Tuesday, September 17, 2013

How to make hot little leather cuff and spiral bracelets for your dolls


These are kind of cool if, you can stand the heat, ha ha, but seriously I say heat because if you choose to do this project you will be using a hot glue gun, which is extremely hot, so children should have an adult or teen old enough to work with hot and sharp tools. Please Be Aware!
Now for the project, the cuff bracelet came as a surprise; I was planning to do a small tutorial of a spiral wire bracelet for your Barbie or fashion doll. As I was starting, a thought came to my head, I had been wanting to make cuff bracelets for a while but in my mind it wouldn’t work, and I didn’t go for it, I’d done spiral bracelets before and they came out cute, so this time I decided to go for it, what did I have to lose, if it didn’t work, it didn’t, I still knew how to make cut spiral bracelets. Great thing I tried, because I succeeded wonderfully, the cuff bracelets came out sooo cute, I was hooked since they were really easy. This is a great way to customize accessories for your doll. As always proceed with caution any project attempted. Enjoy tutorial.
For more accessories and fashion visit www.nitebabydollworld.etsy.com
Leather Cuff
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Leather Spiral
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Monday, September 9, 2013

My 1st Barbie/Fashion doll Wig?

So I questioned the title because it became a wig by mistake. I had decided for one of my dolls, I wanted to add hair directly on her head, (just trying another technique for customizing my dolls, I've also done re-rooting which will be in another post) I had some Aileen's clear tacky glue and one of my human hair wigs. Now, I’ve never worked with this glue before, even though it clearly states tacky I still didn't quite grasp what it did. In doing this project, I expected for it to be permanent, since the wig had tracts, I figured it would be easy, wrong! The glue barely held it, I felt like I had to add so much in order to stick, and I'm like, it's too far down on her forehead, I’m sure so much glue was in the holes on her head, and it was a big mess. I had 3 rows in a circle before I gave up and thought I had destroyed one my dolls. Months went by before I took another look at the doll, I really liked the doll and I was hoping I could save her since at this point I couldn't even re-root her or so I thought. I added a couple more rows of tracts, but I still had not figured out how to close it, this time I wasn’t giving up, I had nothing to lose; it was basically a “make it work” moment. In order to at least keep her usable as one of my models, I just had to do more research. I went to school for hair so I've always loved it, even if it's doll’s hair. I had been trying different things, perming, re-rooting, texturizing (see my “hair ideas” post), I even went to my local beauty supply store to purchase hair and supplies, and I was really excited. So next I wanted to try wigging, I had been wearing wigs for years, and I'm like what if you can make doll wigs, duh, already done. There are a lot of great videos and blogs out there on making doll wigs, and really simple, almost like how I was gluing the tracts around the dolls head, they would just place free hairs on a dolls wig cap, there were even parting techniques. First thought was,” wow I have a way to close my doll's hair and even add a part. I also read that, “don’t worry if you mess up you can just peel the hair off”, I felt so stupid at that moment, I finally made the connection with the tacky glue, and with that connection I peeled off the tracts and it became a pretty darn near perfect doll wig (see photos below). After I figured this out, I used the closing and parting techniques. I was really excited about the wig, but I wanted variety, I needed another way especially since I had loose hair. I did a search on how to make doll wig caps, which turned out be very simple by using a thin fabric and craft glue or plastic and craft glue. I started 2 dolls with the plastic (Wal-Mart grocery bag) and it worked pretty cool, a very slow process, I'm a perfectionist so it's been weeks. I was getting so nervous because I wanted it to be perfect the first time, but nothing is perfect. The 2 wigs that I started are still not finished, but what I found interesting was when I took the plastic off, I was pleasantly surprised to find it looking like a wig all I had to do was cut the plastic, but as I was cutting the plastic I noticed it kind of pulling away from the hair but everything stayed intact, duh, it was the tacky glue, it didn't stick to plastic, so you can keep it or not. So even though the wigs are not complete I’m able to switch them around on different dolls, I forgot to mention the hair I used on the wigs are a synthetic that’s able to be curled, but the straight hair was so hard to work with, it’s not that soft, but it will hold good curls or lay beautifully straight, but I wouldn’t suggest it. The wavier hairs were softer but both are hard to close even with the techniques I use because this hair doesn’t bend easily, but I will definitely make it workSmile
See process photos below
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