Update on Black Tressy

I bid today on a Black Tressy doll on eBay. She needed some TLC...I was outbid. My max bid was $206 and she sold for $229. Sad :(

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My Top 10 Wishlist

So how could somebody with so many dolls possibly want more, you ask? Well, here is a sampling of dolls that I do not currently own, but would like to own :)

1. Black Tressy doll. This is a very hard to find doll from the Crissy family. She was a Sears exclusive doll. The last one I saw sell on eBay sold for $480. Yeah. So maybe in 10 years I'll have one.

2. Black Cinnamon doll. This doll is also a little harder to come by from the Crissy family. In the past two months, I saw one sell on eBay for $200, and one sold for $95 (you can see both of these dolls at www.crissyandbeth.com)

3. Juanita Perez doll from Mexico. She reminds me a lot of the American Girl dolls, but the Mexican version. She is very cute and vinyl, and I'm actually working on getting her now. The language barrier is a little difficult, but I have some friends helping me out :) You can see her at www.juanitaperez.com.mx

4. The old Juanita Perez doll from Mexico. She was made in the 70's, and I'd like to have the older version of her as well. I have only seen one for sale since I started looking, and it was on MercadoLibre. It had already sold, and for only $20 :( Oh well, if they made one, they made a hundred.

5. Kirsten Larsen's entire Pleasant Company collection. I have several of her dresses, but nowhere near a complete collection. She was always my favorite, so I feel like I should complete her.

6. Any old Jumeau doll. They are just incredible. Also incredibly expensive.

7. The #1 Barbie. Need I say more?

8. The Engel-Puppen Alice in Wonderland doll from Epcot--Germany. She is just too cute. She's also about $180, which is more than I'm generally willing to part with in one place when I'm at Disney World.

9. Cathie de Bella doll from France. She is a really pretty doll made in France in the 70's and maybe 80's (I haven't done a lot of research about her). She sells on French eBay from anywhere around $14 USD to $100 USD. I have been watching them a lot, and am just waiting for the right auction price and shipping price combo. For some reason, it costs a LOT to ship things from France.

10. A Kenner Blythe doll. They have become very popular (and very expensive) in the past few years, and it's just a doll I'd like to have an example of in my collection.

Eventually, I will have all of these dolls. I might be 40 years old, but they will be mine :)

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Rewigging American Girl Elizabeth

I have always collected American Girl dolls, and while my interest is particularly geared towards the Pleasant Company dolls and accessories (pre-Mattel), I did happen upon this Elizabeth doll at the flea market. As you can see, someone gave her a wicked-short haircut. But the rest of her was in very good shape. So, for $25, she was mine.

Elizabeth, with shorn locks

 

After a lot of internet research, I came up short (haha) with where to buy a nice wig that looked like Elizabeth's. I had searched on eBay for awhile, also not finding anything that I liked. Finally, I decided to buy a wig from Engel-Puppen in Germany. I pretty much bought this wig on blind faith, knowing that the Germans are revered for their high quality dolls (which is what makes the Pleasant Company brand dolls so sought after in the first place). The wig was $18, and the shipping was around $11 (but I bought a few other things from the company too, including a wig that would match a Kirsten doll in case I ever happen upon one of those that needs rewigging). I could not have been more happy when I received the wig. It looked great, and the difference in color between the two wigs was almost indeterminable with the naked eye.

In the meantime, I had also ordered Elizabeth's Meet Dress ($20), shoes and stockings ($15), and replacement ear studs ($3) from American Girl.

When I received the wig, the rest was easy. I used a spoon and pryed off the old wig, and then I scraped around and removed some of the glue. I'm a little impatient though, so I did not do as good of a job as I could have in removing the glue. I used tacky glue to glue the new wig down. The new wig does not reach all the way down in back as far as the old wig, so I can see on my doll where the old wig was. I do not think this affects her appearance at all, though.

Here is an up-close picture, so you can see how truly pretty this wig is.

And the back. Look at those adorable, soft curls!

My girl, all finished and dressed, looking like new :)

After it was all said and done, I ended up with a doll that only cost me about $60, as opposed to $90. Plus, I got to rewig her! The most fun and rewarding part of doll collecting to me is to be able to fix poor, abused girls.

