Barbie Francie doll, the cousin of Barbie Francie Fairchild

Christmas is over now but is this the best reason to say we have to wait until next year to sew a Xmas skirt for Francie? My answer is no and I can explain you why. In December 2020 I saw the fabric you can see below in the little video. I saw it and I thought it would make a perfect dress, skirt or top for Barbie doll or a family member like Francie. Francie is the cousin of Barbie doll, sold from the mid 1960s until the mid 1970s. Do I have to mention that she is still a very popular member of the Barbie family? When you’re into Vintage & Mod Barbie collecting then I guess I don’t have to.

Maybe it’s useful to explain it to the other side of my readers here. Although Francie doll is a very early member of the Barbie doll family she is still very popular among the children from back then, now being grandmas. Designed to be a bit younger than Barbie and more adolescent than Skipper doll Francie was designed to be approx. 15 years old with a little bit more breast than Skipper but less than Barbie has.

Seen from a marketing point of view and keeping in mind that the wild 60s in London, GB were such an influence that it was hard to ignore in general. Maybe this idea was the starting point why Francie doll was released in 1966. This was also a big opportunity to hop on the train because the fashion of Barbie was rather 50s like, classical, conservative, not hip. That’s the point where Francie could help. With her sling body she could wear hip mini-dresses, short skirts and tight things that Barbie was a little bit too old for.

When I made my first contact with Barbie Francie was out of production for a long time, almost 25 years but I immediately liked her when I got into collecting in the mid 1990s ( and yeah, she was affordable back then) but she was not my main focus point. I rather wanted to collect Barbie. The interest in collecting Francie was there from the first minute. After collecting for 10 years I found a Francie on a flea market with almost no clothing but her bathing suit. For a long time she had to wear it. In the last years she got another outfit but hey, believe it or not but I think the original clothes are hard to find and even expensive. Why not designing your own clothes for Francie? With this idea in mind this video is the logical conclusion of it. So here we are doing our own clothes for Francie when the original ones are too expensive.

The same stress as every year

I don’t how you feel it but in my opinion the time before Christmas is always the most stressful time of the year. It’s not that you have to find presents for every member of your family but the stress your unsatisfied boss tries to transfer to you. You have a lot to do because you have a lot of work to do and then comes something like “Oh, you’ve done it in a wrong way”…

no matter what you do. The ray of hope is your closing time because after closing time you can do your own projects, which you already started before work at 5.a.m. or 5.30 a.m. because the time between closing time and dinner is seldom enough time to work on your own videos, care about social media profiles, do funny thumbnails, literally dancing on several weddings at the same time.

How to manage it your time-table

As a part-time youtuber you have to plan exactly what you want to do on that specific day. The limit is the time you have per day. So you have to plan every day that you can reach your goals. For some of you it is surely a good way to write your tasks down. For others it’s not necessary. I have it in my mind and I’m on schedule. Of course it’s a lot of work but only when you work on it you can get better in things because you have to repeat them.

My timetable is tight and when the weather is bad and you can not ride your bike to work it is even tighter and has to be planned specifically. When to make calls, when to cut video, when to take photos, when to publish, when to make thumbnails and so on.

Plan everything?

This year my last days at work were not very stressful but partly filled with time to wait for answers. I needed several answers but I didn’t get them in time because my boss was not in the office. What to do? Having the stress your boss who tries to transfer to you? I’m not even allowed to install new programmes on my working PC. In this cases my smart phone is always helpful. What should I do? I’m not the biggest fan of not using my time in a perfect way. I have it to wait. What’s easier than to do your tasks on your smart phone?

The last days at home as a private person were even more stressful because I had a lot of videos to prepare for the vacation. I’m not at home. I’m visiting my parents right now but I don’t have any other social contacts at the moment than my parents. In this situation it’s an advantage to have no sisters and brothers. I’m an only-child.

I had to prepare videos for several weeks in advance. I had to cut all the promo and the trailers, load them up, prepare the thumbnails, do the preparation, do all the cleaning in our apartment, pack the luggage, keep everything in mind, not forget anything.

Plans for the new year

For next year I plan to be better organized, maybe doing some videos less. Maybe I hire somebody to help me doing all the tasks I do alone at the moment. Maybe I outsource some of my tasks. I know my post barely contains anything about myself but rather what experience in these days.

I also bought some new equipment for better videos in 2021. I also try to do cooperations so that I get a little help in some parts of my creative work because I think if I don’t do it I will ran out of time again.

Overall I’m satisfied with what I achieved this year with my possible time and work but I always try to improve what I’m doing. Don’t worry when you don’t hear anything in the next 4 weeks. I already wanted to post last week but I taped super empty highways within Germany … have never seen them so empty in my life before… and did a lot of research.