doll restoration

I hate losing things. But more so when it is my fault. After the fire we were so stressed we made some decisions we thought were right but have not been perhaps the most right.

As it is I am finding myself looking for childhood memories and finding that I have been really missing a few toys that were absolute treasures. And I know I lost some of those through decisions to try to make it easier and to be practical.

That is where my regret lies. Now I know that I could have easily kept those precious toys in a state of unrestored. But I also have to move on. I decided that I will just then find a few toys that have particular meaning.

And that brings me to the restoration.

This is my most beloved fashion doll. My only brunette Sindy. This dress is not the original dress but made from the same pattern and again by my mum.

So I carefully washed her using techniques in the My Little Pony restoration manuals. There is a caveat. The hard plastic of the body of this doll was fine with heat but another was not. Another doll, I think is a knock off of the action/ballerina style, warped with heat. So I really do not recommend it for all.

I had a habit of chewing the left foot of my dolls, so that is quite a tell tale of whether a doll is original to me! But I think I can use E6000 or similar to stabilise the feet of my even earlier dolls.

I am also currently restoring my 19″ tall Candi, mum is knitting her an outfit that is very similar to her original outfit and I’m looking at sculpting new shoes for her as it is very hard to find outfits for her.

Back to the start of this post, I also realised I threw away my precious ballerina Sindy and the body of my sleepy eyed Sindy. I do not remember exactly why, and I think that also feeds into the regret. However I have the head of my sleepy eyed Sindy and the limbs of the ballerina/action doll I think is a knock off. If I can find a very poor condition ballerina I will buy her and use her to rebuild.

This photo shows the damage done to paper after the fire. The water ruined so much, so I may well have been taking health into consideration. 

Anyway. I do have these patterns that were designed for Sindy and her friends so it may be time to finally use them and to finally restore all the Jem dolls I bought well before the fire. Those dolls were always intended to be made over as they are very well articulated and their features work well for repainting.