My fourth little girl restored Gracie

Gracie in detail

This little girl was actually one of the better

girls I have won eBay. She really was in pretty good condition, Gracie is a lovely little American girl made in china, with sweet green eyes and pink lips, opposite is a picture of her straight out of the box, look at those pleading little eyes saying please make me a dress, I'm cold.

Still she needed a bath so of to the bucket she went, once washed and dried I re-applied her make-up basically just freshening it up as it was mostly there except slightly faded, I also brushed her skin with a toothbrush to give it back some of its softness and remove piling etc. She does have a small cluster of scratches to the white part of her right eye up high, but I left them there as they are not too bad, not worth the hassle of fixing them.

Fortunately her original part was still there so all I had to do to her piggies was smooth them out and straighten her fringe up. Opposite is her original part still intact and looking good, most of the dolls I have, their parts are long gone and their hair is a mess.

I decided she should have a dress similar to the original party dress and in green tones, fortunately for her my sewing machine needed a service, (unfortunate for my hip pocket, lol) as this is where I found the material for her new dress, our local Spotlight store isn't bad with its quality quilting fabric but it just didn't have what I wanted, I found this pretty green and purple floral at the sewing machine repair shop in Lakes Entrance.

Her dress is trimmed in soft fine cream lace, with a cream colored front yoke, and purple bow on the front to highlight, I made her matching barrettes out of the lace and with purple bows in the centre, I put the hook Velcro on the backs of my barrettes so they don't have any fiddly ribbons on them to tie and that way you can just pop them of to change them at any time, its a better way I feel of making them. I even made her cream socks and trimmed them with lace and bows. I think she worked out really well, she has wistful eyes in this photo, and she looks like she is going to spin and dance or joy at any moment, she is currently on eBay to sell, I am only doing buy it now on my dolls from now on, as i keep getting offered ridiculous amount for them, I am not going to give them away I work hard on them and they look awesome, when I have finished, who ever buys them will love them and not have to do a thing to them except display them.

I would love to keep her but I promised Glenn I would only keep the blue eyed girls.... we will see maybe I could sneak a few in the back of the cabinet with other colored eyes and he won't notice.

My third My Child restoration Emma

Emma in Detail

Again another little baby from eBay, Emma really wasn't in too bad a condition, her original top knot part was missing and most of her fringe was pushed up with the rest of her hair, her fingers & toes were a little dirty her make-up was very faded. She had really loose skin under her chin as well.

Opposite is a picture of how she looked on eBay, her face looked so sweet, lucky for me she was a cheap buy it now, so I actually won one with no effort at all. Sometimes you are looking at the right time.

She was wearing her original pampers diaper, one tab was still sticky the other wasn't

I began by giving her a nice bath, unfortunately I scratched her eye white quite badly when I was cleaning her, I was so mad at my self, when she was dry the first thing I did was re-paint the whites of her, something I didn't find to be much fun, you cannot get the color right, so you have to paint all four whites. They ended up being a creamy color but it matches her complexion well. I then set out to tackle her hair, I had never done a top knot part, but managed it quite well, her fringe was a challenge, I spent a lot of time combing, I then set it in rollers so it sat well. I popped some rollers in the back to,just to give it a slight wave. Next came her make-up, fresh shadow, lips, lashes and brows, she is just so sweet.

I had no option but to give her a face lift, she was just to saggy under her chin. I went under her neck and right around, once her skin was nice and tight it really seamed to change her face again.

I was going to make her a white & pink dress, but her toning lead me to pick pink & cream, I found a lovely little pink & cream floral and teamed it with cream pointy eyelet lace and pink ribbons, I even made her a barrette for her hair and some little socks with side bows to match, her shoes are non original cabbage patch shoes, she is just so sweet she had to have something on her toes to keep them warm.

Opposite is a the full length shot of Emma, finished and ready for a new home.

I really do like this little girl and I have bonded with her, but I made a decision to only keep blue eyed puppy tails, I will probably regret this, but I decided to list her on eBay, I will up date this page when she sells, fingers crossed.

