Vintage Barbie

A while ago, I thrifted a vintage (70s) Barbie.  She has the lovely Steffie face mold.  I figured right away that the body her head was one, while it's a legit vintage Barbie body, wasn't her original one.  I have acquired a few of these dolls, and the body just didn't seem right.  It was heavier than the other dolls', and the skin tone was off (which could be discoloration from age, but still, it wasn't right).

She also had black stains on her face, on her forhead, nose and chin.  I thought this was the perfect time to try the benzoyl peroxide zit cream (I found some at Dollar Tree) in sunlight method.

Husband:  Why is there a doll head on the window sill?
Me:  I'm trying to get rid of black marks on her face.
H:  How?
M:  With peroxide cream and sunlight.
H:  How does the sunlight help?
M:  I don't know.  That's what the internet told me to do.

*A few hours later*

Husband:  So, as far as the sunlight goes, the UV from the sun doesn't actually help the peroxide to work, it's the heat apparently.  I have a heat lamp you can use, since there's not a lot of heat coming through that window.
Me:  Wow.  You've done a lot more research than I did.

Anyhoo...under the heat lamp she went!  It worked like a charm!

If only zit cream worked this well on humans.

She also didn't have much of her original hair, so next step was the reroot.  I used Golden Sun that I had in my stash from DollyHair.com.  It was during rerooting, I discovered cracks in the vinyl of her face, one at the back of her head, and a few fine ones at the bottom of her chin.  I glued them with plastic adhesive.

When I finished her hair and tried to put her back on the body she came on (the one I suspected to be wrong).  All the splits cracked open again.  I realized why.  The neck post was too large for her tiny neck hole, and the force of trying to get the head on caused the cracks.

Great.  Now she needed a new body.  I scoured through my donor body dolls (Made to Moves, older articulated Fashionistas, and Liv), but couldn't find the right skin tone match.  I finally found a match, but the doll wasn't in my donor pile.  It was a Raquel (I think?) Fashionista, but I wasn't ready to behead her.  She's just too pretty.

I went to Walmart in search of a body.  I finally found a budget Barbie doll (basic articulation) with the right skin tone, for around $10.  Success!

Left to right:  New body, Raquel Fashionista, old body

This doll was such a pleasure to unbox.  There were only about 3 plastic ties to clip, and NONE IN HER HEAD!!!  I hate those stupid plastic ties they put in the head.

Off came her head...NO PRONGS!!  Yay!!!  Just mounds of glue stuck to the post.  Ugh.

The neck post was still a bit wide for the head, so I got out my Dremel tool and ground it down.

I didn't want to re-glue the cracks in her face until I was done fitting her head on the neck, to lessen the chances of them splitting open again.

This crack was the only one I could really capture in a photo, it's also the biggest.

I just love her.  Her face paint doesn't even need to be touched up!

Thanks for stopping by!

Vintage Davtex Reroot/Partial Repaint

A while ago, I bought a bag of what appeared to be vintage Barbies.  As it turned out, they weren't Barbies, but Farbies (aka clones).  I didn't find this one overly attractive (her head was a weird shape, I thought).  I finally got around to do something about it this past couple weeks.

First thing I did was reroot her.  Her original hair had a nasty texture.  I couldn't tell if it had been a bubble cut, or if it had been, just cut.

I decided on an auburn color from my stash of hair from Dollyhair.com.  After I finished, something still didn't look right.  I had forgotten to take a photo of the part before I cut all her hair out, and I couldn't find the part line after I got all the hair in.  Boo.  Then I realized if she HAD originally been a bubble, I have no idea how to style that, nor do I like it.  The I saw the little line on her forehead, as if that's where it would have been rooted if she'd been a swirl ponytail doll...

Ta da!!  Much better!  I realized after I did this part, that it was the super high forehead that wasn't doing her any favors.

I clipped up her hair to see what she would look like with a ponytail!  I thought pretty good!

I also touched up her eye and lip paint, and gave her some clothes.

