It's a boy!

I've decided that if my niece is old enough to find and read this blog, then she's old enough to know that Santa lets humans help at Christmas too (not just elves).

This is Austin. He was purchased many years ago when you could customize your dolls eye, hair, and skin color. As a girl he had a hard life; an unfortunate run in with scissors, glitter nail polish on her eyes and teeth, orange highlighter markings everywhere, and Sharpie!

Removing the wig was first... I found it easier to remove the head, both for cleaning the limbs and removing the wig. (For fun I put the bald head on my mother's dresser. She cannot stand having dolls staring at her when she sleeps. Am I not a treasure?)

Next, a major body scrub using Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser, followed by glitter removal with non-acetone polish remover. He was looking pretty good... except that the polish remover had removed some of his teeth... and the highlighter eyeshadow and Sharpie marks were still there. Two weeks later and a bit of Oxy10 (benzoyl peroxide) he was clean!

I could have left the teeth missing, but it was bugging me! So I got out my acrylic paints, the smallest paint brush I could find and some toothpicks (great for getting into cracks and crannies). As I was painting I felt he needed better eyebrows. So I gave him some. It took forever! They were so lopsided, and my niece 'C' and I kept laughing at how bad I was doing (did I mention I have a BA in Studio Art). Finally I calmed down long enough to get something that didn't resemble a Picasso.

Once I had his face done it was time for the wig.. only I couldn't find my craft glue. I looked for two weeks, nada. When I don't need it I find one or two bottles constantly in my way, of course now that I did need it, it could not be found. I figured I could steal him away the following night and he'd be fine for one day...

Poor little girl was dressing him Christmas morning and his hair came off. Fortunately I'm an expert fibber (I lie like a rug) and convinced her that AG dolls were not the elves usual job and that sometimes the assembly instructions didn't translate correctly. She liked the explanation.

Now that hair has so much glue it will take a jackhammer to get it off.