Life is What Happens...

 ..."When you are busy making other plans." ~ John Lennon

 Summer is just about over here for us on Guam. School starts early next month. So let the new school year begin!

Here are some finds recently...

vtg wire plate wall mount.

 

I was searching for a way to display my vintage Valentine's Chocolate box. Then it dawned on me I could either make a wall holder for it or buy one? But what was even easier was to find a vintage plate wall mount!! This one was perfect! It's made of a strong wire metal and shaped into hearts at the ends. Of course meant to hold a plate, but instead I used it to hold my box!! It was perfect!! Definitely happy with the way this turned out! Yay!

This is a special Aqua Valentine's Chocolate Box!

 Next, this adorable Animal Rummy card deck, that came unopened. I have a small collection of adorable Whitman card games with adorable animals in each of them!! This is a lovely set! A great addition to my collection too! My faves are the bunny and bear!

Just look at these adorable animals!!

 Below, after a month it finally arrived a 2nd version of the vintage Bandai rare anthropomorphic toaster. This one comes with original toast and winds up too! I listed my other toaster in my shop! If anyone is interested?! I've also added two more vintage festival masks to my mask wall! Now, I have a panda and Lunlun!! I love waking up to seeing my collection around me. Thanks to my husband for allowing me to have a place to display my treasures!! Love you Sam!!

Both toasters side by side!

Festival Masks Collection.

 I found this lovely minty Irice Ado Mizumori Hair Spray cover can recently and sold it. She even came with her original tag!! Truly amazing piece too! 

Original Irice Japan Tag!

Below, I have been on the hunt for a minty Macoto T. child purse for my collection of Macoto items and I finally did! She is minty and hot pink with chain straps. Lovely Macoto T. Artwork of a Victorian maiden, surrounded by flowers. Definitely one of my sought after pieces for my little collection! Yippee!

Macoto Takahashi artwork.

 Another item I have always wanted is this adorable 3D Litho posedoll coin purse. I've seen them through out my searches from time to time, but it has always alluded me. I guess it was my time. I was able to do a direct purchase and now this piece lives with me. It needed a bit of cleaning up, and it came with its original metal maker's tag!! I've never seen it with this tag! It's so cute too! Haha!

Front.

Back.

The next few items, I found in a lot. This adorable Heidi compact, sadly, missing the chain necklace. Still in lovely condition. Mahou no Makochan necklace mirror n comb. I've always wanted one, but they can be very expensive. So to find one in the lot was just amazing and cheap!! Yay me! 

Heidi compact.

Makochan mirror comb.

New Neverland goods!

Sara and I went out for a little window shopping and visited the New Neverland shop and I found these adorable animal rulers and a pink gem bow ring!! I simply fell in love with the ring! The shop owner even let me choose a gift! So I got this Sailormoon emblem popsocket! That was so nice of them! I need to visit the shop again soon! Haha!

Vtg Rattle Toy Pony.

 Above, this adorable pink corduroy Pony rattle toy is vintage and has adorable rattles tied in his mane and tail! I believe he is by Plakie. I've added him to my shop and he just too cute to pass up!! Below, I took my toy grand piano from our old house and brought it up here for some photos. So I displayed him next to the red Showa bear. Reminds me of those vintage postcards with toys. Yesss!!

On IG, I found some cute items to add to my collection from a seller. I couldn't resist this adorable Laundry Pin set with rope and toy telephone. The same seller also had this adorable Stahlwood squeak toy milk bottle still MIP!! I love the colors too! Teehee! Great prices too!

And... Lastly, this Lot of vintage 2nd generation Licca Chan vinyl paper dolls! All came with their own boxes and accessories! Whoa!! I had one in my collection. I will keep a few and sell a few. They are listed in my shop already! Just love them and I believe they went with those adorable miniature furniture pieces also by Lotte Licca! I will have to display them so you can see what I am talking about.

Welp, that's all for now. A lot more then I expected but this post also included items I found late last month! Haha! Which only arrived this month, thanks to Ground Advantage. UGH!!!

Happy Thrifting guys!

Thank you for looking! ~ ggsdolls 

Interview with Paterphobia

 Interview with a Collector - A ggsdolls blog Series

A monthly series on my blog where I feature some of the most amazing collectors, sellers, and content creators that have become really good friends of mine and what they collect and why? Read on to learn more...

    For the month of April, my blog interview is with a lovely toy collector of squeaks and Rushtons, paterphobia on Instagram, also known as Lana!

Lana, was born in the Pacific North West of the United States, and is nearly 29 years old. What do you do for a living Lana? I work as a Mental Health Counselor! I love my job. It's very rewarding.

Tell us more about your collection? I've always been into vintage items and in college I started going to antique stores and browsing eBay. This was back before they were very well-known and prices were so reasonable that I was able to grow my collection rather quickly! I eventually branched out into everything from vintage nursery planters to clothing. One of my favorite non-toy collections is my vintage t-shirt collection. Mostly band tees and rare TV and film collectibles. 

The toys' little faces always put a smile on my face. It's so fun to have so many colorful, bright, expressive little faces in my house! I also really enjoy the restoration aspect of toy collecting and it's so satisfying seeing a toy go from "well-loved" back to fluffy and fresh looking. The process is super fun too.

I started following some "creepy cute" accounts on Tumblr way back in the day. There was just something about the toys, the way they are so well made and expressive. I've always been a bit strange, haha! While many found them creepy, I was drawn to them. I started by finding Kewpie dolls at antique stores. I purchased my first Rushtons on eBay over a decade ago now and the rest is history! I'm mostly focused on getting an entire rainbow of toys now. I'm always still on the hunt for more "rare" Rushtons and rubber faced toys.

