This weekend it’s been too cold and wet to go anywhere so as I was caught up with chores I’ve spent some time working on the latest batch of Op Shop dolls. I have a few fashion dolls to take care of later but most of the dolls this week are larger dolls with cloth bodies and vinyl heads and limbs.
The babies just needed a bit of a cleanup and a few marker stains cleaned off here and there. One is an all vinyl baby by Tinker Toys. We seem to get a lot of these dolls into the shop, some with cloth bodies and some vinyl and there are usually a couple of outfits that will fit them at the doll Op Shop so dressing her was no problem. Although these are inexpensive dolls I quite like their happy faces.
Next was a larger baby doll whose mouth was crammed with something that the previous owner had been trying to feed it. I recognised this baby at once because I have one myself. They are made by Berenguer and I think they have gorgeous faces. I have mine dressed as a boy but as they have cloth bodies I guess they can be any gender. I had an apricot outfit that fit her well. Here’s my baby and the Op Shop baby. Berenguer does make nice dolls. I think these may be from their “Lots to Cuddle” line of soft-bodied dolls.
The third doll is a bit larger again and has sleep eyes. He is unmarked except for “China 2202” on the back of his neck. This baby can easily wear newborn baby clothes and I had a little bodysuit, leggings and a jacket in my box which fit reasonably well. We can probably package this one with a couple of spare outfits from our baby room at the shop as we have quite a lot of clothes for babies in the smallest sizes. He has some marker on both ankles so you can probably see dobs of Oxy10 which I will leave on for a few days.
The last two dolls have been at home for a few weeks. They are 18-inch dolls along the lines of American Girl. They are tagged “Positively Perfect” and “Funrise Toys 2017”. These dolls have quite an interesting backstory and I’ll include a link at the end for those who would like to learn more. I believe I may have seen dolls like these on sale in Target. In the USA they are currently sold at Target for about $30 while earlier versions were at Walmart. They look the same to me except that one has pink earrings and the other white. I think they may be Emily and/or Sophia.
Both dolls had badly tangled and matted hair and after spending several hours one evening combing out the worst of the knots on one I’d put them aside. Yesterday I took her and washed her hair, put conditioner through it and combed it out. It was still rather matted so I decided to risk a boil wash. I took a photo of the finished doll next to the one I haven’t started yet so you can see the difference. Her hair plugs are rather sparse at the top but I was able to comb her hair to hide the gaps.
This afternoon I started detangling the other doll so she is now ready for the same treatment. I don’t think either of them is meant to have this pink eyeliner as there are a couple of smudges where there shouldn’t be I think that may have been added by the previous owner so I will try to remove it with Oxy10 if I can do so without the girls losing their painted eyelashes. She won’t be ready for a couple of days as it’s late in the day to start washing hair so I’ll post a picture of her later.
Here is the finished doll, I’ll call her Emily though I’m not 100% sure that’s who she is. The girls came with some loose clothing so I put together an outfit for her. I did have to darn a hole in the jumper. I recently rediscovered darning.
Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed that I haven’t mentioned the other vinyl baby who is sitting on the clothes rack. This is one of my own dolls and is a Berjusa baby. She came to me in the “Big Bag of Dolls” originally and needed some paint and marker taken off so is getting treatment with the others.
Further Reading:
http://www.littleravencreations.com/blog/positively-perfect-divahs
Dolls, Dolls, Dolls 
I really enjoy all your posts! Such variety, and I am not a baby doll collector nor do I collect toddler to 18″ American Girl type dolls, even when I was a little girl I rarely played with a baby doll. Anyway, that being said, I do like looking at them and marvel at the techniques of fixing them up as well as how pretty some of them really are in the faces. Techniques for cleaning , fixing or just dressing up dolls is what interests me and can improve my skills even if it’s not doll type I collect. That’s why I just have to say that the “Emily” doll has a wonderful face! I wouldn’t mind buying her for my granddaughter who is into AG type dolls. Once the pink is removed off her eyes, she will be even more pretty! I really love the pretty sweater! Wish I had better patience and skill to knit such a pretty sweater, whoever made it, it is very nice job and the yarn looks familiar to me, maybe I used to have some (I crochet and knit). The 2 dolls that have such cute smiles some child would love that. They made me smile smile, too!😊 Helen
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I’m not really into that type of doll myself but I found the article about them that I linked very interesting. I’d say their only downside is that they can’t sit well.
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As ever tremendous job. I love it when dolls can be rehomed.The hair looks great, I need to do some of that on my own. Lately I have had some glue jobs.I prefer hair as it improves the look of rooted dolls so much.The babies are so sweet. I’d love findng a sweet AA baby as I* had one as a child.
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Such sweet babies! I only collect teenage fashion dolls myself but these soft bodied babies are really cute. I wasn’t into baby dolls even as a child, Tiny tears and First Love were the baby dolls then but to me they did not look like babies. They had too much hair! My sister did eventually get a soft bodied baby doll. She called him Richard because we thought he looked just like our baby cousin Richard at the time. Keep all the wonderful posts coming and good luck with the house.
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I always enjoy reading your posts about the dolls you clean and restore. So nice to see what they look like after you work your magic. I must say that looks like nightmare hair on the Positively Perfect doll. Yikes, she doesn’t live up to her name – although I’m sure she will by the time you are finished with her.
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