My Child Doll Restoration

A very nice girl in Canada sent me these rather tragic My Child dolls.

Both were very stained, with gerying faces and hands. The dark-haird one even had some food substance all over her face, neck and chest. I decided I needed to save these poor gals, post haste!

I stripped them down and prepped a cocktail of detergent and fels naptha paste, which I applied with a toothbrush to all the messy spots.

You might recall this post where I show my new method of spot-cleaning my stuffed animals using a Waterpik flossing system. I wish I got a video of how easily all the gunk came off with the water pressure. It was amazing! Dirt just vanished away, like counter crud in some sort of infomercial. If I find another dingy doll I promise to make a video, it was fun and cool and not hard on the dollies at all!

Here they are, wet but clean!

After they dried I applied new makeup using watercolor pencils. Don't they look pretty!

Click on the image to see!

Time to do their hair!

I scrounged up an outfit for the knot-top and washed the original jammies blondie came in.

And voila! New dolls!

I put them up on my little white shelf along with my other two My Child Dolls. I have given them names too!

Here we have: Ebony, Robbie, Allie and Erica.

I must say as a side note, I have had the most horrible couple of weeks at work and just in general. I am so grateful I have toys to help get me through. They are faithful friends who always help get my mind off things.

Cleaning Stuffed Animals with Water Pressure

When I find a stuffed animal from a thrift store it often has dirt and grime on it. Since I am a collector my goal is to clean it without compromising its other physical features such as stitching, plastic-painted eyes, tags (which we'd like to keep nice and bright) or the fur itself. I have tried putting it in the pillowcase in the washing machine on all settings and I am usually very disappointed about how it looks when it comes out. The fur piles, any hair mats, and the overall shape changes. The factory luster on the other parts of its body is worn off and often the tag has faded white. This seems to be the case with vintage stuffies only, as newer ones tend to hold their own in the wash cycle and not come out too damaged.

So when I found this Birthday Bear plush at a thrift store this week I decided to try a new approach. We recently purchased a Waterpik water flosser, which shoots high-powered streams of water out of the nozzle. This water-stream cleans between your teeth better than floss, but when my husband and I were fooling around with it we discovered it can also be used to clean grit out of the faucet, shower and other small places that collect grime. It stays completely sanitary because the nozzle doesn't have to touch anything. Just aim and shoot!

Birthday Bear had a lot of dirty spots on his back. I try not to think about what caused them!

Here you can see a spot on the back of his head, and there's one (not pictured) on his tail too. A big, brown glob of gook (ew!).

I cranked the water up to 10, which would strip your gums off your bones if you tried it on your mouth, but for this purpose it was perfect! The spots washed off lickety quick and Birthday was set in the tub to dry.

This device isn't all that expensive at $50 or so, and I have noticed a great difference in my teeth since using it. I am really thrilled to have also found a safe way to spot clean my plush!