Blogging, Childhood, Favorite Things, Friends, Life

icebreaker – what was your favorite activity as a ten year old?

Writer McWriterson

another icebreaker today. if this is your first visit, you can read this post to learn more about the story behind it. head here for the icebreakers.

today’s icebreaker: what was your favorite activity as a ten year old?

stickers were extremely popular when i was growing up in the 1980s. i remember there was this really cool store in the shopping center called the continent (a part of the french market) in columbus, ohio that had so many fun things inside, including the best stickers.

i can still see the sticker reels with hearts, unicorns, rainbows stickers and more. the store resembled the one featured on the show “the facts of life.”

for those of you who don’t remember the store from “the facts of life,” it looked like this:

source

i’d totally work in a store like that today. especially if mrs. garrett was my boss.

side note– the fictional store was called “over our heads.”

side note part two– edna garret owned a bakery called “edna’s edibles.” for the love of all that is 80s, will somone start a marijuana company with that name? please?

back to the stickers…

i had a special sticker notebook where i would add my stickers when i got home. did any of you also have sticker notebooks? remember scratch and sniff stickers?

in 2020, i decided to rekindle my childhood passion for collecting stickers, inspired by julia cameron’s book the artist’s way. she spoke about reconnecting with parts of ourselves that we miss, about embracing our inner child.

stickers were gaining popularity again, and i remembered how much i loved collecting them as a child. at some point, i stopped, probably thinking it was too childish, but now i see the joy in it once more.

it also provided a creative solution for redecorating my desk. instead of painting it, i thought it would be fun and unique to cover it with stickers from my growing collection.

this blog feels like a virtual safe space, and me sharing my stickers with all of you feels very much like i’m showing you my sticker album.

my favorite place to find stickers are:

independent bookstores

etsy (i linked my favorite shops so you can find some of my stickers)

gift shops

redbubble

teepublic

can you remember what your favorite activities were when you were ten years old?

The Great Joy of Returning to Your Childhood Hobbies | Cup of Jo

(Mostly) Abandoned – The Continent – Travel 88

68 thoughts on “icebreaker – what was your favorite activity as a ten year old?”

  2. It’s funny that you mention the subject of stickers, because I was just doing some sticker shopping to decorate the lid to my work laptop so the kids would know a little more about me and my interests/thoughts/philosophies. I’m still digging through the seemingly endless sticker stores.

    My third space was my love of radio and my desire to be a radio DJ or host. That was my sacred place, where I could plug in my Radio Shack microphones and play my favorite records (real records, like 45s). I practiced and recorded myself over and over. Little did I know, just about 30 miles north of me, there was a guy named Ryan Seacrest who was doing the exact same thing, and that he would eventually get every job in broadcasting.

    Going back to that space now seems fruitless. I burned out on sending sample tapes and resumes decades ago, but then part of me wants to create and host a live podcast. I’m conflicted. Do I open that door again, or do I keep my silly dead dreams to myself?

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    1. I LOVE THIS. What a great teacher. 🖤

      That’s the beauty of music. It could be anywhere you go. That is crazy about RS. That’s the story of someone who did what he loved and then became greedy.

      Your dreams are never silly. Definitely create the podcast. 💕

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  3. I also loved stickers growing up…especially scratch ‘n sniff ones. I can still vividly recall my two favorites: pickle and pizza.

    I sort-of still collect them today, affixing them to my laptop case, Yeti mug, etc.

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  4. Ahhh I love your stickers!!! Those are so fun. I had a sticker album, I can’t remember how old I was but probably around that age. Scratch and sniff stickers were my absolute favourite. I think I still have that album, it’s probably in a moving box in the shed. How fun. I honestly don’t remember what I liked to do when I was 10 – read, I guess, and play the piano. Maybe go roller skating? It’s all fuzzy!

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    1. It’s all fuzzy for me too. I think that looking through photo albums recently has helped to spark some memories. ❤️

      I love all of the things you were doing when you were ten. I was doing many of the same things. I believe I began playing clarinet at the age of ten!

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  6. I clicked on the last link. How I loved going to the French Market when I was a kid!!! I thought I was in France! I totally remember The Toy Box because it was such a cool toy shop. I think the last time we were there was on a mini vacation to take our girls to the Columbus Zoo, probably around 1994. It makes me sad to know it doesn’t exist. With outdoor malls being all the rage, I don’t understand why they can’t restore it.

