The Joys of Re-Wigging

The first doll I re-wigged was Peggy, my first hard plastic doll. I bought her at a yard sale for $2. Her hair was pretty bad.

Peggy, formerly known as Marley

I don't remember why I removed her hair (possibly it fell off), but she was bald for quite a while.

I made her this nice satin underwear

I had her restrung at the Doll & Teddy Bear show and the lady who did it told me she couldn't put her head back on until I got the crack in her forehead fixed.

That's Peggy on the left, holding the jack o'lantern.

So for a while she was headless, until I persuaded Husband-Like Person to fix her. I don't remember exactly what he used. Some kind of filler . . . Then I put her head back on and meanwhile, I got a wig for her on eBay.

Yes, I know the wig is too far back.

Auntie Berman once worked for a school psychologist who had a receding hairline. One day a little girl asked him "Why do you wear your hair so far back on your head?"

For some reason I never glued the hair on, until recently. I discovered The Joys of Re-Wigging! I think it came about because we found an American Girl at Goodwill Bargain Bin.

Ratty, ratty hair!

Back view

Someone had apparently tried to use a curling iron on this poor girl. We had to get her, to save her from the landfill. I began googling info about re-wigging. I found out how to remove her wig (I was greatly heartened by someone who said she had never met a wig that didn't respond to brute force). The offensive hair was soon removed. We named the dolly Meriel, Merry for short.

She remained cheerful throughout the ordeal.

Meanwhile, Lorraine had had a terrible tragedy in which her arm suddenly fell off while I was dressing her. The plastic had actually broken. I was horrified. Lorraine was horrified. When I searched for a solution, I found out about doll screws, which are curlicue shaped. (By the way, if you search for "doll screws" on google, be sure your Safe Search is on. Otherwise you will get some very unpleasant results.) I ordered them and some doll-stringing elastic from a doll parts store. They were very cheap but I had to get $25 worth of stuff to order from them, so I decided to order two wigs, one red and one blonde, because I was thinking of giving Sunny a new wig, since her hair was kind of choppy. A few days later the doll store person called and said they were out of red and that particular blonde, so I went ahead and got auburn and a different blonde. When they arrived, I didn't like the auburn (it looked brown to me) or the blonde.

Just okay.

I had a half-wig that I liked (it was half a wig cap with lots of hair).

Maybe the curls are a bit much.

I left that on her, because now I had my little green-eyed girl with red hair, but I didn't glue it on (and here I should mention that Auntie Berman does all the gluing, because she is the Glue Queen). I was hoping to find something better.

And I did. It occurred to me that all those porcelain dolls we find at the Bargain Bin and Salvation Army Warehouse are wearing wigs! The dolls are usually broken, but their hair is perfectly good. Of course once I thought of it, we couldn't find any porcelain dolls--at first. But then we did!

Perfect hair!

So Merry is now decently wigged and very happy.

I will have to continue this later, because I have lots more wigs to talk about and no time to do it now.

(And we did get Lorraine's arm fixed, but she wouldn't let me photograph her and doesn't want to talk about it.)

When you haven't blogged for a while, it's best just to plunge back in

So I'm going to start with Maria, who is a Sasha doll.

Lulu and Maria

A year ago I found a Sasha doll at work. I didn't know who she was but I knew she was Somebody.

A White Dress Sasha

I brought in Auntie Berman, who immediately recognized her but couldn't remember her name. We called Biggie Sis and she informed us it was Sasha. So we got her. She was wearing her original white dress (that caused her to be called a White Dress Sasha). I realized after a couple of days that she was rather odd. I think it was her tan, which didn't really go with her red hair. Biggie Sis belongs to a Sasha group and she suggested we sell the doll. After much finagling (the burden of which fell mainly to Auntie Berman), we sold her for $160! Not bad for a $2.00 investment.

