dolly makeovers

A friend's neighbor passed down two older American Girl dolls in much-loved condition to her daughter.  I volunteered to bring them home and see if we could pretty them up a bit for their second generation of playtime.  Turns out that I took rather lousy pictures throughout this process, but I thought I'd share anyway--the dolls really came out pretty well! 

Our starting point:

Kirsten and Molly, dirty, with ratty hair and lots of stray pencil and marker marks.  Plus Kirsten was missing a leg.

some of Kirsten's pencil marks

Molly was actually in pretty decent shape. 

I started by cleaning all of the marks off of both dolls' vinyl with a magic eraser.  Then I deep conditioned their wigs with a good downy dunk. 

Both dolls then got their limbs re-strung (plus Kirsten got a spare leg from Ebay). 

loose-limbed Molly

loose and missing-limbed Kirsten

Kirsten, unstuffed for limb restringing

Molly unstuffed for restringing 

Yay! I can stand on my own two feet again!

Molly, feeling much better 

Molly came to my friend wearing Samantha's school dress, and Kirsten in her meet outfit.  I washed the clothes they came with, and fixed the stretched out elastic on Kirsten's bonnet.  I knit each dolly a skirt and sewed them a matching tank, just for some variety, should they decide to go time traveling and not stick to their historical time periods. ;)

all ready to go back home!

Molly cleaned up beautifully, and I took quite a liking to her!  I had never been interested in any of the dolls with bangs, but Molly is precious.  Kirsten's hair is like straw, it's so brittle, so she'll need to have braids pretty much full time or I fear she'll need a new wig soon.  We could take care of that, though. ;)  They're not in mint condition, by far, but they're such sweet dolls! I'm so glad we got them ready to take on the new life they have ahead of them being loved by another little girl!