    Like you, I totally loved stickers and the scratch-n-sniff ones were faves. But my all-time favorite were the Wacky Package stickers (I think they came with gum, similar to baseball cards?) The ones that made fun of real products. My bedroom wastepaper basket was completely covered with them. With all the crap my parents kept, I’m shocked I didn’t come across it!!! It was epic. A few years ago, I found a Wacky Package jigsaw puzzle at Lehmann’s Hardware in Amish Country and bought it. So fun to see those stickers again. My husband and I still thought they were funny and we sat there and chuckled at the completed puzzle.

    My 10 year old self liked to ride bikes in the summer and visit the Bookmobile when it came to our street. I loved Nancy Drew books and also looked for Hardy Boys and Bobsy Twins books. I also wrote letters to my neighborhood friend who moved to Detroit that year and I’ve kept in touch with her ever since.

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    1. I thought I was in France too! I loved the smells there. Spices, fresh fish, and pastries. I would love to see it revived again someday. When discussing The Continent on Reddit, several people mentioned their love of The Toy Box. I can’t remember the name of the place I loved. I also wanted to live in one of the condos in The Continent when I grew up. I remember saying that when I was little. 🤣

      You are the third person to mention Wacky Packages! I love it when we all reminisce. OMG, Lehman’s! My mom and dad loved that place. They always said if you can’t find it, go to Lehman’s. I love that you’ve kept in touch with your friend who moved! How wonderful. ❤️

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  7. This was a big year for Lego Space sets in my orbit. I’d build them and then tear ’em apart to make my own thing. Then I would rebuild the original set. This was also the year Fisher Price released some pretty amazing Muppet puppets. I had Kermit, Animal, Miss Piggy and Rowlf. I wanted so bad to be a puppeteer that I cut hangers to make little rods to loop around their wrists so I could control their arms like the pros. (I still have two of those puppets!)

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      1. I’ve not seen the doc yet. I’m adding it to my list (It should have already been there!) — I had a free evening and looked at said list and nothing jumped out. This would have been a slam dunk!

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  8. The French Market!!! It was amazing to my young self. I liked the handmade jewelry and the French pastries. What a flashback. When I was 10 y.o. I was into bike riding and swimming. Everything else was just filler until I could do what I really wanted to do. 🚲 🏊🏻‍♀️

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    1. Did you ever get to try the meringue cookies?? I think they were at a bakery near the food court area. They were delicious! My mom and my grandma loved going to The French Market, so I got to go there quite a few times. I always loved being there. ❤️

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  9. Kari, yup, I most definitely do remember the store from “The Facts of Life” because I used to watch that show! My favorite character was Jo.

    Never had a sticker book, but I do remember scratch and sniff stickers! LOVE thost things because I’m a bigtime SMELL person.

    One of my favorite activities when I was ten years old was watching the cartoon “The Jetsons” while playing with my “The Jetsons” Colorforms. Remember Colorforms? I loved playing with those things. I had “The Jetsons” AND “The Flintstones.”

    FUN, FUN post, my friend! Have a faaaaaaabulous week!

    X

    P.S. Love the “Pot Head” sticker. LOL!

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    1. She was also my favorite character!

      I am also smell person! I loved the scratch and sniff ones. I got to experience some of them a few years ago, and let me tell you, they brought me back. ❤️

      I LOVED COLORFORMS!!

      I’m so glad you liked it! Have a wonderful week, dear friend!

      I am a pothead! (that kind, anyway!) 🤣

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  10. I definitely had a sticker book (I’m 90% certain it was Annie themed!) and while I did enjoy the scratch and sniff stickers I also liked the 3-d ones that were plastic-y with the foam inside… and the ones that looked all shimmery.

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  11. Kari,

    I love your stickers! They feel so You. Too many to name, but I would love to have a lot of them somewhere in my life. I have hopped onto the trend of covering my laptop lid with stickers, though. My favorite one I got in Louisiana last summer:  Have You Lost Your Damn Mind? It felt fitting for so many reasons. 

    When I was 10 one of my favorite things to do was play Little House on the Prairie with my best friends Allison, Ellen, and Kimberlee. We weren’t often all together, which was good, because then one of us would have had to play Carrie and no one wanted to be Carrie. We also liked to play Miss America at our slumber parties. We’d bring dress up stuff and records and do dance routines to the records. Allison usually won. I had a collection of ceramic dogs, and if I was by myself I liked to act out stories with them out in our yard. So:  Imaginative story-telling was huge in my 10-year-old world!

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    1. I love how they feel like “me!” That makes me very happy! I love how you also decorate your laptop with stickers. ❤️

      Nobody wanted to play Carrie…oh man, that is so good. Nobody wanted to play Nellie in these parts. 🤣 Imaginative storytelling! Yes! We used to play Grease, Dukes of Hazzard (gah), Star Wars, and other shows with the neighborhood boys and girls. I remember one year, the neighborhood kids created a haunted woods out of junk from all of our garages. So much fun.