What has been the reaction of your family, friends and coworkers about your hobby? Everyone is super supportive and I've even received them as gifts! I know some of them secretly find them a bit creepy, but what's not to love about that? Haha!

Which one is your favorite and why? That's a tough one, but I would have to say my "Chiltern" bunny rabbit. He's BIG and in such great condition and I found him for a reasonable price! He's special to me because I haven't seen too many like him. 

I once had a Rushton rubber faced goose! I honestly miss her very much and it's one reason I think I will be keeping more than I sell in the future.

What would be your ISO? Definitely a fluffy orange Rushton fox. Orange is one of the harder colors to find with Rushtons and they always get snatched up before I get a chance to grab them! One of my wish list items for sure. I also just love their big smiling faces.

Have you noticed and increase in popularity? Definitely! I love to see one of my favorite things get so much love, but it's for sure more of a seller's market now. I think a lot of people found out about them through Melanie Martinez and just appreciate how eccentric and unique they are. 

Is there anything else you would like to add? Thank you so much, I am honored to be included. Cheers to toy collecting! - Lana

Thank you so much Lana for sharing your love of vintage toys with us! Be sure to check out my blog interview next month when we meet a dear sweet collector and friend from my Flickr days. All the way from Europe!! Until, next month, Happy Collecting!

Thank you for reading! ~ ggsdolls

Sunny Bear, Baby Dolls, and More!!

 I recently had the most amazing find to arrive the past week... A 1958 Sun Rubber "Sunny Bear" in brown! I have been on the hunt for a decent priced one for over 5 years now. I try not to collect too many rubber squeaks, only because of space and just a personal preference. But, I have always wanted a Sunny bear. I've had one other opportunity to get one mint in package from another collector, but at the time I didn't have the funds to acquire him. Ugh. So, while doing my ritual of searches, I finally was able to adopt one for a decent price! Yessss!

Above, Sunny, just needed a bit of cleaning up and touch on his face paint too. Sadly, the seller mentioned he didn't work. But, that was okay for me, as long as I had him. If you recall, I had a ceramic version here in this post. I traded it some time ago to another collector as well. But it just wasn't the same. I wanted a Sunny bear. Haha, well anyhow, this guy turned out lovely and I added a blue satin bow to him as well. I discovered that his mouth had a hole, so when I glued it closed, his squeaker ended up working after all. Yay! Now Sunny sits amongst my display by my bed. Greeting me every morning... Ahhh the joy!

I also won this lovely Rushton 'Fretty Freddy' plush in an estate auction online. He needed a lot of work! I washed him, cleaned his face up and touched it up. He was missing his vest, bow, and hat. I had to search for a few days to find a hat that suited him. I made the vest using vtg felt fabric and buttons I had in my stash. Then, used a red grosgrain ribbon for his tie. Now, he was ready for a new life! I had him in my Etsy shop for a week and just yesterday a buyer in China adopted him! Yay, go and be loved my dear Freddy!!

Since getting that mini Crosley record player, I found and bought a few more 3 inch records. Yup, found the Disney singles above and Charlie Brown Christmas sets too! They will be fun to use for Christmas posts this year! I also bought a lot of 2 plush bunnies, and one has a roly poly doll face!! The blue bunny girl is already listed in my shop. I will keep the roly poly face one for now.

Next, I decided to locate the rattle teether rings you see in this adorable Meyercord decal of a baby bear playing with one, and sure enough, I did!! It was sold in a lot with other rings. So, I made two sets, and one is added in my shop. I was so happy to see, this all come together! It was nice and I will keep this set for now. I also decided to sell my Cortendorf Red Head girl wall Plaque. She is listed in my Etsy shop as well. The small one I will keep.

These adorable "Curly" Baby doll fashions, I acquired as a lot from Yahoo Japan. I wasn't sure who they were meant for, but I have some idea. I mostly wanted the pink dress in the first pic for Alice. She fits it well too. I believe the latter 2 styles may fit the doll that follows after the fashions, Takara Cuddle Baby doll. Made in 1965, she is the Japanese version of the Vogue Baby dear doll also with sleep eyes. She is quite large too. Again, I don't often collect Baby dolls, but this baby is just too cute not to want to keep her! LOL  Going back to the fashions, I believe they were meant for a toddler size doll. I'm sure I will find out who that is someday.

Yup, like I said, I'm finding other cute baby dolls that I am smitten by... This one is by Sekiguchi Japan made in the 70s I believe or late 60s. She is an adorable baby doll I bought from another Etsy seller's shop. She took a month to arrive, but was so worth it. She was very dirty and needed a bath. So I washed her fashion and cleaned up the doll as best I could. You can even see in the photo below, I had to use Mr. Clean magic eraser to remove age old dust on her arms, face, and legs.

Here she is before and after. The photo above the arm one is when I found her a new dress to wear. Yay! There's something about her eyes, almost hypnotizing to me. I believe she can suck her thumb, just like her family to dolls, Moncchichis. She has a cloth body and rubber face, arms and legs. Her toes are in a cute pose too! Haha, yup I'm smitten. I also found this lovely Fancy Gund bunny, I cleaned her up. She is just too cute! Than, this adorable funny and weird plush mouse! Love his fabric eyes! Both are in my Etsy shop already.

Next, I was commissioned this past month to restore this lovely Happy Bear, who luckily, was rescued from a house fire!! He smelled of kerosene and so I decided to wash him twice. In the end after washing, his fur became so brittle and basically as I tried to sew his ripped areas, his fabric began to rip as I was sewing. Poor baby. So, the only plausible decision was to give him a new fur body. It took some time for the fur to arrive, but now he is ready to be loved again. He's already on his way back to his owner in Japan.

It has been a great month of finds. Have a wonderful weekend!

Thank you for reading! ~ ggsdolls