Still alive and working on dolls--Effanbee Cuddle Up and Ideal Tiny Thumbelina Tabitha!

 Well, I'm not even going to begin to explain why I haven't written anything on this sorry little blog for so long!  Guess I just got busy and then slipped into a pattern of NOT blogging.  But I've encountered so many wonderful dolly finds this past year and a half, I just realized that I couldn't NOT share with you all again!  Besides, with as crazy as this world is right now, I find that immersing myself in my hobbies and doll world just helps to keep me in a better frame of mind.

So, I guess I will break my blog silence here with sharing two dolls that I've recently acquired.  Meet Effanbee Cuddle Up and Ideal Thumbelina with the rare Tabitha face!

The sweet, big girl on the left is 1954 Effanbee Cuddle Up Baby.  She is a whopping 27" long!  Her limbs are a soft stuffed vinyl and her torso is a vinyl coated cloth so that she can easily be wiped down.  This was a selling point when this doll first came out--advertising suggested that Cuddle Up could be washed from head to toe!  She has thick, rooted, Saran hair and pretty sleep eyes with thick eyelashes.  She also has a "mama" cry box that still works!  I already have this doll in my collection and I adore her. But when I saw this one come up for auction on shopgoodwill, I knew I needed to bring her home and save her, since nobody else seemed to want her.  I don't know if I've shared her before, but here is my old one next to the new one I just acquired:  

Same doll, but miles more grime and dirt on my new baby!

Everything about her is filthy...her clothes, hair, limbs, and head.  You can see that her vinyl face is much darker than my other baby.  But they are the same, I promise!  The only difference I can see between the two is that my new baby does not have the two bottom teeth that my other baby has.  It's possible that they were removed (fell out?) at some point in her life.

Here they are, laying side by side

So, let's start cleaning this little waif, shall we?

I started with the right arm.  It took quite a bit more elbow grease than I anticipated.  First I used a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, but then I also added Dawn dish soap, baking soda, and and an old toothbrush to get in all the cracks and crevices.  You can really see the major difference against the arm that has not yet been cleaned!

Next I tackled her left leg--again, look at the difference!

I was a little disappointed that I couldn't get her face as clean looking as her limbs.  There is definitely some darkening of the vinyl (which some people say comes from sun exposure), and some darker mottling on her forehead.  I was still able to remove quite a bit of grime, though.  I plan on trying to lighten her vinyl with an Oxiclean bath.  Not quite sure yet how I plan on going about it, since I can't just submerge her head in a bucket of hot Oxiclean water for fear of damaging her eyes.  I'm thinking of soaking some paper towels in an Oxiclean solution and the draping them carefully over her face for several hours/days and see if that makes a difference.  I have been able to lighten darkened vinyl on other dolls with Oxiclean, so I'm hopeful!

Here she is, after getting her hair washed and all her limbs cleaned.  The only thing that wasn't dirty was her vinyl-coated cloth body!  It looks practically brand new, probably because it was protected by her clothing all these years.

Not perfect, but so much better!

The other doll I worked on today was this hard-to-find 14" Ideal Tiny Thumbelina with the Tabitha head:

Ideal wanted to cash in on the popularity of the "Bewitched" television show in the mid 60's, so they created an all vinyl baby doll and named it Tabitha, after the character in the show.  However, less well known and definitely more rare is this doll, which is actually the Tabitha head on a Tiny Thumbelina body!  She even has the knob in her back which caused her head to gently roll around, just like Thumbelina.

Just like Effanbee Cuddle Up, this baby was very dirty and needed a bath!

You guys...I found this baby in the bins at the Goodwill Outlet!  I about had a heart attack when I saw her just lying there amidst all the other garbage, and shoppers were just tossing her out of the way to get to the "good" stuff!  Ha!  I couldn't believe my good fortune and I couldn't grab her quickly enough!  I didn't realize it at the time, but she is even wearing her original dress!  The original tag is missing from the front of her dress which read "Tiny Thumbelina".  

Her cloth body is actually fairly clean, but it does smell a little musty, so I will let it air out for a while.  I scrubbed her face and limbs with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and that seemed to get off all the grime and stains.  Her cheeks have some paint loss, so I will have to see what I can do about that.

Here you can see her wind up knob...which works PERFECTLY!

She got her hair washed and conditioned, and now she's wearing an old, clean sock to make sure her hair dries correctly.

She is currently relaxing over a heat vent to help speed up the drying process.

