Calico Critter - How to Change out the Eyes Tutorial

 Ever wanted to customize your Critter with new eyes? Here's how I changed out mine! I am NOT the creator of this concept - I discovered it and figured out my own system of doing it, with the tools that I had one hand. There is another customizer's video that you can watch on Youtube - just type in custom Calico Critter and you will see her complete customization of a Critter, with painting, sculpting, etc. It's quite cool. Since I am only interested with this project of changing eyes, I will explain how I did it. First things first - 

Tools 

*Aleene's Tacky Glue - other glues might work, but I can't say for sure.

*Pins with 4mm heads. If in doubt, take a Critter with you to compare. These are just a smidge smaller than the Critter eyes, but the best I found for both Adult and Child size. Babies need a smaller size.

*Wire Cutters

*Pliers - or I'll show you how I just used my wire cutters

*3mm Half round chisel - here's a link where you can buy just a single chisel

*Small phillips screwdriver or something comparable 

Step 1:

First step is to remove the eyes from your Critter. Take your chisel and wedge it carefully under the eye. Be careful not to come on too heavy handed - your don't want the tool to slip and mar your Critter's flocking. I did that. Once you get it under the edge of the eye, wiggle it a bit and the eye will pop off. It will soar and you will likely not find the cut off piece for awhile. 

Step 2:

That was easy enough! Now you are left with the posts still stuck in the eye socket. It'll look  like this:

It's a little unnerving at this point. :P What you need to do now, is to take your small phillips screwdriver or something comparable to push the post into the head. Do not use something that is wider than the eye socket or you will run the risk of causing it some damage. I don't know what else you can use, but this tool is what I used. It's a screw driver set for miniatures that had different heads on it. I used the star tip, but any round head will work. 

This is how it looks once the posts are pushed into the head. Note: I didn't care enough to take the head off to remove the posts as the rattling doesn't bother me. If it will you, now is the time to take the Critter's head off after softening the plastic with a blow dryer (be careful not to overheat and melt the glue holding the flocking on) and then pop it back on in the same manner. 

Step 3:

Before we continue, let me show you the size comparison between the pin head and the original Critter eyes. You can see the pin is probably a mm smaller. It doesn't matter. 

Now that the eyes are cleanly removed, we will prep the pins! First, take your pin. You want to bend the post down. So do this with either pliers, or if you only have wire cutters, you can still do this. There is usually a tiny little spot at the bottom of your blades where they won't cut. 

Next, you need to cut the post down. Here's a tip: You need to hold onto the post that you are going to cut off, otherwise it will fly into No Man's Land to become a potential hazard. I had a hard time trying to take a picture of exactly how I held it, but I held both the part I was cutting and also the pin head to also keep that from flying off. You just need to be super careful with the sharp end. 

 You want to cut off about half the post. If you cut off more, that okay too, you just want to leave enough of the bent part to help it stay in the head better. Test it in your Critter head to make sure it is short enough not to push the eye back out. Next step, gluing in the eye!

Step 4:

Take your glue and carefully fill in the eye socket. This is where you need to be careful to not overfill the eye. If you do (and I did it) the glue will seep out around the new eye and possibly get on the flocking. You don't wan this, but if it does happen, take your finger nail and carefully scrape off the extra glue. If you catch your over filling mistake before you push in the new eye, simply take a paper towel, roll it very thin and carefully dip it into the overfilled hole until its down to a better level. 

Step 5:

Now it's time to put in the new eye! Carefully and gently push the eye into place. You want to make sure it's in solid and doesn't slide out but don't push it too hard where it sinks back into the head. 

Now repeat that step until you are done! Here's my whole redone Marshmellow Mouse Family.

Time to upgrade my bathroom!

 This came about rather unexpectedly. We had a leak in the second bathroom, and while we were awaiting the plumber's arrival, I did try to put epoxy around the leak in the hopes that it would stop it up so the water would stop leaking out. The only time the plumber could get here was the end of the week - which is tomorrow. Needless to say the epoxy was a bust. But at least the water leak wasn't so bad that it was flooding the whole bathroom and spilling into the neighboring space. What it did do was cause the necessity of changing out the cabinet and sink that originally came in the trailer - while it wasn't ruined entirely, it definitely has suffered some damage. And we really just needed an excuse.

