I never get tired of telling this story. It was the 20th of March 1986. I was a small girl in a communist Romania. A Barbie doll was only a dream for most girls. It was also my mother’s dream. Ever since she was a little girl she would sit for hours admiring the Barbie ads that ran in the vintage Pif & Hercule French magazines. They were some of the only foreign magazines you could get your hands on back in those days. She never managed to get a doll for herself so getting a Barbie doll for me was one of the most important things she wanted to do.
With some help from a friend that had just the right connections, she acquired the lovely Sun Gold Malibu Barbie and patiently waited for my birthday to give her to me. I can still remember waking up and looking at the door when this gorgeous blond doll walked in. It was love at first site and I was hooked ever since.
Now I have a huge collection but that doll is still THE Barbie doll for me. She has become a symbol of both my childhood and our freedom from the communist regime. I will forever cherish her and love her.
A few days ago the annual DollObservers.com Fashion Doll Awards (<<--CLICK to enter and vote) has opened it's site for public vote and yes, I am nominated again for the Best Fashion Doll Blog award alongside other amazing bloggers and friends.
I am not going to ask you to vote for me, but I will ask you to vote for your favorites in each category. Vote and support your favorite doll, retailer or OOAK designer. And don’t forget to support all year round all the amazing people that make our doll community amazing. Buy from your favorite dealer and help them maintain their business. Buy from your favorite OOAK or doll designer and help them with their dream. Support your local doll club and even donate dolls and toys to the children and the people that aren’t as lucky as us to afford all these beautiful dolls.
And don’t forget to sign up for TheDollObservers community. A fun and friendly place for all us lovely dolls. <3
As many of you must know already, my main job is graphic design, but I also work as a social media specialist. I have been working in the online industry for 10 years now and I have run several successful blogs and social media pages. My latest collaboration has been with Doll Genie and I will continue to work with the owner of Doll Genie on a special and new project aimed at collectors of all kind.
Right now I have an opening in my schedule for a new client and I would love to start collaborating with another toy/doll company/dealer. I can offer both graphic design services and social media content for multiple platforms. For more details please email me.
If you want to help, I would very much appreciate any share of this article.
Thank you in advance!
I have debated A LOT about writing this post. It has taken a lot of time to do so, but yesterday I decided to vent on one of my favorite doll groups and everyone has urged me to make this public. I will keep the names of the people involved secret because this is my last act of kindness to them.
In 2015 I was contacted by a doll dealer who had (has) an eBay store because they wanted to advertise on my blog. They offered a doll that was sold out as payment and I said yes ’cause I really wanted her and the price on the secondary market was kind of high.
Everything went ok, I gave them a banner on my blog, wrote about them, promoted them. We talked on the phone, all was perfect and then they told me they wanted to create a website for their business. I offered to help and they would pay me in dolls once again.
We decided to buy a premium template that I would customize which I did. The website turned out great! It was a presentation website + blog + online shop. I even uploaded what they had for sale on their eBay shop.
After this I messaged them. No answer. I messaged them again. Nothing. Almost a year passed when they finally decided to write back saying that life happened and I would get my payment because the site was beautiful. I was overjoyed even if I would have to make updates to the site because a lot of security updates became available.
Anyway, they said they would send the doll (yes, I was stupid enough to agree on just one doll) and asked me if I wanted to work some more for them and they would continue to pay with dolls. I declined as I don’t do this kind of “pay with dolls” work anymore and waited for the doll for the website.
And waited… And waited… AND WAITED!!! After more months passed I got an email from them saying things were slow with the doll shop and shipping to Romania was $50 and they want to wait before they could send it but no worries I would get my doll.
It’s now January 2017 and no doll yet!!!!! They haven’t used the website but how pathetic and disrespectful can they be?!!! I don’t want any dolls anymore but I feel nausea every time I think of people like this.
I know they are reading this so I’ll just say this:
SHAME on you! I wonder if you would have done the same thing to someone from the US. I guess not ’cause they would have taken you to court. But it was ok to do this to someone from an Eastern European country, right?
