Daria Dreams of Better Days

Thank you so much to those who purchased dolls from my very first group of listings!  You had to take a chance on a new shop and I'm so grateful that you did.  Saying goodbye to that first group was a little bittersweet (I get attached to all of them...) but it clears the deck for the new dolls!

From the new group, Scarlett and Willow have already made a (brief!) appearance on Etsy and sold.  I'll try to keep up my Grab Bag Girl idea as long as I have the supplies to do it!

The doll I'm going to share today tugged at my heart when I first saw her bedraggled face on eBay.  She looked like she was pleading for some help!  I got even more attached to her when she arrived at my house and I had a chance to look at her closely and take her picture.

In this photo--one of the first I took--she strikes me as such an optimistic dreamer.  She's had some rough times, sure, but she can see a bright future ahead:

1997 My Twinn Ariel.

She is a 1997 doll with the Ariel face and a pale (01, I think) skin tone.  She came to me scuffed, stained, and super-dirty, with faded eyes and matted, thinning hair.  But it also looked like someone had taken the time to try and fix her up, adding a touch of color to her winsome eyebrows.

This kind of doll, with all of her history written on her face, makes me so emotional for some reason. It's like I can see all of the love and adventure that she shared with a child, but I can also feel the ache of that child growing into a beautiful adult who went out into the world to find a whole new life, full of new adventures, leaving this doll behind.

I feel some responsibility for this little piece of history, and yet I know I'll never feel like I've done the project justice.  I often wish I knew some little tidbit of information about the children who used to love these dolls.

Anyway,  I started off by giving her a name.  To distinguish her from other Ariels, I decided to call her Daria. 

Daria has a white body with tight ankle joints.  She came with a broken neck, loose arms, and several stains on her cloth torso:

Here's a closer look at a paint stain and a dark spot on the front of her body:

The back of her body had a lot of small holes in the fabric, like maybe somebody had tried to cut away the snags? (never do that!):

She also had a rusty staple in one arm, for no apparent reason:

Her legs were covered with dirt, black smudges, and several bright orange marks:

Her face was in really bad shape.

I suspect she had lovely brown eyes at one time, but they'd turned a deep orange-red color: 

She also had scuffs on both cheeks and a bad gouge on the tip of her nose:

It was hard to get a front-on "before" picture of Daria because her broken neck made her head flop around all over the place.

I tried propping her up....

And then I managed to get her head to balance on her neck joint so I could snap this picture:

The first thing I did was disassemble Daria's body and wash it.  It was too dirty to be surface-cleaned.

I washed the foam stuffing in the washing machine and soaked the body slip in my sink with some bleach.  All of the dirt and many of the stains came out, but a few of the spots on the front of the cloth torso wouldn't budge.

I reassembled the body and then examined the small holes in the fabric.

Here are the holes left by the staple:

I wove some thread back and forth across these holes in the hopes that it would stop them from getting larger over time.  It's not a pretty fix, but it seems functional:

Here are some of the holes in the back of the cloth torso:

I also stitched these together, doing what I suspect is a very crude version of darning:

With all of the holes secure, I stitched up the back of the body (one of the holes was right next to the seam):

I like to fix a doll's body before I fix her head.  This is partly because body cleaning involves a lot of waiting around, but also because I like to have a body all ready to go as soon as I've completed a head.

Daria's head needed quite a bit of work:

As you can see, I wasted no time in removing her scruffy wig and faded eyes.

Here are the eyes by themselves:

I hate to throw doll parts away, but these eyes have seen their best days.

Next, I examined Daria's eyebrows:

Light brown brows had been painted on over the original yellowish ones:

It also looked like there was a thin line of sealant or glue coating the new eyebrows:

Here's the other eyebrow:

Daria also had quite a few deep scuffs in her vinyl, the largest ones on her left check on the tip of her nose:

Here's the head again after my first round of cleaning:

I was able to get the newer eyebrows off without too much trouble, but a very faint remnant of the original brow was too stubborn to go away completely:

At this point there were still some shiny marks on Daria's face--and of course all of the scuffs:

Here's the face after some more cleaning.  The shiny marks are mostly gone now, and I've started to sand down the large gouge on the nose:

I had a very specific wig in mind for Daria, and in order to match that wig I needed her lip color to be lighter.

So, I removed her old lip paint:

This is where the fun begins--where all of the new features start to take shape.  I love this part, but it also makes me nervous!

My goal was to paint her lips using a color as close to bubblegum pink as I could manage.

Bubblegum pink is not a typical color choice for me.  I approached the use of this color with great care and trepidation.

In fact, it took me about five paint mixing sessions before I felt like I'd achieved a color that was the right shade of pink, without being over-the-top candy shop madness.

What do you think?

To match this lip color, I wanted eyes that were light-colored and bordering on fantastical.  Whatever the blue equivalent of bubblegum pink might be.

In this case, I found my answer in Eyeco's Ultra line of silicone eyes:

The A006 eyes are very light blue, with stormy white swirls in the irises:

Eyeco Ultra A006 silicone eyes.

