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REBORN DOLL KITS ONLINE FACEBOOK PAGE

Wit & Whimzy Reborn Nursery Zazzle.com Store.


View more gifts at Zazzle.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

ADDED A PAGE BUTTON FOR REBORN DOLL KITS ONLINE TO MY BLOG

i also run another page on FACEBOOK: Reborn Doll Kits Online (has more ppl on it than my fan page for my own work does, lol)

its up above any of the posts.

its a simple page, just shows available kits online via various sites that are (or were) available at the time of my making all of those albums on it (800, and counting).

i get asked allot on that page "how much for this/that kit?"

i DONT sell them.
i dont even say i did the artwork of any of the final images of kits that have been reborn.
and if i can and it is available i show the name of the nursery and/or the artist who had done the work.

i simply house them all there, as a placement right now until i can get my webapge up and running where ill have those same albums all organized.

but for now, i have 800 kits on there for viewing.
feel free to "like" it and keep updated!

MICHELLE

ADDED an OFFICIAL FACEBOOK FAN BUTTON TO MY WIT & WHIMZY REBORN NURSERY BLOG

yup..added a button. so all of you who read my posts on my blog (which reminds me, im way behind on those)  you can just hit the button to the right ------> and go directly to the FACBOOK page i have had set up for this blog, and my Reborn work.


THANKS FOR LIKING!
have a great day!
MICHELLE

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

TV - 'MY CRAZY OBSESSION' WOMAN CREATES LIFELIKE BABYDOLLS

'My Crazy Obsession": Woman creates life-like baby dolls

 


The season finale of My Crazy Obsession airs this Wednesday, taking us into the world of a woman who has created and collected more than 1,800 baby dolls.
Lynn Katsaris has gone from doll collecting to doll-making, building her empire of dolls to an epic level that is steadily approaching 2,000 dolls. In her 12 years of doll making, Katsaris has built a family of very real looking dolls, all of which live with her and husband Bob in their Arizona home.
“Realism, that’s the goal,” said Lynn. “The more realism there is, the better it is.”
Katsaris has spent several years building and selling her life-like baby dolls named Reborn Babies; the results of a project she launched in 1999.
The dolls are made with realistic facial expressions and they are even given names which suit their perceived personality and personal traits. The doll maker named one of them after her eldest son Bobby, due to the resemblance between the doll and her living son.
Man obsessed with being a baby
Katsaris has spent more than $25,000 of her own money building and developing the baby dolls that are so realistic, some of them even come with drool flowing from their little, pouty lips.
Her skill for learning the expressions of these little people goes back to her days visiting local maternity wards, where she studied newborns quite often.
“For a while I was going to hospitals and looking at babies but they won’t let me do it anymore,” said Lynn.  “I don’t know why, for all the nerve.”
With her visitation rights taken away, Lynn hasn’t lost her verve for building the baby dolls. She spends 10-15 hours a day creating her child-like masterpieces, selling some of them on her personal website.
Lynn takes viewers deep into her world, going behind the scenes into her home where the entire doll magic happens, almost daily.
The season finale of My Crazy Obsession airs Wednesday on TLC. Check your local listing for times.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

NEWS - SNOOKIE & JWOWW CARY FAKE BABIES AROUND JERSEY CITY

Snooki & JWoww Carry Fake Babies Around Jersey City

 

Snooki hasn’t given birth yet, but it looks like she’s already practicing with one of her besties, JWoww!

The girls from the Jersey Shore just keep getting funnier and funnier. Snooki and JWoww were filming scenes for their new reality show in Jersey City March 22 and carrying around fake baby dolls!
Although we’re not sure exactly what sparked the toy craze, we can imagine Snooki, 24, is planning and practicing to for her first baby, which is due this summer. She’s been a busy working momma — filming scenes and going on spring break to Mexico.
After seeing Snooki with her [fake] baby, do YOU think she’s going to be a good mom?

 i cant quite make out the kit on this picture, but it is OBVIOUSLY a reborn, or a doll...

