Not sure if anyone here is following all of that but I am curious what opinions are. I don’t know her personally or professionally. I have never met her, I am not familiar with her work.
I did get bombarded with her “masterclass” ads of FB. Have to say I am not a fan of that kind of marketing but…
Now it seems like so many forums are talking about her and some troubles she is having with some customers calling her out.
Shed some light if you have some.
Not trying to start a bashing thread, just want a little more understanding.
I’ve been following it. This was something I wrote a year ago on the forum
“There’s just something about her that I don’t quite trust. I signed up for her “marketing” gig…she said she’d do a prize drawing during the event. I watched the whole thing and didn’t see her do or announce the winner. I asked several times on the chat, who was the winner, but she didn’t answer. I then emailed her twice…no answer. Finally posted on her fb page and she answered that she had messaged the winner privately.
Just last week I bid on one of her eBay auctions. I lost…but this week she had the doll up on her Etsy. I messaged her and asked if it was still available. She said yes. I mentioned that I thought he sold on eBay? Apparently the winning bidder didn’t pay? Anyway, it sucks cause I was only $5 under the winning bid. I thought if someone didn’t pay that the next person would be offered to buy it.
It’s intetesting, cause she apparently makes a lot of money with this, but I’ve seen her comment something like “if money was no option, this baby would be a keeper”. If I was making thousands a month, I’d keep a baby if I liked it!”
So…not sure what to think. I was interested in her course at one time, but thought it was a lot of money. It’s sad , but it seems like there’s preferential treatment for those buyers who have large followings. Regular people get lower quality work
I have been following and yikes! Not sure what the truth is. Lighting CAN and cameras can change what a baby looks like. However, that was a lot of money to spend on baby not happy with.
Regarding people saying she scammed Haley Williams? Honestly, I’m finding it easier just to stay out of this one.
I have two babies from Shaylen— one custom, one ready-made. Both are detailed and beautiful. I wasn’t even on social media at the time, so there’s no way she was “just doing it for the famous collectors” (as some people have been saying re: Kelli Maple).
That said, I got them from her when she only had a few hundred Facebook likes. So it’s entirely possible that she’s gotten lazier with her work, and Haley Williams is telling the truth.
But Shaylen has so many happy customers, myself included. She was so courteous to me when I worked with her. I don’t see why she’d do this— she’s definitely not a scammer.
Honestly, I don’t know what to think or how to feel. So I’m staying in my lane and not accusing anyone.
Shaylen Maxwell responded to her allegations. She also posted screenshots of their conversation n her PayPal receipt. Shaylen said she paid like 847.00 for the doll. Shaylen also said the lady took some of her happy customers comments n edited them to be negative. It’s a hot mess.i hear a lot of artist say the reborn community isn’t the same anymore. I don’t comment. I just skim through post n keep it moving.
There are plenty of artists who don’t have these troubles. I would think if you had someone that unhappy that you would try to work with them privately.
I have also seen artists on you tube buy babies then talk horribly about the artist they bought the baby from out in front of the world but turn around and get very upset when it happens to them.
It’s always something… the lesson learned from me is that it doesn’t matter how many followers you have you are still accountable. I am not saying she “scammed” this woman I am just saying you have more to risk so it is worth the energy to try to make it right.
If you are someone accusing an artist of not following through with honesty and integrity make sure you stay honest yourself so people can trust you.
I’ve been following some of the drama, I can’t stay away shaylen posted on her Facebook her pictures of the baby and pics of the baby that Haley “painted” after claiming the baby she received was basically blank. But the pics that Haley painted had all the same stork bites and coloring in the exact places that the original baby in Shaylens pictures had. So that makes Haley’s story suspicious.
I don’t usually get into drama but I’ve been dying to discuss I even tried to explain the whole situation to my mom so we could gossip about it a bit but she wasn’t very interested
I sold my Liam on Ebay to a lady and she was very upset that he didn’t have ‘enough paint’ so I told her to send him back and I gave her a refund. I didn’t want to put layers of paint on his vinyl because as far as I was concerned it was perfect. The person who bought him next loved him. Now, I did list him higher than I normally would in the original listing just to see what would happen. I was shocked when someone was willing to pay that amount for one of my dolls as always make about half that amount. I did lower the price on the second listing because I didn’t want to go through the same experience again. I don’t do this for the money. I would have quit years ago. I do it for the art and the satisfaction I get out of creating a doll. But to think that a doll should be priced according to the amount of paint on it seems silly to me. Art isn’t sold ‘by the pound’ for lack of a better analogy. This was my Liam.
