I’d like to read artists’ stories.
I’m considering starting reborning, mostly for myself/for fun than for selling or for anyone else
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I’ve been reborning for almost 5 years now, I started when I was 14 after buying my first reborn from another artist. I’ve been selling for the same amount of time
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I’ve been reborning for 3.5 years. I found the dolls online one night in December and started painting in June of the next year. I’ve painted 41 dolls since.
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I started in 2005, when I discovered one on Ebay for my mom for Christmas (she is the doll collector). I started to sell on Ebay in 2007 and my own Etsy store in 2010. I have painted way too many to even know how many. I still make my mom one every year for Christmas.
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I started 12 years ago , past August. My husband had bought me an antique highchair for our anniversary, was going to put one of my childhood dolls in it… The doll was way too small, so went on Ebay to find one, and tried to bid on an Arianna Schick by Hellen Jalland (spelling?) anyway, went into the thousands at the last 3 mins… and my husband suggest I make one (because I was artistic) and the rest is history LOL
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lol Oh this will be fun 
I don’t like dolls and really never did. My mom gave me Barbie’s and even made their clothes but I didn’t really play with them. I liked Cabbage Patch dolls a little and gave a couple to my now 36 yr old daughter…she never played with them. My granddaughter doesn’t like or play with dolls either. Long story short, I went to a church committee meeting last Jan at the leaders home and she had a Middleton doll. When we saw her I thought she was cute and held her for most of the meeting along with getting strange looks after awhile LOL. When I got home, I started researching reborn dolls and became obsessed. I bought one and didn’t really like her, so sold her and started making them. I pick up one and kiss them every once in a while but could care less if I have one. I just love making them and selling them. Also to add I had heard of reborns long ago and guess what I didn’t care until I held one in person. 
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I’ve been reborning since 2002. There were no kits then. We bought Berenguer dolls at Kmart or Walmart, took them apart, painted them with acrylics or oil paints, wigs, fake lashes, gel pen white nail tips, weighted with play sand and polyfil, put them back together and voila! A reborn! 
The only forum we had back then that I knew of, was run by Dawn Garma and her husband Richard…she was a reborner then, and know she makes Delta Dawn mohair. We had Prilly Charmin’ and Dolls by Sandie, and a couple of other places to buy supplies, but we were really limited and learned most everything by trial and error.
My first kit from BB was Avery. I was soooooooo happy when kits were made available!!! And Genesis paints, oh my gosh…hallelujah!!! And of course, BB brought us this forum, which is a blessing to all of us.
I actually baked in my home oven till just a couple years ago when I got a NuWave. No more cleaning my oven every time I get done baking.
Here’s my first baby…he went to the trash because I was so ignorant that I didn’t know I could’ve added more paint. I threw him in the trash, fully clothed wearing shoes and socks 
Now I wish I had kept him. Oh well.
A few from my early days, compete with wigs 
And my most recent, June Awake and Skya:
Hopefully more “oldies” will chime in ~ I love hearing these stories!
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This reminds me of my previous businesses, one of which I may get back to soon. There was the internet for research (barely) and one forum for help and help others. ONE supplier. You tube was a joke of people thinking they knew what they were doing and taught it. Then before I knew it, there were other suppliers, newbies, and the markets were overcrowded and overwhelmed. So being a newbie in reborning, I’m an oldie in other things and know exactly how it feels. 
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I have been at it for almost 3 years, selling for maybe 1 1/2 years.
This started with my youngest daughter’s obsessions with babies. I stumbled upon reborns and decided to try it myself since I have always been artistic. My intention was to make a few for my kids and that was it, but I fell down the rabbit hole and am now obsessed. These babies have more clothing and accessories than my own children do. 
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I can fully relate with Karen and have been in a lot of the same groups as her for many years. I started in 2003 and it was all by accident. I was given several porcelain doll molds and was searching for information to learn how to pour porcelain. I kept seeing “reborn” pop up and curiosity got the best of me. Like Karen, I started with acrylics, store dolls and homemade bodies. Then I moved on to oils. And what a blessing when Genesis came along. It totally changed the world of reborning. Secrist was producing kits, but they just didn’t hit the mark. Hard as a rock. Then along came BB. My first kit was Paisley with mixed limbs. I think back now and she sure was pale. I have always loved baby dolls from the time I was very young. My biggest challenge is not keeping them all. And now we have the amazing Realborns. Makes me wonder what comes next! 
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I am a doll lover too, I have always had a doll or teddy around somewhere. I had an anatomically correct BerjUSA doll that I wanted to match up with a girl companion. Started looking around my daughter saw an ad for a AD so truly real doll that I was going to purchase, but happened upon Bountiful Baby site and said hey I can make one exactly like I want it. LOL! I started reborning in early 2016 and have been making dolls for my family ever since. I have completed around 30 babies and have kept 6 of my own, more coming, and I have 4 from other artist. I have other dolls too. I have my own craft room which is in constant motion moving the furniture and dolls around. I don’t roll play or really hold them but I love changing their clothes and repositioning them every few months.
