BFC Ink Clothes for Sasha Doll Zoey

Hi there Doll Friends!

Recently the kids and I went to the Flea Market and stopped into our favorite vendor, a lady who sells random toys. She often has Littlest Pet Shop toys in either bags or by the eaches to make my daughter happy and often has Lego Mini Figures for my son. She also often has random doll clothes that she generally charges about 50cents a peice for! So I always ask her about doll clothes. Her son brought out this set. She said it was a $1. SOLD. I wasn't even sure who it would fit, if any, of my dolls but it was such a cute outfit, I figured it would fit someone! Helps to have a bit of a diverse doll collection. Teehee.

As I was glancing through my dolls and glancing at the outfit, I immediately noticed how perfect it would be in size for Zoey, my Sasha doll. In case you haven't read the story of her homecoming, you can find it here. She will probably always be one of my most amazing 'finds' and I will never ever get rid of her! Love her to bits. 

The amazing part is the shoes fit like they were made for her!! So cute! I had to know more about this outfit?! It fit so well, I thought "Whoever it was made for, I am certain they made more!" and so I did some research, starting with the stamped letters in the shoe. The internet is an amazing place because in no time at all, I had found this:

It was a set made for the BFC Ink Dolls. They are hard to find clothes for and so I am pretty sure unless I find another random set at a thrift store, garage sale or flea market, this will be my only set. Bummer! I wanted to get Zoey more shoes!

Look how well they fit!

This little bit of information is what helped me find it. Did I mention the internet is awesome?

Here is a photo of a BFC Ink doll wearing the shoes. I actually own this doll and own that little swimsuit. In storage. *sigh* 

Isn't she lovely in it!? Such a fun find!

Till Next Time,
XXOO

New Dresses for the BFC Ink and Disney Princess Dolls!

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!!

I was recently reading a great doll blog that I've found recently. It's all about finding and making doll items on the cheap. It's called Dolls on a Dime! Just the name is right up my alley! Recently she had this post about finding second hand porcelain dolls and taking the dresses off of them for the thinner variety 18" dolls. In her posting she mentions Disney Princess and Me dolls but the idea works well for BFC Ink dolls I discovered. 

See? Aren't they beautiful??!!

Here are the 'donor' dolls. I plan to re-donate them to Goodwill, where I bought them for $3.99 each. 

I was surprised at the big difference in size of the 'donor' dolls and how well they worked anyway.

This smaller doll was purchased for same thing but it didn't work out so well... More on that later. Let's just say it wasn't made very well, the dress and wouldn't have made a good play dress in any case. Luckily she was only $1.99 and so it wasn't too big a loss.

The dress donor dolls were very pretty but I have always disliked porcelain dolls. I think a doll is made to be, first of all, a plaything. So, a very fragile doll doesn't make any sense to me. So... I didn't feel to badly about taking the dresses because apparently I am not alone in my sentiment about them because they are at Goodwill all the time. 

This one had a mark on her neck...? Seymour Mann doll. Don't know much about porcelain dolls but her dress was made very well!

There was only one problem with one of the dresses. The sleeves were too tight to get over the hands of my dolls.

So I simply opened up the seam with a seam ripper and 'hemmed' the edges so it wouldn't fray and it's perfect. 

Belle looks like this dress was made for her!!

Even if it is a little long.

The BFC Ink Dolls fit the dresses really well too!

Here they are wearing them in the Library of the doll house.

And playing chess!

That's it for now friends! See you next time! 

Doll Orphan Joins the Doll Posse!

The Omaha Flea market, I took DearDaugter there this past Sunday in hopes she might find an acceptable doll in the Doll Section. That is where I found her 'new' BFC INC doll Saturday and instead of taking every cent of her ~$40 in Christmas and Birthday money to Target to buy ONE Monster High Doll like she wanted to, I wanted to show her the power of her dollar in the second hand market. 

We hit Doll Section there and low and behold she is able to find FOUR dolls she is pretty thrilled with for under $20! All fashion sized dolls, which DearDaughter is really into as much as 18" Dolls. She was happy and she still had half her money! 

While she was shopping, I glanced around. Hmmm what is that laying on the table over there?? Looks about same size as the BFC Doll I got... Perhaps I had missed one yesterday?

I go pick her up. She hadn't  been cared for well all that well...

 

She has makeup all over her face, even on her teeth...

Her hair is a total frizzy mess braided into a huge braid...

Her torso was also a bit 'loose' at her chest 'joint' and so she had trouble holding herself up strait on her own.

Still her dress was pretty and her shoes were both there and her face, despite the makeup, was very pretty. I decided she was worth the $6 the proprietress at the Doll section was asking for her. 

We took her home and washed her up with warm washcloth with mild soap. We took out braid and slowly (slowly!) worked doll brush thru her hair. She has an interesting hairstyle in that she originally must've had a bun or pony tail on top of her head. So she has a small, shorter, bit of hair right in crown of her head. So I can see why a child might've struggled to keep her hair tidy. I actually even trimmed a bit off bottom of her hair because some of it was very jagged at the ends. DO NOT CUT DOLL HAIR WITHOUT PERMISSION KIDS! Ok? I figured I could risk it because she was only $6 and how much worse could I make it? 

Then, around her wobbly chest level joint, I performed a bit of Doll Surgery! Yes, that's right. In the form of (pretty blue) electrical tape applied around her to hold her erect. Kind of like fusing her spine because she now can't move in that joint area but it keeps her from being a hunchback! I, after taking these photos, wrapped a bit more of the tape around and it looks like a blue bra to match her painted on white panties. 

