Glue removal for Monster high or other Mattel dolls with glue in their heads using talc

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This works with both the white and yellow glues but it does have to be disintegrating and therefore sticky. This won’t work if the talc can’t stick to the glue.

  • Put on some clothes that you don’t mind getting covered in talc and use a face mask if you have asthma.
  • Put your thumb over the neck hole while shaking the head or you’ll get talc everywhere.
  • Squish the head to break up the glue and shake some more.
  • Tap the neck hole against your hand to get the lumps out. You may need tweezers for the bigger bits.
  • Repeat
  • You can use a screwdriver or long scissors or hemostats to gently scrape around the inside of the head to dislodge more glue but be careful to not pull hair into the head.

I used this method on my Honey Swamp (early june 2016, 4 months ago at the time of this post) and she’s not seeped anymore glue. It’s still early but now that so much glue is out, I’m hopeful that she won’t seep more and require a reroot – I don’t want to touch those gorgeous curls!

tutorials to add

–removing glue from mattel doll heads with talc
-dollar store ebay doll clothes and accessories reviews
-making an 8-9″ BJD wig work for Pullip
-different methods for rerooting a fringe/bangs

$2 fakie body review

Another dollarstore ebay review:

The $2 body aka “doll toy no head” or the pale fakie body without the torso joint.

Ok where to start? Well mine arrived broken and with two right lower legs so that took a classic “drill a hole with a nail drill, put in a piece of paper clip + glue it” fix and it’s kind of obvious that she’s got wonky lower legs.

  • The body arrived with the arms seperate so you’ll need to crack open the torso to put them in.
  • The torso and upperlegs are made of thin hollow hard plastic that is light enough for Licca, Kuhrn, Lelia, etc…
  • The hard plastic has black marks that only go away with sanding or wiping with magic eraser.
  • The neck knob doesn’t allow for much range of movement.
  • The upper legs have heavy seams that needed scraping off with a craft knife as they interfered with movement at the hip joint
  • The arms and lower legs are vinyl of a darker skintone with darker marks in the vinyl itself (cannot be removed), joints of a different colour and some flash on the hands. The joints hold well. The different pieces aren’t removable.

While this body is a *lot* less floppy than the fakie body with a torso joint and is an OK match for pale skintones it’s also lesser quality in terms of the hollow plastic and mismatched arms/lower legs. You’ll need a magic eraser + craft knife to prep this body for use and it’ll be discoloured. I don’t recommend it for dyeing as there are too many different plastic types and colours.

Listing image, Arrival and Pin repair:
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The flaws:
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Body after seam removal and magic eraser, Body with Lelia head
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How to make Littlest Pet Shop & Lil Bratz hybrids

First heat the Lil Bratz head to remove it from it’s body
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Then cut off the long neck peg spike above the knob
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Now remove your Petshop head from it’s tiny body, heat the head and pull out the semicircle neck piece:
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Place the semicircle neckpiece over the Lil Bratz neckknob and push it back into the Petshop head.
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The head will be a little wobbly but firmly on! The Lil Bratz body is a great match for normal Littlest Petshop heads.

20 Barbie glasses for a dollar review

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From Ebay China. A few years back a chinese seller had these black glasses at $1 per pair and I bought several for my Barbies. I hadn’t seen them at less then $4 since… until last month – twenty at once with free shipping!

They were bought on the 28th of november and arrived the 4th of january.

Here’s the link to get your own:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_sop=15&_nkw=20glassesbarbie&rt=nc&LH_FS=1&_trksid=p2045573.m1684

They all have a teeny bit of flash on the upper bridge, I removed it with a knife for all the doll photos here. The glasses fit Barbie + Integrity sizes best and can be bent to fit Myscene and Licca but they look rather unfortunate on Myscene who’s eyes are painted off center for a cute cartoony effect. They don’t fit Monster High.

The hipster Licca picture is free to distribute and edit. ?

Tutorial: ball chains necklaces for dolls

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Now, most of you probably know about repurposing those little keychain/bag ball chains to make a necklace for your dolls but it can get really fiddly trying to get it on and you’re limited to silver metals that might stain.

Here’s a quick primer on how I’ve been making these:

Buy aluminium ball chains in multicolours and aluminium ball chain clasps in the same ball size (got 500 clasps and a bundle of 6 chains for $1 each free p+p from ebay china).
You then cut the chains to the right length for your doll with a wire cutter and before you add the clasp: widen both ends by pushing a round nose plier upwards so that the clasp is now easy to pop on your doll even when there’s limited space for your fingers (like in the three wrap seen above on Bélla).

As usual, if you’d like some clasps from me (I have hundreds left!) just ask me to add them to an existing order or just pay postage. If you’d like a ballchain necklace, same: 3 for $1.

PS: Bélla is named after Gina Torrès’ character in Hannibal and she’s a modified Magic Nights Out Sashabella.

More Saran hair comparisons: Retrodolls.uk

New Lush lilac Saran batch from http://retrodolls.uk :
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New Clover (no longer high denier, beautiful grassy colour) from Retrodolls vs “evergreen” or “seafoam” from other dollhair vendors:
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As always the weights per hank were 11g-12g with a very generous 14g and 16g for Envy and Vapour blends. The hair arrived fast considering it was shipped from the UK.

 

Here’s an older photo of Pink Gin (which I use a lot) vs Cupcake Pink:
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It’s very slightly more orange but turns out gorgeously cutesy pastel pink when rerooted.

Calculating reroot amounts (in cm and grams)

Here’s my own cheat sheet (for the tool method aka hair folded in half and for saran, though I use the same amount of nylon as it tends to be lossy during prep/work).

To calculate the size and number of hanks / skeins to buy :
It takes 3 + 1 half (about 40g) , cut in half , to cover a 5/6″ head with very long hair.

1 “hank” of Retrodolls saran is about 90cm and 12g therefore:
A hank can be cut in 3 = length on the doll 14cm max from roots to ends. 2 hanks per reroot.
A hank can be cut in 2 = length on the doll 20 – 22cm. 4 hanks per reroot.

1 “Skein” of Mylittlecustoms/Restoredoll saran is 46cm and 12g, it contains as much hair as a hank but it is shorter.
4 skeins for a reroot = length on the doll 23 cm.

1 “XL Skein” of Mylittlecustoms/Restoredoll saran is 76cm and 40g, it contains approx. 3 and 1/3 hanks/skeins of fiber.
1 whole reroot (Cut in 2) = length on the doll 19cm.

1 “Large Hank” of Retrodolls saran is 90cm and 50g (contains just over 4 hanks)
1 “XL Hank” of Retrodolls saran is 90cm and 100g (contains 8 hanks)

Not using dollyhair hanks any more as they were averaging 8-9g.

See https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0As0WIngBCIdZdFIzRUdFZmZONktVNzM2eUd5STczVWc#gid=2 for the colour matches between sellers.

 

If you’re looking to measure your doll’s hair in inches, please see NoNapTime’s awesome tutorial: http://www.nonaptime.com/2015/02/calculating-the-amount-of-hair-needed-for-a-reroot

How to dress your Monster High Create a Monster Dragon

Slice, gently scrape, then sand down those pesky fins/crests.
Ta da! A seamless, easy to dress, pink body!

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* Use your craft knife carefully to remove the bulk of the fin,
* Then use the back of the knife to scrape against the body which will leave slight striations as seen in the bottom arm picture.
* Get out your nail sanding block and sand away those lines until it’s invisible.
Now your monster can wear long sleeves and trousers!

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