Doll Collection Refresh Update - Patience and Baby So Beautiful

 I'm actually a little surprised about how much I've managed to get done.

 Starting with the Baby So Beautiful dolls - Cecily (the blonde one) is back on the shelf. I managed to convince myself to leave her hair alone so all she needed was a dust, a couple of grubby marks wiped off and her clothes washed. I didn't even bother to take any after pictures. She's no different. I did however take a couple of pictures of her locket while she wasn't wearing it.

These lockets came with all Baby So Beautiful dolls and were for the child to wear.

Kathryn (the brunette one) is a little more trying. Her clothes had yellowed a fair bit and it took a couple of washes and soakings to get them clean again. Her hair is a disaster. It seems that originally there was a rubber band around her little topknot ponytail and over the years it has decayed. About half of it was still around her ponytail, the rest was scattered through and stuck to her hair in fragments. I think I've gotten it all out now. Her curls are another issue. I had this happy delusion where I would comb her curls around my fingers and they would be like new and perfect and trouble free. . . no. Her curls got even more messed up while I was picking out the rubber band and are at the moment a frizzy mess. Currently she's waiting to have her hair washed and new curls put in.

The third doll, Kirralee, the dog attack victim has been given a good wash. So have her clothes. I cleaned the paint off her mouth. I wanted to use non-acetone nail polish remover (what I've always used in the past) but couldn't find any, so I used Isopropyl Alcohol. That was me being impatient because I really don't know if that's ok for using on vinyl. It's just what we happened to have in the house and actually did a good job of removing the paint (better than the nail polish remover would have) and since I washed it off straight after, I'm hoping it won't cause any problems later.
 It took ages for me to decide how I wanted to do her face. I didn't want to use acrylic paint - for reasons I won't go into here because this post would get way too long.  I decided to use pastels and possibly water colour pencils. I ideally wanted to use a spray on sealer but I'm pretty sure that would ruin her eyes. I toyed with the idea of cutting the shape of her lips out of a vinyl tablecloth or something, to make a mask so I could spray her face but it would only affect her lips. Ultimately I decided there were too many ways that could go wrong so I'm simply using a brush on, waterbased, craft sealant I happened to have around the house. I'm not sure this sealer is the right thing to use. In fact I have the same concerns about it as I do about acrylic paint, but it was the best option I had at the time.

Not finished yet. Going to take a few more layers yet.

Also the sealer was wet when I took this photo.

 I also tried scrubbing at the staining around her mouth with a magic eraser but I'm pretty sure that has soaked right into the vinyl and if I wanted to scrub enough to remove it I would have to scrub until vinyl was peeling. So I abandoned that and decided to pretend it was dribble rash. And I have absolutely no idea yet what I'm going to do about her hair and clothes in the end. At the moment I'm leaning towards dressing her in something I like and ignoring her mauled hand because I haven't yet come up with an idea for concealing it that I like.

Now, onto Patience. . . and just a warning, I am going to contradict myself several times between now and the end of this post. In fact I will probably sound like a crazy person by the time I'm done.

Wonderland Patience looks nervous about her new look.

 Alice-Patience (I try to just call her Alice, but in my head it's always hyphenated as Alice-Patience) is back on her shelf. Her clothes have been washed. Her hair has been washed and straightened. I could have straightened it more but it was sticking back in a slightly wild way that reminded me of the original Tenniel illustrations so I left it. I decided not to recurl it. Mostly because I don't like curling doll hair (not for fear of damage, it's just incredibly dull) and if something is going to happen even every five years that damages the curls so they need to be redone - ugh. Too high maintenance. It's not worth the effort. (Please forget I said that when I start talking about the other Patience.) I also discarded the idea of rewigging her because I am kind of in love with the colour of her hair. 

 Two sections of Alice-Patience's hair were tied back into little ponytails, then joined each other to make one small ponytail at the back of her head. I cut the threads securing these with nail scissors. I thought it would be easy but the threads were actually sewn to her head which made it more complicated, it also made her look a little bald in back but luckily that effect brushed out. I also had to cut off a lot of hair to get the length even. It was very uneven with it's factory cut. I am never cutting a Patience doll's hair again. Because her big, old, floppy, head just kept wobbling about which made me terrified of cutting at all, thinking if her head had moved there was no way I'd be able to get it even.

New headband!

 To finish her hair, she's got a headband I bought from Dollmore. I was just looking for a black Alice-band but when I saw this one I had to get it. The blue goes with her dress and the cat reminds me of the Cheshire Cat! The headband isn't quite long enough and little bits of her hair kept escaping, just above her ears, so under the headband there's a clear poly-band holding her hair in place.

Don't tell them all of my secrets!

 She also needed a new friend. For ages now Alice-Patience has been hanging out with the white rabbit that came with the large Alice in Wonderland Lalaloopsy doll. But the Giant Baby stole that a while ago, and now I have no idea where it is. So now she has a small Lalaloopsy of Dorothy Gale to play with and they seem to get along pretty well.

Dorothy's book is just weird!

The other Patience. . . Patience as Glinda or as I was calling her - Not-Glinda, is still a work in progress. She got a new name. I wanted to make a Georgian dress for her, so I decided to name her Georgette. . . except since I changed her name I'm constantly refering to her as Gilda. So perhaps her name is still a work in progress as well. Glinda/Georgette/Gilda is where I start to sound like a crazy person. I wanted to redress her because I found her original dress too pink and frilly and puffy. So I'm redressing her in a late-georgian gown of coral coloured silk, which I have to admit is quite pinkish and frilly and puffy! I'm not curling Alice's hair because curled doll hair is too high-maintenance. But at the moment I've washed the product and messy curls out of Glinda/Georgette/Gilda's hair and plan on recurling it neatly. It's almost as though this particular doll is encouraging me to do things completely out of character.

 Meanwhile, I think I said last time that both my Patience's have rooted hair. No they don't. Only Alice does. Glinda/Not Glinda is wigged. And once you wash the curls out her hair is down to her knees! At the moment I'm about halfway done on her dress. I suspect that the design I came up with is a little over-ambitious so I'm taking it slowly so I don't make any stupid mistakes. (Although another part of my brain is pretty sure that the design probably looks more complicated than it is - but that's the part of my brain that tends to make me make mistakes so I'm ignoring it.)

Sorry for poor quality!

Above is the design I'm working from, and yes, it is drawn in a child's colouring book; and no, I can almost guarantee that the finished dress will not look exactly like that.

 I've run out of things to say, so I'll finish with some Alice-Patience photo-spam.