I never gave Sashas another thought until a few weeks ago when we were at Salvation Army Warehouse. We hadn't found much of anything and I wandered over to the big bin of stuffed animals they keep in back (but no more bears, I told myself). I almost didn't look in the back of the bin, because there were golf bags and clubs piled around it but since Auntie Berman wasn't ready, I shoved my way back and dug around and saw a brown arm sticking up. To my amazement, it was a Sasha doll! She was rather floppy, desperately needing restringing. She was naked except for her ID tag on her left wrist (it's supposed to be on her right but it's tied on and I don't want to try to change it). It says Sasha on one side and Made In England Serie on the other.

Posing in front of the snapdragons

Our next stop was my Savers store, where we bought a small bag of doll clothes and put the pink flowered dress in the first picture on her. I really liked her a lot better than the first Sasha doll, I think because her skin tone was a better match for her hair. Lizzie told me she thinks they have an alien look about them, and I totally agree! Although I had visions of dollar signs when I first found her, by the time we got home I had bonded with her and knew I couldn't give her up.

I decided she is Mexican, because many of my coworkers are and I named her Maria because one of my favorite coworkers is Maria and also I had just finished re-reading Three Without Fear by Robert DuSoe, which is a great children's book, if you can find it, which you probably can't because it's out of print.

I found more clothes for her as well as some Battat shoes that fit.

Eskimo dress

I also restrung her, although that was kind of scary. Someone had tried to repair her using a giant rubber band. Fortunately I had good doll-stringing elastic. It was a success and look at her now!

Maria Ballerina

Then I had to make her a new dress.

New dress

Last week I found a Mrs. Santa type doll (what was left of her) with a styrofoam head at Goodwill Bargain Bin. She was wearing a nice red dress so I relieved her of it and gave it to Maria.

A perfect Christmas dress

That's all for now. I will be back with more exciting finds, like the Tonner fashion doll I just found!

Ceddie Has a New Sister

I had been keeping an eye out for a sister for Ceddie, even though I knew I could never find anyone as adorable as Ced. Day before yesterday, though, I noticed a new doll sitting on the shelf in the Girls Toys section who was unusually pretty. She was all vinyl and on the back of her head was 2000 Unimax. I had never heard of Unimax. I thought about her all day. I told myself she was just a vinyl doll, nothing special. But she was awfully pretty. At one point she disappeared and I thought "Good, someone bought her," but a little later I found her dumped upside down into a rolling cart across the store. I took her back to the Toys section and put her underneath the stuffed animals where no one would find her.

She is wearing a dress that was obviously not made for her, but it looks very
nice on her. It has matching bloomers.

Now I had to decide if I should try to buy her that day or wait until Friday when the Good Supervisor was working. The supervisor that day was a new one who is trying very hard to follow all the rules, and one of the rules is that employees have to wait 2 days after a product is put out to buy it. I just knew someone would find and buy my dolly so I decided to give it a try. The NS (New Supervisor) balked at letting me buy anything, because we aren't supposed to buy things during our shift. But the Former Supervisor told her that evening shift people were allowed to buy on their breaks, because they couldn't very well buy things after the store closed. So she said okay and luckily never even thought to check the date, which is coded and requires some thought to decipher.

Ceddie seems to like his sister. She is obviously older than he is so he's still the baby.

"Look, we both fit in this basket with our teddies!"

I think I am going to name her Alexandra but it's not definite yet.

After much Googling, I have determined that she is an Anne Geddes Daffodil Baby or Bee Baby. I am glad she wasn't wearing either outfit or I might have dismissed her out of hand when I saw her. She has very nice glass eyes.

With her bent knees and arms, her body has Ceddie's "frog" look.

Meanwhile, I have not neglected (very much) Sunny. We found two raincoats for our girls at one of the thrift stores.

"Sunny, what are raincoats for?" "I don't know, Mendoza, but Auntie
gave me this wonderful apron."

It's not likely they will ever need them, but it never hurts to be prepared. We are going to set up a scene in Auntie Berman's shed where they can have their own furniture and toys.