Well, I'm off to gently clean Tabitha's dress, along with the original, one-piece taffeta undergarment that Cuddle Up Baby was still wearing.  I'll have to look through my vintage clothing stash and see if I can find Cuddle Up an appropriate dress, bonnet, and booties!  

Both of these sweeties will be for sale shortly after their restorations are complete.  Stay tuned!

Progress...

I was hoping I would be further along in my progress right now, but life has been busy and I've got way too many projects going at once!  But I thought I'd check in and let you see how it's going so far.

Here is my celluloid head, all glued back together.  You can definitely see the cracks.

She is a turtle mark, probably made in the 1950's.

Even though all the pieces glued together well, there are still cracks because a lot of the celluloid just crumbled into dust.

This is her original, human hair wig.

While I was starting to putty and sand the celluloid head, I also decided to work on this little cutie I got for free in a lot.  She has legs...they're just not in the picture.  She's about 20" tall, unmarked, and all compo.  From my research, I believe she is "Toddlin' Sue" by Ideal.  

She was in really rough shape.  Lots of crazing, and a crack in her chin.

The split in the back of her head was probably the worst.

Her side seams were splitting apart, along with her crotch area.  There is remnant of old tape adhesive across her belly where somebody tried to keep her together.

Flaking compo on her head

She still has most of her pretty eyelashes, though!

I took this close up photo of her eyes so I could have a reference of how her eyebrows and eyelashes are supposed to look when I repaint her.

Same thing...another reference photo for later of her lips

Back to my celluloid...here she is after I puttied and sanded down all the cracks.

Here are her replaced eyelashes I made!

This is before her eyelashes...a reference photo of her brows and lashes. In case I didn't mention it before, she has "flirty" eyes! The move side to side, as well as open and close.

After puttying and sanding the top of Toddlin' Sue's head.  I tried to engrave some "curl" swirls in it so it might blend better with the rest of her hair once painted.

Huge head split all puttied and sanded!  I put a piece of duct tape along the inside of the crack so that the wet putty wouldn't fall directly into her head and have some support while it dried.

Yes, she still has eyes!  They are just covered with paper so that they'll be protected when I start painting her head.

Miss Celluloid has her eyes papered over as well.

Once I had the heads sanded smooth, I sprayed them both this:

I bought it at my neighborhood Walmart for about $5.  It was recommended by another doll restorer, which is why I got it.  It's supposed to provide a nice sealant/base for the paint.  We'll see.  Honestly, I'm little afraid to start the painting.  My husband bought me an airbrush and hobby compressor last year for this very purpose, and it's a little intimidating.  But I've been practicing with it on paper, so I think I'm getting the hang of it.  I'm actually going to start with repainting Toddlin' Sue's arms, since I don't think I can mess those up too badly.  Wish me luck!

 

I Almost Cried...

 Ever have one of those moments where you stare in disbelief at what just happened?  Where you blink several times and think you must be dreaming, but deep down you know you have to face the stark, cold reality of what horrible event just unfolded in front of your eyes?  Yeah.  That happened to me recently, and I almost cried.  

Several years ago I went to a doll show and picked up a large, celluloid head girl on a sturdy, composition body.  I don't even think I have a "before" picture to show you, so you'll just have to go by my description.  She was probably about 20" tall.  She needed to be restrung, so I removed her limbs from her body recently, which is why I don't even know how tall she actually was.  She had a darling, celluloid head, marked with the "turtle mark" symbol on the back, indicating she was made by the German Schildkrot company.  She had some issues--needed to be restrung, needed new eyelashes, and needed a repair done on her compo body.  So I purchased her for a mere $15, thinking she would be a fun restoration project.  She's been patiently standing in a corner of my doll room, waiting her turn.  Well, I finally decided this past week that it was time!  Here is a picture of her head, before the Horrible Event happened:  

This is AFTER I made her some new eyelash strips (I'll explain more about those later) and inserted them under her lids.  This doll came with a lovely, human hair wig with braids, but it was removed so I could work on her more easily.

It was at this point that I set the head aside on my desk while I took a break to look up more doll repair information on my laptop. While I was busy doing this, I didn't notice that this little "helper" had entered my room: 

Meet Waffles.  Also known as Mr. Hims.

He really is just the sweetest cat.  But he's still young and curious.  Too curious.

