Who was the doll that started it all?

I’m kind of curious to know if there was a specific doll that lead any of you down the reborn rabbit trail? I just found my childhood doll (a berenguer I lovingly named Maya growing up who has been through quite the ringer!!!). when I was around 10/11, I ran down the rabbit hole because of her! Here she is I’m all her glory, desperately needing a new body, weighting, and her painting stripped and redone to restore her. She went through about 6 years of tough play getting drug everywhere and is about 17 years old!!

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Mine was a Saskia I saw on eBay. I was looking for a realistic doll for my daughter’s birthday and I found her instead! Ended up getting the kid a Lee Middleton and Mama got Saskia.

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Jayden by Natalie Scholl. :sparkling_heart: I was absolutely amazed how realistic a DOLL could be! Every since I’ve been hooked.

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When I was maybe 9 or 10 I got a Paradise Galleries doll named Michelle. Oh I remember being so excited to get her! She looked sooo real in the catalog and I just thought she was the most amazing thing. They used to have the coolest catalogs and I would look through them over and over again. Eventually, I think my mom got an ad for a Selena Saxton reborn doll. I wanted one as soon as I saw them! But Michelle was my first doll I remember thinking looked realistic (at least in the catalog). When I first started reborning I tried to repaint her but messed up so badly I threw her out

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I saw a similar baby (same sculpt) to this one on YouTube! At 14 years old. I was so amazed! I got a reborn soon after and started painting my own less than a month after

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I’m not sure what lead me to looking into reborns as I’ve sinceforgot but my first purchase was a Chase by Cheryl Webber that was reborn by Lullaby Lake Nursery back in 09. It was down to him and Asher by Donna Lee and I ended up taking Chase. When I first saw him after opening his box, I had this feeling of omg…this looks like a baby in a box. I miss him. After I sold him, I bought more babies and sold them and bought more but I haven’t had that bond that I had with Chase with any of them so I decided to start making my own in ‘18.

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BB’s Sienna. I bought her. I didn’t know better. She was barely painted. It literally rubbed off with a swipe of water. I said I could do better. I did.

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I was thirteen-ish and was looking to buy a Corolle doll similar to the one I had when I was very young… “reborn doll” was one of the recommended google searches, so I went to the Wikipedia page and saw this picture:

… and was utterly amazed. Seven years later, here I am!

@Reborndaddyog looks like we both got ensnared by Donna Lee sculpts! And at around the same age, too :joy:

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Wow for me it would have to be when I was 12 and there was a reborn doll at a antique co-op my parents used to go to. Every time we went I found my baby in her booth and carried her around until
It was time to leave. My parents wouldn’t let me have her because I was to old for baby dolls at 12 and she was $60 I was devastated. Then recently I was looking for a prop model to catalog all the props I have for my newborn portraits and since I’m a DIY kinda girl I figured I could make my own and here I am still trying to make the perfect baby and eternally addicted

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I first got into reforming through LittleXLoves channel and the first reborn I was ever obsessed with was BB Kate. I ended up getting a Realborn Evelyn as my first doll though, because she has full limbs

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I first laid eyes on a reborn while looking for a Cabbage patch kid dress on Ebay. It was Secrist Acorn back in 2006 and I’ve been hooked ever since! I made my own reborn a few months later it was a Berenguer sucky lip. She was reborn the old fashioned way

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Butterfly kisses started my journey into reborning. download

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I don’t know how many times I’ve told this story on here. :slightly_smiling_face: I wanted a girl doll to go with my berenguer boy I inherited from a day care center around 1991. So I went looking and saw Katie AD. Then somehow reborns popped up on my screen from there I decided I can just make one of my own - cheaper, lol! That was my rabbit hole. Fast forward to a few months ago when I finally decided that Katie must join my now large collection. But her cooing gets on my nerves, lol. And she is not realistic. So she is back in the box she went. :scream:

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My first was around that time too and I did a Berenguer as well… Oh the days of sanding the sculpted hair off and stripping it before starting…

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@PhotographyForLife We were a family of girls mostly and got a doll EVERY christmas until we didn’t want one anymore. Our parents were happy to have us stay young as long as we wanted to. Once I got older I still got dolls but they were the collectible German Zapf dolls or porcelain dolls but I swear I still wanted them and got them until about 15. I don’t think that love of dolls ever leaves you, hence why we’re still doing this today.

