Adventures in doll care- hair repair

Saige and Mckenna's hair was absolutely whack. Even though they had been brushed responsibly, stuff happens with long hair. Both of them were enormous, bushy, and tangled. The synthetic fibers had curled up on themselves and made strange squiggles that interlocked and made terrible knots.

For mckenna's hair, which was reasonably short and incredibly thick I just pulled apart sections and brushed them individually, working from bottom to top, trying not to pull it out and trying to ignore the noises the brush made going through the tangles. It took more strength than anticipated.

I bunched all the sections together to see what it would do and got this lovely... to me it looks kind of like flames shooting out the end of a rocket or a really cool motorcycle. It could also be a haystack. Anyway, the hair stuck straight out and was still insanely frizzy at the end. I stuck her aside and tried to do the same for Saige's hair.

Here are the crazy, frizzy, interlocking squiggles. This was a nightmare to brush through, and it poofed right back out and bunched itself together when I was through.

Heres how it was when I got done. Still very frizzy and you can see all the hair this poor doll lost in the bottom right corner. There was even more of it out of frame.
BUT WORRY NOT! There was hope for this hair, and hope that did not lie in scissors. (In fact, scissors are for when you lose all hope.)
Our hope here lies in boiling water. Plastic heated up will bend to your will. Or straighten to your will.
So I boiled some water in the teakettle, poured it into a big bowl, and let it cool for 5 minutes lest I melt their hair.

After several dunkings and brushings, saige's hair was getting more manageable. The crazy squiggles straightened out and the brush positively glided through.

I did the same for mckenna.

After several more brushings to ensure everything was perfectly straight and not tangled, I left them to dry.
Now let's see how Maddie is doing

Maddie has had a little strand of wig hanging off for quite some time now, and her part was weird on top so it showed the seams and cap.

I pulled up the hair, showing the wig cap, so I could find where our dangly strand belongs. I'm always amazed at the cleverness of wigs.

My sewing job was messy, but the strand is now back on securely. The white thread is mine

Faded

Ask and you shall receive

Izzy asked me recently if I could do a craft tutorial. I thought it would be fun to show you a bit of the doll room and how to do some of the things in there.

This has got to be Lilly's favorite place in the room.

Dresser: Ikea- no longer available, I think

Mirror: Doll Crafts kit by AG

Rug: canvas book cover from the UW bookstore

This little rack is for hair stuff. It is a popsicle stick.

I hot glued it to the wall. This may or may not go over well in your house. it was fine in mine because A) I painted my room myself and dad knows I am perfectly capable of fixing the wall if something goes awry and B) i never told him >;-D

the hooks are just bits of bent paper clips.

 Human bracelets make great doll necklaces. This one will belong to #58, once I get her.

This human necklace I wrap around the doll neck twice so it fits.

Yeaaah so pretty.

The jewel hair extensions are the only AG purchase I've regretted,. They do not stay in very well at all and just look weird. If I had seen them individually in a bin that said $5 each, I probably would have said, "no way!" and left in search of something worth two weeks of allowance. Alas- I didn't. I saw them wrapped up pretty together and thought nothing of buying them. Welp, thats marketing for ya.

Alrightie Izzy, here's a craft:

Were gonna make this headband! Alas, this is not my idea. The technique with the ponytail holder came from Doll Diaries. If you don't want to scroll through the archives over there, I will show you how I did it here. : )

We are using cut up jeans and a gray t-shirt. I love this color/ texture combo because it reminds me of what i wear to school every day (dark blue jeans and whatever t-shirt pleases me. Generally I think more about doll clothes than my own. For me, What+ever=dressed) XD

 Begin heating up your hot glue gun

 From jeans that don't fit you anymore, cut around that lovely little yellow line.

 Big heavy fabric scissors work best.

 I just cut where things were naturally thickest, the folded over part. (does that make sense?) : |

 It should come about this long on both sides of your doll's head. this gives you room for braiding and folding. (you'll see) : )

 See this thick part thats all stitched together? yeah. cut that off so the headband will be less bulky.

 you know, that part. I wish there was a name for it.

 You will also use the reverse side of the jeans. cut this strip as long and as wide as the first strip.

 From the gray tee shirt, cut a strip as long and as wide as the other ones.

 Now you have three different colored, equal sized strips.

 Put a blob of hot glue on one end of two of the strips.

Stick them together.

 now you have a nice little fabric sandwich.

 Braid all the way down and hot glue the ends together.

 Using a human ponytail holder. Glue it on and

 Fold the headband over

 Do the same on the other side. you see how the pony tail holder is like elastic?

I also made one for me. Sorta the same method, only with real elastic and no folding.

Here it is against a jackson pollock style painting I did. (fun activity: Get a canvas and some acrylic paint. Dribble the paint all over the canvas. Call yourself an artist. [I don't even mean that sarcastically!])

 Yup, the fashion corner is defiantly Lilly's favorite part.

 That purple thing is a cupcake wrapper mod podged onto cardstock. containers for hair thingies are little plastic sample bowls covered in washi tape. The bobby pin box is the part of a pencil sharpener that holds the shavings. Barrettes I found at safeway. they're goody brand. The dolls are cutouts from an AG catalog, mod podged to cardboard.

Oh yes! Happy national Genocide day! 

Woah. That was a little random. Not to mention morbid. Let me explain:

The Pilgrims Had: guns

They wanted: food

The indians had: food

They wanted: to wipe out a neighboring tribe 

The treaty between the Pilgrims and the indians went something like: "Hey help us kill this tribe we don't like and we'll give you some food." And the pilgrims were like: "ok sure sounds fun" so they went and killed the other tribe and then had a victory feast AKA thanksgiving.

There ya go. But I don't know if I can accurately call it national genocide day because I don't know where to draw the line between conquering and murdering. : /

With much love and doll enthusiasm 

Gwynefar