Black Barbie 1980 Reissue~ Barbie Saturday

Barbie Saturday on a Sunday! Honestly, I don't know what happened to yesterday. Saturday flew by so fast and I'm absolutely positive that had nothing to do with the time I spent playing Candy Crush on Facebook!

Today, I'm showing off  a reissue Barbie doll. She's Black Barbie from 1980.

She's wearing a belted red, sparkly dress with a gold collar. Red heels and red earrings complete her outfit. Isn't her hair amazing? I love the style!

I found her on clearance at Target for only $11. I couldn't pass up a deal like that.

Barbie comes with an additional outfit: a white suit with matching heels, a gold collar, belt and purse. Two things come to mind everytime I look at this white outfit: John Travolta, wearing his white suit, in Saturday Night Fever and the song Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees.

The doll also comes with a reissue of Barbie's World of Fashion from 1979 (bottom right).

Thanks so much for your visit today!

~Michelle

The Marseille Caper

A few days ago, I finished reading "The Marseille Caper" by Peter Mayle. The book is set in the south of France and stars Sam Levitt in his second Mayle outing. The first Sam Levitt outing is "The Vintage Caper", about a Bordeaux wine heist.

Sam and his girlfriend Elena travel to France at the request of Reboul, a "friend" of Sam's. There is a seaside area that the town of Marseille wants to develop. They're down to choosing among three development projects. Two projects are high rise apartments geared more toward the wealthy and tourists. One is represented by Lord Wapping, a British fellow and the other is represented by a Parisienne, Gabrielle.

Reboul's project is the third one, a low-key apartment complex, which would blend in better with the environment. Sam's hired by Reboul to present his land development deal to the town's committee, headed by Patrimonio, an enemy of Reboul's over a woman. Mayle tosses in lots of Marseille facts and delights in the restaurants' menus. Of course, there's a bad guy or two, mixed up in all of this, who causes mayhem (or attempts to anyway) for Sam and his project.

At first, I found Peter Mayle's writing style to be choppy, which made it difficult for me to stay interested in the plot. It took a few chapters for me to want to continue reading. The plot's light and definitely on the frothy side, while the characters need to have additional depth. In other words, more flesh on the characters and less whipped cream in the plot, please!

Once I overcame Mayle's style, the story moved pretty fast, though at times it read more like a travelogue than a novel. This book is definitely an easy read.

Thanks for your visit today!
~Michelle

Linking up to Literary Friday, hosted by Ricki Jill

Royal Chelsea Tea Cup and Saucer

This week, I'm showing off one of my favorite tea cup and saucer sets.

 

 

 I love people scenes! The cup and saucer feature a trio of folk, in a black and white design.

 

 

 Two ladies are being assisted by a gentleman in trying on buckets as hats. Nearby, a cow and dog show no interest in what these silly humans are doing.

The gold trim is in excellent condition. There are two bands of gold around the foot of the cup. Each side of the handle is trimmed out in gold as well.

Both the cup and saucer are marked Royal Chelsea/Made in England/Fine Bone China on the bottom.

 

Thanks for your visit today!

I'm linking up to:
Sandi at Rose Chintz Cottage for Tea Time Tuesday
Martha at Martha's Favorites for Tea Cup Tuesday
Bernideen at Bernideen's Tea Time Blog for Tea in the Garden

Highway 127 Finds

This past weekend, I went out to hunt for treasures on the World's Longest Yard Sale. This year the sale ran from Michigan all the way down to Alabama.

First up, is this little piano, music box. I scooped this up for only $3!

This is made in Japan. As you can see from the photos, it's covered in gold trim. Some of the gold is fading, but that doesn't distract from the beauty of this box.

On top of the piano, lovers are resting in a pastoral setting. Inside, the music box is lined in yellow with space to store a trinket or two or even a little love note.

 

Then I was lucky enough to find two planters. The first one is this little donkey wearing a blue hat.

 

I really couldn't believe my luck when I found this elephant planter. I love elephants. Wherever I travel, I try to pick up one as a souvenir keepsake, so I have quite a large collection of elephants.

Here is my little cow creamer. She's stamped Japan on the bottom. I think she's adorable. I've been wanting one of these for awhile, but each time I've found one, something's been wrong with it such as a chip or crack. I was really excited to find one in perfect condition.

 

I love to take pictures of the 127 sale. This year, I accidentally left my camera at home, but here are a couple of pictures from last year's sale.

 

Below is my favorite kind of vendor. You never know what treasures await when the tables are loaded down with so much stuff.

