Quote Originally Posted by cybarra View Post
I also wanted to tell you I'm so sorry for your loss, I find that crocheting does take my mind off my own problems, sometimes I could just sit and crochet for hours before I realize my behind and joints hurt lol. I also noticed the hair-dos on the dolls, did you do that yourself? Their beautiful and so in tune with the fashions. you just have a stunning collection there. Do you sell them and if so, what would you charge? I know so much work goes into just 1 outfit. Happy crocheting.
Yes, I do style their hair and I had a devil of a time figuring out how to do it. It's not easy.
I bought a package of tiny hair pins at Walmart and tiny black rubber bands. I cut up a straw for the hair rollers, but I found that I prefer to just roll the hair with the pins.
I use the papers that come with hair perms to start the curl and keep the ends tidy. These were both in the hair care section of Walmart.
I tried wetting and rolling, I tried hair spray and rolling. I let them dry but the curl did not hold very well. I tried rolling their hair and dipping their head in hot boiled water. Saw that technique on a blog somewhere. That was a bust too.
It seems that heat is the only thing that will set the curl. Then I learned that after rolling hair wet and using my hair dryer set on low heat and being very careful not to melt the hair works the best. Most Barbie dolls have long hair and on some of them it was just too much hair. So on some of them I cut their hair so that I didn't have to deal with such a wad of hair. It's a challenge every time I finish a doll and have to do the hair. Lots of time and fussing with it is not my favorite part of the dolls.

As for selling the dolls, I have limited space to store them as you can see in the pictures, so yes, I would like to sell some of them. I don't want to make them and then not be able to keep them clean. And I don't want to stop crocheting them. Living in Texas, we have lots of dust, no matter how well your windows are sealed. They are in a dust free cabinet and that is all the space I have. I have stopped making the ones with the huge full ball gowns, because they take up too much space once finished. The lowest price I have on them is $175 and the highest (at this point) is $275. I don't know if that is paying me for my time, but that was never my purpose. I just want to crochet them and get a decent price for them so that I would have room for more. I just thought that a collector would consider those prices a steal, because their are hours and hours of work involved.

Again, thank you to everyone for the lovely compliments!