Working on 2 new babies Nevaeh Serenity and Kendal Paige

Vein detailing on head

Vein detail on cute hands

More vein detailing on legs and feet

Hi guys, Sorry I have not been around much, and even though I am technically a grandma to two beautiful grandkids and a mom to 4 children which of 3 are out of the home, I am a college student. So last spring was a nightmare because all I did was study and it was so difficult to go to full time school at a hard university that I only went part time this semester but it is still a lot of work.  I worked my tail to the bone and got an A+ and an A in my last two classes.  I was going full time so I had absolutely no time to work on much and being as how I was just learning to reborn it was too much for me.  But I learned so much.  I am doing such a great job on my two new girl babies and I have plans for more.  I am going to do a boy too, yay!

I also went on vacation to the Caribbean.  We got to visit our timeshare in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands for 10 whole days!  It was so beautiful, I will share pictures later!

I ordered some supplies for my next babies as I work on my other two babies.  But I am freaking out because two large storms are coming.  I am keeping my eye on those hurricanes as they should arrive this coming week.  I am in Virginia so who knows what is coming our way next week and I am praying we do not have to evacuate!  As it is, I should be working on a paper right now but I am so excited to make my new babies, I am looking at videos online of course!  I love to watch videos of people as they get their new babies and I also like seeing what other artists are working on.  It's fun to see how people react to their babies and I enjoy seeing them sharing their tips, techniques and watching them play with their little tykes.

This week I found that some artists are doing larger dolls and I can't imagine how some are quite large and lifelike.  But I hope I can do some of the full body reborn dolls in the near future and maybe even silicone but like anything, learning is a process and I must be patient.  It's so hard for me because I have always been a painter so I am super excited for the next project.  Once again I am in school so I have to work hard on a class for my Information Technology Degree with a focus in cyber security.  Strangely all I can think of is painting my dolls!  What the heck?  I know.  It's strange. Especially late at night but I have found it's best not to paint at night because the lighting is too dark.  I will work on getting better lighting in the near future but I am still rearranging my house because I am painting my house new colors!

Strangely my husband likes the idea of me painting dolls so he never ever complains when I order a lot of supplies.  For some reason, it makes him happy to see me happy and he loves that I am an artist (and a good cook).  But I admit I love to see him happy too.  Like tonight when he went to go see "It" with my 20-year-old daughter and her husband.  I was like, no thanks, but have a lot of fun and don't eat too much popcorn!  He smiled like a kid in a candy factory because he is a huge comic, sci fi, and movie buff.  So I hope he enjoyed it.  No thanks on the clown thing for me.  Clowns don't freak me out too much except in that movie.

Anyhow, I am excited to show you pictures of my new babies as soon as I can!  I am going to start doing videos on my progress as well so you can see how I am doing.  I need to share to see what you think.  I am also going to start some videos to help you all learn if you want to make your own babies.  Since I am a mom, I have lots of experience and so maybe I can make some great recommendations to you!  Despite the fact that my daughter says my dolls are "creepy" she really does love them and probably wants one for herself.

Here are some pictures and videos so enjoy and say hi, please!  I love hearing from you all!

Love and blessings!

Kimberly

Gracie Rose Was Born Today at 7:06 PM

 Happy Birthday Gracie Rose!!!

Celebrating the birth of Gracie Rose.  Well almost.  I still am going to order some of that Crystal Resin to gloss her eyes up with instead of the Aileen's Paper Glaze.  I hear when Aileen's expires, it leaves the eyes unclear.

For the most part she is good to go.  I did find a small error on her doeskin body which makes me mad.  I wish I had caught it earlier.  It looks like a tiny grey oblong blob.  I also have to put crystal clear resin her eyes and hope it makes her eyes glossy like tears.  I am thrilled that she came out as pretty as she did.

She does have painted hair.  I have rooted another doll but I wanted to try my hand at painting.  It's not perfect but it's not bad either.

Why does the brown come out so reddish yellow even with the blue paint in the brown.  Ugh.  I need more colors to experiment with.  Over all it looks fine for my first doll.  I am sorry the lighting in this picture is so bad.  It's usually under this work light that is bright and does not show the shading very well. 

I will do a photo shoot with her tomorrow maybe.  And get her resin for her eyes on order.  I start school again tomorrow so I hope to have enough time to get the other reborn finished up too before my classes get hard and heavy.  I go to Regent University and I am working on my Information Systems Technology with a minor in Cyber-security.  So I will be knee deep in homework soon!  One of my classes this semester will be hard and the other will be easy.  I don't want to learn intermediate programming Java and Information Security Systems.  I just wanna reborn!  Hahah!

 

I can't complain.  Her magnets aren't real strong but they are working holding her binky and bow on.  I am ordering stronger ones.  Of course they are coming from china so it will take a while.  Until then I am forced to deal with the weak ones I can get.

She feels good like a real baby.  I will have to weigh her and fill out her birth certificate now.  I will start getting her ready to go.

My grandson absolutely was infatuated with her.  He thought she was a real baby and wanted to feed her the bottle and give her the pacifier and try to hold her.  It was hilarious as she looked like a real baby in his arms.