And since we were getting one bathroom cabinet, why not get a second bathroom cabinet for my little bathroom? :D We ended up getting a 24" grey cabinet with a marble (man made marble, not high end expensive marble) sink/counter top. OMG, how exciting!

The sink, counter and cabinet that came built into the bathroom was....not ideal. A plastic round sink which does not work very well with my coffin shaped soap dish. The counter top was this ugly speckled brown, and it also leaned, so we had to keep a neatly folded up towel on the right hand side in the back in order to catch the water. The cabinet was a decent size, but it had a board about 4 or 5 inches from the back where the shelf ended and had another board stick up about 4 inches as a partial wall. Behind that, it was just the plumbing, which boasted a gaping several inch hole in the floor which had to be filled in last year as we had 2 mice get in the house. (Joy.) More about that hole and the foam which sealed it later on in this post....Oh, and the faucet was really not very nice. Let's be real here, I hated it. 

Step one of this project was pretty simply - disconnect the sink and take out the old faucet. We started in my bathroom. The trouble here is that I didn't have the right tool to loosen the bolts. It is a very tight space, and the only thing I had on hand that would work was a pair of pliers which I had to turn straight up and down and loosen it that way as I couldn't get the pliers to fit in the space to turn it right to left. It worked, sink was disconnected, faucet removed, simple.

Next came the fun part....Fun is being used sarcastically here. The cabinet was built onto a frame which was secured via long screws into the floor and walls. They did come out fairly easily, but this is where it got tricky. We basically had to break the countertop off, and then try to tear out the framing once the sides and front got hammered off. 

And it is at this point that tragedy struck. As I was busting the framing away from the wall, in my gusto, I managed to snag the hot water line and break it clean off where the 2 halves were joined together. It was the worst feeling in the world. Water sprayed, frantic voices shouted "turn the water off!" I was so horrified. 

After using the wet vac to clean up the water all over the floor, all we could do, was head to the Home Depot. Luckily it was a beautiful warm day and I didn't have to change out of my wet clothes before leaving. I brought the broken off piece with me, and a very helpful employee found the right Sharkbite coupling that I needed, and the tool that I needed if I didn't fit the pipe in correctly. I also grabbed other needed tools. I came home confident and happy to be able to fix the problem. I inhaled my Taco Bell soft tacos and got right back to work. 

Well, it didn't go as smoothly as I hoped. I didn't fit the pipes in tight enough, so my first try resulted in water spraying out at both ends. And that tool? Really not easy to use! After struggling - in tears, I'll admit it. The thought of having no running water for nearly 2 days wasn't an appealing thought - I was finally able to pop the pieces of pipe out of the coupling, with some much needed assistance to pull the pipe out while I used every ounce of strength on that tool. Happily, it came out and my next try was a winner. All I was out was 2 bloody knuckles.

We called it a day at that point. The next day we had another sink and cabinet to knock out, and also the base of the cabinet that was still left in my bathroom.

On the following day (today), I admit to really not being very excited to work on the bathroom project again. I took out the second sink and faucet and happily left the cabinet demo to someone else. (I already busted one pipe....) I decided the best use of my time was to clean up all the unneeded tools, etc in my bathroom and to start cutting down that mountain of foam that was essentially holding the cabinet base captive as it was all over the back side of the right hand 1x2 and very back 1X2 of the cabinet around the plumbing.

I very carefully - with the help of a screw driver and hammer - pried the plywood off the frame, and then took each piece of 1X 2's off a piece at a time, leaving only that consarded back piece. I slowly worked on sawing down the Foam Mountain. My hope was to chisel out enough that I could simply pull that back piece out of the foam. It did eventually work, but it was a little challenging. There was a piece of linoleum that was folded up against the piece of wood that made it too tight to pull the board out. And I had sawed off all of the foam that I could get to around it. Finally, I bent the staples back flush against the wood, pushed the piece of wood as far back against the wall as I could, bent the linoleum piece forward and pulled and wiggled the board  until I was able to get it out! Woo hoo! Success!

After that, I sawed the Foam Mountain down until it is - I think - not going to be in the way of putting the cabinet in, Which we can't do until we get a jigsaw to cut out the floor of the cabinet to accommodate the plumbing. That foam is just an awful mess. I wasn't the one who put it in, but in their defense, it was a rogue can of foam and a tight space to even get back to begin with. Here's how it looks now. I regret not taking more pics along the way.

