Poppy of the Prairie

Hello again! As you might remember from a few months back, I intended to include a few less expensive fairy dolls as part of my last collection.  I still intend to do that, but I've run into another snag with the outfits.  So, while my hero Julie Kelly works on a solution for me, I figured I'd finish up some dolls who have been sitting around for quite a while.

The girl who I'm sharing today is a doll I've had since last summer--just after I started this blog, in fact.  She's a pale Denver Caitie who came to me looking like this:

My Twinn Caitie from 1999.

She doesn't look very pale in some of these first pictures, perhaps because she was dirty, or maybe that she was overwhelmed by the bright red color of her dress and bonnet.

Not only is this dress very bright, but it's way too big for the doll.  I still love it, though.  I can picture a child dressing her beloved companion in this outfit (perhaps something from that same child's outgrown wardrobe?) and maybe even imagining some Little House on the Prairie style adventures.

I was certainly reminded of my own Laura Ingalls Wilder-inspired games.

It's too bad that the outfit is so huge, though, because it is nicely made with some cute details:

While I didn't end up keeping the dress, its spotted red print inspired me to name this doll Poppy.

Poppy of the Prairie.

Poppy arrived at my house with a lot of dust and dirt all over her body.  Her armature was also squeaky.  That's not stating the case strongly enough, though.  Most of these older dolls have some dismissible squeaks in their armatures.  It's barely noticeable.  But occasionally I'll come across a doll that I like to call "comically squeaky," meaning that it's impossible to move any part of her body without causing the most ridiculous, high-pitched, startlingly loud, old-door-hinge type of squeak that always makes me laugh out loud.  

Poppy was comically squeaky.

Poppy also had a matted wig, mangled eyelashes, and several scuffs and marks on her face:

Her vinyl limbs and cloth body were both quite dirty, although the pictures don't show this terribly well:

Here are some closer pictures of Poppy's face:

I lifted up her bangs to inspect her eyebrows, which were a bit faded and not distinctly artistic:

She doesn't have too many picks on her back, which is nice, but her original back seam was sewn a bit strangely:

I removed the original wig to get a closer look at Poppy's face:

 

I knew I was going to need to do some extensive work on the body, so I also tried to remove Poppy's head...but it would not come off.

Completely melded in place.

I've never encountered anything like this before.  I heated the head, pried at the neck joint with a screwdriver, and nothing would budge.  Not even a tiny bit.

I didn't force the issue for very long before it occurred to me that a strongly-affixed head was a great asset for a doll.  So I left the head in place while I worked on the body.

First, I removed all of the foam from inside the body and washed it in the washing machine.

Next, I washed Poppy's cloth body in the sink and then greased all of her armature joints with WD-40.  Usually when I'm doing this kind of work on the body, the head is sitting safely on a table out of view.  

It was slightly unnerving to have Poppy watching me the whole time...

You have to be kidding me, Emily.

Poppy sat in my studio, staring up at me like that, for several months while the WD-40 worked its magic.

Right before I had the idea to start the fairy series, I actually got Poppy out of the studio and re-assembled her body, but then the fairies took over all of my attention and poor Poppy went back to the waiting pile.  She looked slightly less pathetic with her body back in tact, but still.  She was not thrilled with me.

Last week, I finally got her out again, determined to finish her makeover.

I gave her head a cursory cleaning, tried to remove the eyelashes, and took stock of where things stood:

With some of the eyelashes gone, I could see that Poppy had the purple-blue eyes that I don't love.  These eyes were even more purple than most, too, because there was some fading in the irises.  They would have to come out.

The remaining eyelashes were extremely stubborn, so I decided to see if they would come off when I heated up the head to remove the eyes.  They did not:

The lashes must have been re-attached with superglue at one point, because both the hairs of the lashes and the glue residue were really hard to remove.

Those lashes look like a dead spider.

The lips had scuffs on them and were also missing a lot of their original paint, so I figured I would strip away all of the face paint and start from scratch.

Here's Poppy with no face paint (but still some pesky spider lashes!):

A thorough cleaning of the head still left behind a few yellowish stains on Poppy's chin and cheek:

There were a few of these stains on the vinyl legs, too:

I sanded the yellow stains vigorously, and had good success with the facial marks, but the spots on Poppy's legs are still visible.

I also tried to sand away some of the eyelashes and glue residue from Poppy's eyelids, but this was harder to do because of the shape and size of the eyes.

Here's Poppy's head as clean as I could get it:

The eyelid area is still a little messy, but it's not super-noticeable in real life:

I didn't really have a vision for Poppy's final appearance, and there wasn't much left of her original appearance as a guideline, so I dug around in my supplies to see what was available.

I found some expensive glass eyes that I'd dismissed as not being very realistic in color (I thought they were too light), but I got them out and held them up to Poppy's face and paired them with a few different wigs, and decided it might be worth giving them a chance.

These are "Dark Puppy" brown eyes from Hand Glass Craft:

They look darker in pictures than they are in real life, but they're actually quite beautiful!

