Thursday, December 30, 2010

Moon Dreamers on my Little White Shelf!

I took down the Fairy Winkles today and out up my collection of Moon Dreamers!









This collection is coming along nicely, although I am missing the hardest to find items: the necklaces, the records, the hair clips and Ursa Minor. Anyone paying attention to the market on eBay would know that these things don't come up very often. I have only seen Dream Central a handful of times.

Finds for December 29th, 2010

Did everyone have a good Christmas? Next week I will post pictures of my daughter's Ponyville Christmas setup. It was so fun pulling all that together and Ponyville's are SUPER cute!

There was a bad blizzard in Utah yesterday but I got off work early and since the thrift store is only about two miles away I took a trip there before heading home.

Here's what I found:







Check out the cute Get Along Gang party supplies! Also, I found a bunch of cute 80's mugs, lots of G3's, a couple of G1's (though I forgot to picture one pony that I gave a bath to, she had bonnets all over her. I need to look up her name later). A Caboodles case, a Wuzzle, a PJ Sparkles mermaid, a Shopko Care Bear, a Sweetie Pup, a Charmkins VHS, Care Bear sheets, a Glo Friend, a fairy tail bird, a BIG Strawberry Shortcake picture.

My favorite was this cute little mug! I think I'll use it at work.


About half of this stuff will end up on my trades page. I haven't updated it in a few weeks and I have about 100 G3s to add as well as a whole host of 80's toys.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Okay so I lied . . . Finds for December 22, 2010


I thought tonight would be booked with something else, but I turned out to have a free night. So I stopped by a thrift store after work and check out this great haul! I was so excited! The cost was around $25. 

Included in this find are:
A few vintage Strawberry Shortcake playsets
Several vintage Care Bears and a giant newer Funshine
LPS puzzle
Rub a Dub doggie
Poochie Puzzle
A few vintage My Little Ponies (will have to clean them up)
A MLP remote-control scooter
Some Russ trolls
A vintage Pound Puppy Christmas ceramic
Flatsy doll
A trapper keeper
Lots of G3 MLPs
Beach Bunnies
Rainbow Brite doll
Smurfette Doll
Peppermint Rose bunny
Thundercats action figure
Several newer SSC items
and more!

Tomorrow is my birthday so I will probably try and squeeze in a thrifting trip during my lunch break. A lot of this stuff will end up on my trades page, which I won't be updating until sometime in the second week of January so keep an eye out!





Sunday, December 19, 2010

Merry Christmas!!!

I was just looking at my schedule and Christmas week is SUPER BUSY! No time for vintage toys! I just wanted to say Merry Christmas to everyone out there and I hope you have a great holiday. I will be back with lots of fun thrift finds in one week!

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Toy Dying Tutorial ~ How to change the color of your plastic!

I got a couple of extra fairy winkles in the mail today and I thought that instead of reselling them or trading them I would dye them and do a little tutorial.

You can find Rit dye at any grocery store. Look for it in the laundry soap section. There are a variety of colors. For this purpose I chose brown because I wanted to make a few African-American Fairy Winkles.


Other supplies you will need:

* A junky pot
* A junky set of tongs
* Rubber gloves
* A paper plate
* Masking tape (if there is hair)


Fill the pot with warm water and stir in your dye. You can use liquid dye (slower acting, but better results) or powder (packs a punch but can often end in splotches). The amount depends on the shade you want. Start with a little and work your way up if you are unsure.


Turn the stove on medium heat and let is simmer for about five minutes. I don't know if letting it boil helps or hurts it. That merits further exploration.


Since this little guy has hair, I want to protect it by wrapping it in masking tape.


Time to dip!


Now turn the stove to low and stir! Stirring the figure guarantees even distribution.



 After the item reaches your desired shade, plop it on the plate. Be very careful at this stage. If you let the dye pool in any crevices it will splotch! Put it under cold water immediately!





Depending on the toy, you might have to let it dry for several hours. Since this guy was not hollow and he was small, it only took a few seconds.

Here's the little guy next to his twin. As you can see the wings got darker but they shimmer just the same!



Now, I went ahead and dyed the two other fairies the same. But they were so small I used a tong with holes.



 As you can see the small ones went way dark in the wings and hat, but that's okay! Of course you can protect painted parts with hot glue (just glue on the parts you want to preserve, then pull off after the dying process is finishes) but it would have been really hard to do that with such small pieces.

Look at the cute camouflaged fairies!



 This little guy was dyed "wine."


Not really sure if I like the way this guy turned out. Oh well, you win some you lose some.



Remember to dye only the soft kinds of plastic. No hard, polystyrene plastic. You can another dye job custom of mine here.

I am about to wrap up the Fairy Winkle posts soon. I am getting ready to fill my white shelf full of Moon Dreamers!

Monday, December 6, 2010

Fairy Winkles mysteries close to being solved!

Thanks to Zuse on the Ghost of the doll forums some of the Fairy Winkles mysteries have been solved!

The purple Hide 'n Play Jewellery Box turns out to be a recycled mold for the Littlest Pet Shop Teeny Weeny Families. They also used the purse and the address book, as seen here:




It's funny that I used to have these sets when I was younger and I hadn't picked up on that!

Zuse offered another insight as to why the address book has two different covers. Fairy Winkles were an international toy brand, sold overseas to places in Europe. That imprint is known as Folly Magic. It is possible the book with the fairy pictures rather than the word "Address" might have been marketed to non English speaking children. Here is a photo of a Folly Magic playset:


Thanks, Zuse for your insights! Now I don't feel like I have to go find that purple flower pot!

For Sale/Trade list updated

I just spent the day picturing all my odds and ends for sale or trade. Check them out here!

Nostalgia Week on Facebook

I'm not sure how many of you are on Facebook but this week a flurry of people have been changing their profile pictures to the 80's greats! Why? Apparently to prevent child abuse, but I can't see how that possibly prevents anything. But it's all in good fun! Here's mine:


Today is the last day of the nostalgia! Get on the bandwagon if you can!

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Fairy Winkles Mysteries

My Fairy Winkles collection is nearing completion. Always, when I near the end of a collection I keep digging a bit more to see what else I can find.

It turns out Fairy Winkles had color variants for many sets. Many people know that there were two colors for the Splashin' Secrets Perfume set (aqua and blue). But I am discovering recently that there were a few more than I first thought.

There seems to be three versions of the Hide 'n Play Jewellery Box:

The more common set (USA)

Purple set with different stickers

This shows the jewelry sticker is replaced by a bedroom theme

And a sandbox theme

Lastly, this all white top set (found in the UK)
And then there's the Special Friends Address Book:

Shows two different covers
And the Secret Playland Treat Box, shown in both green and pink:




I suppose this means I am on the hunt for the variant colors. I wonder if there might be more than I am seeing online. Fairy Winkles were fairly obscure.