I have taken down the template I made. I don’t want an answer from you, I don’t ever want to hear anything from you ever again. Don’t contact me and say thank you that I am not releasing your name to the public. As someone said, the shameless have no shame so I doubt this article will mean anything to you, but it’s my way of closing this deal.
Today I discovered I got deleted from another doll group for simply not posting enough. A while back I got deleted AND banned because I have asked the owner of the group to credit the images and copy-paste info he got from my blog. Silly.
Because I’m tired of this doll drama, I have reactivated and changed my buy and sell group. I have decided to make it a fun group where you can sell, buy, trade but also talk about dolls, showcase your OOAK creations and anything else doll related.
I’m also looking for moderators so please let me know if you want to help me.
Come and join the fun by clicking the banner below.
Yes, i know I’m late to the party, but… Well, I have no excuse. I hope you’ll excuse me for this and enjoy the article.
After the Fashion Show ended we went straight to the cocktail party and sipped some champagne and enjoyed some fresh sea food apetizers. Really yummy! We mingled and waited for the Gala Dinner as everybody was getting more and more anctious to see the convention doll.
Soon after we were welcomed in the ballroom that looked so chic and festive. This year they completley change the set up and in the middle of the room there was a catwalk so that everybody could see Mario and Gianni when they did their presentations. Such a good idea!
My table host was, as always, my lovely Monica and lots of gifts were waiting for us. She made us some very cute dolls in mod fashions. I got the Asian one. There also was a beautiful centerpice made by Magia 2000 themselves.
The Gala Dinner wa sa lot of fun. We had Liza Minelli and Marylin Monroe visit us and we also the ladies from Dynamo Camp on stage as they received a check for 20,000 euros from the ebay charity. I have to admit the small clip that presented their camp and their work really touched me and that’s why I wasn’t prepared for the moment when Mario announced that Rogier and I won the Special IDC award for our blogs. OMG! I was floored. I really was. I know there’s a lot of controversy around me and there are people that, let’s just say, don’t like me, so I honestly was not expecting this.
Me smiling like an idiot.
Lorena Neri from Cats’n’Dolls Creations also got an award for her work. Congrats!!! You deserved it.
The last, but not the least, award of the night was for the Fashion Show. My darling Monica won the famale one for her great Curvy Fashionistas impersonation.
And then… The convention doll was presented. Sorry for the crappy video, but that’s all I could film. I do need to get a decent camera next convention so I can properly film and take pictures.
The night ended with a SUPER fun dance party. We could have danced the entire night but the rooms had to prepared for the Sales Room the next morning so at around 2 o’clock we went to bed.
The next morning I woke up early, packed my bags and went straight down to the Sales Room. I did a live video on Facebook about it so check it out below.
As always there were a lot of great deals and lots of OOAK artists. Below is a HUGE gallery of images that I hope you’ll enjoy. After I took the images I went straight to the airport as it was time to go back home. Can’t wait for the 2017 IDC especially because the theme is so much fun: IDC Goes Wedding. I’m so bringing my wedding dress with me. Hahaha!
At first I wanted to write a LOOOOOOOONG post about the entire event but then I changed my mind as I don’t want to write an entire novel on my blog.
This was my 4th IDC (I skiped the 2014 edition as I was heavily pregnant) and it was by far the best one to date! Mario and Gianni are getting better and better at this and each year they do such a great job at creating the perfect enviroment for collectors.
Held at the same Melia Hotel, this year the convention’s theme was IDC goes to America. I left for Milano on Friday the 6th and arrived at the hotel with a two hour delay because my flight was late. The joy… “Thank you”, Blue Air!! But that didn’t stop me from runing to my room, freshen up a bit and then go down to the hotel bar to have an Aperol spritz with my dear Simon from DollObservers.com, his husband Carl, Francesco from Fred-Dolls.com and his partner Edgar.
Right after this we went across the hotel at the Ristorante Ranch Roberta and were joined by other collectors: Marcelo Jacob, Felix Kim, Hafizh Atfin, Muhammed Bagci, Doug Martinez, Maria Margarida Salvado and her husband and Rosam Gasco. Such a nice restaurant and the food is really good! If you are a fan of seafood I highly recommed it.