My second My Child restoration, Molly

Molly in Detail Aussie Two Tone Ash Blonde Crimp OOAK

My next restoration was a sweet little two tone ash blonde Aussie Crimp doll, again another eBay win, I won her and her identical twin sister, unfortunately both of the girls had been to a junior hairdresser and had come out with a not so attractive look... Molly surived better than her sister, she just had most of her once culy fringe cut off. So after giving them both a bath I decided that molly should have a hair transplant, and that her sister would be the donner... and so the process began....

This photo opposite shows her freshly unpacked from the box she was posted in to me, note the fringe, or lack off it.

The first thing I had to was remove her head!!! I felt so bad doing this, like I was murdering someone and hacking up the body...LOL. I have since done it a fewtimes and the guilt lessens. After unpicking all the seams around her neck and removing the cord, I pulled and pulled and stabbed with butter knives to no avail it just would not budge, I then emailed a lady from the My Child group and she suggested I heated the head up, so after running her under hot tap water and pulling again, it just popped off, yeah!!! I was stoked, allthough she looked a bit sad. I then begain, I cut off what was left of the fringe and a few of the short pieces on the top down to the scalp and pushed what I could back though the hole into the scull cavity. I borrowed a really long needle from my Mum I pushed it eye end down and through the head to poke out the neck hole, and cutting the longer plugs of hair from her sisters head I then carefully knotted them, threaded them through the eye of the needle and pulled them up through the holes where hair once was. Once all the plug holes were filled (a few hours later) I then stitched her head back onto her body. It was then that I could carefully trim the very long fringe and style her hair.

This picture shows her after head was back on but just before I neatend up her fringe. I then touched up her make-up. On to the outfit, again using good quality fabric, I chose something with a blue base to bring out the color in her eyes, I also made her some little socks and a hair bow, velcro on the back of the bow so it jst sort of sits on the hair, no ties etc.

When she was all done I posed her for some pictures and then decided she wasn't going to stay with us, even after all the work and how cute she is I just didn't bond, I think I prefer the pale skinned American girls to the peachy Aussie girls. So she was also listed on ebay, and yet again she sold and guess what, she was off to America too. The photo below shows ow cute she was when finished a real OOAK (one of a kind)

Close-up of her sweet little face, shes waving goodbye, of to the USA.

My first restoration doll "Dora" in detail

Dora in Detail

This was my first little girl that I gave a full makeover to. I won her of eBay, she came to me from the USA, Now anyone who loves My Child dolls is going to cringe when I say this, but I'm not really into the original outfits, I like to make my own, mainly because they are brighter. So I sold her outfit on eBay, had to make it some panties first, because they were missing. Opposite is a picture of how she looked when she first got to me, She was a mess, original hair part was missing, her fringe was all pushed back and she was missing most of her original make-up, overall her skin color wasn't too bad and she only needed a light cleaning.

First I soaked her and then scrubbed her skin all over with a fine tooth brush to remove the piling, then I gave her a really good rinse to remove any soap residue if you leave this on the skin it tends to attract dust. Squeezed out the excess water, I then wrapped her in a towel and left her to dry.

Once dry the next big step was to give her a face lift, and a tuck under, she had a lot of loose face skin, I carefully stitched up into the hairline using invisible thread, her fringe would eventually cover it and you couldn't tell unless you pushed her fringe back, then all the way under her head, pulling down into the original neck seam line, I find that starting in the middle of her head at the front and working around to the back seam, pulling needle from thread, re-threading with a new length and going back to the middle again and going back around the other side, then finishing of both threads at the back, this stops any bunching occurring at the back of the neck.