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    1. You’re the third person to mention that you saved your stickers! So it’s definitely not dumb! There’s something special about preserving your stickers rather than sticking them somewhere. You wanted to savor them.❤️

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  15. You already know that I’m a sticker fanatic! I have them covering my laptop and water bottle. I have a pile of new ones in my desk drawer, just waiting to decorate my new laptop (if I ever get my head out of my ass and finally decide on which one I want) and another water bottle. I loved seeing the close ups of the ones on your desk.

    I loved stickers as a kid, too. My favorites were the ones from wacky packs (are you old enough to remember those? Maybe not…I think they were more popular in the 70’s.) And then the scratch and sniff, oh yeah. My favorites were peach and pizza.

    But my favorite thing to do when I was 10 was playing Barbies. Me and my best friend across the street played with them all the time. I also loved coloring and reading and roller skating and playing Four Square.

    xoxo

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    1. I remember wacky packs! And I can still smell the peach and pizza!

      I also loved playing Barbies with my best friend. We also loved roller skating together. I think you and I would have been friends back then, too. 😘❤️

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  16. PS – The store from The Facts of Life…have you been in the store, Nice Lena on Chicago Ave in Evanston? If not, you MUST go! It kind of reminds me of The Facts of Life store! (With a bit of a humorous and feminist twist.)

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  18. How did you know I needed this today? Stepping away from a crazy stressful day to remember what made me happy age ten. Cannot tell you how healing this is ❤️

    Age ten was solid horse obsession. Probably me at the barn or me with my barn friends at their houses while we waited to go to the barn. Hours of riding, grooming, cleaning tack and stalls. Reading everything I could about horses and horse care. My friend and I made little newsletters by hand about horses. We drew horses and gave them identities and lives and exchanged them with each other. Don’t even get me started on the Breyers and Hagen-Renakers. Just horse horse horse basically! The best!

    I definitely remember sticker books! I had two! My little town had three (!!!) shops with stickers. One shop was owned by my friend’s family. They kept the stickers near the fine stationery (omg how I wanted to own fine stationery).

    I’m sure we kids were super cute agonizing over which 10 cent sticker we wanted to cut off the roll.

    Stickers were on rolls back then. Are they still? It was such agony picking just one or two! Our town was tiny & safe so my friends and I would walk frequently by ourselves to the sticker shops and gaze at the stickers. Plain, metallic, puffy, scented….Every flavor. Some even had a kind of internal goo (oil?) that changed colors and swirled around when pressed.

    I kept most stickers unstuck because we traded them. That was fun.

    I definitely did not stick them (once) to the bathroom door. Definitely not.

    And one of my friends and I had an elaborate saga involving tiny miniatures who were also besties and would send each other stickers. And letters. They also went to summer camp. Published a newsletter. Those little miniatures lived I tell you! And stickers (the miniature stickers lol) were part of living!

    Thanks for the memory unlock!

    Your adult sticker collection is amazing! Ten year old you would be so proud of your awesome stickers and the cool way you’re displaying them! I love that!

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    2. What’s funny is that I almost didn’t publish this post yesterday. At the last minute, I decided on this one. So, I love this even more. 😘💕

      You and Ella would have been great friends. She was exactly like you, Maddie. Horses were everything to her at the age of ten. Breyers, horse magazines, riding lessons on weekends, horse shows, horse television shows and movies, horse books, horse-themed birthday parties. She still rides every week. She’s just not as excited about them, but I think Ella will be a horse girl forever. Just like you. ❤️

      You are the second person to say you left your stickers unstuck! That’s so clever! I never thought of doing that!

      Ooh, doors! That’s an idea…

      I love the idea of sending each other stickers! How cool! I wish we’d been friends when we were younger. You sound just like the kind of friend I needed back then. 💕

      I love this perspective, Maddie! She would be proud of my sticker collection. She would absolutely love it. ❤️

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    3. I forgot to comment on your walking to the sticker shop! We lived very far from our town, so we couldn’t walk anywhere. I remember my friend and I riding our bikes to Subway once, and we thought it was a big deal. Your walk to the sticker shop sounds ideal. 💕

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  19. I did have a sticker book now that you reminded me! And scratch and sniff stickers. And so many Lisa Frank stickers.

    I actually still have a sticker collection, but it’s not in a book, sadly. I have three giant envelopes and my stickers are divided into one group for holidays, one group for animals, and another group for everything else. It’s not the most organized system in the world, but I can usually find what I’m looking for. I put stickers on a lot of mail I send out and I put them on my weekly journal to commemorate things that happened that week.