Moment of truth!! Put back her original dress to give you instant clue who she is because the yellow dress is pretty well known...

Here she is! Belle from Disney! She didn't come with pink coat but it's winter and it looked cute and accessories make the outfit, right? 

Apparently Disney released a whole line of 18" Princess Dolls! I was completely unaware of this! No judging, it is in best interest of my pocketbook that I don't have such information. Trust me. 

The original line of dolls looked like this. I will be looking for them in future when I am happen upon a second hand doll selection! They are very pretty!

Being Belle, she wanted to set to reading immediately! Here she and Isla are reading together.

She seems to fit right in. Here she and Shuri and Rose are wearing their new night gowns for bed. 

Then she set to modeling new items I made almost immediately! I am so glad to have her because her body type is nearly just like the BFC INC doll we recently got, which has become a favorite of Dear Daughter. So I have a 'fit model' and she still had the other one in her room to play with all the time. Win win!

Here she is, rocking a new ensemble I Upcycled from an OshKosh dress!!

She fits right in with the Doll Posse!!

Thanks for visiting! See you in next post!

XOXO

BFC Ink Dolls and the Story of Taming Wild Doll Hair! Two Methods!

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!!

I've been writing this blog again now, in earnest, for a few months now. I've taken scores of photos and written about all manner of doll related items. One sad omission in all my postings has been any photos or mentions of what I consider one of the prettiest 18" doll varieties there are. BFC Ink Dolls are no longer being produced which is a shame because their original price point was attainable by most girls. Not to mention, they were adorable with beautiful faces and mostly or fully (depending on which doll you got) articulating joints, they can be posed in literally hundreds of positions which makes them terrific for looking very lifelike in doll scenes. So... Why haven't I had them in the blog lately?

Well... Take a look at this:

Crazy hair! This hair is, from what I understand, the reason these dolls stopped being made. It's a real mess! It's not just my doll, which, as you may have guessed, was gleaned from a 2nd hand source. You can read all about her homecoming here. From what I understand, the dolls all had really bad hair from just about the moment they were taken out of the box. 

See what I mean? Just a nightmare! We've always just pulled their hair back into 'messy buns' and gone about playing with them and admiring their beautiful faces because doll hair restoration wasn't something I knew how to do. 

Until recently!! I've begun to learn a thing or two about fixing doll hair. Mind you, I am not any sort of expert, more of a novice dipping my toes into the pool of doll repair because there are some mind blowing doll restoration people out there! People take off doll heads, change eyes and bodies and all manner of things... However, I have learned about a method that is very useful and also have become more brave when thinking about doll hair because, worse comes to worse, there are always doll wigs! If I mess up the hair now, all is not lost! 

Doll wigs, I am finding, at least quality ones, don't come cheap. Learn that lesson from me!! Don't go 'cheap' and buy vintage or 'old stock' wigs for your projects. Just pay the few extra dollars and get a top-notch wig because, just like in dolls you buy with wigs on, good hair can make all the difference!! However, that being said, they aren't cheap and so I wanted to try and salvage the real hair on these dolls if I could. 

Look at that mess! What a fright!!

Method #1: Cut the hair. Now... If you are not a grown person who purchases their own dolls with their own money, please make sure and ask permission of a grown up, preferably the one who bought you the doll before you cut doll hair. Doll hair does not grow back!! That all being said, in my mind, with these dolls, I had nothing to lose because it couldn't possibly look any worse!

So my plan was to just cut off all her hair and re-wig her. Seriously, that was my plan for this blog, the two methods of hair salvage were going to be a re-wig and a hot-dip. Wanted to show the two options... So I sort of recklessly started cutting off the horribly damaged portions of her hair. I thought I'd go ahead and just cut off the really bad parts and see 'what was left'. I was so sure I was going to re-wig that I didn't even photo the cutting process at all. See all that hair in the bottom of the trash can? That is only photo I thought to take. Oops!

Because low and behold, when I stopped snipping, a kind of cute little bob had been cut into her hair? 

Hmm. Who'd have thought? So, I snipped a bit here and there to make it even and... Well, she might keep her hair! I am hoping that, given that the hair quality was the problem from the beginning, her shorter hair-do doesn't eventually end up a frazzled mess just like it was but I also figure if that happens I can always go with PlanA and just re-wig her as I'd planned to do. 

Which brings me to method number two: Hot Dipping. I didn't really do a play by play when photographing because I already wrote a blog about it when I tried this method with Belle. I just did the same procedure with this doll. Combed her out and hot dipped her and this is after that comb out. 

Still kind of a frizzy mess but much improved. I suspect a re-wig will be happening for this doll because I am itching to do a re-wig on this sort of doll because I think if they had amazing hair they would be one of my favorite dolls, ever!

As it was, I just braided her hair the best I could. She looks loads better anyway. 

All done, well, for now! Thanks for dropping by again Doll Friends!! See you soon with another story about BFC Ink Dolls because now that I have these two beauties cleaned up, you'll be seeing a lot more of them! 

See how they can be posed so neat!

With a Tolly Tot and an American Girl for comparison!

Happy with new cut!

See the back?

Side view.

Bye!

PS my daughter wanted me to try on the wig I have that I bought and didn't work for a different doll.

She looks kind of cute! Almost Hawaiian maybe?

What do you think?

It's a lot of hair! I think I will keep her short bob and just put this wig on when I want this style cos it fits over her regular hair. Kind of fun I can have her both ways!

TTFN!