The Original iPad – Invisible Ink Books
By Lori Ferraro When I was a little girl, and we were going on a loooong road trip to visit my grandparents in Rochester (a six hour drive), there were a handful of essentials that were must haves in the backseat of our car: My crocheted afghan that grandma had made me. My never-ending ribbon of cheese and crackers thanks to Kraft Handi-Snacks My Invisible Ink Game & Quiz Books! Who knew a book and a pen could lead to hours and...
Stuck on You – The 80s Sticker Album
By Lori Ferraro I’m thankful I managed to hang onto as many keepsakes from my childhood as I did – old diaries, cassette and VHS tapes and tons of photo albums all make me nostalgic and happy. But there’s one album I can’t believe I got rid of. My sticker album! In the 80s photo albums weren’t just for pictures of your friends and family, they were a safe place to display your collection of carefully selected rainbow,...
What a Splash! Jean Nate’
By Lori Ferraro What’s black and yellow, huge and plastic, with a cap the size of a doorknob? Jean Nate’ after bath splash, of course! I would make excuses to take a shower in my parent’s bathroom, because my mom had a big bottle of the yellow stuff in there. I admired the beautiful women in the commercials who would splash handfuls of that yellow liquid on themselves. They looked so energized and enthused! And they did things like...
Hungry Hungry Hippos Madness
There are certain commercial theme songs from the ‘80s that are permanently embedded in my brain – especially the ones revolving around food. Like whenever I know we are having chicken for dinner I silently sing the “I feel like Chicken Tonight” song. I still drink Crystal Light lemonade and you better believe that “I believe in Crystal Light ‘cuz I believe in ME!” plays when I’m mixing up a big pitcher of the yellow stuff. And when...
Round and Round ~ My Love of the Spirograph
By Lori Ferraro Who knew a box full of plastic circles could make a little kid so happy? Spirograph was the closest I ever got to doing well in math – put out by Hasbro it is a “geometric drawing toy that produces mathematical roulette curves.” Huh. I don’t know about that, but I do know that by spinning my colored pens around and around inside the circular guides, I was able to create the most intricate, artistic, beautiful designs....
The Ring’s the Thing: Waterful Ring Toss Game
By Lori Ferraro So many toys from the 80s that I loved so much…board games, (Trouble!, Trivial Pursuit) electronic games, (Speak & Spell, Merlin), and video games (anything you could play on the Atari), but there’s one game that stands out for its simplicity, its one-player challenge and for its use of water. The Waterful Ring-Toss by TOMY. I was obsessed with this game – can we even call it a game? More like a test of your...
Top 8 Retro Game Remakes
By Jake Rock Classic Frogger vs. Frogger: Hyper Arcade Edition Remakes of our favorite 80s movies and re-masters of our favorite 80s albums have been all the rage for quite some time. The videogame industry has noticed this trend and as a result many reboots of our favorite games have been released. So many, in fact, that it can be confusing for fans looking to get a nostalgic kick along with a new thrill. Don’t fret, I am here to...
The 80s Signoff
By Lori Ferraro Browse through the back pages of any autograph book or yearbook from the 80s and you will find a variety of letters, numbers, periods and slash marks that may not make much sense to you unless you were a teenage girl of the decade. See, you couldn’t just write “Love, Lori” after you signed someone’s yearbook telling them how much you’re going to miss them, to have a good summer, see you next year, etc. You had to use...
The Prom Theme Song
By Lori Ferraro Like many others who graduated high school in the 80s I cannot hear Forever Young by Alphaville without thinking of my senior prom. When I hear that opening, those space age-y chimes, that hollow voice and those dramatic lyrics: “Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while Heaven can wait, we’re only watching the skies Hoping for the best but expecting the worst Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?”...
Sea Wees
By Alli Denning Kenner first introduced the Sea Wee dolls in 1979, offering “Oceans of Fun.” But, it wasn’t until Christmas of 1980 that they came into my life. Initially, there were three dolls, Sandy, Coral, and Shelly (see what they did with the nautical naming). Each doll came with its own comb and a lily-pad sponge. The sponge had a convenient hole in the middle so that the doll could sit in the sponge. That way, she could float...
Word Up – 80s Additions to the OED
By Lori Ferraro I was pleased the other day to hear my 8-year-old son come home from school and said that they had been using dictionaries in class – like with cursive handwriting, I wondered if the dictionary would be something of the past. Why look something up in a big ‘ol book when you could just look it up online? I’m pleased to say he’s learning both. I also learned last week through a friend that The Oxford English Dictionary...
Our Most Pinned Stories
Thank you to all our readers that care about the 80s enough to share our site on Pinterest! We love Pinterest too; keep on pinning and spreading the 80s love around. To help you out, we’ve rounded up a list of our most pinned stories from last week to help you find awesome 80s inspiration whether you are planning a party, looking for a costume, trying to find the perfect 80s flick for movie night, or just traveling down memory lane....
Top of My Toy List: My Barbie Styling Head
By Lori Ferraro I loved my Barbie Dolls growing up – like lots of girls, I was kind of fanatical about them. I had a few different versions of Barbie, Ken (with his purple ascot and hot pink shirt), and Barbie’s little sister Skipper too. I also had Donny and Marie Dolls that used to come on over to party with Barbie. And Darci, Covergirl Darci was a bigger, bustier version of a Barbie doll. Donny and Marie dolls But my favorite...
5 Perfect Valentine’s Day Gifts for the 80s Lover in Your Life
By Lori Ferraro When I think of Valentine Day in the 80s my memories go to the following boyfriends/gifts: In eighth grade I bought my boyfriend, Albert, a big gold medallion that said “Libra” and had the tipping scales on it – he was my first real boyfriend and I was super excited to give him this fancy piece of jewelry in a little black velvet box. In the tenth grade my boyfriend Lenny gave me one of those novelty coffee mugs with a...
Scent of the 80s
By Lori Ferraro Like everything else in the 80s, perfume was also little overboard – at least on this teenage girl it was. Subtlety was not my middle name and a little of anything never seemed to be enough…my signature scent was no exception. Walk down the halls of any high school around 1987 and along with the overpowering manly stink of Polo and Drakkar on the guys you would find a sweet, musky mixture of these legendary...
