Sunday Project: Operation Baby Rescue

Today was a very productive day.  We went to church, tidied up the house, played a family game, and I rescued a poor pathetic excuse for a baby doll.

 Yesterday our family went to this cute little shop down the street from us called "The Dam Garage Sale".  I have been dying to check this place out and finally my husband agreed to pull over and let us take a look around.  Josephine immediately was drawn to this metal shopping cart that was just her size and a baby doll that had definitely seen better days.  She was in LOVE with this baby and wouldn't give it up, even when we tried to show her a much nicer baby.  This was her baby.  So, we haggled a bit for the shopping cart and they threw the baby in for free.

Well, we left the store and headed home where immediately Josephine decided that the baby needed a blanket and clothes and let's just say, an attachment was formed.  Later in the day we had to head to a Fine Arts Festival for the boys.  Of course, baby had to come too.  Not only does baby have some seriously crazy hair, she also had a VERY short dress and no diaper or anything to cover up her obviously private areas!  I was embarrassed to drag this baby doll around!  Out of all the cute dolls she has, she had to take this one!

Finally after about the fifth comment from others I decided that baby was going to be my project!  I scoured Pinterest for ideas on how to fix baby's hair and clothing situation.  SUCCESS!  I used this tutorial to repair her hair.  I first wet it down with a squirt bottle and then combed it out.  She immediately looked better, but I decided to do the hair repair because she had a bit of a musty smell to her.

I only let her sit for about an hour in the solution because her hair wasn't in that bad of shape and mostly I was doing it to help with the smell. I used 1 cup of Downy and 1 cup of water...that was pretty strong, I think next time I could reduce it a bit. I used the medicine syringe to wet her roots with the solution so that her head wouldn't fill up with soapy water.

While she was enjoying her spa treatment I started to work on her outfit.  I used the diaper pattern found here.  I just saved the picture of the pattern and printed it in word so I wouldn't have to subscribe to Scribd.  Then I made her a dress from the patter and tutorial found here!  I am not a skilled seamstress and this entire process (including winding a bobbin after fighting with my bobbin winder, tucking kids into bed and hassling with my sewing machine) only took me about an hour and a half!  Not too shabby for a beginner!

After the clothes were sewn I rinsed baby's hair and dried it gently with a microfiber towel to get as much of the water out as possible.  Then I worked the comb through her hair and got it back into pigtails!  I gave her bangs a quick trim as they were a bit uneven from the tugging.  And she is ADORABLE!  I can't wait for Josephine to see her in the morning.  I hope she loves her.  I really enjoyed making the doll clothes!

My grandma told me that when she was little she would put her dolls out before Christmas and on Christmas morning they were back and fresh and clean and with new clothes.  Her mother worked to make each doll a new dress and freshened them up.  Maybe that tradition will have to continue.  I definitely felt like today was a productive and relaxing day.