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

NEWS - WITH SOME DOLLS, IT CAN BE VERY HARD TO LET GO

‘With some of the dolls, it can be very hard to let go’ 

 

Tucked away down a lane in the village of Titchfield near Fareham, it’s easy to miss the pink sign reading Tinkerbell Creations. Go past it and you enter what seems like a normal doll shop, with collectables in glass cabinets, dolls propped up on stands and pretty dresses in the corner.
But then you see the ‘nursery’, a separate section where ‘reborn’ dolls are displayed. Lying in their own cots and prams, they look amazingly realistic.
There are tiny veins in their skin, they have downy hair on their heads and they can even be fitted with mechanisms that enable their chests to rise and fall as if breathing.
What began as a hobby for collectors in America in the early 1990s has now spread across the globe – and Jayne Seddon has responded to demand by making her own ‘reborns’.
People buy them for a variety of reasons. They may just be keen collectors, or want a reminder of what their child was like when he or she was a baby.
Some may have lost a child and seek comfort in having a doll made in their likeness.
Other dolls may be bought for children to play with, or to help Alzheimer’s patients.
Jayne, 53, runs Tinkerbell Creations and makes the ‘reborns’ with her daughter, Melanie.
She’s been creating them for the past 10 years, and other types of dolls for more than 20.
She says: ‘I made porcelain dolls before, which were very much in demand at the time.
‘But that kind of trailed off because there were lots of foreign imports.
‘One of my suppliers said to me: “Have you heard about ‘reborns’, dolls that are reborn from dolls to look like real babies?’’
‘I hadn’t, but soon I started making them.’
The name ‘reborn’ is used because artists who made the early ones would take other dolls and strip off the paint to start again, making them more realistic.
Jayne explains: ‘It sparked a lot more interest. These dolls are really special.
‘The fact you can actually make a doll and cuddle it in a way people think is real until they touch it is amazing.
‘I find it really fascinating and I think that’s the thing people love about them.’
Creating these dolls isn’t an easy task. On average Jayne makes one or two a month, with a price tag of around £650-£700 each.
It takes roughly three days to paint one and around 40 hours to weave the hair.
She says: ‘There’s only myself and my daughter who make them here. We probably make around 12 to 15 a year each. It’s a long process and sometimes we have other commitments, so it can be hard.’
Jayne adds: ‘With some of them it’s difficult to let them go.
‘For instance, when you’re making one for somebody who’s ordered one that’s a bit different.
‘Sometimes I’m like ‘‘oh I’d like to keep this one now!’’’
As well as making ‘reborns’, Jayne was also the first manufacturer in the UK to make reborn kits and is now the biggest supplier in Europe.
A bag containing various body parts can be bought, along with dozens of paintbrushes designed for nails and eyebrows, plus sponges and sculpting tools and even imitation hospital tags.
Jayne says: ‘It costs a lot of money to make a doll. If you’re making them yourself, you can keep the ones you want or you can sell them to finance your hobby.
‘That’s how most people see it, as a hobby.’
Jayne even holds classes so people can learn how to make their very own ‘reborn’.
As most of her customers come via the internet, she has also produced a film that shows how to make one.
It may be a niche market, but there is an International Reborn Doll Artists group (IRDA), which was created to educate artists in the art of ‘reborn’ doll making.
Anyone can join the association, but there are certain ethical guidelines which must be followed.
‘Reborns’ have been in the news recently after several women appeared on ITV’s Daybreak show with their dolls.
Jayne says she has had customers who have bought ‘reborns’ after losing their own child.
She explains: ‘When you’ve lost a baby you can get something called Empty Arm Syndrome.
‘All the maternal instinct is there, but there is no baby. Years ago people would cuddle a teddy or pillow to quell that need.
‘If you’ve only had a few moments with a child, it’s very difficult to let go.
‘People want to remember what they look like. Before people would take photos of the baby, but now some people would like a doll.
‘It’s a little bit controversial, but it’s a tiny percentage of those who buy the dolls. And if it helps them...’
Jayne says she doesn’t know anyone who treats a ‘reborn’ as if it was a real baby – even though some buyers have been known to proudly push their ‘reborns’ around in prams.
She explains: ‘The media want to sensationalise it and make it about something that’s ridiculous and focus on the people who have lost children, which I think is cruel.
‘It’s not about replacing a real baby. It couldn’t possibly do that.
‘In all of the time I’ve made dolls, I’ve only had two or three people ask me for a baby that looks like their child.’
But Jayne has known women whose dolls have caused alarm. One of her friends left her ‘reborn’ in her car in a child’s seat while she nipped into the supermarket.
She came back to find her windows smashed because people believed she’d left a real baby on its own.
Jayne herself admits that she left one in the boot of her car once as she was transferring her belongings over to a new car and had to explain that it was a doll.
The vast majority of customers are collectors, but Jayne says she has sold ‘reborns’ to be given to Alzheimer’s patients.
She says: ‘I’ve sold a couple of dolls to people that wanted them for that reason. I believe it helps them to bring out their nurturing side.’
Her own grandchildren love dolls and Jayne has her own collection of about 60 different ones, not just ‘reborns’ but also more traditional types.
She adds: ‘I think its a natural maternal instinct, there from birth. Young girls are interested and my grandchildren are interested in them because they’re more than just dolls.
‘Children are very interested because the ‘reborns’ are so lifelike.’
Jayne’s own interest in dolls started when she was a child. Growing up with four brothers, she rarely had dolls to play with because money was tight in her family.
But now she couldn’t be happier, creating ‘reborns’ for others to enjoy and regularly attending specialist shows for doll collectors.
Jayne says: ‘People want to create the special side of having a child.
‘I just love the artistic part of it. If someone thinks that a doll is a real baby, then I’ve done my job well.’
· For more information on Tinkerbell Creations, go to

