes.

Midna: Did you really just accuse Finnick Pike of playing your sister?

Just before closing time at the museum, Esmeralda Eaton walks past Brent Spiner and slips him a note.  Neither of them speak.  No eye contact is made.  

Backdrops

The only backdrops I've had thus far in Barbieville are the scenic place mats.  They are fine if I manage to  hide the quotes behind dolls or props.  (You can see them, badly camouflaged, behind Finnick's head in the scene where Nakoma smooches him.)  So far I've managed to create passable indoor scenes, usually on my kitchen counters.  

I'm too lazy to do a full-on My Froggy Stuff, and my storage space is limited, so I've been keeping my eyes out for things I can use - only so many scenes can be set in their house and the school!  My local Wal-Mart had back drops for their line of 18 inch dolls (My Life?) and I kept eyeballing them.  They eventually went on clearance and I nabbed the one that would take the least work to convert for Barbie scale. 

 

 One side was the dressing room above, a scene I do not need or want but saw possibilities in.  (This is the insert from the package - I didn't think to get a photo before redecorating.) 

I used the lower pane of the arched window as a guide and wallpapered it.  I went with pink since it matched best the preexisting bright magenta.  A few bits peeked over the top, so I used mini post cards as framed pictures to hide them.  The top of the floor mirror was harder to figure out.  I used contact paper to extend the window panes that were "behind" it.  Now there's some weird pink thing outside the window!  The wallpaper has bubbles in it.  Now I know why Froggy uses glue sticks.  This will be the diner, which never claimed five star status.

The other side is meant to be a classroom, but I think it can work as Rose-Grace's office.  Since it's meant to be the background, the desk is actually to scale when I stand Rose-Grace beside it!  I haven't decided yet if I want to leave the white board as it or turn it into a window.  Windows I can do, as you will see in a bit.

This was the insert in the Camping Fun SUV.  It's not very real looking, but it makes for a great mural in the waiting room of the Medical Center!  The marble was added to hide the uneven bottom.

The back of the camping scene was blank, so I made Pike an ugly little office with a fantastic view.  The floral wallpaper is the back side of printer paper.  The bulletin board is another bit of printer paper cut to size.  The things posted are bits I had in the crafting supplies, from various sources. The window is skinny colored tape and a calender page.  Wall art is more of those mini postcards.   

The difference in size is obvious when they're folded to put away with the other backdrops.  The SUV insert is barely taller than the dolls!  There will be lots of sitting in those scenes.  Stay tuned to see what adventures go down in these settings...