Sooo… I’ve only been reborning dolls for less than five months. So far I didn’t mess up any doll that much, but there have been a few… mistakes. I managed to melt a piece of Kadence’s little toe in my oven (it touched the metal part of the oven). And my Cozy’s head has a “line” on its forhead. The head has turned over while baking and touched the oven grid only for a second. I was there when it happened so I guess I was lucky. He now has a little scar on his head just above the right ear, poor thing And, I misplaced my craft knife when I needed to restuff Shyann, and I managed to cut her body with scizors almost half her back! And I melted eyelashes on one Paisley with my heatgun. Luckilly, I found an extra pair so he looks okay now
What are the worst things that happened to your dolls? Baking, painting, stuffing, cutting “accidents”? I don’t seem to recall a topic like this, so I’m sorry if I’m repeating.
Oh my goodness! Confession time…OK, I scorched the top of Tayla’s head and it bubbled up; Raine’s head went just about flat in the oven–salvageable because when it came out of the oven I grabbed whatever was handy (a paintbrush) and stuck it up inside his head so it wasn’t entirely concave as it cooled, same thing happened to his legs—a little flat but I’m hoping I can stuff him well enough to round him out a bit; put a neck ring on incorrectly so it doesn’t work; forgot to use the matte varnish before completing the doll; pounced warm blush (like the instructions said) and ended up with an orange baby; I guess that’s not too bad considering my limited experience and newbie status. But it sure feels disgraceful when I see all the pretty little ones on the Forum! Rhonda
I forgot to mention the problem of using a craft blade to open a nose (oops, as Rick Perry said), and also learned how to use the drill on another–operative word, “learned,” because I pulled the drill bit out as it was at top speed…and…um…nicked the skin. 
Well, I’m lucky that I managed to “get” my mini oven before I started baking dolls. LOL, it’s thermostat runs a little high so I managed to totally burn my first few bunches of fimo jewelry. Now I’m keeping a thick kitchen rag under everything I bake, and I only turn on the “lower hot thingie” - have no idea how to call that
I managed to “save” Kadences toe with a heatgun, it returned to its “natural position” after a while, only became shiny (I’ll fix that with matte varnish once I get the hang of it)
Oh, I’m so glad you mentioned the heat gun…I have one but forgot all about it…Also I learned to not use terry cloth on the oven pan because it leaves little nubby marks in the skin if it get’s too hot…plain white linen towels work well for me now. Rhonda
Oh goodness -lets see
the worst thing I did was left a clay sculpt in the roaster while we went to get coffee -flesh clay baby totally went AA on me !!! His fingers burnt off on one hand and his leg cracked -I threw him in the trash and my Sister grabbed him out and still has him !!! She said she loves him even if he is handicapped !!! LOL
Made lots of chalky babies at first cuz I was painting with craft acrylics -which is what the book I paid $35 on line said to use !! And the first three I did I forgot to seal the hair !!!
Cher, that reminds me! My first clay baby burned, too! Same mini oven, Super Sculpey, too much heat. His arms and nose got black, so I painted it with brown acrylics to cover that mess. My grandma now has the poor thing
This is my 10th year of reborning, so you’d think I’d know better, but here goes:
I tried to make the eyes of a “Mae” kit a teeny-tiny bit larger. All went well on the right eye, so I was just pretty proud of my awesomeness. RIGHT.
Well, on the left eye, the exacto knife slipped and not only did I slice my finger…OUCH…my first reborn casualty…but I cut a big slit UNDER her eye.
All this, of course, AFTER she was painted and rooted and was what I considered to that point near perfection.
I threw her head in the trash. I couldn’t stand looking at it. I felt stupid and will NEVER try anything like that again. Lesson learned.
Oh, no! Poor Mae! That really must be frustrating!
I don’t think I’d throw the head if it happened to me. I’d maybe make an eyepatch so it could be a “pirate baby” (ok, now that’s morbid!)