Monday, March 19, 2012

ARTICLE - VINTAGE PRAM CONVENTION ATTRACTS HUNDREDS OF VISITORS

Vintage pram convention attracts hundreds of visitors

 

Monday, March 19, 2012
The Sentinel


MUM Susan Bagley joined more than 250 visitors to a vintage pram convention at the weekend – but her own pram hides an unusual secret.
The 57-year-old uses it to push around her favourite baby doll, Oscar.


Mrs Bagley, of Willows Drive, Meir Heath, was among pram enthusiasts from around the country who attended the event at the Wedgwood Museum, in Barlaston, on Saturday.
They had all brought with them a range of collectors' baby carriages dating from the mid-20th century.
Susan is a doll-maker who specialises in lifelike models known as 'reborn babies', designed to be the same size, weight and have the same texture as real infants.
Pushing the doll in her London Borough Baby Coach, which was made in around 1950, she said: "My kids are all grown up, but I wanted a pram to put my reborn babies in. They are dolls which I make myself, the idea is that they are supposed to be as lifelike as possible.
"You buy kits to make the dolls, but then you have to put each part together and paint them as realistically as possible. They are quite time consuming because you have to add each strand of hair individually.
"I have made too many to count over the years, but I sell most of them, so that I can then use the money to buy more kits.
"The first one I made I gave to my mum for a present, I kept the second one and named him Oscar. He is my favourite because he looks like my nephew, I would never sell him.
"My aim is to make one so lifelike people think it is a real baby."
Susan, who is married to Paul, aged 54, and has three grown up children, Victoria, aged 38, Elizabeth, aged 30, and Alan James, known as AJ, aged 29, added: "I bought the pram for about £150 from a place called Alison's Prams, in Lincolnshire, about five years ago."
Alongside the 150 prams on display, visitors from all as far away as Australia transported their own lovingly restored prams to the museum.
Ray Atkins, the museum's business development manager, said: "In 1959 the Wedgwood company supplied 500 Jasper plaques to Lawrence Wilson and Son, in Leeds. Mostly they were white on blue, some were white on sage and a small amount were green on lilac. Back in November, out of the blue we had a call to say one of these rare lilac ones had turned up.
"The pram convention has built up from that. The outcome has been great."
Julie Austin, aged 54, of Longton, found her pram bearing a rare lilac Wedgwood plaque at an auction and has lent it to go on display at the museum.
The grandmother-of-three said: "It's fantastic to see so many prams and pram enthusiasts. It has been great."

