My parents have kept all my crap from when I moved out – which I just know I’m going to inherit back to have to deal with one day.
So I was over there this arvo to help dad work out how to sort his photos (he has a mac and I’m NOT a mac user so I’m sitting there googling on my samsung phone how to use mac photos and then trying to describe indexing) – but I also wandered around and had a laugh at some of my old stuff.
My old bedroom is kind of a shrine to an 8-14 year old me, it’s a bit horrifying. So much pink. My niece also got to enjoy staying in the pink room of much pink. I was really into pink before I got a bit older and started to break away from the preconditioning they put on little girls.
Were you a child of the 70s and 80s? Did you consume plastic toys? Does any of this seem familiar to you?
I loved this stuff. I’m still fond of it in a way, I have good memories of playing with it.
There was no female child’s bedroom in the 80s that didn’t have a padded and be-laced ‘useful’ item like this tissue box. I think it was mandatory.
Lets see. Angel face barbie, Day to Night barbie, and a Sindy doll in a bought fairy dress.
You know how in a prior post I said I collected things. It all started when I was a kid and I had multiples of most of they types of toys!
I used to get a barbie for my birthday every year. Kissing Barbie is late 70s. Crystal barbie is 80s.
You used to only be able to get smurfs at BP petrol stations. My first was the secret smurf. I was stoked to get Smurfette. Ballerina Smurfette, too. oh yeah. I think the bottom left one used to be holding a hankie, and the one on the bottom right had a red flower stuck to his cheek
All I know was these things were totally in when I was little. everyone had at least one. Fluffy white dog things that came with bits of furniture.
Dallas, the baby horse, and some generic non barbie branded horses. I was a bit horse mad. The horse to the bottom left is a cripple horse. All his legs fell off at one point.
This is me in the mid 80s in my bedroom (pink of course) with my soft toy collection. Yes I still have most of these too. and I can tell you all their names.
My first of this type of doll which I had since the 70s. It came on a curved bamboo stick. Looking a bit sad now.
I hadn’t realised how 1920s these doll designs were, with the Marcelle waved hair and all!
Pierrot was everywhere in the 80s. I blame david bowie for his ashes-to-ashes clip. A sad clown took off as a concept toy that was marketed to little girls and we ate it up. Pretty well sums up the 80s doesn’t it.
Mum had a penpal who lived in Michigan (a really foreign place over in the US of A!) who would send us packages every xmas. Often really oddly religious things (like the holy cross book holders!) but sometimes she got it right. I got Peppermint Patty and brother got Linus.
Pink panther. Who is very grubby but i guess he had all my brother’s kids play with him as well and us.
Poochie was all the rage too. I found some ads on youtube and I was able to sing along the Poochie song. This is a stamp pad. I even have the stamps. Perhaps i’ll take it to work when I get my next job and give people good stamps if they are good. LOL. Beats the busy-bee stamp (which yes, I had at work and which a certain someone would stamp me with from behind if he could).
I was told I could have anything in the toy shop for my birthday. I was expected to get a bride doll. I hated those things, giant baby brides, I always disliked them (now I find them super creepy actually). I chose a Raggedy Anne lemonade seller. Yep, I chose a career girl over a bride, something i only just thought of now!
I recall Mum being annoyed that I’d picked something so cheap and small, but it’s what I wanted. I suspect she thought people would judge that she went all cheap on me. I loved this. It came with a little jug of lemonade that I’m unable to locate.
i think I got this one at the Royal Melbourne Show around 88 or 89.
We all called it a kewpie doll but it doesn’t match what that is on wikipedia for kewpie.
Sindy….the UK version of Barbie, I recall. Giant heads and held together with elastic that would snap and leave your dolls without limbs.
I had so, SO, Much Garfield stuff. I had all the comics and some of the soft toys too.
Collectable scented stuff, we used to love it. This stuff still smells too, which is pretty well done for 30 odd years.
Little girls in bonnet styled stuff was everywhere. I blame Holly Hobby (I have some stuff of that somewhere too). I seem to remember this one was on a bar of soap.
I will get out all my soft toys some time soon and photograph up the cool ones. I’ve got them all. Pound puppies, fraggles, garfields, snoopy, IcPota (yes the dude from the classifieds), you name it, I have a toy of it.