I SO new to this that my boo-boos are limited yet I’m sure they will multiply in time. My most recent one was when I was making over my Ladybug. I wasn’t entirely happy with the way her skintone was and decided that since she had been an airdry baby, I would just disassemble her and paint her with the heat set paints. That of course meant her beautifully rooted hair had to come out. I wasn’t too upset about that because it was the Ruby Red blonde hair (not terribly expensive maybe $7.95) I struggled getting each hair out with tweezers, then decided for the well glued hair that I couldn’t pull, I could use a shaving razor. That way, whatever hair was left inside would come out with the glue. Well, she now has a few nicks on her head from where the razor didn’t slide smoothly. Since I really couldn’t hurt her more, I decided to try Nair and it worked beautifully! Took the hair off, made her smell good and washed off with Dawn. I then scraped the glue out from inside and rebaked her to close the holes. If I hadn’t been able to save her complely, I would have had a hard time just throwing her out, but I could use her for testing.
The other one I destroyed quite literally was Chrissy. Her head is such a disaster that it is now my test head for practicing techniques. It was too scarred to save, but Chrissy does serve an important role in my hobby closet as a guinea pig!
hahahahahaha - Pirate baby! - - - I love it.
Judy
Thanks for sharing, everyone!
Umm… When I tried to remove the hair from my practice baby Berjusa, I used an epilator. Lol, worked surprisingly better than with scizors
On the note of personal BOO-Boos I have on more than one occasion stabbed my self in the upper leg with the rooting needle when the darn thing rolled off the table and landed in my thigh
— Begin quote from “Cher_Simnitt”
On the note of personal BOO-Boos I have on more than one occasion stabbed my self in the upper leg with the rooting needle when the darn thing rolled off the table and landed in my thigh
— End quote
OUCH!
Oh yeah, stabbing. Familliar as well! A needle fell from my hand and stabbed me in my breast once. Just a tiny prick but, oh, the pain! Not to mention those twenty something times when I wasn’t really looking what I was doing and “rooted” my fingers by accident.
Yup. That’s me. I drift away so easy!
— Begin quote from “DebiC”
first I have to knock on wood so I dont jinx myself ok now I can say I have never had any reborning booboos.
Once my young son put a potatoe in the microwave to bake. He set the timer to 5 min the trouble was he set it for 5 hours. An hour later the kitchen was full of smoke and the microwave plastic lining melted and burned. We picked it up and threw it into the back yard.lol
— End quote
That’s so funny Lucky only the microwave melted!
I, too, have never had any boo boos on babies. Had a major one on myself while working on one. This was when I first started and we used the full vinyl big Berenguers. The vinyl on those dolls is very thick. I was trying to cut away the body and remove the limbs. I usually cut it at the shoulders and then down the sides. Well, I was working on a leg where the vinyl is extra thick, using a NEW exacto blade, and applying pressure. I think you know what I’m going to say next. The blade cut through the vinyl and my finger. It cut across my index finger going from just below the joint to the hand up past the knuckle. It’s a good two inches and I knew it was deep. I just grabbed the finger and squeezed really hard. My mom was on the phone and I looked at her and said—it’s bad. She hollered to my dad and off to the emergency department we went. It is a 30 mile drive and I just kept squeezing. I was lucky. I just missed the tendon at one end and knicked the nerve at the other. The one end has very little feeling in it. I have learned my lesson. I now have a healthy fear of exacto blades. (blades of any sort, actually)
before christmas i was doing two jacob babies for my granddaughters. put one in the oven and went back to work on the other and i do not have to tell you what happened. yeap i baked that puppy about 45 minutes. well one got a baby and one got a chimp because i already had the kit. i will never do that again!!!at least i don,t think i will
Linda, that is so scary!
My greatest phobia is that something will happen to my hands and I’ll be unable to create. I have a benign “lump” that appears from time to time on my right hand wrist. Doctors suggested to remove it, but by the time for the surgery, it always “dissapeared”. When it starts to grow it sometimes hurts so bad I can’t even open the door with my right hand, let alone work (make fimo jewelry or root).
@Rayma - that’s the reason I always bake my dolls in the small oven. It has a timer that automatically shuts down once those 10 minutes pass