All that was left at this point was to re-paint the eyebrows.  

I also wanted these to be light in color, and I wanted them to approximate the slant of the original brows.  Here's my first attempt:

I liked the shape of these brows, but they were too dark.

I tried again:

These were better, but I still wanted them a touch lighter.

So, I added in some faint white lines:

This is not at all realistic, but it lightens the brow nicely and fits with my other coloring choices.

Daria got light brown eyelashes (the blonde ones are too light)...

...and then she was ready for her wig!  

This was a big moment of truth for me.

All of my fussing around with colors was to do my level best to make sure that Daria could handle a yellow-blonde wig...with pink streaks:

This delightful confection of a wig was made by Exquisite Doll Designs.  It's called Pink Petals and I believe it's currently sold out.

The fit of these wigs is so tight, they almost don't require any glue.  I glued this wig in the front and the back only.  I felt like gluing the sides would be challenging, unnecessary, and would surely result in some glue squeezing out around the hairline.

Here's a full-body shot:

You can see in these pictures that the stains on the front of Daria's body did not come out:

The little stitched repairs I did on the back of her body are also visible from afar:

And, despite some quality time with Remove-Zit, some of the orange marks on Daria's legs still linger:

Sometimes these stains continue to fade for a while after the Remove-Zit is gone, but I never count on it.

So, little Daria is far from perfect, but I covered all of her remaining flaws with this beautiful pink knit dress and matching hat from Doll Clothes by Carole:

This dress is fully lined in white--a feature that none of the other dresses in this series have.

Daria is also one of two dolls in this group who have special hats.  The crazy floral print of the regular sun hat (seen on Scarlett) does not match the lovely pale pink of Daria's dress.

Daria's pale vinyl and abundance of pink made her a challenge to photograph, but I did my best:

The curls in this wig are fun.  The hair can be brushed into large, smooth, asymmetrical waves:

But after some time, or with some finger-combing, those waves fall back into smaller (slightly messy) ringlets, like this:

Basically, there's no taming this wig.  It's a riot of independently-minded pastel curls that don't want to be told what to do.  In some ways, it's reminiscent of the wild hair that Daria came with.

Speaking of which, here's a GIF of her transformation:

I don't usually have such a specific vision in mind when I set about doing a doll makeover.  I'm not sure Daria exactly captures the look I was aiming for, but she's definitely unique among the dolls I've worked on!

In this photo, I was trying to capture the dreamy expression that I saw in her when I first got her out of the box:

Now she's dreaming of even bigger and better things, I think.

Daria's hair doesn't look quite as cute when it's pulled back:

But this style causes the curls to fall in wonderful layers:

I think Daria was happy to have those clips out of her curls!

Here she is in her hat for a few more pictures.  Hats are such great accessories...if only they didn't cast shadows!

Because of some struggles to capture Daria's true coloring indoors, I took her outside for a few shots.   The first time I tried this, it was a sunny day and Daria's pale completion was completely washed out.

Today, under some ominous cloud cover, I had better luck:

I especially like how she stands out against the dark woods!

The down side of this lighting was that it highlighted a few of Daria's facial flaws.

First of all, she has too much glue under her left lower eyelashes.  Also, the scuff on her nose, while now smooth, is still visible in bright light:

The last thing is that the blush on her left cheek is a little uneven in the spot where another one of the big scuffs was sanded away.  None of these things is super-obvious, but they're there if you look for them.

Here are a few more photos near the woods:

This is an unusual doll, and not a color palette I've ever attempted before.  I think Daria looks good considering the condition she was in when she arrived, but of course time takes its toll, and Daria had her fair share of battle wounds.  Many of those wounds have left a scar.

Here's a summary of all the work that was done on Daria:

-her body was disassembled and deep-cleaned

-her vinyl was cleaned and stains were reduced using Remove-Zit

-large scuffs on her cheeks and nose were sanded down

-small holes in her cloth body were stitched together

-her face was repainted, including eyebrows, blush, and (bubblegum pink!) lip color

-her faded eyes were replaced with top-quality Eyeco Ultra silicone eyes

-her wig was replaced with a new Pink Petals wig from Exquisite Doll Designs

-she is wearing a custom outfit from Doll Clothes by Carole (dress and hat), with white sandals from Simply for Dolls

Daria's biggest flaws are

-her body has some stitched polka dots as a result of repairs on several small holes in the fabric

-she has two large stains on the front of her body: one paint spot and a smaller dark patch next to it

-she shows the faint remnants of two large scuffs on her face: one on her cheek and one on the tip of her nose

-there's glue residue on her left lower eyelid

-she has some faded orange staining on her legs, along with a few other very small marks that I could not remove

Daria is as clean as she could be, though, with unique silicone eyes and a colorful wig that will set her apart from the crowd.  Her face paint was carefully done in an attempt to coordinate with her pale skin tone and her unique hair.  Her dress was ordered just for her and is beautifully-made, with a full lining and a matching hat.

This little dreamer has come a long way, and now she has a wonderful new home to welcome her!  Thank you so much.