Many of you may know me as the artist behind Rainbabies Nursey, turning Vinyl dolls and kits into realistic babies. One of my hobbies has been restoring Chad Valley Bambina felt velveteen dolls and Dean’s Rag book dolls. When I see an extreme poor TLC dolly usually filthy from years of grime, sometimes with old repairs to body, broken or no eyes or sparse ratty hair, I just can’t help myself from wanting to bring them back to their timeless beauty. I usually try and keep their originality but some are just beyond that and need a complete make over. This beautiful 16 Chad Valley Bambina was one of the very early versions without ears. She still has her original foot tags and celluloid button, now she has been treated to a Rainbabies spa. Her face was quite bad as you can see in the last but one picture. The glass eyes were beautiful but the eye area damaged, the face was moth eaten. She was a well loved little dolly Her sewn on mohair had been cut very badly and was very sparse and dirty not covering the full head. She really needed a Rainbabies make over. I freeze treated her in case of any moth larvae being a cloth doll, gently surface cleaned her grimy velveteen and removed her sparse wig and dry cleaned it. I re-felted her head, cleaned and re-inserted the glass eyes to give her a cute wistful look. I then delicately painted her face to give her a more realistic child look. There was not much of the original brown curly mohair so after cleaning and gently pin combing through, I sewed the weft back on to frame her face in a style that suited the 1920s doll and made an orange white and green vintage felt cloche hat with orange trim. She is wearing vintage handmade cotton lacey pants and I made her a new Art Deco style orange dress and matching shoes with orange green and white felt The outfit is my version of the original Bambina dress as seen in the last image, with matching shoes fastened with vintage buttons and same trim as dress and hat. Considering she was really so far gone I hope you will agree that she now looks the beautiful little lady that she deserves and my tribute to the Chad Valley Bambina dolls. She is no longer a play doll she is a one of a kind artist remodelled doll for serious doll collector display only. Sent tracked and insured. This item is in the category “Dolls & Bears\Dolls, Clothing & Accessories\Dolls & Doll Playsets”. The seller is “marionshew” and is located in this country: GB. This item can be shipped to United Kingdom.
- Antique: Yes
- Country/Region of Manufacture: United Kingdom
- Doll Type: Bambina
- Era/Year: 1920s 30s
- Ethnicity: English White
- Material: Velveteen, Cloth
- Brand: Chad Valley Bambina
- Set Includes: Doll
- Doll Size: 16 in.
- Doll Gender: Girl Doll
- Type: Artist Doll
- Features: Antique, Realistic/Lifelike, OOAK, Repainted
