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Showing posts from November, 2024

Clothes Board for My Twinn 23 Dolls

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 Dolls are one thing, but then they need clothes and shoes, and don't forget the socks.  Dolls might even need underwear.   Clothes board for My Twinn 23 dolls If you start accumulating doll clothes, it may be useful to group the clothes into outfits.  This is especially important before placing an order for more clothes.  In 2023, I made a clothes board for my dolls.   Clothes board   This helped me to think about which shoes were going to go with which outfit, and also where I needed to order socks or an undershirt, to get a complete outfit. Three doll outfits It was really fun to create.  The outfits were sketched on white paper, and glued onto a large piece of cardboard.  Then I laminated the whole thing with transparent packing tape.   A doll outfit sketched with markers on paper Two doll outfits

Sue, also known as Rosemary

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She is marked "LD" twice, making her a Rosemary (collector name) though I call her Sue. "LD" on marked on the scalp and also "LD" on the circle part of the top of the head.  She is undated on the back of the neck and has a 1996 body tag.  When Sue came to me, she was somewhat cramped in the box and I was dismayed at first to learn that she was non-poseable, though that should have been apparent to me before purchasing.  My dismay gave way to joy as I began to notice how attractive she is. It might be the wide open eyes that the Rosemary face mold is known for, or the flawless eyelashes that she came with, or the arched brows that I refused to alter.  Also her lips have a tint of purple that looks so pretty.  When lining up some of my other dolls next to Sue, she stands out as a leader in the group, and though she prefers a seated position, that works fine if her friends are seated as well or standing next to her, to create tiers.   Also, her arms are u...

Rune, a brown-eyed beauty

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 The doll who I call Rune has "MOLLY I-M(2)" marked on her scalp, and across from this marking on the other side of the pate, is marked "5".  So this "5" distinguishes her from GiGi , who is also "MOLLY I-M(2)" but no "5".  They are both the Lenora face mold, and Rune and GiGi are the family names that I call them by. Rune has a 1997 neck date and tan fabric body with a tag marked 1999. Rune, next to a fake plant No modification to her eyes was attempted by me, as I like the brown.  She's a very pretty doll, and I touched up her eyebrows, which were already nice but benefited from an extra layer of brown colored pencil. Rune before her eyebrows were touched up   Also I smudged off her lipstick, which was originally red, with nail polish remover (acetone) and gave her more of an orange lip using an alcohol-based marker.  Then I shined it with clear nail polish. Its interesting about her wig, because positioning it on backwards led to...

Mark, the Audrey boy

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 Mark has "AM (2)" on the scalp, which gives him the Audrey face mold and collector name.  He has a 1997 neck date and a body tag 2009. The 2009 body tag is unique from my other dolls because it lists a line that says “I BELONG TO __________”  that part is not filled out. Interestingly enough, when I pulled Mark out of the box, he had a rattling object in his head!  It was something that the seller had not mentioned, but that was not something that I could live with, so within a few days he underwent surgery to remove the item.  I heated his head with a blow-dryer and cut a small hole in the top circle.  It was discovered that the rattling object was a piece of plastic that is similar to the My Twinn vinyl on the dolls.  It was removed and the the vinyl hole that I had cut was glued back in place with some Elmer's glue.   Mark with brown eyes My guess was that Mark had had a previous owner who did an eye change on him and either mistakenly left th...

Ryan, the Wendi boy

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 Ryan has "ICELAND I-F" on the scalp, which makes him the Wendi face mold for My Twinn 23 dolls.  He has 1997 marked on the back of the neck, and a tan fabric body with the 2007 tag attached. So I purchased this doll because the green eyes drew me in.  Upon closer inspection, the eyes don't have the depth that one might hope for, for example, at the transition from the white to the color part when the eyeball is ringed with a darker color, but the color itself, which is green with yellow tints, is certainly alluring.  Like it was mentioned before, I wanted a few more boy dolls in my collection to be companions to the girls, and thought that Wendi would look good as a boy, so I transitioned her to the doll that I call Ryan mostly by adding the short wig and selecting boy clothes. The wig is unique because it was cut and shaped by me, by upcycling a brown wig that was a little bit frazzled.  You don't have to throw away an old tired wig, you can at least try cutti...

