Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. When I’ve tried to remove barbie makeup in the past, I thought nail polish remover was the right thing to use. Other barbie customizers said to use acetone, so I used…
How do I love thee, Mattel?
Let me count the ways: Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. Curvy body released Tall body released Curvy body costs $9.99 online Tall body costs $9.99 online Tall and Curvy available in the Walmart Easter Basket…
Okay, I’ll weigh in on the new Barbie bodies…
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. A few weeks ago, Mattel introduced their line of Fashionistas that includes new bodies they call Curvy, Petite, Tall, and Original. I’ve been repeatedly asked my opinion of this announcement….
OUR COLLECTION: The Big, Beautiful Ones
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. I’m finally doing a post on the Plus-sized Ladies of Leah’s Barbieland. I’d waited until I had them all (or all I could get my hands on). To recap: I…
CUSTOM: Rosie O’Donnell Update and Michelle Rounds
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. Leah’s barbieland is all about reflecting the diversity of the real world. I’ve wanted to include LGBT characters for a long time now but was having trouble deciding how to…
CUSTOM: Give your Doll Natty Locs in 20 minutes
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. I have posted several times before about giving a doll Locs or Dreadlocks – or whatever your preferred term might be. Corset Kitten’s Loc’ing technique has a great organic look…
OUR COLLECTION: Fulla Remix – Rockin’ Hijabistas
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. We live in a suburb of Denver named Aurora, Colorado. It took me a while to fall in love with Aurora. I wanted to be a Downtown Girl. I bought…
OUR COLLECTION: The kids
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Barbieland Obamas! Barack, Michelle, Sasha, & Malia – the First Family of Leah’s basement barbieland, wish you and your’s a Merry Christmas – if you…
OPINION: Tracking Racial Self-Worth
My plan has always been to track my daughter’s perception of racial self-worth through her barbie-play. In other words, instead of waiting for that Mamie and Kenneth Clark moment when I sit looking horrified as I find out my kid either hates herself or has some other twisted conception of race and worth, I always wanted…
CUSTOM: The making of Michelle Obama
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. So I bought the Obama True-Type Action figure. And since I spent way too much money on him, I felt it was important for us to work him into our play scenarios….
BEYOND: DIY Play Props for Real Adventures
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. Type “How to make Barbie Furniture” into YouTube and you will find that there are many, many tutorials for making sofas and beds. The problem with these projects is that a doll…
OUR COLLECTION: Asian Barbies
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. So I wanted to give an overview of all our Asians. We currently have four gals, three guys, a five year old (Kelly), a toddler and a baby. THE WOMEN: Our Nikki was originally an Animal…
CUSTOM: Larger bodied Grace
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. Want to add more body-type diversity to your barbieworld? I recently re-bodied a Grace head onto a Hot Toys True Type 12 Cuban Female body. These dolls are pretty pricey on eBay. …
CUSTOM: At long last…LOCS
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. FYI – it is not currently in vogue to call so-called dreadlocks by that term anymore. They are now referred to as “Locks.” The “why” should be obvious. I am not the originator of…
OPINION: Barbie-play for teaching Empathy
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. Empathy is the ability to say, “How does that person feel?” and later, “If I say what I am thinking, how will it make my friend feel?” and even later, “How can…
BEYOND: Video Production Part 1
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. So I made my first barbie video the other day. It was not easy. I had been in awe of Vanessa Morrison for some time, but I had absolutely no idea how…
CUSTOM: Rotini or Halo Hair
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info tutorials, comparisons, and thought pieces. This site is no longer updated. This doll does not have an “Afro.” People who were part of the Black Pride movement of the 1960’s also took pride in wearing their hair natural instead of using straightening combs or chemical relaxers. Their…
OPINION: Someone Needs to create an Anti-Barbie
You know instead of just complaining about how anorexic or plastic-ly surgery-ied BBBBarbie is, someone should just develop a full-figured or at least reasonably figured “barbie” and unseat BBBBarbie forever. I wonder how often this thought has been thunk. Based on my research, the answer is: Often. Several times people have actually followed through on…
RESOURCE: Tutorial for making Palm Trees
Super cool tutorial for making 1:6 scale palm trees. This pic is from that tutorial.
OPINION: Why barbies are better than a $200/hr therapist
There is a class of therapeutic techniques that psychologists and counselors refer to as “play therapy”. The basic idea is that children’s language skills and meta-cognitive abilities are not developed enough for them to talk about experiences that are troubling them or that they are otherwise still attempting to process. Like, I guess I could just…
SCENARIO: World Council of Princesses
My friend Noelle warned me Leah would have a princess phase. She said her daughter Chase spent three months insisting on princess dresses every day. Noelle was right. Leah is heavy into the princess thing right now. It hasn’t kept us from playing barbies, it has caused us to play barbies in a particularly princess-y way….
CUSTOM: How we re-body dolls
Go to our updated How to Play With Barbies site for the latest info and tools. This site is no longer updated. I have read various “how to rebody” tutorials online and their re-body-ing efforts are explained in various ways. Those ways are not wrong, but over time I have created my own method using tips from…
PLAYER PROFILE: Marie Chandler
Recently I did a profile on the various Adult Barbie Enthusiasts I have met since I started building Leah’s Barbieland last summer. This is a profile of one of those enthusiasts, how I found her, why I enjoy her work and a few things she’s taught me. Once when I as trolling eBay I saw…
CUSTOM: Why we re-body dolls
The post is about WHY we rebody dolls, if you are looking for a post about HOW we rebody dolls, we have that information in a different post. I remember, in 1978, being frustrated by barbie arms that did not bend to my will. Legs that made the clicking sound and bent only about 15 degrees….
RESOURCE: Amazingly Beautiful! Brown Skin and Natural Hair
If you love having a diverse set of dolls then you will want to take a look at what doll artist Ms. Loanne Hizo Ostlie puts out there. She takes fashion dolls (mostly Mattel Barbie dolls) and re-does their hair in cute curly styles, locks (they aren’t called dreadlocks anymore, just locks), short cuts…you have to…
how to play with barbies 