So while I sit here and try to take my mind off of the surgery my Grandpa will have today or tomorrow (still not sure yet when it will be because he needs more transfusions first), I thought I'd do a little blogging.

Recently, my pal Melinda (she of the incredibly creative hybrid projects!) was blogging about finding some of her old toys as they were unpacking things in her mom's new house. She specifically mentioned her Sunshine Family dolls, and I used to have those too. I also had Barbies and Dawn Dolls (which had the coolest clothes). I was never lucky enough to have anything super cool for my Barbies, like the townhouse (which was huge), the boat, the camper, the car... I had two Barbie dolls and some clothes for them. If I wanted to start thinking abodes, I had to get creative.

I was never size-ist with my dolls. The Sunshine Family, Barbie, and the Dawn Dolls (which are all different sizes) could and did live in the same neighborhood and on the same street. I would create entire "homes" or the equivalent of a studio apartment inside of a cardboard box, complete with cardboard furniture with cushions I'd constructed out of cut up trash bags stuffed with kleenex that I then taped shut, or that I made out of fabric scraps I'd not-so-beautifully hand-stitched. Fabric scraps could also turn into blankets, rugs, curtains... as did paper towels. I may not have had the townhouse, but what I created was just as cool to me. I'd make similar set-ups for the Dawn Dolls and the Sunshine Family, the latter of which came with some stuff for the babies (high chair, cradle). I have some recollection of a Sunshine Family house, but if there was one, it hasn't been found among my old toys. It could have been a friend who had a house for them... I don't recall...

As I said, Barbie(s), Dawn Dolls, and the Sunshine Family lived in the same neighborhood, and even in my young mind, they were quite different. The Sunshine Family, perhaps purely because of their rather old-fashioned clothes were the Cleaver family... buttoned-down and family-oriented, squeaky-clean... (or maybe not... I already had been given the birds and bees talk at that point, so I do recall sending the parents in the Sunshine Family to bed together without clothes on to do what they would do because "when the Mommy and Daddy love each other" blah blah blah... and I would make them kiss each other...). It was all very tame, really, but I also didn't have them sleeping in separate beds like "I Love Lucy."

On the flip side, I always imagined my two Barbies and my Dawn Dolls would be wearing their cool boots and work-friendly mini dresses to cool jobs a la the "Mary Tyler Moore Show" (insert spin and beret toss here). Never had any Ken dolls. As I said, I wasn't size-ist, so both Barbies and the Dawn Dolls would sometimes date my brother's Action Jackson, GI Joe, or Stretch Armstrong dolls. It was never serious, and in retrospect there was probably a whole lot of "friends with benefits" and/or "booty call" going on because sometimes GI Joe or one of the other guy dolls would sleep in the same bed as Barbie. Even though they were just dating and weren't married. Hmmmm... Maybe Barbie and the Dawn Dolls were more "Sex And The City" than "Mary Tyler Moore Show." I just didn't know it then.

The two Barbies and the Dawn Dolls were all friends and they would go to parties together and SOMETIMES the Sunshine Family would have parties and invite Barbie(s) and the Dawn Dolls. Sometimes the Sunshine Family parents and Grandparents would go out and Barbie might babysit the Sunshine Family babies. I remember having a vivid imagination with all of this and having story lines about what everybody was doing.

What does this have to do with scrapbooking? Stick with me here for a moment... I'll come to that. As I remembered my creativity with making houses and furniture and living quarters for the aforementioned dolls, I was, in retrospect, pretty impressed with what I actually came up with. I recently went shopping for Barbies for my friend's daughter... and was FLOORED at all of the STUFF you can get for Barbies these days. And I wondered to myself if kids today are just as creative as we were if they get all of the accessories and the house and way more stuff than was available when I was young, or if giving them everything makes them less creative. Maybe it channels their creativity elsewhere.

With scrapbooking, I started paper scrapping in 1999. There wasn't much in the way of supplies out there. The first paper scrapbook I did was pretty basic, but I realized recently that I used what I did have access to VERY creatively when I put that book together... With the sheer volume now of scrapping STUFF and supplies and "things already made so you don't have to," I wonder if scrappers now are less creative because of it, or, like I said earlier with the toys, if that latent creativity is just channeled elsewhere?

I don't know the answers here. Just something I wanted to share with you guys... see what you thought.

And finally, today's freebie. It's another salted watercolor paper... I just love how soothing the colors are in this one:

You can download it here. And if you do, tell me if you used to play with Barbies and what your memory is of them!