I am a
Nigella
What Flower
Are You?
This is Mary Sue mint in her box, she is a Effanbee doll and comes from a series of issued dolls from, many countries, characters (like Lucy Ball), and occupations like ballerinas.
Mary Sue is a angel complete with her wings. Effanbee produced this series in the late eighties and even though the company is still making storybook dolls, they have retired this mold.
To this....well, it isn't easy. Every boudoir doll is busty, it's part of the image of glamour.
All of my dolls are hand stitched so it would make sense the undershirt would be hand stitched, the one problem people will have is needing to leave one side open to make adjustments. It's a bit of fan dangling the fabric to make it fits but when your done you can stitch the open side while it's on the doll, stitch it closely.
Once the chest was done I move onto the legs. The prior owners had bent the long skinny legs in the middle so the hay was ruined and still felt apart. She lacked a lot nearest the body, even with the material being complete and no holes in it for the hay to spill out. I took the seams apart and added shavings to bulk her up some.
Then she was ready to construct. The pantaloons slid on and were stitched to the body.
As was the slip attached to the undershirt. One note on cheesecloth, it tends to cling to itself so I will not be using this in the future, it's fine for the pantaloons but not for the slip as it doesn't help flare the skirt, the cheesecloth just bunches.
She is almost done! EAHHH!! C&G Design
I snapped a picture of the first layer of paint, all the cracks did fair except the darn one in the middle.
Needless to say...it took about 12 to 15 layers of paint before I was satisfied with how she looked. These are the same cracks on her one hand, they didn't fair so well with the coats of paint as I discovered the more I slathered on the more to definition of the fingers, disappeared. *sigh*
Did I mention my boudoir doll is marked? It has a W-K- and something that either is a inches mark or at one time, the number 14. I'll have to do some research on them.
I did not retouch her eyes except to paint lower lashes, the red corner dot and line the upper lid, there was not anything wrong with her eyes except for a little dust.
I'm so happy with her color, her base was beautiful to work with and it was hard for me to stop working on her. I haven't even paid to many visits to my blogger friends! Not to worry I'll be around soon.
You would have to know where she had cracks to see the flaws as they are slight.
I couldn't quite find the fabric that is used for these dolls so I ended up with cheesecloth, I'm not that happy with it but my only other choice was fusible bonding and I thought that might not be good after a few years.
Here are some, if not all, embellishments I plan on using on her dress, I wanted more of the gold hoops on the left but Goodwill was all out of them within a few days.
She is in alright condition but maybe not a easily repair condition. She has eyelashes that protrude out from under the lid. Can you see one is lower than the other? That's because of the crack and the shifting of the composition. I think this little lady was dropped rather than the hot-cold temperatures of storage.
She has this lovely dress with the most delicate black lace around the red part of the shirt. The lace will need to be replaced but perhaps the pieces can be used for her head.
One hand has what looks like another impact damage, but other than that the rest of her is good.
Someone has removed her chest and under clothes so those will need to be reconstructed. I believe the gown to be original because you can see the staple snags on the back where it was attached to the breastplate.
Well, I started with the dress, see the dirty price tag mark in the center of the chest? I was concerned about removing that without tearing the silk itself. It turned out to be alright but boy! Was the water the dirtiest I've ever seen.
This is what she looks like now.
Here is a almost full body photo,
and here she is again.
But...but... this is what called to me when I saw her on EBay, her wonderfully large hat! A large percent (if not all) of boudoir dolls have something dressed on their head.
How gorgeous is that! I added a duel strand of old weighted beads to glam her up a bit more.
A girl must accessorize.
A side looking glance,
and a back view. Don't ya love her wig? It curled with bobby pins set for a few days, I tried to make her hair more of a flappers instead of the wavy up sweep.
Since purchasing her I've won another bid on EBay for two in a package. This boudoir doll is 26 inches the others are 30''. One is a bride, the other has a Spanish look.