At this point, I'm putting more thought into the refacing of the whole bathroom beyond simply putting in the new cabinet. The walls are hideous, and full of dings and dents that need to be filled in. That giant mirror has to come down. The strips all need to be removed and taped and mudded. (You see how the corner has that horrible gap.) I'd really like to have the wall freshly painted before putting in the cabinet. It's a lot of work, and will take some time, but honestly, it's fine not having a sink in the bathroom. It's totally something we can live with so we can take the time to do the bathroom correctly. And man, I'd love to have that bathroom spruced up! 

Vintage Doll finds at the Goodwill

 I don't go into the Goodwill very often these days. I used to check weekly - this was in the beginning stages of my Build a Bear collecting and I was crazed with seeing who I could find. I did find a LOT of them. But since I have been trying to limit my  - what I like to call - gathering tendency, I've been limiting both the Goodwill and the Flea Markets. I do occasionally go and have a look around. When I went on the particular day that I am writing about, I didn't really see the point in going. I was just getting over the flu and it was the last stop before going home, which is all I wanted to do at this point. But we went ahead and ran in to see what we could find. 

The first thing that caught my attention was the stack of vintage looking dolls on the top shelf above where they have those massive Barbie containers. (Barbies have been a continual strike out for awhile there lately.) I picked up 3 dolls, 2 of which looked the same in the face and heights (around 15"), but slightly different bodies. The third doll was 17", and honestly, her face actually creeped me out when I first picked her up. There was something uncanny about her. All 3 of those dolls looked familiar, but I couldn't place who they were. They all had that hair growing mech (which still worked on all 3 dolls.) I didn't have my phone with me to google who they were, so I just put them back. I also found a 12" Tressy. I was so excited! I had been wanting a Tressy. Her hair growing mech did not work, and the spot on her back was a little broken, but the rest of her looked fantastic.

Next, I selected a 14" Bellows Anne Madame Alexander doll from the late 80's. She was in very good shape and seemed to have all of her outfit pieces. I'm a sucker for vintage Madame A dolls, but I have to be very choosey as I really don't have much more room for dolls.

Going through the check out was quick and once I was back in the car, I googled those dolls that I had left behind. The taller doll is Ideal Chrissy's friend Kerry (priced at $4.29.)The shorter dolls were 2 different releases of cousin Velvet ($3.29 each.) Once I realized who they were, we had to turn around so I could go get them! I figured it would be really quick, just run in, grab the dolls and then head home. 

As luck would have it, the line was long and the one cashier was having computer problems with the register so I stood there for what felt like absolutely forever until they finally called another employee to come up and open up another register. It probably wasn't as bad as it felt, but you know how being stuck in a long unmoving check out line can feel.

I was so pleased with my new dolls. The Velvet with the jointed waist is the Movin' Groovin' release and the other one is just the standard original release. They are all in pretty darn good shape. The Velvets both has some hair trimming in the front, but Kerry's hair is pretty much perfect. They all cleaned up very nicely and are presently waiting on me to feel like making them something to wear. I do need to buy some appropriate sized stands for them as they could pitch off the wall shelf at any moment, even if they look look to be fairly stable.

Tressy and my new Madame A are presently waiting for me to feel like cleaning them up. I went ahead and stuck them on my doll shelves, which I really didn't want to do until I cleaned them up. But. They needed to go somewhere to be safe away from my determined curious furballs. 

Here's pics of the day's acquisitions (pre clean up):

Monster High Cubicles - a fun little display area!

As a doll and toy collector, you always want your collections to look good if you are able to display them. Whether it be dolls on stands on a shelf, positioned just so, or making neat dioramas. The challenge has always been to carve out enough space to display the things I really love in a truly limited amount of space. We all face that challenge! Even if a room seems spacious, once you start loading collections into it, the space can suddenly feel very limiting. For me, I definitely have small spaces to put things. I've been able to maximize the space that I do have, and I'm quite proud of what I've been able to squeeze in. No, it's nothing amazing and awe inspiring, but it's my space, and I love it. 

