For The Love Of Dolls: Remaking A Vintage Porcelain Doll III – Doll Finished, First Photoshoot

I can’t believe the doll is finally finished! Last night I couldn’t resist the temptation and made the first photoshoot, to test the lights and the new background. I will make a second photoshoot today in natural light, as the lamps “yellowed” the images too much. It’s not easy to photograph dolls with black dresses – but doesn’t she look gorgeous? I love it and will start the second one today – aah, dollmaking, what a terrible addiction! As soon as the stand is finished I will list it for sale at Gypsy Deluxe.

About 50 hours of stitching, painting and more stitching. Less than 5% of the doll is glued, like some rhinestones that had no sewing holes, and the attachment of the wig. The complete outfit has been handstitched, including the mink fur in the skirt.


If there is something that fascinates me from dollmaking is that, after seven years customizing dolls, I have never purchased one. ALL of them have come from donations from friends and customers. My husband was saying yesterday that this is like having a “foster doll home”: dolls arrive usually in very worn condition, pass the makeover, and suddenly someone wants to adopt them. I have made about 40 dolls and have only kept two – and still those two get buyers offering to adopt them all the time. Only once I have worked with a new doll (the Krishna Child doll) and still, it was a gift from a friend and was sold two weeks after listing it.

Unlike other dollmakers, that usually stick to one kind of doll, I have worked with plastic, celluloid and porcelain dolls; some were antique, some were vintage and some were just a few years old. Some were quite big – the biggest one being 1 metre tall – and some were really small, just a few centimetres. I have sculpted dolls from scratch and I have worked with finished dolls, just making their clothes and ornamentation. The only doll I have never worked with is Barbie – I particularly hate her LOL. I prefer “child” dolls, and at this point I don’t see myself sculpting again. Working with a finished porcelain doll like this one has been the best experience of them all, and though I don’t plan to do only one type of doll, I see more of this coming in the near fiture, as porcelain has a texture and weight that plastic dolls cannot imitate.

My point is that I don’t choose the dolls, the dolls choose me. I think it is a gift from the spirits, as I am not a doll collector and personally never had much interest in dolls or dollmaking before I started making them myself. I see other dollmakers than plan carefully and design the doll’s look and costume – I have never done that either. The doll tells me exactly what they want – and 10 out of 10 times the final result is not even similar to what I had envisioned for the doll. I have learnt through experience how to make the work durable and give it a great finish – but the final look of the doll is completely up to the doll herself. In the movie The Doll Master, a character explains that it is believed that the doll gets her soul through the eyes, and I believe it to be true. Dolls DO own a spirit, they’re not just an object. Being a Witch, is not difficult for me to believe it!

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For The Love Of Dolls: Remaking A Vintage Porcelain Doll II

Here are two collage images of the doll’s makeover process; in the first, you can see the work on the sleeves, embroidered with beads and french knots, and the brocade chemise. In the second, details of the skirt, made with a vintage mink coat collar, textured velvet and beaded trim.


Today I will work on a beaded belt, and most likely I will start working on the wig and the hat. Hubby will hunt for a wood stand :).

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For The Love Of Dolls: Remaking A Vintage Porcelain Doll I

I am taking a couple of days off the shop-blog-promotion slavery to work on, at least, one of the gorgeous vintage porcelain dolls that my dearest Krista sent me from Estonia. She bought them at a flea market, and the poor girls needed some love! As she knows I like to do “doll makeovers”, she chose dolls that had no particular historical value. I wouldn’t do a makeover on a historical doll, but a restoration – but honestly, restoration is not my thing; I prefer to give a value to dolls that were destined for the landfill.

This is how they arrived (and my cat Kyra doing the surveillance). First, all the dresses were removed and washed by hand; though my plans did not include using them again, they’re a wonderful source for patterns when making the new outfits they will wear. Cleaning and conditioning the dolls is a MUSt, so if you have a doll to remake and can’t do it immediately, at least take the time to clean it properly before storing it for later.

I am working on the smallest one. Here’s a “before & after” pic after one full day of dollmaking. After washing the clothes, I combed the hair as much as possible – you can see that in his case I discarded the doll’s wig; some make it, some don’t. I cleaned the porcelain parts with warm water with a drop of dish detergent (soft shampoo works well too) and then I erased the face features with solvent and a cotton pick. Her eyebrows were too high and gave her the “scared creepy doll” look hehe…if the doll has eyelashes like this one, I really recommend to remove them with tweezers and glue them back after the repaint, as I did here.

I repainted the face with acrylic paints and the tiniest brushes I have – if you want to give it a try, look for brushes for miniatures at your doll house shop, they’re the best. Getting the best of your face repaint really depends on using good brushes. The wig you see in the pic is not attached yet, but I wanted to get a whole idea of how it would look all together. The wig will be prepared and attached after all the dress making is finished – here’s a valuable advice, dollmakers! It is a big temptation to add the hair before dressing them, because they look so pretty! But after days of sewing and embroidering, that beautiful wig will be a complete mess. If you are working with a doll that already has the hair fixed, braid it , make a bun and cover the whole head with kitchen plastic foil until you finish the dressing.

The clothes you see on the “before and after pics” is ONLY the doll’s underwear: stockings (made of dyed stocking), laced pants and under sleeves. Here’s a detail of the boots, which were constructed with leather pieces and glued together.


After taking those pics I worked on the petticoats that will go under the skirt. The petticoat is made with four layers of black tulle, to add volume and stiffness, and a coat of indian jeweled silk from a vintage scarf. I added lace trim and beads on the lower end, to add a little weight to the fabric.Take a look at the waist of the doll: as I add new layers of fabric, they do NOT go one over the other, but each new layer is a little BELOW the previous one. Why? Because you want your doll to have a waist when you add the final skirt! If layers just go one over the other, the waist will be too wide and your doll’s dress won’t look good. If you add each new layer a little below the previous, your doll will have “hips” and the skirt will fall over the layers wonderfully.

If you are a regular reader, you already know that dollmaking is a total passion for me. Every minute that the dolls have been awaiting in the closet, cleaned and ready to be remade, I have been thinking about them and dreaming of wonderful and magickal clothes and accessories I will make for them. I’ve been making dolls for seven years, and while people have on their New Year’s determinations to go to the gym or quit smoking, I have dollmaking on my list every year – and I have to say I am yet to fulfill my determination. Dolls are incredibly time-consuming -and truly the biggest mess-makers as I have to work with nearly every craft element I have. You glue, sew, wire, comb, paint, construct…when I’m doll making I really have to clean my craft room three times a day. Despite the mess, I would be very happy to live of dollmaking.

Seven years is a magickal cycle. My first doll, made in air-dry clay, discovered a addiction that I didn’t know where it would take me – and that has given me more satisfaction than any craft I have made, even more than painting, because dolls have a LIVING quality that no other art form has for me. I feel like I do not choose anything – I may have my own ideas and designs, but in the end it’s them who choose outfits, wigs, colours… they speak to me. Actually I hate finishing them, because it’s like saying farewell to a beautiful and magickal spirit.

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