To prepare little Bobby for his journey home, I've given him some beautifully hand painted hair. He has warm brown hair with light brown highlights that were delicately added in several layers. He's being sold at a boo boo baby discount because I am covering a small section that was previously rooted on the brown of his head.
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Little Logan has been adopted! His mommy changed his name to Bobby and has given him blue eyes. I have several different colors of blue in my workshop. Which one do you like the best? (Click the photo to enlarge) Personally, I really like the little brown flecks in the Stormy Blue. Just my two-cents. LOL
I enjoy having the opportunity to work on several custom orders at the same time. However, to feel like I'm really making progress, sometimes I just need to focus. Over the past few days I've been laser focused on Zoey's rooting. I still have a long way to go, but at least I can look at the photos and tell that I've made a difference. When you've got a lot of work to do, sometimes you've just got to focus.
Following my own rooting advice, I'm trying to see how many rooting sessions I can cram into a day before I start to feel it. So far so good. I'm also taking a break from trimming and styling the hair - which makes for much wackier progress photos. Oh, well, it'll be worth it! My goal this week is to make some serious headway on my rooting. So, in the interest of time, I won't be doing any trimming or styling for the progress photos. But don't worry - it will be worth it in the end because the end will come sooner!
Making my way up the back of Zoey's head... I've come to the realization that this hair is mesmerizing. As usual, when I finished rooting for the day, I trimmed it up and used a soft brush to style it for the progress photos. Next thing I know, several minutes had passed and I was still brushing! The hair is just so soft and gorgeous - it felt like I was under a spell! I've decided. I'm going to make another Lelou next year and that one will be a keeper! It's enough to make a grown woman cry. But I kept it together. When I sat down to root this morning, I discovered a bald spot. A bald spot where an hour of rooting used to be! This isn't the first time that's happened to me. And I have a few theories about the culprit: 1. A demon sneaks into my workshop at night and rips out the hair with his slimy little claws and a huge grin on his face
2. The hair gets caught on something and pulled out 3. The elasticity of the vinyl has been compromised I'm thinking it was #3 in this case. Check out my Rooting Watch Outs to avoid this issue in your rooting. Fortunately, I was able to get her warm enough to re-root that area. Now she's looking good. Today was Inventory Day. Even though I don't have updates on any of my dolls, I can still give you an update on what I'm working on. When you're juggling multiple custom orders, its critical to keep track of inventory. That way you avoid buying things you don't need, scrambling to acquire the things you forgot, or accidentally putting the wrong eyes in the wrong doll. To help me keep track of my inventory at CustomDollBaby.com, I developed a Microsoft Access database, CDB-CRM3 (Custom Doll Baby Customer Relationship Management, version 3) with the following functionality:
This video is a quick demo of how I track and manage my inventory at Custom Doll Baby.com. I'm happy to answer questions! Just Leave a Reply! I'm very excited that I finally started rooting Zoey. Zoey's mom and I spent a lot of time researching different kinds of hair and curl patterns to make sure we got the perfect curls for Zoey's beautiful newborn coiffure. I even sent her a Hair Sampler so she could handle the hair in person before having it rooted to her doll! After much deliberation, we eventually decided to use the same glamorously curly Yearling mohair that we're rooting on Britney. Its so soft and beautiful. I think she's going to get a lot of styling versatility out of this! So excited!
It's important to take your time when rooting the hairline. Especially in the temple area - I like to make sure that the hair is soft, and fine and pointing in the right direction. The Yearling mohair I'm using on Britney has natural blonde highlights in it. So it was great for me to be able to fish those out and root them in the temple area. Using a lighter color or rooting hairs at a lower density are two tricks I like to use to make the hair on the face look as baby-fine as possible.
One of the fun things about starting on top of the head is that you can brush the hair down over the bald areas to make for better progress photos. Baby's first curl has graduated to baby's first comb-over. I think I'm going to spend some time on the complex temple area before finishing my journey down and around. Today was Zoey's Interim Review. This was my opportunity to see her in different lighting and from different angles to make sure the painting was just right.
I think this little sweetheart is ready for rooting. Don't you? Two weird facts about me and reborning: 1. I'm always amazed by how lifelike the doll looks after the blushing layer. 2. I honestly don't know when I'm done painting until I'm done painting. The second one is especially awkward from a customer service perspective: Customer: "When's she going to be done?" Me: "Tuesday?" Customer: "Really?" Me: "I don't know" This isn't unique to reborning. Other painters and artists I've met likewise wait for the piece to tell them when the work is done. Well, Zoey finally told me she was ready for her finishing touches. So I painted her nails, applied my Matte Skin Sealant and added just a tiny bit of skin texturing to top off that perfectly lifelike look. Someone's getting her Interim Review soon! If you've been reading my blog for a while, you've probably noticed that no matter how many dolls I create, I'm always surprised by how much they are transformed by the blushing layer. It always amazes me how just the right amount of rosiness in the right places really brings the baby to life! Zoey is feeling GLAMOROUS. If you hadn't noticed, I've been rooting Britney's hair following my hair pattern from her hairline to her crown. Oh, it's looking so lovely so far! And its really soft! Yearling mohair is super fine. The hair diameter is much smaller than human hair. This is going to look and feel great when I'm done! |
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Reborn Doll ArtistHi! My name is Kim. I am a reborn artist based in NC. I have been creating dolls since I was a child. I discovered the art of life-like baby dolls in 2011 and have been reborning ever since. Archives
December 2016
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