The subject of this post - as the title says - is Monster High. Through the years, I have gathered a lot of dolls. I started collecting in a great era where the dolls were popping up at Flea Markets for cheap. That has undoubtedly changed, and also happened to line up when I began recollecting dolls again after parting with much of what I had previously gathered. I had a few bad years there. The good thing though is that this time around, I have a much better understanding of how I want to collect, who is important to me, and so forth. And, getting the dolls has become far more limited so I am not hoarding the dolls in thrift stores whenever I see them.

The area that I have to display my dolls in happens to be in the doll/sewing room. It's a small room, but if you are smart and you figure out how to maximize every square inch, it is amazing what you can fit in! We got some cubbies from Target back when we moved in to be a launching point of organizing things into our new space while we figured out what worked and what didn't. These were affordable, easily accessible and also quite convenient. We got one 3 by 3 cubicle which sits on the wall by the door. Before, it held totes with craft supplies, but we were able to shift those to a better storage space and thus, we cleared these cubbies out for doll displays! 

As this is a shared space, I took 4 of these cubbies for my things. The first row of three have become my MH spaces. The fantastic thing about Monster High dolls is that they are very skinny and therefor, they do not take up a whole lot of space. You can really fit a lot of them in! The trouble - if you really want to call it trouble - is their furniture, play sets and accessories are almost neater than the dolls themselves. This is where I have had trouble working out the small cubbies that I have to display my dolls. Some of the furniture pieces just don't fit. I had originally meant to use all 4 for this purpose, but I ended up taking the 4th one for a different use. I'll blog about that in a different post.

These cubbies definitely work well for the dolls - the boys unfortunately cannot stand, but there is enough room for the girls to even be standing on their stands and also some of my playsets can fit. I have the Die-Ner playset, which unfortunately, doesn't work. I initially had it in there, but decided it looked far too awkward.  The Scaris Cafe fortunately fits very well. (That's my favorite set.) I got the new G3 Coffin Bean playset for Xmas last year, and I adore it. All of the pieces fit, except the actual coffee counter. Which really sucks, as I love it. It's just too tall. So I do have playset pieces that have to be stored away, but what I can display looks really neat. Right now I have the top cubbie where my boys are hanging out. I need some furniture pieces in there to really make it look awesome. I'm thinking it is going to be the spell room. Or library. I don't quite know yet, but whatever I decide, it'll be fun. The second floor is the Cafe and the bottom story is the Coffee lounge. It might be a little bit crowded, but it's okay. 

I've managed to fit 5 or 6 dolls per space. I will have to rotate my dolls as while I don't have a lot of dolls, I have far more than I can have out at one time. I'm okay with that. 

Once I have absolutely decided that each cubbie is perfect, I will be able to do the fun part. Put up wallpaper and flooring! I'll be using scrapbook paper. I'm a little worried that I won't find the perfect paper for a MH hang out space. Actually, I know I won't. I don't have the means right now to buy printables or to design my own paper, so I am at the tender mercies of what I've either bought in the past or *cringe* what I can find to buy. (There's been a huge decrease in scrap booking paper it seems as each new year comes.)

The more I think about it, maybe I should just pick my favorite papers and stick them up, and then just fit the furniture in as I please. It would be fun to have the freedom to change up even the room displays, not just the dolls that I have in there. Hmmm.....fun thought. 

I ordered some spray sealer for scrapbook paper and also double sided tape as I have no intention of mod podging anything permanent up. Not with my capable felines. I imagine papers will get ruined over time and I'll either have to or want to change them. I want the freedom to do so. 

I am excited to get the cubbies looking like actual rooms for my dolls. I have plans to decorate for the holidays - can't you just picture the MH students decorating for Christmas? Maybe tonight I'll haul out my collection of scrapbooking paper and start making some decisions. I just need to finish a couple of Etsy orders first. 

