In changing wigs and eyes on American Girl dolls, the typical method everyone uses is to add boiling water to the head. In fact this method is adopted across multiple dolls when changing eyes and hair on vinyl dolls when you need to heat the vinyl to repair or customize. It's not that I don't love boiling, but there are certain drawbacks to it. For instance, if you have a face-up on the doll, it could melt off the sealant and ruin your paint job. Second, if you get any on the hair, it can take the styling out. You can avoid this by protecting the face in plastic and hair etc, but it just feels like all the customizing is taking place in the kitchen and going back and forth from my kitchen to my workshop wasn't working well for me. A number of dolls I have worked on have used the blow dryer method because their heads are much more complicated to take off or the neck hole is not large enough to get your fingers in to pop they eyes out from the back. I've also had situations where the original hair needed to be preserved and boiling just doesn't do it. I decided to experiment with the blow dry method to see if I could accomplish what I wanted without the hassle of a boil - my test subject was an American Girl doll because I wanted to completely do it without boiling water at all. For this method I have practiced using the eye tool so that you don't need to remove the neck string or zip tie. This is helpful in eliminating at step of replacing the zip tie if you are working with a brand new doll. You can also remove the head for easy access to the back. For heating, I used the blow dryer on the hot setting for 10 minutes per eye. This heated the vinyl to a point where it was squishy enough to pop the eye out from the back, or use my eye tool to pop it out from the front. Please see my full eye changing instructions for complete steps as this is a shortcut. I was able to pop the eyes out and put new eyes in without having to boil anything. This was particularly helpful in doing an assembly line in my workshop of popping eyes out and in without the need of boiling water or mess. I also used the blow dryer to loosen the glue on hair around the edges and used my eye tool once again to pry up the old. I found this method easier as I could do it entirely from my workshop table and without water. I will continue to use this method to heat legs and arms to remove old stringing at at necks of dolls when you need to get a head off that is attached with stringing. Hope this helps!

Sharing her original post as it’s fun backstory. It’s good to see Mattel showcasing the work of a small artist and supporting her. You guys!!! This historical release!!! I’ve just been beaming all day. AG let me know late last year that I’d be in charge of all the lifestyle photography for the launch and I’ve never been so excited about coming up with ideas!! First up on my behind the scenes series we’ll tackle the process of making Samantha’s house as that’s the very first thing I started working on. I was at a loss as I had never, erm, built a victorian mansion before?? It couldn’t actually be to scale since it’d be the size of a real house (😅) BUT it did need to be big enough for the illusion. I ultimately constructed something 8 feet tall (it was an inch or so away from brushing our ceiling). Cardboard was my best idea since this thing had to be light weight enough to transport to my location. In the end it worked amazingly!! I made it foldable, so the whole thing is currently laying flat in my storage unit and taking up very little space. The house has three sides, a roof, framed windows, and a detachable porch. Accuracy was incredibly important to me (especially since seeing the real house in person last year in NY), so I was pulling out my hair trying to decide which elements to keep and which I absolutely had to let go due to my canvas being so much smaller than the real thing. I’m ridiculously pleased with the outcome!!! Some extra fun tidbits: - In the photo of the house set up on-location, see that big tree to the right of it? @5hensmo and I added all those leaves day-of my shoot since I shot this the day before Thanksgiving. No leaves to be found (except covering the ground lol). - It was very cold, windy, and wet, which means any sunlight you see is from my flashes! - The tree Samantha is leaning against is from my mom’s courtyard; it had recently died and she donated it to the project. I covered it in faux leaves for the shoot and absolutely love it.

A fellow doll club member did this chart and I thought it was very useful for those trying to date their vintage Barbie.