Hey doll friends 🙂

It has been two weeks since Tapanga Mallory returned home to my reborn doll collection. I wanted to share more about this beautiful reborn toddler doll and how she has found her way back home to me! If you haven’t watched her unboxing video, you can check it out here: Guess Who’s Back?! on my YouTube Channel, DollieLovex3.

How The Story Begins…

I purchased this toddler doll as custom in 2017 as a birthday gift to myself. She is created by Kory Fann of Pumpkin Doodle Babies. Kory was such a sweetheart to work with (and still is!) and allowed me to mix-and-match the limbs and face I wanted. This toddler girl measures 29″ long and has the head of Ariana by Reva Schick with limbs of Katie Marie by Ann Timmerman. At the time, I was following the trend of naming all my dolls with names that began with the letter ‘T’ since I have a T-name. Thus, Tapanga Mallory was born!

I adored making videos with her and above all, shopping for the larger sized clothing! She wears 12-18M clothing and Size 4-5 shoes which was a big difference from my smaller baby dolls.

Unfortunately, in 2018 when my fiancé lost his job soon after our purchase of a new home & two new cars..I cut back on a lot of things to help our family stay afloat. The first of my possessions I parted with was my reborn dolls; namely Tapanga.

Where Has Tapanga Been?

Over the years, Tapanga has had a few different homes she settled into. Three that I know of. I was thankfully able to follow these collectors on social media and somewhat keep up with her travels and ownership. I’m so grateful that she was relatively well taken care of. Her last reborn Mommy, Talia (IG @lias.littles), I became friends with after learning she adopted a different doll that I’d parted with around the same time (Tuesday). I inquired about Tapanga and learned that she was for sale! Talia hadn’t advertised this much as she was hooping to re-home her to the right collector. I do believe it was an act of fate that she was able to come back home to me! Talia allowed me to place Tapanga on a short layaway plan and was super kind and accommodating the whole while. She truly wanted this doll to make her way home again. I was able to complete the layaway in under two weeks and she traveled home to me soon after I returned from vacation.

A New Beginning

Now that this little girl is back home I wanted to give her a fresh new start! After all, this year will be her 5th birthday! She is officially the oldest reborn doll in my collection of six! I didn’t expect her to arrive back home without flaw or blemish so I was willing to accept any imperfections. Now that I am promotor for Pumpkin Doodle Babies, I also found this to be a unique opportunity to compare Kory’s work from years ago as well as see how it has held up with time.

For a new beginning, I have renamed this sweet girl Tabitha

Since her previous middle name is now the first name of another doll in my collection (Mallory), I decided to rename her. I love this name and have used it briefly before, but now it is hers and I think it suites her well. After looking her over I did realize a few things had changed:

• Hair – Her hair had been cut even shorter than before
• Body – The doe suede body was ripped at the joints and stained
• Painting – Textured varnish was added to her, but has cracked over time
• Nail Tips – Toenail tips and gloss had rubbed off over time and looked poorly

Even with these changes, I knew I could give her a small makeover to help her overall appearance. I made an order right away on BountifulBaby for weighing supplies (glass beads, stockings, and baby wafers) as well as Irresistables for a new doe suede body. This time, I was adamant on having a tan doe suede body instead of the usual white flannel one that is used with toddler reborn dolls. I’m so happy I found one in the right size. I already had polyfil on-hand. I vowed I wouldn’t do much changing or playing with her until I was able to fix her up.

Once all the supplies were in, I took my time disassembling her and taking out the old weighing materials. I could tell she had been reweighed over the years and the weighing material looked quite suspicious. 🙁 I gave her limbs a nice little soapy bath and dried them. Of course, the varnish cracking isn’t something I could fix, but I am actually okay with it. It gives her a dry skin type of look and feel. I then took her head and washed the hair thoroughly and let it hair dry after combing out any tangles. One of my favorite things about Pumpkin Doodle Babies is the care in rooting technique and quality of hair used on her dolls! Even after all this time, the hair is beautiful and full with no bald spots or shedding. Not a lot of toddler collectors can say that about their well-loved dolls. I am happy to report that the painting on her face, her eyes and lashes and all were in pristine condition and she’s just as beautiful as the first day I received her.

Assembly was fairly easy, just time consuming and since I wanted to focus, I didn’t film any of this for a YouTube video. I took my time re-stuffing her body and limbs. This time, I made sure her limbs were full so they stayed firm and not too squishy. I made sure to put most of the weighing material in the body and stuffed well so she could sit up straighter. This gave her a bit of a rounded look to her and now she can wear larger sized clothing too! Lastly, I decided to experiment with her toe nails. I’ve always seen real-life toddlers with their toes nails painted and thought it was the cutest thing 🙂 So I decided to paint Tabitha’s baby toenails pink! I used non-toxic acrylic paint and sealed it with Satin Mod Podge. (Sadly, I didn’t have the glossy version but I can always go back and use some later). I am so happy with the results! 🙂

Photos