My Story of Barbie Collecting - how it started and where it is now

 Barbie collecting for me has had several rounds. (Seems like that is the case for many of the collections that I still have...) The first round of Barbie collecting began for me way back in 1999. It started one day while browsing in KB Toys - why I was in there, I really do not recall. But they had one of those specials which they would offer when they needed to clear out a bunch of stock. It was spend X amount and get a Ballerina Barbie for $1. The first Barbie I got was the beautiful Marzipan Nutcracker Barbie. Oh, was I ever enamored with her! And hooked on Barbie. I waited for sales as money was very tight in those days, and with time I snagged Swan Lake Barbie (another bargain doll) Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. I opened them all, but kept them stored in their boxes, only to take them out to admire them, and then back they went into their boxes and into my closet. A few more dolls joined the family. I remember Butterfly Tattoo Barbie and Kira. I don't recall the exact timeline, but for whatever reason, I didn't end up keeping the dolls. Perhaps that decision came when preparing for an upcoming move, I don't really remember. To this day I do miss Snow White and Marzipan Barbie. I've never replaced them.

Phase 2 of Barbie collecting came in 2002/03. I got a couple of dolls at K-Mart, and then more came on eBay. I didn't have many at this point, and the only ones I can really remember were Western Stamping Tara Lynn, and one of the 90's Beach Kens, who was my absolute favorite doll that I owned. I know I had others. This collection was sold when I branched out to collecting other things, such as G3, and then G1 MLP and American Girl dolls. I didn't look at Barbie again until.....

Phase 3 started in probably 2019. (These last few years have been a blur, and sometimes I can't remember what happened in which year. I know many of us can relate to that disconnected feeling when we look at 2019 onward.) I found this stunning birthstone Barbie Topaz, NIB at a Flea Market. I really wanted her, but I thought to myself "Self, you already collect enough stuff. Do you really want to try Barbie again?" I decided that the answer was "No" and left the market, only to turn around, go back and buy the doll. I did open her (her box wasn't super, and I am simply not a NIB collector) and then just had her tucked away in a container to occasionally get out and admire. About a year or so later, I found a fantastic deal on facebook MP where someone was selling holiday barbies for a great deal. I got 2 different rounds from her and was over the moon. One was Millenial Barbie, others were 2002, 2005 holiday Barbie, and so forth. I did open them and kept them in a container. Next I found repro Totally hair Barbie at Ollie's and a Caboodles Barbie from someone close to where I live,. And then came the real fun. I started finding cheap - usually nude and in need of cleaning up - 80's and 90's barbies at Flea Markets. This was the ultimate. Unfortunatley, I no longer have those dolls and its a regret that I have to just get over.

Here's the story behind that. To sum it up quickly, I had been living in a very stressful situation, halfway in boxes, with much of my stuff in town in a storage building. Things would get hauled back and forth when it had been too long since I had seen it. After so long, that gets extremely old and endlessly depressing. Sometimes you don't make the best choices in those situations. We were cleaning up and organizing the building to prepare for the upcoming move, and I was tired and worn out with it all, and basically just bagged up a lot of my stuff and simply donated it. Most of what I donated I really have no regret. But boy, I wish I hadn't tossed all my Barbies!! I'm just incredibly relieved that for some weird reason, I saved all their shoes and also kept the pack  of 40 pairs of shoes I got at a Flea Market. 

And now here we are in Phase 4. I really missed my Barbies, so I decided it was time to revisit some old friends. These dolls might have been new to me dolls, but Barbie herself is an old friend. First I got Earring Magic Barbie. I did buy her NIB and trust me, I felt incredibly guilty for opening her. But she also had her bag of shoes loose across her face, so she wouldn't have been ideal for NIB collectors. Then I found Earring Magic Ken for a very good price. And then came Paint and Dazzle Barbie who I got for so cheap, I was shocked. I found a Nude Caboodles Barbie and won her. (I still had her Caboodles case and shoes from my previous one.) My intent was to stick with those for awhile and then eventually add maybe one or two other dolls. And you know just how those plans go! I started thrifting again and while I still mourn for some of my past dolls, I have been able to find some wonderful treasures. I got a repro Barbie (nude, with her bangs not so perfectly removed, but not a problem) for Christmas, and I have since been going strong with the hunt! 

What I find amusing about looking back at what was important to me in each of these phases and where I am now. Phase 1 and Phase 3 (in the beginning) was all about the holiday or collectors Barbies. Phase 2 and my present self, it's all about the playline dolls. I started out only thinking about the early to mid 90's dolls,  and then I got interested in the 80s, then the 70s and now I have 60s dolls on my Dream List. One of my recent finds was an early 80s Ken that I  in previous phases would never have bought. I sure do love him now though!

