Shopping with the Boiiz

Long time, no craft...

My friend and co-creator of SkippyBJD Mary was in town this week, so we took our YoSD boys with us to the craft store. We were there to pick up polymer clay for some doll-sculpting experiments,  but also wanted to see if there were any good doll accessories or props we could find. It ended up becoming a photo shoot, but we did grab some clay eventually.

We were looking at fairy garden stuff when we happened upon the above zen garden setup. The boys thought it was cool, so we plopped them down and snapped a few pics.

Then, we were wandering through the aisles and happened upon some lilac flowers - perfectly matched to Honu's eye color. He cooperated and let me take a pic or two.

All in all, a successful run. In another post, I'll show the progress we made toward sculpting some heads. Mary went a more traditional route with her's while I...well, I guess you'll just have to tune in and see, haha! Thanks for tuning in.

ABS Plastic - The Solution...is Alcohol!

Rubbing alcohol that is!
As continuation to the previous post...

I wish I had known this first, but I still have an interesting mod project ahead of me! A few weeks ago we got some advice on YouTube from a good Samaritan about our "mod":

NellaCuriosity3 weeks ago
The eyelashes are looking good.
W&N melts/compromises ABS. To clean ABS you want rubbing alcohol, the purer the better.

Thus, we have an answer.
Only use Winsor & Newton on resin!!

Stay safe hobbying out there, friends.

ABS Plastic and Winsor & Newton (Crafting Gone Awry)

Hello there,

For those of you who do not know, I have a YouTube channel called SkippyBJD that's updated about as regularly as my blogger (which is to say, somewhat sporatically). Recently, I put up a crafting video documenting my and my friend's BJD alterations with the title "A Faceup and An Unintentional Mod".

The reason for this post is that I wanted to ask (or warn) about ABS plastic reacting to Winsor & Newton brush cleaner. Now, Winsor and Newton is my go-to for faceup cleaning - it's gentle on the resin and doesn't stain or leave residue. That's why, when the following events unfolded, I was a little more than confused.

I was trying to wipe the factory faceup from an Ai Doll Lagrus and she sort of...melted. Now, I don't want to scare anyone or jump to conclusions; I'm not 100% sure that the Ai Doll I had was even made of ABS plastic (the same stuff used to make Blythes). This is what the result was:

My only thought is that I have to sand her now - honestly not too upset because that means I get to try some modding stuff I've been too nervous to try as of yey - but hopefully that gets her into a presentable state.

Concluding Thoughts: You should always test things like this on a small part of a doll you're not sure about ESPECAILLY if you've paid a lot of money for the doll. I'm still not confident this is made of ABS plastic, but if anyone has any advice, I'm open to suggestions! Hahaha....

Wrap Up Questions: Has anyone had something similar happen? How did you fix it? Or, better yet, if you have a doll you know is made of ABS plastic and used W&N cleaner on it, did it work fine or did it melt?

Follow Up: I have a follow up blog post describing the solution to this problem. In short, please only use Winsor & Newton on resin. ABS aparently does much bettter with rubbing alcohol. Please see the corresponding blog post for a little more detail.