News: The Doll Cafe Lives!

LOL, no, I wasn't dead but you'd think I was.  I'm shocked that my last post was April 28, 2012.  It seems like this time of year my doll collecting passion is re-awakened.  Well, maybe it's more of my my pre-Barbie Convention panic mode!

Convention this year will be held in New Orleans!  Wow, that's so exciting.  Being the homebody that I am, I have never traveled to that area of the country so I'm seeing the World with Barbie once again this year!!  I'm excited to report that my daughter Steff will be joining me for the second year in a row.  Her first Barbie Convention last year was a blast!  Here is an amazing picture of the beautiful dolls we both received as gifts from our generous table hostess last year Jen M.  Do you see some Steffies and Basics in there?  Boy aren't we lucky!!??!!

I hope that you have been following our Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Flickr, or Instagram posts.  Did you know we also have a Tumbler?  Just choose your favorite online platform and join us for the dolly fun.  Also, be sure to check out our Facebook Group and the Model Muse and Steffie pages online.


For future blogging I will be tagging posts with useful titles with labels and will try to post daily (ok, you've heard that before).  Most of our news will be posted on Facebook and Twitter so I will use this blog to feature pictures from our collection, doll news, and in a continuing attempt to count our dolls we will also be featuring a post on each doll in our collection so we can keep a handle on it all.

Thanks for all your support, comments and suggestions.  Keep reading for more dolly centered fun.

-The Doll Cafe

Happy Fourth of July!

May you be enjoying your Holiday weekend. Here are Style 'n Shave Ken and Dallas Cowboy Hispanic Cheerleader Barbie dressed in Dressmaker Details to wish you a safe and Happy Fourth of July! I have spent the last several days going through my dolls, de-boxing and taking tons of pictures. I've been uploading a lot of pictures to the gallery and have been posting updates at the Twitter page to let you know about the new pictures!

Still De-boxing Dolls!

Today I spent several hours de-boxing the last of my Fashion Fever tubed dolls. These were the dolls from Wave U and Wave V. There are still a few I'm going to keep in the tubes like the very first FF Barbie, the Tokyo Barbies and some of my foreign exclusives like the Girls Aloud set. I was missing the Barbie face molds and styles and workmanship of some of these dolls. I also decided I could part with some of my duplicates. These include Modern Trends Lea and Tia and a few more. I'll post an ebay link once I list these dolls.

I recently purchased one of those photo studios from ebay. It's a box with different color backgrounds and lights. Actually I'm still getting used to using it. I'm not sure that there is enough light for my dolls. I ended up still using the flash for my pictures. I'm not exactly sure I like the results. Here is a close-up of Teresa from Wave U that I took using the studio.

Opening A New Cafe Is Hard Work

Work continues for the Grand Opening of the Doll Cafe. To Think that less than two weeks ago I had no idea that I would be opening a new site or moving on from my previous web effort. On that note, I think things are progressing very smoothly. The forum is about 90% complete. The layout and color scheme is finally in place. Editing some of the posts and moving them around continues. There is just one modification that needs some edits. I guess I'm a bit of a perfectionist!

I started organizing, re-bodying, and redressing a lot of my dolls around the President's Day Holiday (February 18th). I finally de-boxed Blair from the 12 Dancing Princesses. Stephanie received one as a gift for her Birthday but she already had one so she gave her to me, and she sat in her box for ages. I re-bodied her with the body from the Queen of Hearts since the are both very fair. The little hearts painted on her fingernails are just adorable. Her outfit is from Randall Craig. Her elegant sister is Chinese New Year Barbie available in Asian markets. She is so beautiful but her shorter body really took away from her beauty. She received a new body courtesy of Top Model Summer. Miss Chinese New Year is wearing a Mattel carded fashion from 2005.