I have no intention of ever parting with my collection again. I feel pretty confident in that assessment since I am finally in a far less stressful, much more secure phase in my life. I know we can never predict these things, and while I expect my collection to have adjustments periods, I intend to keep Barbie as a very close friend. 

Project memory Lane - the embroidered coat project

 Don't you hate it when you get those emails warning you how full your Gmail is? I've had that address since 2013 and I used to email a lot. I had pen pals, PMs on MBs, and of course, the random junk that one gets from just being online. I try to keep it cleaned out - ever so often I go in there and delete several hundred emails mostly from Promotions/social. I used to be better about cleaning out my Primary, but I don't do it as often as I need to. Where am I going with this?

Since my email has been around as long as it has, I figured I could just go in there and delete stuff from those early years. This took me down a path of nostalgia. I reread some of my old email chains from one of my pen pals - she was first a customer and we got to be good friends. At least good online friends. And then I also happened to stumble onto emails regarding a commission that I got via Den of Angels. Lucky for me, we had moved from the DoA PM system to emails to allow me an easier time of sending her WIP pics. 

I was thrilled, beyond thrilled to find these pics again. I think this project was likely 3 laptops ago, ha ha, and sadly, with the passing of each laptop, so too was the passing of many of my commission/project pictures. Just rewards I suppose of not bothering to update Flickr like I should have. I do feel the regret still. But any ways, I am so happy to have these pics. I've downloaded them and will mostly likely post them to IG and Flickr so I keep them while those platforms are still standing.

I got this project in the Spring of 2014. I honestly don't recall if she PM'd me after seeing my Open to Commissions thread (which I no longer have) or I responded to a Want to Commission thread. She was looking for a coat to fit her Luts CP Delf Type 1 doll, and it needed to be embroidered with a feather motif. Her idea was for the feathers to be similar in style to a parakeet. The coat was going to be in colors of burgundy and gold. Now, I have veeeeeeery basic embroidery skills, and because of that reason, I was a little hesitant to take it on. With that thought, she had to have PM'd me, as I don't know if I would have pursued an embroidery heavy project. I told her that I wasn't super skilled at embroidery and I wasn't sure if I could pull it off well enough. I remember that she really wanted me to make it for her and so I went ahead and took it.

This was tricky. She had drawn out on a computer program the idea of what she wanted for the motif idea and where these feathers needed to be on the coat. My job was then to take these general ideas and design a motif to fit into the spaces she wanted embroidered onto the coat, within the confines of my pattern. I had to redesign the basic idea for the front she was at first hoping for, as I couldn't get the various motifs - neck, front shoulders and across the back of the coat to seamlessly blend together. Let me also just say here, she was absolutely fantastic to work with, and was open to my suggestions as I really was committed to doing my best work for this project.  Here's my redesign of the front motif. I don't have the pics of her designs that she sent to me, unfortunately. 

I drew all of these motifs onto copies of my pattern pieces to make sure that they fit. Now, the next thing to figure out was how to transfer this to my pieces. The fabric I was using was a darker burgundy twill. That's not the easiest color to draw on with a transfer pencil, and so the journey of trial and error began. To do the embroidery work, I sewed my coat pieces onto cotton, but left the back of the pieces exposed so as to not catch the cotton in the embroidery process. If there was an easier way, I don't know of one. I ended up getting transfer sheets, where you go over the transfer paper with a pencil to transfer the design. That wasn't quite good enough, and so I got a white pencil to go over the blue lines from the transfer paper. While it worked okay, if I hadn't had good lighting, it would have been a struggle. I would occasionally have to re-go over the lines. The original plan was to outline each feather with black embroidery floss and then fill in with the gold thread. That didn't end up working, as it was far too bulky for the delicate design, so I took that out and just went at it with the gold.

The trickiest thing at this stage of the work was getting those neck feathers to go seamlessly from the shoulder motif onto the neck. 

And sadly, this is where my pics come to an end. There was a talon motif somewhere on the coat - I think it was right above where the coat's tails begin. I remember clearly what they looked like, but I just don't have the pics. We must have switched back to DoA PMs at this point. After all the embroidery was done, I still had to line the coat and sew it all together. I ended up going with a thin shiny fabric that matched the embroidery thread. I think the point where I was the most nervous was the lining. I had to be really careful sewing the coat together. Imagine if I had somehow messed that part up and had to fix the embroidery? Thankfully, it all went smoothly.