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Brasilian Crecy

The first "international" doll I purchased was the Crecy doll from Brasil. She is the Brasilian equivalent of the American Crissy doll, made by the Estrela company. The first doll I got arrived here in bad shape, as has been the case with most of my international purchases. Here she is before I did any "work":

Notice how horrible her hair is.

I spent a lot of time trying to tame that hair. I steamed and steamed it until I finally was satisfied enough (and tired), and here was the result:

As good as it gets...

I dressed her in a fashion from American Velvet, and I think she looks very cute in it. After awhile though, I decided I wanted a Crecy in an original Brasilian fashion. So it was back to MercardoLivre. And lo and behold, I discovered there was a red-haired Crecy!! Well, I just HAD to have her. The seller also had a blonde haired Crecy, with original clothing and shoes, so after some back and forth with her, I decided to get both dolls. Here they are as they arrived:

The new Cuties :)

I removed their clothes and scrubbed their bodies and faces down with Clorox wipes. I'm a big fan of using those to clean up dolls because you never know where they have been. I know a lot of people do not like to use chemical cleaners on dolls, but I do it, and I'm admitting it (haha). I also did another thing some collectors wouldn't do, and that is that I washed their clothes in the washing machine with a load of my clothes. The clothes seemed to be pretty sturdy and they were already faded, so I said, what the heck. I did not, however, put them in the dryer. I draped them over my fan to dry. Washing them in the machine helped to get rid of the odor they had. It wasn't a bad odor, more like, that old, musty odor that you get when something has been in storage for awhile.

While their clothes were washing and drying, I did my favorite thing, and steamed their hair into place. Here are the after pics:

With clean clothes (also note the original shoes)

Here is a close-up of my pretty girl's face (she needs some lip paint)

The blonde girl with clean clothes

Facial close-up (notice this girl still has good make-up, including blue eye shadow)

All three of my Brasilian Boneca cuties :)

A few things to note about Brasilian Crecy:

1. They all seem to have dirty faces. I don't know what it is, but every single one of them seems to have just enough smudgy, dark stuff on their faces to make them look a little dirty. I have been unable to get whatever this substance is off of any of their faces entirely.

2. Crecy's base hair was glued down when she was originally made at the factory, so she will have glue residue on her head, and around her face, particularly in her ears. This is something you will just have to live with.

3. I have purchased all my dolls from MercadoLivre, which is the Brasilian equivalent of eBay. Sellers are very nice, and are always willing to work with you. You can use Babel Fish translation to aid in your communication, and it turns out, a lot of times, the seller will actually speak a little English.

Here are a couple of catalog pics of Crecy that I got from the auction site.

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Mexican Crissy Made by Lili Ledy

I finally acquired a doll I've been wanting to add to my collection for quite some time: The Mexican Crissy doll made by Lili Ledy. This poor girl arrived to me in horrible shape, with dirty face, eyes, hair, fingernails, legs, torso...you name it, it was covered in grime.

I tried to get a close-up shot of the grime on her face.

The first thing I did was remove her dress, which was filthy. I washed it in the sink with some Gain, and then draped it over my box fan to dry. Next, I used a Clorox wipe and wiped down the whole body, being careful to remove any traces of grime. Then, I got a new wipe and started on her face, being careful not to scratch up any face paint or make any marks on her face. I removed the dirt from her eyes, the corners of her mouth, and all around her face. After her face was clean, it was time to clean that hair. I washed it in the sink with some Gain.

The beauty parlor!

After her hair had dried, I realized that water had gotten into her eyes, and they had turned black. I got really worried, because I really like the gray, mist colored eyes of the Mexican Crissy. I was able to use a hair dryer directly over her eyes, and it dried the water out and her eyes returned to their normal, gray color.

Here she is, post hair wash and cleaning.

After that, I ironed her dress and used my steamer to steam her hair into place. I'm eventually going to touch up her facial paint, and I'll post an after picture as soon as I'm done!

Here she is with steamed hair and her dress. Her hair was very difficult to tame, and as you can see, I still didn't do a great job of taming it. I would also like to say something about her dress. I don't know if it's original or not, but I would like to believe it is. First of all, it is definitely a factory made dress. All along the skirt are pleats of lace, which have little pink bows on them. The underside of the dress is made of pink taffeta, and the overlay is a white and pink lace. It's not much to look at now, but I'm sure it was very pretty when it was originally purchased. If anyone knows anything about this dress, please let me know!!

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