The Fabulous Emma Twinns

These two cuties were both fixed up long before I had the idea to start a shop or a blog, so this (sadly) will be another post where I don't have any great before and after comparisons.

As much as I love a big reveal at the end of a restoration project, I'll have to forego that and just show you the finished Emma twins right away.

Meet Emma (left) and Tara (right):

Fixed-up My Twinn Emma dolls: Emma (left) and Tara (right).

I did salvage some screen shots from the eBay auctions where I found these dolls.  Here's Tara as she looked in her auction:

She was in really nice shape overall.  When I saw in her person, though, I wasn't thrilled with her purplish eyes or her frizzy wig.  

I really like thick eyebrows on dolls so Tara's eyebrows were a plus for me, but they ended up having too many areas of missing or smudged paint.  That kind of thing can be hard to work around, so I decided to completely re-paint the brows.

I actually re-painted her whole face, including freckles. I also gave her new Secrist brand Victorian blue eyes and found her an unused, authentic My Twinn wig.  The wig is a little on the dry side (just from being old) but it's worlds better than her original wig and it suits her perfectly:

When I first painted Tara's eyebrows, I used watercolor pencil.  I've discovered that this method is not very durable, so I've since switched to using only high-quality acrylic paint for the eyebrows. 

Tara's watercolor brows started to wear off after only a few months:

They were especially faint on her right side:

A few weeks ago I decided to rub the watercolor brows off and re-paint them with acrylics.  

In this picture the left eyebrow is done and I've just started to outline the right eyebrow with light paint brush strokes:

Here's Tara with her new eyebrows.  They could probably could have been even darker than this, but my instinct is to step away before I overdo things:

Tara also needed a neck repair, and I can't say I did a very neat job of this.  I think it was one of the first neck repair jobs I attempted with my hot glue gun.  I've learned a bit since then!

There's glue bulging around the neck seam, and I got a few little spots of glue on Tara's cloth torso:

This close-up shows the glue spot on her cloth body, and also (just underneath the glue) a faint dark stain from Tara's old life that I was unable to scrub away:

Many of the My Twinn dolls have a gap under their necks where the foam body ends and the vinyl neck begins.  This gap was especially pronounced on Tara.

I stuffed a little bit of polyfill into the area just below Tara's cable tie, and this helped to smooth out her neck region.  

Here she is all put together:

Here's the glue/stain area again--it's not too noticeable from a distance:

Tara's body is in pretty good shape.  She is from 2001, which is the Denver era of production:

Her armature squeaks moderately and she has some snags in her torso.

There's also a faint darker area along her back seam that's hard to see both in photos and in real life.  It looks like a water stain or a darkened area from old clothing.  Tara does not have any odors or mustiness to her:

She has a few minor scuffs and shiny spots on her vinyl limbs, but nothing that required repair:

I love Tara's sweet face.  She's probably the most successful Emma repaint I've done to date.  I feel like the combination of dark hair and light eyes works really well:

I married a man with dark hair and blue eyes, so that might be coming into play here.  I do love the combination!

Here's a look at the back of the wig:

It has wonderful, medium-length waves, but is still pretty easy to brush and manage.

I had a fun time photographing Tara.  Here are some of my favorite shots:

I paired Tara with the blue dress from Doll Clothes by Carole.  It goes really well with her coloring.  She's also wearing my favorite shoes from Simply for Dolls:

A bit of favoritism for this girl...

Here are a few more pictures of Tara showing off her new clothes!

The second Emma twin got to keep the name Emma since she was the first Emma I ever bought.  

I've been through a lot with this doll!  I bought her back in August of last year.  This is how she looked in her auction photos:

SO cute, right??  I totally fell in love with her--especially her bright green eyes.

Unfortunately, when she arrived she was shrouded in an unbearably intense floral stench.  I could hardly stand to be next to her, and I'm not very sensitive to smells.  

After some investigation, I discovered that the smell was coming from her wig.  Probably someone tried to condition or clean it.

I had to remove and discard the wig. It needed to get out of the house!  After that, I washed her head many times and let the smell slowly dissipate for the better part of six months.  Even after all of this, the smell is still detectable if I put my nose right near her new wig.  It's a pleasant, mild smell now, though, not something that makes me want to gag.

The second disappointment was that her eyelashes had been re-glued with superglue, which made them really hard to remove.  The glue also damaged her gorgeous eyes.  This was the biggest blow.

I gave her some new bright green Secrist eyes, new eyelashes, new face paint (with faint freckles) and a glorious wig from Exquisite Doll Designs.  The wig came with corkscrew curls that, combined with the extreme length of the hair, made it impossible to manage.  I decided to straighten the wig, and now it's silky-smooth and much more manageable:

Here's the wig from the back:

The mix of colors in this wig is what makes it so special.  It's not just plain dark brown; there are streaks of auburn and chestnut mixed in as well:

This wig is not being offered by Exquisite Doll Designs anymore from what I can tell (much to my dismay).  I hope something like it will appear in the future.

Emma has some glue residue around her hairline because I'm not very good at gluing wigs.  I'm a little better at this now than I used to be, but back when I placed this particular wig I was on a steep learning curve.  

The little spots of glue don't bother me, but I understand that they might bother some people, so here's a close-up look:

Emma is from 2001 and has the armature squeaks and snags in her cloth torso that tend to come with a doll this old.

She also has some faint redness in her fingers that I was unable to remove.  I don't think it's that noticeable unless you're looking for it:

Here are some more shots of Emma without her clothing:

Emma's eyebrows are original:

I chose the green dress for Emma because of her eyes, but this isn't quite as perfect a match as the blue dress was for Tara:

Here she is with her hair down again:

What makes this Emma special is her hair.  I'm a little sad to sell her because I may never be able to give another doll this wig.  It's so pretty and really fun to play with!

I love Emma in this original My Twinn red velvet dress.  She looks like she's ready for a Christmas party:

This dress will be included with her, just because I can't picture any of my other My Twinns wearing it as well as she does!

Here are the twins together again:

Both girls have found wonderful homes.  Thank you!

Here's a summary of what was done to each doll:

Tara (in blue):

-new face paint (including eyebrows but not lips)

-new wig (original, unused My Twinn wig from Denver)

-new Secrist acrylic eyes

-new eyelashes

-neck repair

-spot cleaning

-stuffing placed near neck to fill gap

Emma (in green):

-new face paint, excluding lips and eyebrows

-new wig (Exquisite Doll Designs, straightened)

-new Secrist acrylic eyes

-new eyelashes

*a faint floral smell still remains on this doll

If you want to know more about what materials I use and some of my techniques, check out the Restoration Techniques and Products tab at the top of the page!

Emma (left) and Tara (right)