You know how I wasn't going to get any more bears? Well, what would you do if you were in the Goodwill Bargain Bin and Auntie Berman spotted a Paddington? And the very next week at Salvation Army you found another Paddington? I think we know what you would do.

The first is an older Eden Paddington from 1975, still with his original tag (but missing his hat). The second is also Eden brand but from 1983. (Paddington put on a little weight between 1975 and 1983.) We have lots of felt and can make them new hats. The second Paddington's hat is torn and has autographs written on it.

The older one is unable to stand on his own.

And then I saw a couple of other bears that needed rescuing.

The right-hand bear was obviously much loved.

Now I must get ready for work, because who knows what (or who) is waiting for me there!

American Girl Fever

A while back I got Barbie Fever, after thinking it could never happen to me. Now I have American Girl Fever, again after never thinking it could happen to me. It just goes to show: Never say never!

It started a few weeks ago when I found a Josefina American Girl doll at work, complete with her clothing (except for her shoes). I knew Auntie Berman liked her and had the Mini American Girl version of her. So I called her and asked if I should get her and of course the upshot was that I should. I think I got her for $1.50. Auntie Berman named her Mendoza, after the heroine of books by Kage Baker. I keep accidentally calling her Mendez.

But I like going barefoot.

The next day we had to go out thrifting and at a small shop, sitting on the bottom shelf of a bookcase, was a Kirsten doll! Auntie Berman used to have a Kirsten and I quickly talked her into getting her (for $1.00). Her legs were a bit floppy and her hair had been cut. I kept looking at her and thinking how pretty she was and decided that I, too, wanted an American Girl. So then we had to go to several more stores but couldn't find any AG dolls. The next day Auntie Berman went on an expedition of her own to try and find one, but with no luck.

My birthday was approaching and Auntie Berman, after realizing the futility of finding an AG at such short notice (and possibly realizing how daunting it would be to adopt two girls at once), made the sacrifice and decided to give me the Kirsten doll. When she first got the Kirsten, she had immediately sent off to ebay for a lovely pink dress with pinafore for her. Then, under the pretext of going to see a neighbor who was moving, she took the doll and went to her hairdresser, who trimmed dolly's hair, put it up in rollers, and fastened a lovely flowered barrette in her hair where the hair-chopping could not be fixed. And the hairdresser didn't charge her a thing, since it was such a fun project.

Look at my hair!

While I was at work, Auntie Berman came over and put the dolly on the shelf with my other dolls (not easy, she said--there was hardly room). Then she waited. I came home and went into my room a couple of times but simply did not see her. Auntie Berman had to suffer all evening, waiting for me to find her. At last, when I went to bed around midnight, I saw her! I was overwhelmed with her cuteness but it was so late I didn't call Auntie Berman. When I woke up in the morning I was again delighted, but I didn't know for sure if she was mine. I thought maybe Auntie Berman had just set her there to remind me that we were going to restring her legs. Auntie Berman said indignantly that she would never be so mean.

Best friends

Now I had to think of a name. Of course it had to be Scandinavian, since AG Kirsten is Swedish. When we were in junior high, we had a Norwegian PE teacher named Miss Skaarstad. She was called Sonny by her peers. A little googling revealed that her first name is actually Søgnhild, so that is what I named my dolly and we are calling her Sunny (because I like that better than Sonny). However, we still don't know exactly how to pronounce Søgnhild and if I ever have to yell at her, I won't quite know what to say.

(In case you are wondering what ever happened to Sunshine, the relentlessly cheerful doll, well, she had a leg operation that was not a success and she has gone to that great Dollhouse in the Sky.)

Now for the operation. I found instructions here. We assembled the parts and began. First we untied her neck strings and removed her head.

Then I pulled out all her stuffing. There was a lot.

We did not want to totally remove all her parts and use new elastic, so we decided to put the brass inserts over the ferules that were already there and then crimp them. They were very hard to crimp. I had to wait until HLP came home and have him do it. I wanted to tighten up her arms, too, so I used zip ties (an idea we got from another website) as inserts on her arm elastic. Then I restuffed her and tied her neck back on.

