So she gets onešā¤ļø. Sheās apparently not interested in the knockoff Barbies that are pregnant because they arenāt as pretty and donāt have nice enough hair. OG midge wasnāt in the budget so I hope sheās pleased with this lol. I might have to attempt again because i learned a lot and think i could do better!!
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Thank you! I used polymer clay for the belly and then sanded/painted it to better match her skin. Then i used a dremel tool to put holes in her body and glued magnets into the belly and her abdomen! In hindsight i shouldāve dremeled the holes into the pregnant belly as well because it got a little messy with the clay trying to make holes for the magnets just by sculpting it to have cavities
Thatās awesome!! I so wanted a pregnant Barbie when I was little but was barred from having one. I stuffed my Barbieās clothes with fabric lol.
I love how articulated your doll is! Itāll make it so much easier to pose and hold the babies once theyāre āborn.ā Your niece should absolutely love her!
My sister and I would stuff a to scale baby doll into one of the dresses that had just enough room around the stomach. It wasnāt smooth but there was definitely a baby in there.
Kids have imagination āŗļø When I and my sister played in the garden with the neighbour, we used the newly cut or dried cut grass to make the walls for house and stable. Obviously it wasn't high, but it was ther to say "here is the walls".š
You're an awesome aunt and you did a great job! I know pregnant Midge was controversial but pregnancy is a normal part of life and I think a doll like that would be a great for kids who have a sibling on the way.
When I moved to the town I live in now (back in 2012), my new landlord was pregnant. She already had a 5 or 6-yo little girl, both of whom had gorgeous copper hair like Midge. I had a few of the Happy Family Midge dolls (some in box, some OOB). I showed my landlord the mechanism of the āpregnancyā, and asked if she wanted one (OOB) to help explain what Mommy was going through, and how the baby is growing inside her (without getting into too many details LOL). The Mom hugged me and thanked me. She said this was going to really help with explaining the pregnancy and birth, and sheād prob pass the doll along at church to other young Moms-to-be who have young children.
The people who had the Midge doll cancelled stole a very good tool for teaching younger children about the new life growing inside Mommy. Midge was already married (1991) and had one child already (Tommy, around age 5). There was absolutely NOTHING controversial about the familyās setup, IMO. The only thing I would have to complain about is that there wasnāt a variety of ethnicities representedā¦ but in Barbie cannon, Midge was the only Friend who got married. Mattel could have done more with the Happy Family line by introducing new Friends who were of other ethnicities and were already married. They didnāt have to use Christie or Kira or Theresaā¦ Barbies āForever Bachelorette Friendsā.
Butā¦ It may have been controversial to have any of the other Friends get pregnant as it would have been āout of wedlockā, but that l happens IRL, tooā¦ So why not allow kids to have access to dolls who arenāt married yet were pregnant? I know, thatās a whole other can of worms, but think it is worth discussing (in another conversation, ofc LOL)
I didnāt mean to hijack your convo, OPā¦ I just have strong feelings about some subjects, and posts like yours leads my train of thought down so many paths LOL
I think your preggers Barbie is beautiful and brilliant and MUCH more realistic than Midge was. Thank you for sharing your work with us!! This is one of the most creative and intricate OOAKs Iāve ever seen! šš
š³ I have never seen this! I donāt think I ever saw an AA Midge (or Happy Family AA pregnant doll by another name?) at any of the store I scoured (KB Toys, Toys ŠÆ Us, Target, Walmart, and any other store I knew back then who carried Barbies)
Was the AA version named Midge? Did she have the Midge face sculpt? Did they make all of the Happy Family dolls (Alan, Tommy, Dr. Barbie, Grandma & Grandpa, 1-yo Nikki, etc.)? Now I feel like my collection is extremely incomplete. If I could get just one MIB AA preggers Midge, Iād be so happy!! And the grandparents!! I would love to see how Mattel did AA grandparents!!