The embroidery involved nearly 90 feathers. Each feather took an average of 2 hours - more for the biggest feathers, less for the smaller feathers.  It took a LOT of hours to finish. I could only work on it for about 3 hours at a time, and at that point, I was juggling several commissions, which is really how I prefer it. All in all, it took me a few months to finish the project. This is one of the projects that I am the most proud of. I do wish that she had sent me pics of it on her doll. I remember that her doll was in the process of being painted with a lot of tattoos, and so he probably wasn't finished when she got the coat, and well, life has a tendency to just move on. 

Vintage Ginny has come to town

 I seem to have been on a vintage doll kick. Over the past couple of months I have found while thrifting at either the Flea Market or Goodwill Lesney Ginny (AKA Skinny Ginny,) 1971 Malibu Barbie, Tuesday Taylor, Madame Alexander Little Red Riding Hood, and finally, Ideal Doll Tammy. Malibu Barbie has shoes that she can wear and my little MA came with her shoes. None of the other dolls mentioned above came with shoes. I figured that I could just slowly gather up shoes for them. I found an auction of 4 pairs of shoes for my Skinny Ginny and won them for cheap. It was while I was looking for shoes for her that I really got to looking at the earlier versions of Ginny.

And that was when I found the most adorable little Ginny doll that had a starting bid of $5.00. In the listing, the seller described her as having such terrible hair that she almost threw her away! Thankfully she did not. I figured I could handle bad hair and the next day, I won my very first 50's Ginny for a whopping $8. 

I was so excited for her to get here, and the seller shipped her at a reasonable time. She arrived yesterday! I was a little horrified to see that she was simply wrapped in bubble wrap and put in a thin shipping envelop, but she was fine. Upon examining her, yeah, her hair is pretty much shot. I'm assuming her hair is mohair as it feels more like mohair than some of the other materials mentioned that they used on early Ginny's. It was tangled, balding and yeah. Pretty bad. It didn't deter though from how absolutely beautiful and magical this little dolly was! Her eyes were shut upon opening her, but I was able to very gently move the lids up. Her body is practically perfect. No real major stains or blemishes. No cracks or splits. Her walking mechanism works flawlessly. To say that I am madly in love with this dolly is an understatement!!

Now, for her hair. Her hair was meant to be in braided pigtails. You aren't supposed to saturate mohair with water as it is glued on, and you don't want to soften the glue and have the hair fall off. I also read that you aren't supposed to brush mohair, but this mop of a disaster desperately needed detangling, so I very carefully combed through it to get the knots out. I did get it damp and conditioned it, but not on her actual scalp. Maybe that was inviting danger, but it just needed a little cleaning. It didn't cause her hair any more hurt than she had already suffered, thankfully. Now, the bald spots are not possible to hide, but I did my best. I tried to comb it into place to cover up as much as I could, and then I braided her hair. Her bangs are pretty thread bare. My solution was to dampen a comb and then comb what little bit of bangs that remain to cover as much of her forehead as possible, and then I secured that with a paper towel and plastic wrap to hold it into place. It worked pretty well, and while her age and wear hasn't been fixed, it's so much better than it was. I think she looks pretty darn good for a gal her age!

I'm really enjoying gathering as much info as I can on these dollies. Here is what I have learned thus far from other collectors. My Ginny has the painted lashes and is a straight leg walker. This doll was only made in 1954. She also has GINNY on her back. Dolls with painted lashes who are strung (non walkers) are earlier - I think 1952/3, and have VOGUE on their backs. After 1954, the painted lashes were replaced with the molded lashes, and the walkers became bent knee walkers. I'm thinking the bent knee walkers are more like 1957. I'm still learning! I can see the appeal of the bent knee walkers. The knee joint must allow them to sit, as I see that the straight leg walkers are permanent standers. 

With my collection - yes, I am definitely planning on expanding my collection eventually, ha ha - I want to focus on the dolls with painted lashes. I've been looking for a friend for my Ginny, hoping to find another steal. We'll see how that goes! A couple have caught my eye. 2 on my watch page are the 1954 dolls, and one is from earlier. Fingers crossed I can find a friend for a good price for my Ginny!