In the Recovery Room

Unfortunately I didn't tie her neck tie tightly enough and as I was picking her up to show Auntie Berman, her head fell off, which was a bit unnerving. Auntie Berman retied it for me.

Able to sit up and take nourishment

Mendoza and I can have a tea party!

I forgot to mention Auntie Berman's doll Delilah. She is a Fancy Nancy doll I found several months ago at my store. She had her original outfit on too.

Delilah in her butterfly dress and polka dot pants

Now we are all exhausted, but happy.

I Don't Collect Bears, Really

I borrowed that title from Lizzie because it seemed so appropriate.

My first bear was BooBoo. I got him for Valentine's Day when I was four. He was pink but I knew he was a boy because he had a blue ribbon around his neck. Unfortunately, there are no pictures of BooBoo.

One day, our grandmother and mother decided to go shopping in the Big City and for some reason didn't want to take us, so they bribed us by promising us each a present if we stayed home. (Our grandfather was left in charge of us--his method of babysitting was to leave us alone as long as we didn't yell or fight. Possibly Big Sis was there too, but she kept as far away from us as possible. Fortunately we were fairly well-behaved children.) I said I wanted overalls for BooBoo.  You didn't see many dressed bears back in those days and I have no idea where I got the idea.

When they returned, my mom said she hadn't been able to find overalls so she got BooBoo a dress! A pink dress, I might add. I was disappointed but I put his dress on him and he wore it manfully for the rest of his life.

We had lots and lots of stuffed animals through the years. (I remember thinking, when Auntie Berman stopped sleeping with all of hers, that I would never stop sleeping with mine. Eventually I did!) I never singled out bears as my favorite stuffed animals, though.

Then about 6 or 7 years ago, Auntie Berman and I were at Salvation Army Thrift Shop when I saw Bertie. I was quite taken with him and got him (for 50 cents) and carried him around with me all day. And somehow, I've been adopting bears ever since.

Bertie and the Russian bear.

When my nephew went to Russia, he brought me back a Panda bear. It is to his credit that he was not the least bit embarrassed to carry a giant bear around the airports.

Now the story takes a tragic turn. I had several large bears and really no room for them. At the time I was driving a Volkswagen Vanagon, which I loved dearly. It's the only car I've ever bonded with. I put all my big bears in the van, where they rode around happily for months. Then Husband-Like Person decided to change the fuel filter in the gas tank. It was growing dark and he had a Halogen work light. (Can you guess what this is leading up to?) Suddenly he came running in the door yelling "Call the fire department!"

My bears were in there.

Some gasoline had leaked out and run into the light. HLP barely got out from under the van in time. He and Tom-next-door struggled to move Tom's propane tank out of danger. The fire trucks arrived but they couldn't put the fire out, because Volkswagens have magnesium engines (or something) and they just had to let it burn and make sure nothing else caught on fire. The ambulance arrived and took HLP to have his burned hand looked after. Meanwhile, the dogs and I huddled by the back fence, hoping for the best. We couldn't get out the front gate and there was a 5 1/2 foot fence around the rest of the yard. A neighbor across the street took this picture on his cell phone. He actually had a video but I've lost that somewhere along the way.

Eventually the fire died down and things went back to as normal as possible. Our very kind landlord only charged us for the cost of the boards to rebuild the fence, since his maintenance guys did the work. A friend towed the remains of the Vanagon to Pick & Pull, who agreed to take it off our hands for free (they didn't really want it, for some reason).  And I mourned the loss of my bears.

Ever since then, I just can't resist cute bears when I see them and they need rescuing. At one time I had over 50 bears!

Bears, bears, everywhere bears!

And more bears!

While looking through my bear pictures I realized I had culled them about a year ago.