Sunday, March 11, 2012

ARTICLE - MEET COLLIII AWARD WINNINGPERUVIAN DOLL ARTIST CINTHYA AGURTO SALAS


In 2011 Peruvian doll artist Cinthya Agurto Salas won the Colliii Award for "Best Special Effects". We met up with her for an exclusive interview and to find out more about this artist....


Cinthya Agurto Salas is one of the leading doll artists from Peru and she entered the worlds largest doll making competition in 2011. It was her second time to enter the Colliii Awards (which are held each year) and her Reborn doll "Miguel Angel" was nominated by the public for several awards. The jury finally awarded the doll with the "Best Special Effects" award and you can find out all about Cinthya in this interview:
Colliii.com: What is the life of a reborn artist like?
Cinthya: For me it is more than a job, it is a way to express myself. After suffering several health and emotional issues I have found a way to express and release myself in this beautiful art form. I was so happy to discover reborning!
Colliii.com: Congratluations on your success at the 2011 Colliii Awards. This wasn´t the first time you entered though. What motivated you to keep trying?
Cinthya: Thanks for the compliments and to everybody that voted for Miguel Angel! Being nominated and finally winning a Colliii Award has been a large milestone in my carear that is for certain. When I was nominated I was thrilled, and when I found out I had won I couldn´t believe it.
Colliii.com: What made you enter the doll that finally won?
Cinthya: Well I have to thank my good friend and customer Barbara for helping me with the choice of doll. She encouraged me to enter this doll which I made for her and I am so happy that I did!
Colliii.com:What have you done with the winning doll? Do you still have it?
Cinthya: He now has a new "mother" and has a new "happy home", so I didn´t keep him.
Colliii.com: The Colliii Awards are the largest doll making competition in the world. How has the response been to your success?
Cinthya: I have a lot to be thankfull for! I has definitively helped me to be among the Colliii Awards winners as the competition is a great way to promote my art and let people see what your own art can be like.
Colliii.com: The doll market is moving in different directions. What kind of dolls are you thinking of doing int he future?
Cinthya: I love Reborn dolls but I love ball jointed dolls and also I would love to experiment with silicon dolls. I am currently experiementing with my own sculpts, so there is lots going on for me too!
Colliii.com: As an artist from Peru where do you get your inspiration from?
Cinthya: I love to do ethnic looking babies and I try to draw on my own culture to get inspiration. I am happy that that also gets accepted as I am very enthusiastic about it.
Colliii.com: How do you feel that Reborning has progressed in the last few years. What about the artists in general?
Cinthya: I would have to say that the overall level of the work has become very high. I think there will always be a market for Reborn dolls and when I have shown my work to people in my native Peru they have been very interested by it.
I can see the Reborn world getting better and more realistic for sure. I can imagine lots of new ideas coming on the scene in the near future.
Colliii.com: How big is the Reborn market in your current home Spain? Is it still growing?
Cinthya: The reborn scene in Spain is definitivly growing. The economic situation in Spain is very har so I am glad that I have several collectors that often buy my work.
There is a reborn doll show in Madrid in March which is being run by some collegues of mine, so it is growing for sure!
Colliii.com: What advice can you give new artists?
Cinthya: I would say they have to be confident of their own work and not be afraid to express themselves and try something new. I would advise them to look in forums for advice and techniques and get as much infomation as possible before starting painting.
Colliii.com: How can people find out more about your work or buy your dolls?
Cinthya: People can visit my website www.rebornroyalpalace.com or find me on facebook http://www.facebook.com/rebornroyalpalace or even send me an email on rebornroyalpalace@gmail.com

Saturday, March 10, 2012

ARTICLE - I CANT HAVE KIDS ...SO I GOT 97 PLASTIC BABIES

I can’t have kids... so I got 97 plastic babies 

 

A GIRL who can't have kids has spent £20,000 on a hoard of 97 plastic babies. 

 

Vikki Andrews, 19, began buying them three years ago after doctors diagnosed her with polycystic ovary syndrome.
Now her bedroom is filled with "reborn dolls" — made with hand-moulded plastic and human hair.
Vikki — a student and part-time barmaid — said: "My first, Charlotte, cost £200. I used money I had been saving since I was 14.
"Within a week I had bought her a brother. It was then I realised I wanted lots of them."



