I don’t know if she’s better or worse, but here goes:

First, I’ll share two photos from the blog archives of the way she used to be.

I attempted to curl her hair once before, but I was nervous about it being mohair, so I didn’t wet it before I made the curls. The curls didn’t stay curly for very long. There were metal clips on each side of the part that held a certain amount of hair in place. I finally decided to get rid of them because they’d rusted in place.

I studied lots of Shirley Temple dolls and they usually had big, fat curls all around the face. This particular Shirley clone/knock off didn’t have a ton of hair by the time I started working on her. I had to trim a wee bit of some of the ends so the curls wouldn’t be sloppy.

Here she is:

What do you think?

She’s temporarily sitting on the pew while we wait for the product I ordered to arrive – the one that will hopefully fill in that hole in the composition. She’s been cleaned up using Gojo, a cream that takes away dirt but doesn’t damage the composition. Her face is now much cleaner (and brighter.) I think she feels pretty once again!

Goodness knows, the girls are fascinated by her.

She’s not exactly the way I envisioned her, but given the realities of the amount and length of the hair, I think she looks pretty darned adorable.

I’ve learned so much in my research. I’ve come to the conclusion that she’s a knock-off doll. Her cloth midsection is a big giveaway. In one of my Shirley books, I saw a body like hers and that doll was identified as a clone. She also has blue eyes and the Ideal Shirleys have brown eyes. (My grandmother probably loved that as her Shirley, my mom, had blue eyes.) But she has the adorable dimples, the same eyebrows (though they’re greatly faded,) the same lips and teeth and she’s a happy little girl.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mom during this whole process. I miss her so much. Even though she wasn’t at all happy with this edition of a Shirley Temple doll, I have to think she’d admire her redo.

I’m a bit wary about filling in that hole, so I’ll tackle it gently. If I think it is too fragile to fill, I’ll leave it alone.

Mom and Grandma.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

It rained yesterday. Then it turned to snow, and then, later in the day, it turned to rain.

Just plain yucky, though I will say that we enjoyed seeing the snow fall.

And now – pinch me – I think we have no rain in the forecast for about 8 or 9 days.

January in the Northeast should involve snow and lots of it. Maybe we’ll get walloped in February and March, but we’re almost at the end of January and there’s only been one significant snowfall and even that didn’t last long because the temperature warmed up quickly.

Let’s see, yesterday I took care of some chores, went to a zoom meeting, and did this:

Yes, that’s Shirley under there. She’s made of composition (made out of sawdust, cornstarch, resin, and wood pulp) and if you get composition wet, the doll will be ruined. So Shirley was covered in dish towels while I inspected the stitching on the wig so that I could decide where the curls should be. Her mohair wasn’t in very good shape to begin with, so my fingers are crossed. Will it be a bit better than it was? I’m not sure. I curled her hair years ago, but I didn’t use any water. This time, I did, per the YouTube tutorial that I followed. I also used those end papers that were a part of every permanent. It took me a couple of hours to put all the rollers in.

She’s sitting on the kitchen table. I offered to move her upstairs but Don is fine with her being there in her basket. I should leave the curlers in for at least two days. I may do three.

Then I have to figure out how to clean up her face and fill the hole in the composition near the corner of her eye. She also has some cracks in the composition on her legs but they don’t look too bad, so I’ll leave them alone. I found a product online (on eBay) that is made specifically for composition repairs and it’s very inexpensive, so I’ll be ordering some of that. The dress she’s wearing is one I ordered about 15 years ago from a dressmaker. It’s a repro of one of the dresses Shirley wore in the movies. But it doesn’t fit as well as I’d like. The one that was original to the doll was in horrible shape, so I had to let it go.

My mom would be shaking her head, wondering why I am doing this. Since she wasn’t all that fond of this Shirley made in Canada, she would say “Don’t waste your time!” But I’ve left her on top of the pink cabinet in the office for a long time and she needs some TLC.

We had a great FaceTime chat with Zachary the other day. His voice is quite deep now and he was very chatty. He’s so, so intelligent! He amazes me. He was fitted out for an EEG and had to keep that rigging on for 48 hours. (He’s had some seizures in the past and the doctor is trying to get to the bottom of them.)

Then Mere and I continued to chat and got caught up on things. A lovely surprise.

Another Etsy sale over the weekend, so I have to do some packing today.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.