Currently.......

I have been working on Grete a little, slowly, and some other dollys. I have also been practicing my penmanship.....my H is a little too thick, but I don't think my large letters look tooo bad~ I really prefer something hand inked, instead of printed out from a computer.....kind of like receiving a handwritten letter in the post, instead of an email. Its just different, more satisfying to both the giver and receiver~ don't you think?


This is Grete's before picture. While so beautiful, I can see her inner beauty wanting to come out....she is not the kinde of spirit that wants to wear a pancake of makeup. Her eyes had been painted over, and her hair painted a solid black.....kind of sloppy actually~ the black paint was down over her pretty face in many areas...... also there was globby filler and olde varnish built up around her eyes....very uncomfortable, so I let Grete recline on my work table, and gave her a bit of a facial....

After we uncovered her real glass eyes, (see last post), I removed recent touch up paint around her hairline......boy was the black paint underneath messy! I wanted to scrape the black off to her original hairline, and for the most part, that worked very well. We soon found ourselves chatting away, and Grete felt quite refreshed and tingly with her olde layers of paint coming off. "Very Itchy" was her remark.......

Up close, you could see the overpaint on her forehead, was not the same color as the rest of her face, so I gently scraped it away...then another layer, and another.....too many layers to count! I had originally planned on totally repainting her. As I see it, I can do no harm since she was already repainted.......but, with each layer coming off, her character shone brighter and brighter...she looks sooo happy~ don't you think?

I like that she looks olde and worn, cause~ hello!! SHE IS ! She didn't look right having solid black painted hair with a worn face, so I took some automotive grade 440 sandpaper and sanded her hair~ the areas that were flat and obviously worn away, got sanded back off again. We smoothed out her upper eyelids, and I painted over her iris with dark brown paint...just temporary until we do her final enamel contacts. I also gave her back a bit of eyebrow, since the ones up in the top 'before' picture were totally shaved off. I think I took about 7 or 8 different color brows off before we got down to a coat of base paint.....and I could still see more brows under this, but didn't want to take them down any further. After painting on her new brows, she took a little nap, and when she woke up, we shaved a bit of them off to match the rest of her. Besides her eyes, I am totally happy with Grete, and she seems to glow with delight too~ having all that heavy makeup taken off!

I am planning her wardrobe now, stockings, shoes....corset, chemise.....all late 1830 early 1840. She is perfect size to rest in my antique baby cradle(of which I had all 4 of my own real babies in)~ I have her body wrapped in plastic for her trip to the spa... I think she is well deserving of a good pampering!

until next time, grab a dolly and GO PLAY!!!!!!!!!