    I have never used stickers to decorate, though. I should decorate my poor boring laptop. It could use some spice.

    When I was ten, I mostly loved to read, though. And it turns out that it’s still my favorite activity, so I haven’t really grown much.

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    1. I love that I reminded you! Lisa Frank stickers were a little after my time, but I still love her stuff.

      I’m so glad to hear you still use stickers! I also love that you still send cards in the mail.

      I only developed a love of reading as an adult. It’s now one of my favorite things to do.💕

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  20. Oooooooh I LOVED stickers as a kid! I also had a sticker collection, but I never EVER stuck them anywhere. They just lived in a special box and I would take them out and organize them / admire them every so often. I loved the scratch n’ sniff ones so much.

    Your sticker decor is amazing! How fun! I feel like it would make for really delightful work breaks, to just sit back and let your eyes roam over all these awesome stickers! We really seem to be living in the height of sticker availability right now. So many good ones! I still enjoy stickers, and am better about using them. And I feel like having a kid has given me a very good “excuse” over the years to buy stickers with wild abandon.

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    1. I love how you kept your stickers in a box! That would have given you the option of trading with a friend if you wanted.

      Thank you! It’s a lot of fun looking at them all. I usually get mine at bookstores with friends. I have two friends who also love stickers, so it’s fun to collect them when we get together.❤️

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  21. AHHHHHH. You’re my new favourite person. I too, am a sticker connoisseur. Majourly! I stuck them everywhere including inside my dad’s mustang. Haha!! I feel like we have a lot in common. Like, we’re kindred spirits. I’m glad I found your blog – it’s really inspired me, I subscribed and am excited to get to know you better.

    I get most of my stickers on the shop app, and some local shops where I live.

    Have a great week! ❤

    PS: I LOVE all your stickers! I still put mine everywhere! Lol!

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    1. Aww, I love hearing this Natalie! I’m very happy you also found your way here! I’m looking forward to getting to know you through the comments.

      I love that you still collect stickers! 🖤

      Have a great week as well! 😘

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  22. Scratch and sniff stickers! Yes. Do you remember the puffy ones? They were shiny plastic and puffed up for dimension? I loved stickers, but I feel like I was maybe 11, going on 12 when that was happening. Around the same time that all things rainbow and unicorn were coming into fashion. I had a pair of rainbow shoelaces and I thought I was the shit.

    I need the Jesus “I saw that” sticker for my car!

    Oh, and I loved Facts of life and forgot about the store, but yes, let’s bring Ednas Edibles back in 2024 style.

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    1. I also loved the puffy ones! The stickers with the water inside? So cool. You WERE the shit, friend. Still are. ❤️

      Get that sticker!

      On Monday, I found a video on Instagram with Tootie and Natalie buying bongs from a record store and showing them to Mrs Garrett. AND PEOPLE DON’T BELIEVE IN SYNCHRONICITY.

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  23. My granddaughter absolutely LOVES stickers, and I so enjoy feeding her enthusiasm. Her father isn’t quite so thrilled 😉

    When I was 10 years old, life was rather unsettling, so I don’t remember much – but I must’ve read, ‘cos I always read!

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  24. Embroidery. That yearall I wanted for Christmas was embroidery kits. And that’s what I got. And I embroidered all those kits. And then I was done. Actually looking back it was a very good peek into my personality and how I go hard into a hobby and then I’m done.

    recently, I’ve been playing a bit with slow stitching. And I’m loving the intention of it

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  25. I love your sticker collection so much, Kari! It made me happy to see all those sayings and art. Now I want to put stickers on everything too! When I was 10, and pretty much any age, I loved to draw. My dad would bring home boxes of forms from his job that would’ve been thrown away, and I would draw on the backs of them. Piles and piles of drawings!

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  26. I did not remember that Facts of Life had a store. A store? What did they sell? I love red bubble. I bought that I SAW THAT sticker for one of my kids for Christmas. So funny.

    I think when I was 10 I was all about playing with a Chinese jump rope. Do you remember those? I was also playing with dolls and making shit out of cardboard boxes, much to my mother’s chagrin, because I always had her scissors. Were we that broke that we couldn’t own an additional pair of scissors? I guess that would’ve been an extreme luxury.

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    1. The store was when the girls were out of college. I think. It’s getting fuzzy as I get older.

      Chinese jump rope? It sounds vaguely familiar. I love how you were making things out of boxes. Ella loved doing that too! ❤️

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