I think I am going to list her for $600.  I think she is worth that much since I used all top notch materials. Due to a two small issues one with her body and one with her eye that is why I will list her cheap.  Also she has a very expensive wardrobe.  Her clothing is almost all from Kohls, Carters, etc.  I am going to decide what she gets and get her listing up to date.  I may be putting her up on ebay shortly AS IS.  She is my first completed baby and she is so cute, I want to keep her...

Happy Birthday Gracie Rose...

With Love,

Kimberly
Snuggle Babies Nursery

Beautiful Eyebrows and Murphy's Law

Almost everything that could go wrong has gone wrong with my learning.  I just have to take it with a grain of salt.

Finally, Gracie Rose and Raine Eden got a better set of eyebrows.  I removed the eyebrows and repainted them until I was finally happy with them.  What a pain but I was delighted to thin the eyebrows out and paint the tiniest of strokes, but I realize I do need to go even thinner most of the time.   I had to be careful because removing the eyebrows, though I did not remove all layers of paint, it did make the vinyl a bit shiny.  So afterward I had to take care to apply a couple layers of Genesis heat set matte varnish mixed with baby skin and a touch of blushing rebaked in my NuWave oven.

I cut one of my paint brushes down to where there is only a small amount of bristles. I might cut it down even more but at least I got a desirable effect as it was.  I found that thinning my genesis heat set paints down and using Eyebrow Brown with Vein Blue.  I think I mixed about 3 Eyebrow Brown  / 1 paintbrush dabs of Vein Blue paint into a small amount of paint thinner and it did not take much to get a tiny amount of what appeared to be black.  I later used more of my brownish hair color with a touch of blue to give the eyebrows a more brown appearance.

I had painted them before without the blue and though the paint was brown, the eyebrows on Celeste came out yellowish.  Putting the blue in was an important part of making the eyebrows look less yellowy.  I painted a wisp of a very fine line from the middle of the brow to the end of the eye. Then I proceeded to make v shaped arrows towards the end of the eye leaving only a tiny line at the end.

Then I made lines from the bottom up to the top of the brow in the side of the brow that was the thickest and I curved the ends of the line towards the bottom of the brow.  I also put in a few of the tiniest wispy lines at the front end of the brow to make it look as if a few got away, giving it a natural wispy look.

It was not easy and I removed them again and again until I got them right.  After like 20 times I finally started to get them right.  I noted the angle is important or else they do not look right.

So I made the mistake of putting Gracie Rose's eyelashes on too early.  Now I almost feel it should be the last thing I do.  While redoing her eyebrows with my heat gun (small heat gun) because I did not want to mess up her eyes or eyelashes in the oven, I made the mistake of melting her eyelashes down to nothing.  I ended up having to pull the remainder off and clean the eyeballs off.  I may have either cracked her eye slightly or got an eyelash stuck in it.  You almost can't see it.

I will list the doll as is since it's my first  release.  I can't replace the eyes at this point as they are glued in.  They still look pretty darn good and I am going to put crystal clear resin in them as I planned originally.  She will be ready for auction after that.  I will notify the new owner that she has a slight defect in the eye and a tiny defect on her doeskin body which I found on the body after it arrived.  I was kind of upset about it.

Raine Eden with new eyebrows.  Painted them differently this time and they look good.   Raine Eden was painted with Baby Skin x2 dabs and Brow Brown x 1 dab mixed in to the Baby Skin.  It gave her a slight olive look.  It was worth a try to change the color of the original baby skin a bit.  I put in her Pabeo eyes, the blue ones.  They are so cute!

 

  

 Gracie Rose with new eyebrows shown below.  I don't know if you can see the problem in her eye.  But it is barely noticeable.  At this point I pulled her eyelashes back off and cleaned the eyes out.  I also toned down the lips using the Baby Skin color from Genesis Heat Set Paints.

One other problem I had is when putting on the head, the strings did not hold the head on so I had to go find a kit that had the zip tie parts and borrow one zip tie for the head. 

Amazing Eyes...So many choices...

I found a place that sells Pabol Eyes.  I am fascinated.  I found both acrylic and glass eyes by a company called Pabol.  The only place I could find them was at Dolls by Sandie.  Dolls by Sandie has a ton of different eyes including the German glass eyes.  I was so impressed with their eye collection.  I will certainly check them out in the future.  I also saw some beautiful light blue and green eyes I wanted.  If only money grew on trees...

Well my two next babies are getting them.  Gracie is getting the brown and Raine is getting the indigo blue.  Aren't they just beautiful.  At some point I will use glass.  But the acrylics are so beautiful none the less. I just thought for acrylics these look a lot like glass.  Their glass eyes were gorgeous too.

Gracie is getting this color...

Raine is getting this color...

I also like Bountiful Babies Acrylic Eyes.  I am going to invest in a few with my next purchase.

The Eyeco Softglass eyes were gorgeous too.  The prices were great.  I will certainly try them out in the near future.  They were also available at Dolls By Sandie.

Dolls by Sandie also had the beautiful Lauscha Glass Eyes and a picture of their trip to Germany to see the glass eye factory.  I enjoyed the pictures truly.