Then is was on to the hair, I drowned her hair with conditioner and began to gently comb it out, I don't use a brush as it tends to make the hair frizzy. Once it was all knot free and smooth I washed the conditioner out, I then find the part line. (More information on parts and how to re-weave them will be on my blog later) I then painstakingly re-weave the hair part, once this was done, I spent a good deal of time combing out the bangs (fringe) that goes all the way around her head, I then carefully combed the piggies up and smoothed them out, applied some Velcro rollers all over and let her to dry. Once dry I removed the rollers and carefully combed her hair into place.

Make-up was next, initially I used some of Mum, she has a great range of prisma color pencils, lol. I now have my own set of colors suitable for restoring My Child makeup., and a steel sharpener, I have to hide from the kids. I carefully restored her brows, eye shadow, lashes and lips, I leave the cheeks as is, I don't want them to look like painted ladies!!! The photo opposite gives a better close-up detail of her face and hair once completed. All the hard work is nearly done, check her over to make sure all her arm, leg, bottom & belly button stitching is in place, a couple of her elbow ones were missing re-stitched the, I recommend only using good quality cotton thread, its less likely to break when you are pulling it really tight, ie; Gutermann.

Last but not least was making her pretty little dress, I got some patterns from America, they are modelled off the original outfits, again I only use good quality cotton fabric, there is some stunning quilters prints out there now, I sews beautifully and the dress come out looking really professional. I finish all my seams and Glenn says I am a bit fussy, LOL.

Job completed, time for some posing for the camera, and if I haven't bonded with them, its hard not to they are all so cute, this little girl wasn't to stay, brown eyes....I then listed her on bay, and low and behold she sold, I was very happy and she went back to America, so after a short holiday/spa/surgery trip to Australia, she winged her way back to the states. This photo shows the full bodied finished view of this sweet little girl, Dora.

Introduction

Introduction

My name is Kathleen, I am a married to Glenn we have two sweet little girls Tahnee and Hollie and a snoring fluff hound named Shauna.

When I was a little girl I had two cabbage patch dolls which I loved and still love, however my cousins both had My Child dolls, I thought they were pretty special but never got one.

I happened to stumble upon one for sale on a my child restoration website that looked a lot like my little girl Hollie, I brought her and the obsession began. Opposite is my Hollie and her Hollie look alike. All though I really need to track down a very hard to find and expensive strawberry blonde, to get a better match, but she was a nice start.

Now things have changed, I'm on eBay and have recently been buying them and restoring them to their former glory. Sometimes they stay (I bond with the little buggers, LOL) but mostly I am on-selling them again on eBay and doing well from it.

I have decided to only keep the blue eyed girls, particulary the puppy tailed ones, I have a redhead, brunette, blonde and ash blonde all ready, no strawberry yet but one day I hope. I am also trying to collect all the seersucker suits I have yellow, pastel rainbow & pink, only bright rainbow & blue to go, I would like to have them all in original T-bars, two down three to go, it's going to take some time and $$$ hence the restorations and on-selling, to feed my habit. Opposite is the girls that are staying with me, three are fully restored one (blonde) still has a little way to go.

This picture below (this is her before photo) is the first my child I fully restored and then sold on eBay, she originally came to me from the USA, she then had a few weeks at my beauty parlour, was listed on eBay and low and behold, sold to someone in the USA, so back she went, I guess she was homesick. Tahnee decided she should be called DORA, after DORA the explorer, because sh had brown hair and eyes like DORA. She was quite a mess, hair everywhere, dirty, makeup just about all faded away, So she got the works, hair wash & re-part (a painful and long job) a full body soak and scrub, dried and then smoothed her skin, re-made up her face and made her a lovely little colorful dress. I think she worked out well and below is her after photo.

I can't work out how to rotate my pictures yet, sorry.

Anyway its quite late now I will publish more of my work again soon, I am hoping to take on commission work, ie; people who have dolls and want them restored but don't want the hassell of doing it themselves, Price on application, I will take before after & during photos and send them back with the doll to their owner, all postage costs will be at the owners expense, and must be sent by registered post, any enquires or questions please feel free to email me, babboo76@hotmail.com or have a look on eBay under my user name for items I have for sale, chickenmini