Vintage Madame Alexander Baby Victoria Rehab...Part 2 and FINISHED!

Do you all remember this dirty little soul from my last post?  I told you I was going to rehab her, and I did!

I used my trusty hemostat to pull out all of the stuffing.

I just knew that there was a cute little baby under all those years of dirt and grime.

Perhaps if you zoom in on this picture, you will see that her cloth body looks 100 times better!  This is after I soaked her overnight in a bucket of hot water with OxyClean powder, and then hung her body out on the laundry line to dry in the hot sun over 4th of July.  I also scrubbed her vinyl with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.

I managed to get all that stuffing back into her body!  Because I had to cut the old zip tie from her neck, I replaced it with cotton cording which looks very similar to what American Girl uses/used for their dolls.

I buy it at JoAnn's, in the jewelry making department.

Here she is, ready to be dressed, with a nice, clean body.

Her dress is tagged and original.  Her bloomer panties are vintage replacements.  I soaked them both in OxyClean as well, and they came out looking brand new.  OxyClean should really give me something for promoting their product.  I use it and rave about it all the time!

And the best part about this entire make-over...I was actually able to repair her cry box!  I will explain how I did it in my next post.  I tried to upload a video, but I can't get it to work right now.  My super-techie adult son is coming over this weekend, so hopefully he can walk his old mother through how to upload a video.  Until then, have a great Saturday!

Vintage Madame Alexander Victoria Baby Doll Rehab...part 1

I have SO many dolls I need to fix up and sell.  Seriously.  I think they multiply when I'm not looking!  I have been ignoring them, because it just gets too overwhelming sometimes to think about all I have to do to get them ready to sell.  There's just never enough time!  But I recently decided to try and rehab one doll per day...that should be do-able, right?  Yesterday, I cleaned up Toodles and sewed her an outfit.  Today, this Madame Alexander "Victoria" baby doll became the recipient of my clean up efforts:

I didn't think to take a picture until I had yanked out all of her stuffing.  The reason for removing all the stuffing was so that I could soak her extremely filthy cloth body in a hot water/Oxy Clean bath.  This has worked well for me in the past, so I'm hoping it does it's magic again.  I had to use the hemostat to pull the stuffing from the narrow cloth arms.

Here you can see her filthy body a little better.  I will "fluff" the cotton stuffing by pulling it apart before re-stuffing the doll.

This baby has such a sweet face.  I hope I don't fall in love with her and want to keep her.  I seem to have that problem with all of these little waifs that I rehab!

She also had a cry box that no longer works.  If I can figure out how to get it open (it is completely glued shut), then I will try to fix it.  I have recently figured out a way to make these cry boxes work again, and I would love to fix this one as well!  But like I said, it is completely sealed shut.  The others I've fixed were easy to pry open.  This one...not so much.  So we'll see.  If I can't fix it, I won't put it back in the body.

Okay, so this part one to the story.  Victoria's body is soaking overnight, and I hope to see it all clean (or at least extremely improved) by tomorrow morning.  Then I will hang her body out to dry on the laundry line, where hopefully the sun will brighten it even more.  I probably won't get around to re-stuffing it until tomorrow evening, since we will be hanging out with the kids and grandkids most of the day for the 4th of July celebrations.  So part two might not come until Friday.  But bear with me...I'll do my best to finish this story!

Madame Alexander Travel Friends Story Land Doll--Alice in Wonderland!

While browsing my local Tuesday Morning a couple of days ago, I stumbled across a few of these Madame Alexander Travel Friends Story Land dolls.  I was really excited to find Alice in Wonderland, as she is one of my favorite Disney characters!

 

Here she is, still in her box.  As you can see, I got her for a really good deal, considering that her original, retail price was $15!

 

Little Miss Alice stands approximately 7 1/2" tall.

 

The back of her box shows all of the characters in this line.  My Tuesday Morning also carried a Cinderella, a Little Mermaid, a Starry Princess, and a Fairy Princess, but Alice was the one I wanted most of all.  I almost bought Cinderella, but she's so similar in coloring to Alice that I decided to pass.  Now, if they would have had "Beauty" (Belle), I would have snapped her up in an instant.  She's adorable!

 

She was quite easy to remove from her box.  Here she is, still attached to the cardboard liner.  I only had to remove two pieces of clear tape and undo one twisty tie to completely free her.  Not bad.

 

Free at last!  She can stand on her own.

 

Beautiful, long, wavy hair.

 

Because she has hinged knees and elbows, she can sit in more lifelike positions than most dolls.  I think this is a really impressive feature for such a small, relatively inexpensive doll.

 

She can even kneel, as long as her feet can hang over the edge.

 

She has molded underwear.

 

Her dress is cute and has lots of detail, but mine has a flaw where the skirt is attached to the waistband...part of it got tucked up when it was sewn to the bodice, making it hang funny and shorter than the rest of the skirt.

 

Here's the other side of the skirt, which looks just fine.  Just thought I'd mention this, in case you go hunting for your own doll.  Look at them all and compare before picking one out so you can avoid flaws such as this one.  However, for a $5 doll, I'm not upset.  In fact, I'll probably pick out the seam myself and just reattach it properly.

 

Just for fun, I decided to pose her next to my other Alice, a Robert Tonner Doll.  The Tonner doll is much more expensive and has a better made outfit.  Only her knees are jointed while her arms are not.  While she is a better quality than my new Alice, I really do love them both the same!  I actually think that I prefer the face on the Madame Alexander version more. 

 

They are both the same height--7 1/2", and have jointed knees.  The Tonner doll has a better quality, more detailed outfit, but the MA Alice has jointed elbows.  Both have nice hair.  Both have removable shoes, but Tonner Alice also has nice stockings.  They each have nicely painted faces with different expressions--Tonner Alice is more serious, while MA Alice is more sweet. 

 

For the price (and you can't beat $5!), I think the MA Alice is a wonderful, little doll.  She's easy to pose, a nice size, and just looks so cute.

 

There were two, other Alice dolls in the Tuesday Morning when I bought my doll...I stood them all up, side by side, and studied their faces carefully.  I wanted to make sure that I got one with the best facial painting.  All three were slightly different, so I'm glad I checked!  However, I didn't think to check the workmanship on the clothing, or I might have noticed the flaw with the skirt.  In any case, I am really pleased with this little doll.  I think she's a great doll for children, as well as adults!   If you are fortunate enough to have a Tuesday Morning in your area, check them out.  They frequently have wonderful dolls at great prices.  You never know what you'll find!