Dolly Play Day

Today I've had a dolly play day. At least in the afternoon..., and a little bit in the evening too.
It all started when I got a bunch of dolls with the broken neck syndrom. This was before this years Daisy convention, and as the convention dolls really needed to be ready in time, I had just put them aside for some day when I would have time.

I recalled I had read something about repairing them when you don't have all the pieces, so I went over to the Yahoo Daisy Mania Group, where Ingie had posted a tutorial on how to do a neck-repair. 
So I last week I bought some Magic Sculp and Flesh coloured spray paint, and thought I was ready for the job. I started the afternoon with a trip to a DIY-shop to buy some sanding paper with 1500 grit, to find out they didn't have it. After a call with a car parts shop I knew where to get it.
But I didn't want to go driving around town all afternoon, so decided to buy the sanding paper when I would have to get the kids from school anyways.
I knew the dolls needed a thorough clean, as they had been glued by someone who wasn't really that well at it, the glue was even in their hair.
So first they had a bath in warm water with silk fabric detergent.(I always use this as a mild way to clean my dolls). I managed to get their heads off, and take out the neck-knobs, and get the glue off the neck-knobs.
their necks, heads and hair were not so easily cleaned. 

As I had had some good results earlier with Perk (Twin Pines of Maine) cleaning out a rubber band from dolly hair, I decided to drop the dolls in a jar with perk solution.
After a while the bodies were so far, that I could scrape off the last little bits of glue, and dry them.

 

 

 Time to glue the neck-knobs back in. While I left them to set, I picked up another doll from the cleaning area, who needed a partial restring, but before I could start on her, the postman came and brought me some lovely dolly stuff.
 








So I inspected my parcels, restrung a Dashing Daisy, and gave a couple of poorly Sindy's some stain treatment.

 

 







I checked back on the heads of the dolls, and decided to leave them in the Perk solution for the rest of the afternoon.
And then it was already time to collect the kids from school, go to the car parts shop, go on a coat hunt with my middle one and take the youngest to her swimming lessons.
When I came back home I picked up the heads and managed to remove the glue from their hair, and most of it from their heads too.

 








After the kids went to bed, I finally managed to get back to the dolls, and took out the magic sculp and some water, and a little modelling tool, to make a nice edge for the neck.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to sand and paint them.......