Did you play with Barbies as a little girl? They were pretty much part of the fabric of our childhood! We loved Barbie, and had ourselves quite the collection. We loved dressing them up, doing their hair, and creating little scenes with our other dolls. As we grew up, we left the Barbies behind, but now that we're parents, our own kids have taken up right where we left off. The Barbie of today looks a lot different than the Barbie from our childhood, though! The doll has gone through a pretty significant transformation, and the version our kids play with is much more realistic and representative of what people look like, which is amazing. This new, more realistic version of Barbie inspired another fan to get creative with the dolls; Tonya Ruiz, a former model who grew up playing with Barbie dolls, uses the new versions of the classic doll to create miniature versions of her own life, and shares the awesome recreations on her Instagram account, @Barbiegetsreal. These little scenes are really something!

Tonya Ruiz grew up loving Barbie - she says her obsession started right around her third birthday, when she got a doll as a gift. She had one of the dolls that spoke when you pulled the string on the back; the doll said she loved being a fashion model, and Ruiz thought it was cool because she also wanted to be a model when she grew up. When Ruiz turned 15, her dream came true when she was signed with Ford Models. She spent the next few years on catwalks and being featured in the pages of magazines, but the dark side of modeling took its toll, and at the age of 18, Ruiz left it all behind.

She went on to marry and have two daughters. When her girls were young, she didn't want them to get caught up in wanting to be "perfect" like Barbie, so she encouraged them to play with other, more realistic dolls. Then, years later, one of her grand kids discovered a box of dolls in the attic. One of the dolls in the box was a 2003 Grandma Barbie, and Ruiz immediately recognized the similarities between herself and the doll. She began shopping for more realistic dolls, which were easier to find after Mattel released dolls in more representative body types in 2016. Then, she started creating her little "real life" scenes using the dolls. Her Instagram account, @Barbiegetsreal, features scenes from her own life recreated with Barbie dolls of all shapes and sizes.

She shows what Barbie's life would be like today, as a 60-year-old grandmother (Ruiz herself is 56). And while her relationship with Barbie has had its ups and downs, Ruiz says she's made peace with her past, and is having fun getting to know Barbie all over again.

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