This past weekend, my mom and I shopped in the open sales room of the Kenvention. The 2014 show marked the third year of the Kenvention, hosted by the He’s a Doll! Club. Our first experience with the Kenvention was back in 2012, when my mother and I decided to hit up the room sales advertised on the convention site. Room sale shopping was a first for me. The idea of a room sale is that dealers will set up shop in their hotel room and wheel and deal from there. It was a fun experience, especially for me, as I had never been to a convention with room sales! It made it a lot easier to connect with the dealers, who all turned out to be fellow collectors!
This year (and apparently the past two years), the Kenvention opened not only room sales, but the entire sales room to non attendees for a small fee ($5.00). I’ll be honest, the convention itself was out of my budget, which topped off at around $350 a ticket , but getting access to the dealers hall for the small sum of $5.00? There was no way we were going to miss that! The dealers hall itself wasn’t tremendously huge. The convention allowed for 150 attendees and is still growing. After stopping by the room sales, we headed to the open sales room. There were around ten vendors, all of which were different.
Earrings
necklace
The first vendor that caught our eye was the most unique out of all the tables. It had charms, earrings, pins and prints featuring vintage barbie and friends graphics. This table belonged to Lisa Varuolo. I wish I could provide a link, but, alas, I can’t find an online store. Super cool stuff!
Arnaldo’s Restorations OOAK
Another fantastic purchase came from Arnaldo’s Restorations. My mom and I met Arnaldo back in 2012 during the room sales. He was even kind enough to do an interview here for the blog. From his booth, I snagged an ooak Skipper repainted with brown eyes and rooted with vintage hair in the style of Midge.
Cute Dress
I, also, picked up this cute sheath dress that will eventually be worn by a Barbie I am having restored. It is made with a fun fabric decorated with vintage Barbie graphics and fits my Barbie perfectly! The seller is unknown, as I must have lost the card with the store name.
One other neat coincidence at the Kenvention was meeting a woman named Ann Grahek of V4 Designs. She makes fantastic looking travel cases with vintage Barbie and friends graphics. When we first noticed her table, some of her pieces reminded us a lot of an ooak my mom ordered for me 10 years ago. As it turns out, this is the same customizer! She is still making super cool items and selling them via her website.
Overall, my mom and I had a blast crashing the open sales room of the Kenvention and will definitely be making a return trip next year. While there weren’t a ton of vendors, it still turned out to be a very worthwhile shopping trip!
Have you found anything fun at a doll show recently? What was it? Share your thoughts below.
Tagged: convention, impulse