 

The vendor below didn't sell this three-wheeled bike last year. I know because he had it out again this year. I know I've been to this sale too many times, when I start to recognize the sellers.

Thanks so much for your visit today!
~Michelle


I'm linking up to Colorado Lady for Vintage Thingie Thursday.

 

Tea with Carnations and Jane

Considering it's August, we enjoyed a nice break from the heat this past weekend. I'm so happy we did, because I was out looking for stuff I absolutely didn't need on the Highway 127 sale (aka the World's Longest Yard Sale).

One of my finds, from this past weekend, is this Lusterware tea cup and saucer set for $2.00. I really like the mixed floral design and the pink coloring.

It's simply marked 1201 on the bottom with no maker's name or mark.

Here's the saucer. Both the cup and the saucer are very shiney-looking, especially out in the sunshine.

One of my favorite things to do is to use a glass jar for flowers, especially in the summertime. The carnations seem to match the floral color on the tea cup.

I'm currently rereading this delighful book called "My Dear Cassandra" by Jane Austen. These are letters written by Jane to her sister, Cassandra and to a few others. I picked this book up on a trip I took to England way back in 2000. Below is a peek inside the book.

A few weeks ago, I participated in the Mad Tea Party blog event hosted by A Fanciful Twist. Then, last week, Dena at The Enchanting World of Milady Leela, notified me that I was the lucky winner of her giveaway, which turned out to be this sweet, little book called "Tea Party".

All the pages are pink, which is so crazy as I've been craving pink for the last couple of weeks. The book is full of tips on how to have a tea party. I really like this idea of creating small sachets of tea bags for guests to take home with them.

I'm linking up to:

Martha at Martha's Favorites for Tea Cup Tuesday
Bernideen at Bernideen's Tea Time Blog for Tea in the Garden

Yard Sale Finds ~ Barbie Saturday

I love yard sales. You never know what kind of treasure you'll find. Recently, at one of these sales, I discovered tons of Barbies and lots of furniture. Most of the dolls were newer (1990 to 2010). I arrived there in the afternoon, so I'm not sure if older dolls were part of the sale or not.

First, I picked up this Integrity doll. She's the same size as Barbie. I bought her for her dress, which is original to the doll. The doll stand is making the dress bubble a little in front, but the dress hangs straight down with no wrinkles or bubbles.

Then I bought, Xenia, the Warrior Princess. She's missing her round thingey that she likes to throw at the bad guys. I snapped her up just for the fun of it.

The third doll is a regular Teresa doll. I bought her because she's wearing Mexican Barbie's outfit from Barbie's Dolls of the World collection, which I believe, came out in the late 90s. Mattel is currently reissuing, with different outfits, the Dolls of the World.

There were about 4 rubbermaind containers full of Barbie sized furniture. I plopped right down on the ground and went through all the boxes. I bought: two Suzy Goose French Hutches, a Sindy dining room table with 3 Sindy chairs, a Barbie dining room table, Sindy candles and two Barbie fireplaces. The sun was shining through the window when I snapped these pictures, so the Sindy chairs below look as if the seats are different colors, but they are the same.

This fireplace is really hard to find, so I was happy to find two at one time. I found one on Ebay a few years ago. It was being sold with lots of other Barbie pieces that I didn't need, but I bought it all anyway, just to have this fireplace--- yeah, I'm definitely obsessed!

Here's one of the Suzy Goose French Hutches. The bottom drawer opens for extra storage and we all know, Barbie needs all the storage space she can get!

 

I also purchased a 1970s Barbie house, which I'll share in the next week or two, as it needs a desperate cleaning job.


Thanks for your visit today!
Michelle

Vintage Prints

I found these lovely prints sometime ago at a flea market. They've been stored away in the basement and I just recently rediscovered them.

I've dropped this one a few times and the print is now crooked inside the frame. I'll have to figure out a way to remove the back, to straighten the picture, so that I don't damage the backing.

I like to think this fellow below is asking his love to dance. He even has a little bird on his shoulder. Next to her, someone is playing a flute or similar musical instrument.

This scene reminds me of Marie-Antoinette during her "cottage years" at Versailles.

I think these scenes are prints from larger paintings. They're quite fun and offer a glimpse into another world.

The framed art pieces measure roughly 6.25"H x 5"W. The frames are made from a molded resin and created to look like wooden frames. The back is also resin (or maybe plastic).

Thanks for dropping in today!

I'm linking up to Coloradolady for Vintage Thingie Thursday.