Caitie?, has NO Markings on Her Scalp

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 She's got a neck date 1996, and a body tag 1997, but otherwise it has been difficult to identify this doll's collector name, because she has no markings on her scalp! If she were a Caitie, I should have been able to find "JN" or "ST" somewhere, but alas all the glue has been removed and nothing has come up. There's no evidence of any codes being sanded off either.    No code on her scalp Caitie     Is she a Caitie? So, I refer to her as Caitie, as that seems to be the closest face shape that she shares, and yet maybe she's totally rare.  I had a couple ideas about why this is.  Probably the wildest one is that she is an early pour or a test doll, who was created before the impression of the code to the mold.  Indeed I seem to think that she is a very original type of doll! I didn't touch her eyes, which is probably a good thing given my reputation for scratching up dolls and their eyes.  But she did arrive in a box in a bent condition, and u...

Braided doll wigs, legend of the "Kristy-Jo" wig

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 One of the dolls that I gave away to family was a Lenora who wears the "Kristy-Jo" Monique wig. Example of the "Kristy-Jo" wig   This wig was something that I purchased and it was already braided and decorated with colorful Pony beads.  The braiding was flawless and the wig was very nice, but I kept wondering about the labor behind the process. It was bothersome to me that I had paid money for a wig that I could have braided myself, and furthermore it became difficult to locate another "Kristy-Jo" style of wig that came in size 14, which is the size that My Twinn 23 dolls like to wear. So, only a few days after I was laid up with a broken foot, I set about on the project of braiding my own doll wig.  If you go at a pace like me, don't expect for the finished result to happen in 1 day.  I believe it took 4 days for me to completely braid the brown wig with colorful Pony beads added.  Also the size of my braids were not nearly as uniform and straight as...

GiGi (or Ganymedes), the Fool

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 So I call her "The Fool" because she got started things for me with the fun of wig and eye changes.  Also, the red shoes. GiGi, a Lenora face type On the scalp, under the wig, is marked "MOLLY I-M(2)" which means that her collector name is Lenora.  Back of the neck dated 1997, and 2007 body tag. GiGi She has a tan fabric body, and pretty tan skin. I replaced her eyes, from brown to now reddish brown.  Maybe you cannot tell the red tint in the photos, but they are in person. She has reddish brown eyes The eye change didn't go too well, because it was a cold day in the Spring, and because of my concerns about plastic fumes, I was trying to heat up her head outside on the porch with a blow-dryer, while she was laying on a towel.  It is recommended to take off all eyelashes and wig before completing an eye change.  Also I have read that 5 minutes on the hot setting of a hair dryer is needed to get the plastic soft enough.  However because of nerves and my...

Will admit to being a scientist

 when it comes to figuring out the collector name for my doll. By studying the face shapes, I sometimes had a good idea of what I was buying, but it was inevitable that I would be wrong when I pulled off the wig to look for that imprinted information on the scalp (under the wig), and register it in my spreadsheet. Now, it's totally up to you if you want to!  But you can find the codes for the My Twinn 23" dolls on Logan's ladies website .  These codes are important because they were part of the mold that the doll's face came from, and it was originally how the My Twinn Company identified their dolls and kept track of face shapes.  Just to mention a few, Wendi has the code "ICELAND I-F" imprinted on her head and Emma has the code "AL I-P(2)" imprinted on her head.  Lenora has the code "MOLLY I-M(2)" on her head, however I discovered that one doll, who I believe is Caitie ? has No Code at all.  Normally a Caitie would be distinguished by ...

What about the markings on the top of their head? Under the wig?

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 Yes, they do have various markings that can identify them, but you have to look under the wig. Its not really recommended to take off the wig though!  Sometimes its glued on very well, and that's great for brushing doll hair.  Come on, you don't need to know the truth! If you do bother to take off the wig, or perhaps the wig is already coming off, then you can check out the codes underneath.  They're imprinted on the plastic.  I'll make reference to these if I know what they are for a certain doll.   Sometimes there are pencil or crayon markings.   Pencil markings on top of Emma face mold   Pencil markings on top of Emma face mold   No one really knows what it means, other than the people involved in assembling the doll probably made them.

What are My Twinn 23" dolls?

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  They are pose-able dolls with cloth bodies and vinyl limbs that stand about 23" tall.  In this context, poseable means that you can move their neck left to right, arms up and down and legs can get into most positions although they can't really sit with their knees folded beneath them.  As it has been stated, the pose-ability allows these dolls "to get into all kinds of trouble" and that is part of the fun of working with them.   This is Rose.  She is an Audrey face mold.   My Twinn 23 dolls wear dolls clothes that are specifically designed for them, though they can also fit into some newborn or infant 0-3 month sized clothing.  The infant clothing depending on the article may look too baby-ish for the dolls which in most cases resemble child faces and young adult faces.  They can wear Size 1 or Size 1.5 infant shoes (that's US size).  It really depends on the brand of shoe, because some Size 2 infant shoes fit, or sometimes are 1" t...