Because as I was sitting there, paying attention to the information on my laptop, this fur ball jumped up onto my desk.  In doing so, he tipped over a small lamp which in turn knocked the doll head off my desk.  This wouldn't have been so bad because my floor is carpeted, and the head would have probably survived the fall just fine.  But it didn't help when the lamp fell off the desk as well, landing directly ON TOP of the fragile, celluloid head.  It all happened so fast...I just remember hearing a horrible crash and looking up to see the lamp on the ground, and a celluloid doll head, now shattered in about a gazillion pieces.

I almost cried.  I just sat there for a good 30 seconds, frozen in disbelief.  Once I finally got over the shock, I started inspecting the damage.  The one good thing (if there can be a good thing!) is that the front of the head was mainly left intact and undamaged. (I think this is because it was reinforced with plaster from setting the flirty/rocker eyes) But the sides and back of the head had completely broken into at least 50 pieces. (I know I said a gazillion earlier, because that's what it felt like!)  At first I thought there was no way I was ever going to be able to fix this, and I immediately picked up my laptop and started looking for replacement celluloid heads I might be able to purchase to replace this one.  I kid you not!  But after a few minutes on eBay, I calmed down and decided to really assess the situation.  Could it possibly be pieced back together?!?

I've always liked doing jigsaw puzzles.  Not the super crazy, 1000 piece and above puzzles, but 200-500 pieces is okay.  So I got out my super glue (which ironically I had just purchased the day before!) and got to work.  I figured I had nothing to lose.

Several hours later, and I have used nearly every broken piece to rebuild the two halves of the head!

There are LOTS of tiny cracks everywhere.  I don't care too much about the back of the head because most of it will be covered by the wig.  But there are some cracks along the right side of her face by her eye and cheek.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to make those less conspicuous with some filler and paint.

After gluing all those pieces back together, I realized that I would need to do something to stabilize the fragile head.  So I decided to soak strips of fabric in some sort of glue paste and layer them inside the head.

I ended up making a liquid consisting of Durham's Water Putty, water, and a couple of squirts of wood glue.  I don't have any exact measurements--I just mixed the Durham's powder and water together until it was a thin consistency, and then I squirted in some of the glue.  Then I took strips of cotton batting (which I had leftover from a recent quilting project), soaked them in the liquid, and then pressed them into the head.  My hopes were that they would dry and harden and really stabilize the head.  

Here are both halves of the head, covered in wet batting strips.  Once I get both halves of the head glued back together, then I will go in and add some more strips to those seamed areas.  

I wasn't sure if this experiment was going to work.  Would the batting glue itself to the celluloid like I hoped it would?

Well, I needn't have worried!  The next morning, the batting was completely dried and rock solid, completely adhered to the celluloid.  My fragile celluloid head now feels like cement!  It's heavy and stable.  I could probably drop it 10 feet onto concrete and it wouldn't break!  Haha!  Not that I'm going to try it, but you get the picture. Which makes me realize, if celluloid doll manufacturers would have reinforced their doll heads initially, how many more would have survived to this day?

Prior to the horrible event of witnessing this head shatter, I had been working on the composition body.  Somewhere in time, it had received a bunch of damage to the left hip/crotch area, and was very misshapen and not symmetrical with the other side of the torso.  So I used my trusty Durham's Water Putty again to mix up a thick putty/paste to rebuild this area.

This is what it looks like.  A friend of mine who restores dolls recommended this to me.  It is basically a powder that when combined with water, dries rock hard.  After it dries, it can be sanded smooth.  You can buy it at Home Depot, among other places.  I use it for all my doll restoration projects now.  It's good stuff!

I wish I had a before picture of the misshapen body.  But everywhere you see the dried putty in this photo is where the compo was really sunken in and no longer in good shape.  I had to apply the Durham's in several layers to build it up to the depth I needed, letting each layer dry completely before I added more putty.  This photo is after everything had dried, but hadn't yet been sanded.

The sanding process took a while.  Every time I thought I was done, I would see/feel more areas that had little pits or dents.

Looking better

Done sanding.  I'm pretty happy with it.  I hope to be able to match the body color and repaint the puttied area to match.  I recently received an airbrush and compressor to help me out on my doll restoration projects.  I've been experimenting with it, trying to get the hang of it.

So that's my journey so far.  I plan on getting the head completely glued back together today and reinforced with more of the putty-soaked batting strips.  Then I will start filling in some of the cracks on the head, sand, and see if they can be touched up with a little paint.  If not, I may end up repainting the entire head with my air brush, but that is a last resort as I'd rather keep her as original as possible.  

Life is never dull, especially for doll collectors!