Haley put a video up on you tube about it.I am not taking either side.I believe she said she put washes over the paint that Shaylyn had on it.If I remember correctly she also said that she worked around the painted hair since it was beautiful.I remember seeing a PayPal invoice that Haley put on one of the pages and told how much it added up to which was more than Shaylyn said it was.I didn’t bother to add it up myself.They are both artist and should have handled it better and neither of them would be getting trashed all over the place.
I did find it strange that Haley literally painted over her best evidence… I understand that she was likely upset that the doll didn’t meet her expectations, but the answer isn’t to get rid of all the physical evidence of wrongdoing, if it did exist.
Sigh… this whole situation makes no sense to me. I agree with @CarolinaCuties that both sides should’ve handled this better. It makes me so sad to see the reborn community behaving the way they have.
I did not see any video of the baby before she says she worked on it but I did see some pictures of it still put together undressed before it was supposed to have been touched up or whatever.A lot of what was posted got taken down,by either group admins or the poster so it makes it even harder to know what to believe about this mess.s far as the scammer groups on FaceBook go,I don’t think they should ever let one person tell their side an then the admin decide to block one or the other from the group.They should both be able to tell their side.
Haley’s video was compelling and made me want to believe her. She seemed very upset and was very upfront about saying she had added paint to what Shaylen had done to bring up the color to her liking. She also reweighted the doll but said she was fine with doing that as maybe Shaylen liked them lighter or was trying to save on postage by not making it too heavy. And she repeatedly said the finished product was a combination of her work and Shaylen’s. She pointed out the hair and the nails as parts she really liked and hadn’t changed. That being said, she had no photos or video clips of the box opening or what the doll looked like when she got it. She did show a few photos but they were pretty washed out. The black blobs in the ears and nose were disgusting. Can’t imagine someone (Shaylen) adding those and not adding a lot of shading around them to make them look more realistic. Also can’t imagine why someone (Haley) would scrape them off and leave bare vinyl when she was adding paint to the rest of the doll. Not enough good photos to compare the completed reborn to the original one so it’s impossible to really know how different they were.
According to Haley she spent 9 hours the same day she was delivered adding layers of mottling, creasing, etc to quickly “fix” the baby to her standards. She said she had emailed Shaylen but was told she does not do refunds or repairs so decided to fix her herself.
Shaylen keeps pointing out the similarities of the finished by Haley baby to her photos, but Haley admits just adding to her work. Shaylen is now threatening legal action and fanning the fire with her fb posts.
I think there are way cheaper ways to try to make another artist look bad. Haley bought her favorite kit and sent it to Shaylen, her favorite reborn artist, to be painted. She also paid a huge amount for expediated shipping and that’s where the amounts of money exchanged for creating the reborn differ.
All in all, it’s a big mess made worse by putting all on social media. Haley sounds like someone who closely follows reborn artists and collectors online and who chose her favorite artist to do a custom and was disappointed in the result and was crushed when the Shaylen shut her down when she asked for a refund. Shaylen sounds like a reborn artist who is getting swamped with custom orders and may be in over her head and who might have rushed the job.
No one will ever really know what happened between them and Haley has no recourse now since she has altered the paint and the weighting of the purchased doll.
She didn’t sound vindictive, just sad and wanting to keep other people from being hurt too. Regardless, saying negative things about someone else’s business ethics can do lots of bad things.
I wish I didn’t know all the above but it just keeps showing up on forums and fb and that’s what I’ve gathered after reading and watching way too much about this dramafest. Hopefully they can settle their differences soon and this won’t be on blast much longer!
Lesson for all of us. Do not alter a doll if you are unhappy. Until you have proof of the original condition. In videos. So no one can say you edited them.
If you don’t like something you don’t repair and complain. You complain, take action and if everything doesn’t work out try to fix and make the best. At least that seems like the logical thing to do.
I even tried to explain the whole situation to my mom so we could gossip about it a bit but she wasn’t very interested 