Still, Poppy looked really weird with such detailed eyes and no facial coloring, so it was hard to tell how things would turn out.

I set to work giving Poppy some color.  Here she is with her lips painted and her blushing done:

She came out slightly blotchier than I'd hoped.  I guess I'm still getting up to speed after my long vacation.

My next step was dictated by an old My Twinn doll that was up for auction a week or two ago.  She had the heaviest freckles I've ever seen on a My Twinn, and I thought she was fascinating.  I hope it's ok to show this little picture of her from the auction:

I didn't want to buy her because I knew somehow I'd ruin those freckles during her makeover, but I still wanted to save that picture for inspiration.  I especially like all of the freckles on her forehead.

So, I gave Poppy a lot of freckles:

And then I gave her some reddish eyebrows (you can see where this is going):

In this close-up, you might be able to see that Poppy has some fine glitter residue on her cheeks.  I think it's left over from the glitter paints that I used for the fairies.  It's hard to see, but I did want to point it out.  I like to think that it gives Poppy's complexion a youthful glow!

Here's Poppy with her new eyelashes--not glued on with superglue:

As a sidebar, I really wish Monique would make auburn lower lashes to match the upper lashes.  As it is, the only option is to buy light brown lower lashes for the auburn upper lashes, and while the match is pretty good, it's not perfect.  Grumble.

Last of all--surprise, surprise--I gave Poppy a red wig:

I've always wanted to make a doll with light brown eyes and red hair so that it almost seems like the hair and eyes match.  I think this pairing of eyes and wig works pretty well for this effect!  

I might have to order another pair of those Dark Puppy eyes some day.  They're pretty great in the end.

The wig I chose for Poppy is a custom Monique wig called Timarie that recently came back in stock at Dolleanne.  It's truly beautiful.  I haven't been a fan of Monique wigs lately, but this one is very nice.  It comes in a size 13-14, which is a great fit for most My Twinns.

After the wig was glued down (in the front, at the back, and a bit at the sides), I re-sewed Poppy's back seam and called her done!

Here she is:

Her body is nice and clean now, and does not squeak at all.  Some of the armature is a bit loose (from all of the WD-40), but she still poses very nicely.  The joints should tighten a little more over time.

Here she is from the back:

Here you can see that those two spots on her calves are still visible (though not as bright as they used to be):

And here's what the lovely wig looks like from the back:

I really like the level of curl in this wig, especially for a redhead.  It's so much nicer than the Monique Donna wig, or even the Monique Marie wig.

I rummaged through my spare My Twinn outfits (duplicates that I've accumulated over the years) and chose this dress, which is one of my very favorites.  It looks good on everyone, and is beautifully made:

The dress has been freshly washed and is paired with brand new tights and some cute black suede shoes with butterfly buckles that are used but look very new.

Poppy photographs well, and I always love how redheads look in dark blue!  Here are some of her better shots:

Here's a straight-forward portrait...

...but I have to zoom out a bit if I want to show the full glory of this wig!

I'll zoom back in for the comparison GIF, though:

After having to hold still for so many portraits, Poppy was eager to move around!

This wig is really fun to play with:

I love how the hair looks when the sides are pulled back with clips:

The wig is a little bit messy on the right side just above Poppy's eyebrow, with some short hairs sticking out.  Also, a bit of the dark wig cap is showing (you can see this best right at the top of Poppy's hairline).  For the most part, though, this wig is made well and looks fabulous.

The hair also looks nice when the sides are pulled back a little lower down the head, like this:

But the wig is definitely the most fun to play with when the hair is let down:

Working on the season fairies was really fun, but I was guided by a very strong vision of what I wanted the completed dolls to look like.  My next collection will be pretty rigid in this respect, too.  Poppy was a nice break because I really had no idea what I wanted her to look like when I started out.  I guess it's no surprise that she ended up as yet another heavily-freckled redhead, but the evolution of her appearance--starting with the selection of her eyes, being guided by online inspiration, and then pairing everything with a newly-available wig--was really fun.  I hope you like her.

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

-her body was disassembled and her foam core and cloth body slip were washed

-her extremely squeaky armature was lubricated using WD-40

-her body was reassembled

-her vinyl parts were cleaned

-her old eyes were removed

-marks on her face and legs were sanded down

-all of her old face paint was stripped away

-glue and eyelash residue on her eyelids was sanded away

-she was given new glass D400 Low Lens eyes from Hand Glass Craft

-her face was repainted, including lips, blush, freckles, and eyebrows

-she was given a new Monique Timarie wig (13-14)

-she was given new auburn eyelashes

-she was dressed in a used/washed blue velour My Twinn dress paired with new white tights and used black shoes.

Poppy's biggest flaws are that she still has some glue residue and faint sanding marks on her eyelids, she still has some dark spots on the backs of her legs, her armature is slightly loose from the lubrication, and she has the occasional snag, rub, or shiny spot typical of an older doll.  She also has some hints of fairy dust (fine glitter) on her that somehow still clings to my paintbrushes!

Poppy has sold.  Thank you very much!