Trudy here.
Islandshire is abuzz with excitement over Jill and Silver’s attic find yesterday. In preparation for the upcoming remodeling of their new bedroom, our favorite twins took the first of many trips to the attic in their new house. They were looking for a place to store all their plush (and that’s a lot of plush) during the painting and redecorating that starts next week. (Don’t worry, though! All the Baby Yoda stuff is going to the living room. Silver decided they could decorate down there for the short time their room would be torn apart. “The special stuff is safer down there,” she said.)
But hold on! In the end, it was a crazy, mixed-up, backwards sort of trip to the attic. Instead of stashing away their plush, they added MORE to their ever-increasing collection! And not just plush, but vintage BEANIE BABIES from the 1990s! Seems that the former residents didn’t want them anymore, so they just left them there for someone else to deal with. Those of you who know the twins won’t be surprised to read that they know just how to “deal with” it all, since these Girls think they live in the ’90s! Couldn’t have happened to two nicer people!
When the news reached The Gazette office, I took a quick trip over to see the Girls and their new treasures. Wow! is all I can say. It’s an amazing collection, and there were a few non-Beanie vintage items I didn’t even recognize. I had to ask about a couple of things on the end table next to the sofa (all part of yesterday’s fun). I recognized the Miss AG Bear and troll doll from old catalogs I have in the Gazette office, but have you ever heard of a Puffkin (that’s the green frog behind the old clock/radio)? And what about those whale and dolphin plushies on the table shelf? They’re real ’90s souvenirs from Sea World! We just barely got the twins to stop talking and stand still long enough to snap this photo.
The find of the day came in the shape of a paper bag in the bottom of the large box containing the Beanies. It was stuffed with small plastic zipper-bags, each one containing an unused “Official Platinum Edition” of the old ’90s “Beanie Babies Club Kit”. And stashed under the Club Kits was a stack of the 1998 Beanie Babies Handbook. Jill and Silver already have one of the Handbooks, where they keep track of their own Beanies collection, but they’d never seen a Club Kit before. (Unfortunately, the zipper bags did not survive 25 years in attic storage, so they had to be discarded. Fortunately, the stuff inside is still perfect!)
“I’ve always wanted to see one of these 1999 Club Kits. And now we each have one! Just look at what you get in here! There’s a Membership Card . . . and a box of original Trading Cards in a plastic case . . . Hmm? Oh, sorry, you get 16 of the cards, and each one has a different Beanie Baby photo on it . . . and there’s a Membership Platinum Certificate that we’ll have to frame and hang on our wall . . . Let’s see . . . we saved the TY tag from the ruined bag’s zipper pull, of course . . . [Giggles] Oh, and there’s the cutest little fold-out Club Newsletter . . . and a very handy Beanie Pocket Checklist that’s like a little book . . . Here, would you like to see them up close?”
“Hey, Jill, show the official Member Medallion to Trudy. Isn’t that the neatest thing?! They slide right into your pocket, so we can carry them with us all the time. Just in case someone asks to see one, you know.”
“Would you like to stay for a while and get a good look at the Beanies? We’ve got an idea for “dealing” with them, but we’d like to run it by you first. Great! Jill, would you bring a pot of tea and some of those darling little Breakfast Puffs you made this morning? I’ll clear space for Trudy to sit down, and then we can see what she thinks about our plan. Just give me one minute, Trudy, and we’ll have these cleared away in a jiffy.”
I spent a delightful afternoon with Jill and Silver, while they explained their idea to me. I’m going to share their plan here and want you to know that I’ve pledged The Gazette’s full support. The twins need your help to make this work, but I’m confident that our Islandshire readers will step up to the plate and hit a homerun for them. As you know, the Girls have spent every day trying to fix up that old house they just moved into that’d been vacant for so long. And we’ve featured stories about many of you who pitched in with elbow grease and supplies to make their dream come true. It’s been a blessing to all of Islandshire, as the house is no longer the village eyesore. They’ve done an amazing job in a short time and have got only their bedroom left to do, but they need a bit of help. They’ve got off-island friends coming in to help with the work, but their budget is exhausted.
This is where you come in. The twins would like to sell off the duplicate Beanies, Handbooks and Club Kits to raise the money they need to finish their house. (Jill says it’s like the house is paying for its own makeover.) The Gazette Editor (yours truly) has agreed to let them advertise in every issue until it’s all sold. They’re adding a temporary stall to the Main Street storefront called “Islandshire on Etsy”. If you’d like to be part of the fun, just talk to the Girls or drop by the store. There’re only so many of each available, and not everything in the photo is leaving the twins’ collection, but there should be plenty for all you earlybirds.
Watch future issues of The Gazette for updates!
Awesome girls, we used to have a bunch too, but we do not anymore. They were one of the things that TA purged when she started getting so much for us. That is a lot of fun for you
Hugs,
Natalya n friends