Her fiance Warren Bone, 19, is not keen on them.
And her parents have banned them from their living room in Newbury, Berks.
Vikki added: "If I take them outside I get funny looks. But I sometimes take them to work for bonding time."

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

ARTICLE - REPLICA BABIES MADE TO ORDER

Replica babies made to order

 

A HAMPSHIRE firm is creating life-like dolls for grieving parents to replace their lost babies - or for others just to remember what their child was like as a newborn.
The dolls can be made to look exactly like real babies and even breathe and have heartbeats.
They look, feel and even smell like real babies.
Realistically weighted and cuddly to touch, their heads are covered in soft downy hair and tiny veins are visible if you look closely at their faces.
Staggeringly life-like, some of these dolls are fitted with a heartbeat or breathing mechanism enabling their chest to rise and fall, and they are often spritzed with a special fragrance to get that all-important newborn baby smell.
While many people buy them purely as collectables, others have very personal reasons behind their desire for a replica baby.
There are the bereaved parents who order a doll that’s a similar size and has the same eye and hair colour to their lost child.
And then there are those whose children have grown up and want to capture their children in baby-like form forever.
The dolls are also bought for Alzheimer’s patients in care homes and an increasing number of children are coveting them.
Growing tired of the glazed expressions and wig-like hair of traditional dolls, enthusiasts first created these life-like babies – called ‘reborns’ – in the USA more than a decade ago.
It quickly caught on across the globe, and Jayne Seddon – an award winning Hampshire-based doll maker and collector for more than 20 years – soon got involved.
Today ‘reborning’ has spawned an international industry, and dolls range in price from hundreds to thousands of pounds.
“I see them purely as a doll, but a very special doll,” says Jayne.
“For me it’s all about the artistic side and being able to create something that is so true to life that people think it really is a baby until they touch it.”
But Jayne is well aware that other people have much more complex reasons for wanting their own reborn doll.
“There is just something about them that makes you want to nurture them, and because they are so realistic, some people do treat them as if they were a baby, dressing them every day and changing their nappy.
“If that’s something people feel they want to do, I don’t see a problem with it. They’re not harming anyone. It’s not really that different to having a train set. People want those to be perfect and realistic down to the finest detail and it’s the same with dolls. They want it to be like a real baby.”
For Jayne it really is all about the detail.
She prides herself on making them look as true to life as possible, after all that is the point of reborning.
Struggling to keep up with demand, Jayne takes commissions as well as designing her own dolls.
“People often give me a picture of their child as a baby and want a doll just like that, to remind them of when they were young.”
And then there are “a select few people” who have lost children and ask Jayne for a reborn doll.
“It’s more tangible for them to hold a doll than looking at a picture. It’s comforting for some people to have that. If that’s what helps them, who is anyone to say that’s wrong? It’s a tool for people to come to terms with their grief but it doesn’t ever replace a baby.”
Jayne has also supplied care homes who say some Alzheimer’s patients can find reborn dolls reassuring.
And she is now finding that a lot of children want reborn dolls too.
“Normal dolls aren’t good enough anymore, they want a doll that looks like a real baby. My granddaughters all adore the babies but they are definitely not toys and it’s better children stick to the increasingly realistic manufactured dolls.”
Collecting dolls herself, Jayne has around 60, some of which are reborns.
With customers in every corner of the world, the majority of Jayne’s business is Internet-based, but she also exhibits regularly at specialist shows.
Offering reborn enthusiasts a chance to show off their ‘babies’, many proud ‘mums’ push their reborn dolls around the fairs in prams.
“People normally only do that at shows though because they’re among like-minded people,” explains Jayne. “We’re a niche community and it gives them a chance to show their dolls off.
“You may get the odd person who would take a reborn out in a pram normally – I have heard of people who do that – but it’s probably one in a million.”
Initially working from a purposebuilt studio at her home in Titchfield, she moved into her own shop nearby two years ago.
Stepping inside ‘Tinkerbell Creations’ is like entering the word’s quietest kindergarten.
Gated off from the rest of the shop, is ‘the nursery’ where the reborn dolls are displayed.
With a fluffy rug on the carpeted floor and curtains at a makeshift window, babies lie in cribs while others sit in an incubator.
As well as people buying reborn dolls, there is also huge demand for people to make their own baby from a specialist kit.
And Jayne is one of the world’s largest suppliers of reborn parts, hence the eyeless babies’ faces which line the shelves here, the bags of specialist filling labelled ‘baby fat’ and bags of newborn hospital tags.
Jayne is a leader in this field, not only running classes teaching the art but she has also made a step-by-step DVD for people who live further afield.
She teaches people the painstaking process of how to create the vinyl dolls. It can take 40 hours alone just to root the hair (mohair is used because it’s so soft) and painting can take three days as each layer has to be baked separately.
A real labour of love, each doll can take Jayne as long as three months to complete as she fits her other commitments around them.
Sending each baby off with its own birth certificate, she admits they can be difficult to part with.
But the feedback she receives from her customers makes it all worthwhile.
As one new ‘mum’ comments on Jayne’s website: “I wish to thank you from the bottom of my heart. My precious baby girl is just breathtaking, I love her so very much and have spent the past two days bonding with her.”
• Tinkerbell Creations, St Margarets Lane, Titchfield. Visit tinkerbellcreations.co.uk or phone 01329 849086.