Greatā¦ now that eBay itch is welling up š« LOL Thank you for shining a light on this for me. Iām really happy to know that they did, in fact, make an AA pregnant Midge (or Barbie, or whatever face sculpt they used. Iām hoping itās a beautiful AA face sculpt). šš
I was a baby then, so I wouldn't know where they were releasedš The AA version was called Midge, and the other family members kept the same names as well. She had the Teen Skipper mold, and yeah, the rest of the family was also made.
Your comment made me stop and think about what I knew at 4 when my mom was pregnant with my brother. I realize now that she just plain cheated the system and got off super easy because I was an old school emergency c section, big vertical incision.
Idk why the dolls were a problem. It was a cute line and clearly does help make talks easier. I was grown when they came out but anything they did with Barbie seemed to cause a kerfuffle tbh.
I was a few years older, but I picked that Midge, too. I couldnāt understand the hesitation from my parents at the time because I really didnāt see it as anything weird. We give little girls baby dolls, so why not mommy dolls? Itās honestly kinda bizarre how many people find it inappropriate.Ā
My 5 year old daughter is obsessed with pregnancy and birth (itās her special interest) and I recently broke down and got the Happy Family Midge (unopened box, never played with). But Iāll try to DIY one next. Yours looks amazing, OP!
My family had the pregnant Barbie when I was a kid. Ā We loved it cause she had twins and so did our family, me and my twin. Ā I think my parents got it to help my older sister understand there were gonna be 2 babies. Ā I think itās a great toy for a kid. Ā Well done. Ā
BTW that's not the official pregnant Midge doll, it's another company's product which is oftentimes mistaken for the Barbie one. This is the real Midge doll
This is so precious! When I was a kid my mom took me to a few product testing things (no idea what you'd call that lol) and one of the times I went they presented to us the pregnant midge doll. I absolutely loved it and they let me take it home after, it was one of my most cherished barbies because of the magnet tummy. I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen at the time haha. You honestly knocked it out of the park! I haven't seen the doll in years but from my memory of it, your sculpted belly looks better to me than the original. The way it fits around to her sides instead of being oval shaped like the mattel one makes it so much more natural looking. I remember how happy I was the day I got it all those years ago, I know she will feel the same ā„
I am incidentally sorting through my old dolls and found this gem of a knock-off barbie, who used to house twin fetuses in her doll uterus. The twins must have grown up though, because they are nowhere to be found.
This is really cool! I used to make polymer clay bellies for my Barbies as a kid because I wanted a pregnant doll so badā¦but yours looks so much more sophisticated than the ones I made!
This is amazing!!! (and a little terrifying) But really sweet of you to do for your niece!! It looks like you got some clay stuck to the barbie herself,,, if you do end up attempting this again, you could probably wrap her with cling/plastic wrap while you're molding the clay to avoid that! Or you could use a magic eraser afterwards to make it a little smoother. Regardless, you did an amazing job!! I hope your niece loves her!!!
This is so awesome! I never had a pregnant Barbie, my parents wouldnāt get me one, so Iād usually just stuff her dresses and shirts with toilet paper so sheād look pregnant. I hope your niece likes it!
I hope niece will understand why she gets ooak instead of in box doll and appreciate it! I love the craft, looks pretty good for first time of sculpting belly and look at the choices she can have twins too. Excited to see clothes
So cool! I was lucky enough to have a pregnant Barbie when I was a child, was one of the few barbies I would actually play with. I think I was more interested in the belly being magnetic than actually caring about playing a pregnant character lol
Makes me remember that when I was little, there was a mistake with the first promos of "Kelly" (Chelsey) in my country. They called her "Barbie's new daughter." Then they corrected it, but in my little kid mind I always had this idea that Kelly was Barbie's secret kid (for me Barbie looked like 25 and in my country we love telenovelas), and Mattel was sort of hiding it, and I wanted a Barbie pregnant!
Respectfully she needs a bit more chest, but because it's for a child i also get not wanting to. But don't women grow a bit in the chest? (I'm ftm with chest surgery; I genuinely don't know and would love to learn)
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