That was it for the first day as I quickly went to bed so I could wake up on Saturday early in the morning. Little did I know that my wish would come true in the most unexpected way. At 6 in the morning our AC decided to break down and start squicking like a dog in heat. Lawd!! The joy! Monica and I woke up and couldn’t sleep any more so we decided to go down and have breakfast.
During breakfast I met with Alex Jauregui and he showed me some amazing dolls from Mexican artists. Check out two of them on my Facebook page HERE and HERE. Here’s a beautiful creation by Unique Lady Trend Dolls. She was available for sale in Sales Room.
After breakfast it was time for the registration. As always we got a HUGE and heavy bag of goodies. I love the Biopoint cosmetics. It’s the second year we get stuff from this company and I’m beyond excited for this. I already washed my hair with the shampoo we got and it’s amazig. Highly recomend it if you have a chance to buy it.
Shortly after the registration the workshops took place. There were three but I managed to sneak in to Rogier’s and Monica’s ones. Rogier had a workshop about miniatures and Monica about jewelery.
After spending some time with my Queen Ibrahim, I went up to get ready for the gala dinner. I put on my Little Black Dress Silkstone inspired dress, my white sneakers and went down to the lobby. The Fashion parade had already started but I managed to see some of it. Monica, Mario and Sebastiano killed it!!!
Right after we took some pictures with the contestants it was time for the Cocktail Party. I sipped some champagne with Simon and off we were to the Gala Dinner. But I’ll tell you all about that in the next post.
Today has been a strange day for me. When I woke up I had a tone of messages, a video from Mike and Elio, blog posts and a lot of comments from all over the doll community. I have never thought that my Facebook “vacation” would cause such a controversy. I was able to read messages I got on Facebook and the comments on different groups but I’m still unable to reply to anything. I’m like a ghost wandering the halls of Facebook. I still have a day and a few hours left before I can get back to my “normal life” so I’ll just enjoy this weekend with my family. Facebook isn’t everything in life even if this ban has affected my other projects and some pages I work for.
I want to thank everyone that has supported me. I can’t find words to say how humble I feel because of your love and support. All I want right now is to focus on the upcoming Italian Doll Convention and being reunited with my dolly friends. Contrary to some I don’t earn money from this blog but I’ve gained a LOT of friends and that’s what’s important. It really is.
Yes, I got banned from Facebook by Mattel. For 3 days. I can’t post, reply, basically do anything. Why? Because I reposted the image of the Star Trek dolls. An image that was already all over Facebook doll groups and on online shops.
If there is one thing that I want to change in 2016 is the awful habit of certain “doll bloggers” that like to surf other blogs, take all the images they could find and then publish them on their own sites without credit and even with their own watermark on them. As you may have noticed I don’t watermark the images I publish even if a lot of them are from my sources. I don’t want to do this because I don’t own the images but it infuriates me when I find them on other blogs without the due credit.
Today I got really pissed when I found, yet again, the images I received from one of my sources (thank you M. again!!!) with the 2016 Barbie dolls on a East European blog (not going to post the link) that is know for never ever crediting anything. Not only this but this girl blogger ALWAYS watermarks even the IRL images she finds online, IRL images that clearly don’t belong to her. I think I have only seen her once credit an image. ONCE!!
To many my anger may seen childish, but to me it’s very frustrating to see people taking advantage of me.
I know I’m not the only blogger in this world and I’m defiantly not the only doll blogger out there, but just like I and other can credit their sources, so can everybody. There’s this FALSE impression that crediting your info can make your readers go away. NO! Being honest and posting interesting stuff will keep your readers. Being dishonest will not get you anywhere. That’s one of the reasons I stopped posting sneaks from the BC club. If I can clean up my act, so can others.
So please credit me and any other blog/site out there that supplies you with info and images.
There also was a beautiful centerpice made by Magia 2000 themselves. 
If I can clean up my act, so can others.