ARTICLE - REBORN DOLLS ARE A BIG HIT IN SA

SA Time: Tuesday, March 06, 2012 

Reborn dolls are a big hit in SA

 

They are so realistic that they have fooled policemen who have smashed car windows to get at what they thought were abandoned babies. At airports, customs officers have been alarmed to see them going through X-ray machines. Grannies stop to coo over them.
They are “reborns”, handmade dolls that are made as lifelike as possible with realistic skin, hair and facial expressions.
The craft started in the US in the 1990s, became popular in Canada, Latin America, the UK and Europe and is now a hit in SA. It’s spawned a collectables craze.
It was announced recently that reborns made by Baltorina’s Unique Babies will now be sold in 24 Toys R Us stores and 24 Reggie’s stores nationwide.
“We were initially sceptical about stocking them, but our chief toy buyer, Vee Kistensamy, saw potential in this product, which has proved popular with our female clientele, mothers and daughters alike,” said Toys R Us SA and Reggie’s director Issy Zimmerman.
Baltorina’s Unique Babies started as a hobby for 44-year-old Rina Muller (Baltorina is her given first name), who lives in Melkbosstrand in Cape Town. 


Surfing the internet one evening in 2004, she came across a reborn doll on a website and fell in love with it. She wanted it, but it was pricey. Including import costs, it was R4 500.
However, a friend told Muller to use her artistic skills and to create her own dolls. She didn’t know anyone in SA who made these dolls, so she decided to order a kit and moulds from the US to make them herself.
She’ll never forget the first doll she created. She took it to work at the Koeberg nuclear power station, where she worked as a personal assistant, and the security guard freaked out when she put it through the X-ray machine. “He thought I was crazy,” says Muller. “Only when he touched it was he convinced that it was a doll.”
In 2007, her unusual hobby was featured in YOU magazine. This changed her life. Her first order, 12 dolls, came from Toys R Us at Canal Walk. It sold out in the first week. She was amazed. Not long after, she was given an order for 48 dolls.
“I had to decide whether I was going to make dolls for a living or stay at my job in the power station.” She chose the dolls.
Muller began to supply five Toys R Us stores, two in KwaZulu-Natal, one in Cape Town and two in Gauteng. The handmade dolls flew off the shelves, which surprised her because they’re not cheap. They retail for about R800 to R1 900.
To train more people to help her, she travelled to Michigan in the US in 2008 to do a teacher’s course in doll-making, which included sculpting and reborning.
She now employs 40 people at a factory in Tableview – including her dad, husband and two daughters – making 1 600 dolls a month. “There are times that we work through the night,” Muller says, adding that the support of her family and colleague Bronwyn Beckett have been crucial.
To date, they have made 15 000 dolls.
There are those who think the babies are “creepy”, and the term “reborn” may have come about because they were originally made for mothers grieving over their dead babies.
“I do get requests from parents who come to me when they’ve lost a child. They give me a picture to make a lookalike doll for them,” Muller says.
She has made lookalikes for grandparents, “especially if they are going overseas and want to remember their grandkids”.
These replica dolls cost about R3 500 because they are custom-made.
Her dolls have also been used in therapy. She made a doll for a woman who taught classes on Down syndrome children. She made one for a woman giving classes at a clinic on how to care for premature babies. And she made dolls for a woman in Pretoria who worked with abused children.
Muller says she and her team work a great deal with sick children and use the baby dolls to raise funds for them.
