Please meet Olivia!

Baby Olivia was created from a 15 inch Berenguer LaBaby play doll.

I fully repainted her and added more hair detail using Baby FX paints, powders and mediums.

I changed her eyes but kept her original body as I wanted to keep her small for the just-turning 5 year old child who was to receive her.  (*I* thought the little girl was turning 6 but I was wrong!  What a delightful turning 5 year old she is!)

I did change the weight of her body some to make her more realistic and poseable.  

Here is the little dolly all stripped with one color of new eyes in, but I knew I would be ordering a darker brown than these:

 

 

I snuggled baby Olivia all up, tied her with pretty ribbons...

Then wrapped her in princess paper for the little princess to open her the day before her 5th birthday.  

She kept saying, "I love her".  

Awww...my very special and forever friend!

(We enjoyed a play date in the Dolly House and she was in awe!"

What an amazing afternoon!

So, so busy!

Just popping in this morning, without pictures, to tell you that the little Berenguer doll is finished and OH SO CUTE!

My friend and her to-be-6 yr old granddaughter (tomorrow she turns 6) will be here this afternoon to share joy in the Dolly House and receive her gift!

I've been frantically getting the dolls in the Dolly House out of their Christmas clothing and did get the job finished last night.  

The Berenguer baby, named Olivia, is all bundled up and waiting in a gift-wrapped box in the Dolly House.  

Oh....we are so excited!  

We will be taking lots of pictures so be ready tomorrow!  

On a side note, I have begun the matting process on full size Emily.  

I have an appointment this morning but will matte her again before my friends arrive.  

On another side note:

My weekends have been and are going to be consumed with my other house project.  

THIS beautiful nursery room is going to be for sale...and I'll throw in the rest of the 3 bedroom house with it!  :)  DOLLS and FURNITURE NOT INCLUDED!  Tehehehehe

STILL rounding the bend! LOL

I didn't get as far as I thought I might yesterday as I forgot that I'd need to do brows as well as some added painted hair to the Berenguer yesterday.  

But today...maybe today I'll be rounding the bend!  

Off to the studio for highlighting layer, nails and matting.  

And..it's snowing.  And will be all week into the end of next week.

SO MUCH SNOW!

Rounding the bend!

I do not have any updated WIP pictures for the THREE dolls that I am currently painting.

Oh, three?  Did I forget to tell you about one of them?

It is a 16" Berenguer doll for a little girl who is a granddaughter to one of my best friends.  

She is turning 6 years old next week and she and her grandma are coming over for a dolly afternoon in the Dolly House!

Here she is all stripped down with temporary new eyes in.  

So today, I will be finishing the paint on all three babies.

They need their "undertones/thin skin", veins, nails tipped and detailed and the final "highlight" later.

Hmmm, I highly doubt that I will have to take progress pictures at the end of the day, but we'll see.  

Tomorrow the matting will begin. 

Eeeekkk...birth times three!

Distracted by Lilli-Marlaine!

This precious blank vinyl kit came in the mail on Friday...

Oh my goodness, how will I ever part with her?!?!?!?  

Sylvia Manning knocked herself out on Lilli-Marlaine, an incredible crawling sculpt!

She is anatomically correct and wears roughly 6 month size clothing.  

Newborn size Emily work in progress

I almost cannot say enough of how much I love this baby!

Don't you just want to kiss these feet???  

Back to work on her today...I can't wait!

(I've gotten behind on the little Emily as I was absorbed with this one!)

The Ashton Drake Emily's are stripped!

I stripped most of the paint off of these dolls with LDC Lotion Cleaner/Cleaning Lotion.

I love that stuff.  

Unfortunately, I used up all but a tiny bit of what I had and it is not available in the US.  

I may just have to order it from Germany.

Although it didn't remove the lip and nail color completely, or the glue on big Emily's head,

it did remove all of big Emily's hair and all of the other blush and colors.  

I used pure acetone to remove what the lotion could not, but because acetone leaves the vinyl very shiny, after a good washing in hot, soapy water and rinsing, I again used the lotion to matte the vinyl back up.  The LDC Cleaning Lotion is the only stripped I know of that leaves the vinyl matte.  

And it is PH balanced so it does not hurt your hands (I still wear gloves though) and it smells good!

Here are the two Emily's ready for paint.

Big Emily's vinyl is very balanced in color.

Little Emily's vinyl is a hot mess!  

Her face, fingers and toes are very yellow compared to the rest of her vinyl

Here is a picture after I did a little bit of neutralizing with Baby FX POWDERS!

I was thrilled with the results!

Her hand before working on it with the powders:

And after:

It was really easy and took very little time to get this far.  I worked on them more after these photos were taken.

Her feet before:

The left big toe is very yellow.

And after:

With big Emily, I am neutralizing her very pink vinyl using Baby FX air dry paints.

They are going on very nicely!  

Today I will begin tone and details on these two.

Have a great Wednesday!