But somehow, the number kept creeping up. So I made Auntie Berman help me cull the herd once more. Of course we couldn't say out loud "That one's not really very cute," but we just nodded or shook our heads as I held up each one. We finally got them down to a manageable number: 20. (That number may be slightly higher now.) We gave the unwanted bears to a church lady who helps at a food pantry/soup kitchen place. She was going to give them out to the children.

The overhead bears

The underneath bears

Madison is the ballerina bear on the left. She is the only one who has a name. I have attempted to name bears for years but I always forget who is named what, except for Madison. I don't go out of my way to dress the bears. Some of them come with clothes and sometimes I just try something on that I already have. I did make Madison's skirt out of pink netting.

Madison in winter, wearing a sweater that her auntie made.

All the bears are having a picnic.

The bear next to Lulu is one of my favorites--he looks so happy and growly.

He's not as threatening as he looks. He said something when his paw was squeezed but I removed
his voice box. It wasn't working well and he's happier without it.

I will end with a picture of Ceddie, because I can.

Lulu and Gordy got safari hats. Ceddie got a circus wagon.

My Darling Ceddie

I didn't pay a lot of attention to the odd doll in the Collectibles area at first. Then hanging on the Housewares wall I found a little composition jointed doll in a bag for $1.99. I thought about her all day and  decided to get her, but when I went to find her, she was gone! So I decided someone had found her and loved her and taken her. Meanwhile I saw the odd doll and figured he had come in with her, because he had what I thought was a composition head, although I later found out it is bisque.

The next day I looked on the wall again and there was the little girl doll! I'm not sure where she had been hiding. I quickly grabbed her and took her up to the supervisor to await my next break so I could buy her. Meanwhile, I again noticed the odd doll. He had such a cute face but oh, that weird stuffed body.

I don't really like baby dolls and I don't like soft bodies, but there was something about his face. Finally I looked at the back of his neck and saw ©1923 by Grace S.  and what looked like Bu----. So I went home and googled it and found out he's a Bye-Lo Baby (it turned out to say Grace S. Putnam) and below that it says Made in Germany. From the time he came in until I bought him, it was two weeks and in all that time, nobody wanted him! You can read about Bye-Lo Babies here. This one doesn't have sleep eyes, but I think his eyes are much nicer than sleep eyes. He is missing three fingers but that seems to be pretty common for his type.

In case you're wondering how I know he's a boy, well, everybody who's seen him thinks he looks like a boy. Even the supervisor who rang him up for me and told me he was really ugly said he looked like a boy. I was not offended by her remark because I know she speaks from pure ignorance. She has two boys of her own (human) and probably thinks they are really cute.

When I got him home, Auntie Berman was thrilled with him too. She found a dress for him and we later found a second dress for him.

I just had to name him Cedric. I would make him a velvet Little Lord Fauntleroy suit but since he's only supposed to be three days old, his dress is all he needs.

This shows his delightful smile.

I call this one "Home at last."

Most of the time Lulu and Gordy babysit him.

Gordy's on the far left but he kind of blends in.

Now as for little Phoebe, or Feeebs as we call her, Auntie Berman again came through for her. The three Es in her name started out as an accident but then we thought it was a way to make her feel special. Not that she knows how to spell. Since her dress fits her so well, I don't feel any urge to make her more clothes.

Shortly after I got her, I found Firefly at Goodwill. She was unopened in her package which said World Friends, Native American Doll, Fibre Craft. On the back of her head is Loretta Daum Byrne 1988. She is 8 inches tall. There was a 13" doll also, but not nearly as cute. I looked up Loretta and she is some sort of Native American (I think) dollmaker. There was a larger version of her, but she wasn't nearly as cute so I didn't get her too. I later found out they are supposed to be mother/daughter dolls to dress.

I was going to name her Morning Star until I put this little sun suit on her, which has fireflies on it.

Now I hope I am back in the swing of things and will blog on a regular basis. Thank you, Lizzie for asking about me. You have definitely inspired me.

Now one last picture of Ceddie.

Mother's darling boy