Be aware that once you start it will become an obsession, an addiction! Join us it is a lot of fun! Welcome to reborning! @kissojenkissa
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Teddy bears are a different story. I’ve always loved them It doesn’t take away from the fact that I love reborning and the dolls I make
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I have always loved dolls since I was a little girl. When I was old enough…19 to be exact, I started having real babies. I had five children . In 2011 I lost my oldest son and that was when I got obsessed with reborns. My first baby I bought on eBay. I then found a lady who did customs and I got me, my Mom, and one of my daughters, reborns. Then I bought another one for my Mom, one for my other daughter and one for my Grandmother…none of them asked for them or really wanted them. I realised that I kept buying them for other people and mine were left in their little bed and hardly ever touched. It wasn’t until May of 2017 after a ton of research, that I bought paint and my first kit…Meg. I also don’t want to keep any of my babies, I get far more joy making them for other people. Ive given some away and I have plans to make some for my family when I go back to the US this October. The rest I have sold.
Unfortunately I have two degenerative diseases that have ravaged my body. Around 2007 I finally had to stop working and from 2009 I was in so much pain that I could hardly get out of bed…eventually I lost my ability to walk due to neurological damage and became completely bed bound for a couple years. It wasn’t until I received my intrathecal pain pump, other therapies plus my electric wheelchair that I have gotten some of my independence back. Reborning really helps me because it gives me, not only a creative outlet but makes me feel human again. I get a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from creating my babies… the same sort of feelings that I used to get from work. Im fortunate to have found this craft and to take the plunge and give it a go. Im also fortunate to have such a wonderful, understanding husband and kids who don’t mind babies everywhere!
Im very content now
This is my first reborn (bought on eBay). Its an older picture and when I was bed bound, as you can see. Does anyone know what kit he is? I don’t even know LOL…if you need a newer pic I can get one, he’s in my daughters room. My other one (the custom) was a Shyann and I stripped her and used her as test parts.
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I found reborns by accident on youtube in 2015 and was immediately floored by the realism. Bought my first reborn 3 weeks later! I became obsessed with the subject and researched and read everything on this forum and YouTube, and started creating them in 2016. Meg was my first and not real great. I have stripped her and someday I want to repaint! I have only made about 13 babies so far, a lot of them for gifts and a few for myself. I have a full time and part time job so I haven’t gotten into selling- don’t know if I can make enough dolls to make it worth the hassle of setting up shop- plus a little chicken on top of it lol. Looking back, I did play with dolls when little but nothing out of the ordinary. However I do remember always being drawn to the Ashton Drake ads in magazines and being wowed by how real they looked. Well anyway, 3 years into the hobby and still just as I obscessed!
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That’s the secret to sales at art fairs too…let the person hold the doll! People can look and look and not buy but once they really get the whole experience, they “get it”!
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I’ve done portraits of people and animals since I was about 8 years old, and I have sold drawings and paintings at art fairs (off and on) since I was a teenager. I worked as a graphic artist when my kids were little and, after going back to school for a few years, I also worked as a pediatric RN for 25 years after my children were in school.
When I retired in 2010 I spent a lot of time online just poking about and letting my curiosity lead me around the internet. I got an idea that I’d like to remake some commercially made monkeys into something more lifelike and cuddly and sell them at art fairs. After all, I always dreamed of having my own monkey so I figured other people probably would love them too. I ripped the guts out of a bunch of those poor things and I tried but basically failed, The oil paint I used totally separated and the oil went through the vinyl and left powdered pigment on the surface and drippy oil inside…it was frustrating. About the time I realized my efforts were just not worth it I happened on a photo of BB’s Pearl and fell in love with her! She looked like just what I had envisioned making, and I did a bit of sleuthing and found BB and ordered one of their pre-rooted kits. I’d never even heard of reborn dolls, and had never played much with dolls as a child, but I felt like I had found what I was looking for with Pearl. I got several and customized them a bit and sold them at local art fairs and people loved them. I kept telling myself that the baby dolls just weren’t my thing and I wasn’t going to ever paint one of them, but I finally caved and bought one.
That was when I fell into the rabbit hole! I spent a month or two obsessed with watching Youtube videos about how to create reborns and finally ordered the supplies I needed to get started.
Those partially done primate kits were OK, but painting babies was awesome and it just keeps getting better. There is always something new to learn and there are so many wonderful people on these forums that I would have never gotten to know if I hadn’t discovered this art form. Stumbling across that little sleeping baby gorilla was a true blessing for me!
Oh, and I’ve still got the original little Pearl that I love and that I keep to remind me of how I got where I am now!
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My story started this September. I decided to try this artform after admiring the babies for years and wanting one of my own.
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I just started reborning Oct of 2018. I’ve made 5 dolls to date. I really enjoy it alot. Its less stressful then what im currently doing for a living which is Cake Decorating. Ive been a self tough cake decorator for the last 11 years. I have been truly blessed at doing what I really enjoy.
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Like Nancy, I was outbid on a reborn doll on Ebay. I was trying to buy one as a Xmas present for my MIL. I kept getting outbid in the last few seconds on every doll I bid on so I thought I would try making one myself. I purchased an old doll at the second hand shop, stripped the paint off and after watching the Stephanie Sullivan DVD gave it a go. My MIL loved that doll and had it with her until her death two years ago. I now have it in my dolly room and believe me, it’s pretty scary looking. I think I’m up to number 180. I’ve stopped counting. I can see myself giving it up completely in the near future. I only make about 4 dolls a year now. I just don’t have the energy or the drive that I used to. The toddler kits are getting very expensive and I don’t make enough on my dolls to justify the cost anymore. I still love seeing everyone’s work and what they do with these kits. I find it mesmerizing.
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