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This made me tear up. My oldest daughter is what started this for me but we have been talking a lot about it lately and I realized there’s a lot longer of a history to it so I’ll share it here.

My daughter just turned 11. She’s been asking for a reborn for a few years for her birthday but we didn’t get one because of the cost. With the stay at home orders this year we decided to get her one because we weren’t going to be spending any money on things like a party or a trip, etc. So I found one within the price range that I felt was acceptable for a child her age and I ordered her a custom one on etsy. My husband was not pleased to be getting her a babydoll because she was “too old” for it. He even went so far to telling her she could get an iphone instead, which we have already said she can’t have until 8th grade (she’s in 5th now). But I told him that he didn’t have to agree to it, that it was a good thing that she still wanted to play with a baby doll at this age because it meant she was still being “little” where so many of her friends are too grown up in my opinion. A lot of them picked on her when she got the doll but I had prepared her for that and she didn’t care anyway because she was so excited. My husband thinks it’s weird, my MIL thinks it’s freaky, but I tell them to hush it because the longer we can keep her “little” the better.

Anyway, we got the doll. I opened her when she came in so that I could put together a big box opening for her. Immediately, I didn’t feel like she was the quality of what I had seen in the pictures, but I also knew that I wasn’t getting a doll that was a higher end doll and I was ok with that. She is what she is and my daughter loves her and I’m ok with that.

Backup to my 2nd Christmas about 36 years ago. I got a doll that I have called “Big Baby” to this day. I carried that doll everywhere with me until I was around the same age as my daughter is now. One day she just disappeared. I was devastated. I mourned that doll for YEARS. Like, cried myself to sleep multiple times even years later over it. My godmother tried to find a replacement but it wasn’t the same even though I did play with the doll just as much. But you know what I mean, it wasn’t my Big Baby. Well, fast forward to me being in college in my early 20s and I’m at my grandmother’s house (not my godmother) and my young cousin walks around the corner holding my Big Baby. I FREAKED the (you know what) OUT! I jerked the baby out of her arms. Everyone got mad as H-E-double hockey sticks at me. I didn’t give a flip. Here I am, a young adult, standing there crying over my Big Baby FINALLY being found. She was somehow in the attic at my grandmother’s house. My parents have never admitted it, but I’m pretty sure they put it there since they probably were sick of me packing it around. I called my godmother, went straight to her house, we cleaned her up the best we could and I still have that doll. I’m going to redo her once I get good at this craft.

I also remember that my sophomore year of high school I made a bunch of baby dolls that I had to custom order on one of those fold out order sheets. PROBABLY from BB. I know I got the first kit and all the supplies at Walmart. I didn’t paint it. I just put it all together and glued the wig on it that was at Walmart. All the supplies were from the same company. Someone here may know what they used to have for doll making supplies at Walmart in the late 90’s? Anyway, I made the first one and brought it to school to show my favorite teacher. Well, she loved it and wanted one herself. Then another teacher wanted one, and so one. Then they asked me to make a bunch to donate to auction off at the school’s field day. So my parents of course bought all the supplies and I did that and was so proud of myself. I wonder if that first doll I made is still at my parents house. I’m sure it’s not because my mother has these fits she goes through of getting rid of stuff. Anyway, I think I’m meant to do this y’all! And that makes me super excited. I am working on taking Big Baby apart. I’m not going to use GHSP on her, so one day I guess I’ll try my hand at air dry. That is, you know, after I actually try my had at heat set, lol!

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OMG those cheeks!

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For me, it was Ladybug about 8 years ago. I painted her myself (horribly) and kept her for years. Then lately it was 3month Joseph awake. He was the first completed doll that I bought. Now I’m waiting on 7month June awake.

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@eversunny I love the “shy faced” berenguer reborned. I think that was my third baby and I still have him.

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Aww, I used to have shy face. :slight_smile:

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