She is wearing one of the new "one size fits all" Barbie fashions, and dollar store shoes.  She was hard to find shoes that fit half decent!  Her feet are smaller than most of the Barbie shoes I have.

The stand I made out of one of those balloon sticks, a jar lid, some felt, some wire, and some ribbon.

I'm trying to sell her locally, as I don't collect clones, but she's kinda starting to grow on me...maybe I'll call her Audrey for now.

Thanks for looking!!

My Current Workspace

I have a few projects on the go currently, and yes that's my kitchen table, ha ha! We don't need to eat there, right?

I can't stand waiting for paint and glue to dry, so I have a few different things to do while waiting.

I have a giant Shopkins I'm working on, with a large plastic ring from Dollar Tree.

A Monster High Abbey that had a broken leg being turned into a mermaid.

An Elsa head that I'm rerooting (the one from a previous post who's hair I couldn't fix).

A vintage Barbie clone (or Farbie, as by DH has coined them. Fake Barbie = Farbie) that I'm rerooting and touching up the makeup on. I don't find her a particularly attractive clone, so I feel like I'm putting "lipstick on a pig", so to speak. I'm going to try and sell her if she looks okay in the end. I'm not sure if she made it into the photo.

I'll be doing more detailed posts about each project as I finish them.

What are you working on?
Thanks for stopping by!

My Second Re-root

Remember her from a previous post?  Well, my order from DollyHair came recently, and I finally got to re-root her!

I chose Golden Goddess

Before the boil wash.  I read somewhere the analogy that when you're finished re-rooting your doll will look like a troll.  I like that analogy!

After the boil wash

I think she turned out beautifully!  I love the color; the pics don't do it justice.  This was my first time thatching a part as well.  Now i just need to give her new lipstick and an outfit!

Now I have a Midge that will be my next victim...errr...client.

Thanks for looking!

My First Re-root

Since I got my Pizzazz doll with doll pattern baldness, I've had intentions to fix her by rooting in the bald patch.  I've been wanting to try a re-root for a long time.

from giphy.com

I decided that I needed a practice victim client, first.  I put out an ISO on freecycle; and these are what was given to me:

I apologize I can't get this photo to rotate.  There's a brunette Barbie who appears to be Theresa, Pocahontas, and a no-name ugly dollar store doll.

Contestant #1

 While her hair IS really bad; I found her just ugly, and with no neck syndrome.  I saved her outfit and just threw her in the bin.

Contestant #2

Pocahontas' hair is a little tangled; but I *think*  I can save it.  I'll have a go at her another day.

Contestant #3

Theresa's hair was not tangled; but from the back I could tell she had had a custom cut:

Plus, I like her face.  I choose you!

I got started cutting her hair off.  I kept the longer pieces in a ziploc bag.

Then to chose the hair.  I looked through all the packages from Dolly Hair.  The Electric Banana is reserved for Pizzazz.  I had 5 colors to chose from (I ordered a grab bag, 5 random hair hanks for $10, I think it was).  I chose the purply color I thought went with her eyes.

Nabbed from the Google Images page

The hank was way too long for this doll; and didn't probably wasn't a full hank anyway.  So I cut it into two pieces (as even as I could) and hoped I would have enough to root the whole head.  It was sooo close to being enough.  I added some of her original hair to the front area where the old bangs used to be to fill in the spot:

I thought she could channel her inner Kimber from the Holograms (I've been watching Jem on Netflix lately) with a chunky, longer, spiky bang effect.  I decided it still wasn't full enough (I had been rooting more sparsely than I would have liked in order to ensure I had enough hair, didn't work though).  I caved and got another hank of hair.  A light pink this time.

I filled in the rest of the spots that were more thinly rooted.  I didn't use the whole hank.

Now my Theresa has pink highlight in her purple hair with a brown faux hawk.

Now just to wait for the glue to dry and I can style it.  I wish I had a more articulated body substitute right now.

A creepy photo just for you.

I also have a huge mess to clean up.  Ugh, doll hair strands everywhere!

Thanks for looking!