Platinum's Story (unidentified customized blond Barbie)

I doubt any of us dolls will ever really 'get' how Treesa thinks. The other day she compared kids who try to give their dolls makeovers to some rare, undiscovered new species that scientists are always looking for in remote places like the rainforest. She said there's evidence they exist, if you spend enough time at flea markets and thrift stores you'll see plenty of dolls with cut hair and marker tattoos. But Treesa can't remember ever meeting anybody who's done that to their doll.

My first owner tried to 'customize' me. When Treesa found me at the thrift store my hair was already chopped short, but that wasn't the worst of it. My body AND my hair were also smeared with silver paint. I knew when I got to the store that the chances of someone buying me were probably pretty low. By the time Treesa bought me I'd already been at the store for several weeks and had just about given up hope of getting a new owner.

I saw Treesa a lot while I was at the thrift store. She likes to visit the store once or twice a week, when she can manage it. And I looked forward to seeing her. The other humans who walked into the toy department ignored me after just a quick glance. Treesa was the only one who really looked at me. Every time she came to the store and saw me, still hanging from the rack in my plastic bag, she'd stop and look at me just long enough to make me think today was the day. Today she'd take me home with her. But then she'd go back to searching the racks for any new stock she hadn't seen yet, and my hopes would drop like a stone. What I didn't know then was Treesa was just biding her time.

Finally, the day Treesa had been waiting for came. The store has regular sales during the week to clear out older stock. Things are color coded to show when they were put on the shelves, and on the same days every week the older colors are discounted. When my color tag finally went half price Treesa bought me and took me home.

After she got me out of the bag Treesa grabbed a Magic Eraser and took me into the bathroom. "Let's get you cleaned up a little," she said. My guess was she wanted to clean off the silver paint, and I wasn't sure she'd be able to do it. The paint was kind of...sticky, and I was worried it would just stay stuck to me. I also worried what would happen to me if Treesa couldn't get the paint off. Would she decide I wasn't worth keeping and throw me away?

It turned out I didn't need to worry about the paint not coming off. When Treesa stuck me under the faucet and turned the water on the paint just rinsed away. I was relieved, but Treesa was really disappointed. She LIKED the way the silver looked in my hair and on my face. THAT'S why she bought me. She was only trying to get off some of the excess paint on my torso, but because she didn't want to risk the paint transferring on to any of her doll clothes or other dolls she had to rinse it ALL off.

After that Treesa wasn't sure what to do with me. Because of my haircut I just looked weird to Treesa without the silver. But Treesa's no hair stylist, and she didn't know how to fix me. So she did an online search for ways to PERMANENTLY color a doll's hair. She found a technique that used shaving cream, a drop of fabric softener, and a tube of liquid watercolor paint. She couldn't find silver liquid watercolor at the store, so she picked a nice blue and just used less paint, trying to get a silvery tint. It took several applications, but eventually she got something 'close enough' to what she wanted. She tinted my bangs, and a section of hair on top of my head to try and give me a color streak. It's kind of subtle, but for Treesa it means the difference between keeping me and putting me in a box for yard sale.

Treesa named me Platinum, because of the silver paint. She thought about just naming me Silver, but decided she liked Platinum better. She said Silver sounded like I was, 'one noun away from being a comic book character'. Like I said, I don't think us dolls will ever really 'get' Treesa. But I don't really care what Treesa calls me, as long as it means I get to stay.

Stay Shiny, Platinum

(P.S. Yes, that was a Firefly reference. One of Treesa's sisters isn't quite a Browncoat, but she's pretty close.)

Joy's Story: 2 (unidentified blond Barbie)

Remember how in my last post, I said I'd noticed something a little...off about my brother Jasper, something I couldn't really put my finger on? Well, I did eventually find out what was going on. When Alice started hanging out with me, the way Jasper looked at her was kind of hard to miss. Jasper still didn't talk to me about it though, even when I started dropping hints that I knew how he felt about Alice. It wasn't until later that Alice told me the whole story.

When she first started hanging out with me in mid-February, I remember it was mid-February because it was around Valentine's Day, Alice really seemed to need a friend. She said something about feeling overwhelmed and not knowing where to start. I knew her friends Wedding Bells and Wedward had left to live with Treesa's friend, so I thought she meant she felt overwhelmed by the number of dolls in Treesa's collection and didn't know where to start making new friends. But when Alice told me her whole back-story a couple months later, I started to wonder if the size of Treesa's doll collection was the only thing she felt overwhelmed about.

When she first started hanging out with me Alice told me a little about her past. She'd mentioned how her first owner's collection had been like a big family, and how much she missed her old friends. She even mentioned Jazzy Jazz, and the way he always clowned around and made everybody laugh. It wasn't until a few months later that she told me she'd been in love with Jazzy Jazz, and that Jazzy Jazz was a Twilight Jasper doll. She also told me that in the Twilight series her character and Jasper's character are a couple.

Well, like I told Alice at the time I had no idea things were so complicated. Alice was surprised that Jasper hadn't already told me. When I asked him later why he hadn't told me Jasper said, "Alice told me that in confidence. It wasn't my place to tell you. I thought if she wanted you to know, she would tell you herself."

So Alice assumed that Jasper had already told me, and Jasper thought that Alice either didn't want me to know or would tell me herself when she was ready. Talk about getting left out of the loop. But I'm trying not to dwell on it. It's not like Alice and Jasper kept me in the dark on purpose.

From: Joy

To: The World

Well This Is Awkward

Hello from Treesa. Today, I was supposed to announce the winner of my One Year Blogiversary Disney Giveaway. Unfortunately, no one entered. So it looks like Mini Anna and Ruby will be staying with me for the time being. On a brighter note, I'm now up to six followers. Considering how erratic my dolls' posting has been I think I'm lucky to have that many. I'll try to encourage my dolls to post more.
Signed, Treesa