One of her dolls was even featured in Winnie, a film based on the life of Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, starring Jennifer Hudson. The movie company sent Muller a photo of Madikizela-Mandela as a baby and asked her to make a replica. Prodcers paid R2 500 for the doll.
Her clients include young and old.
The youngest is a nine-year-old girl from Alberton, who Muller says, is a serious collector. “She started when she was four and she has 108 of my dolls.”
The oldest customer is an 86-year-old woman, who owns 16 of her dolls.
Making a reborn is quite a process.
Muller says each of the dolls is sculpted in clay and then moulded from a soft vinyl in Germany.
Once she gets the dolls back, the reborning process starts. This involves hours of painting, by hand, to create a warm complexion and realistic skin tones.
Between each of the eight layers of paint, the dolls are baked at 130°C.
“You can use an oven, but we use heat guns,” says Muller.
“Then you start with the veins, the skin, the blushing, the skin colour and then the blushing again. You repeat it over and over. And then it’s on to the creases, the lips and the eyelids.”
Acrylic eyes in different colours are inserted in the doll’s eye sockets. Hair, made from mohair, is rooted in, strand by strand. In the beginning, one head would take Muller about eight hours.
“Now I can root the hair in half an hour. It takes a lot of practice. We also ensure that you can see the crown on the baby’s head. You can make a doll in a day, if you’re determined to do it in one sitting.”
* Visit Baltorina’s Unique Babies’ website at www.baltorina.co.za
* For your nearest Toys R Us or Reggie’s store visit www.toysrus.co.za or www.reggies.co.za or call 011 608 2465 during office hours.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

ARTICLE : FAMILY TALK - BEING THE MOMMY OF A DOLL

Family Talk: Being The Mommy Of A Doll 

 

Is the new craze of treating life-like dolls as though they are real babies just plain crazy?

Saturday, March 3, 2012

FUTURE KITS I WANT TO DO : ZOMBIE BABY




so here we are, at the very start of the 3rd month (of 12) in this year 2012.

and as we have hit month 3, it makes me think, that in about 9 more months, well have a HALLOWEEN and a CHRISTMAS. bith with potential babies to be made and purchased by others.

HALLOWEENS 1st, and for some time i have thought about making a ZOMBIE baby.
i have seen some variations of wjat some have considered to be "zombie" but...to me, they didnt look, realistic. i mean if your gonna reborn, you might as well, attempt to make the doll appear to be as realisticly zombie-like as possible.

so, the quest has begun to find any suitable kit (from BountifulBaby.com) that i can to mock up into a Zombie baby.

to me, in order to be a ZOMBIE baby..i feel there needs to be some representation of anger on that babys face. because we all know the primal need of a zombie, even if its newborn, is to "EAT YOUR BRAINS" so...this infant has to look as if thats its intent.

heres some contenders for this idea:

QUINTON:



TORY
(this is the same kit i customed into my son)
and for some reason THIS tory just looks, plain evil to me, might be the brown eyes against that stark white hair, i dunno, but shes a creepy little baby..lol




PUDDIN
(another crying baby)


TAITE
(yet..ANOTHER..crying infant kit)


DAKOTA
(who has that, "im just born, but have the 'need to feed' " look. lol





i think TORY & QUINTON are my top 2 contenders for ZOMBIE babies.

looking online for anythng i could show what im thinking about, i came across this reborn daoll, not exactly like what i envision, but pretty close to it.


recognize the kit? thats a TAITE kit. so, someone thought that he looked like i think he looks, angry and good enough to make into a zombie baby.

so, apparently im on the right path.
:)

MICHELLE