A new face

Just a little progress report on Vanilla. She's not quite finished, and definitely not perfect (an unfortunate condtion shared by most of my customs), but I do like her more so I'm considering it a victory of sorts. I may redo her lips yet as they are not terribly symetrical. How I wish I could paint!

I decided to go with a more exagerated shape this time as my previous attempts of natural and pretty looked well, unnatural and kind of ugly which kind of defeated the purpose. At least this way it's kind of meant to be kooky so the wonky-ness is a little more ok to live with. A master customiser I aint!

I still have one pair of eye chips to change out - plum to stock blue - and a few other things that I am quite frankly a little scared about. I've never attempted a boggle or gaze correction before, mainly because it involves carving bits off of things that can't really be changed back once they are done. I established quite early on in my foray into customising that carving is not something that I am good at and therefore have resisted the urge to further mutilate any more of my dolls in that manner. Hopefully this will be ok as at least it is on the inside and (fingers crossed) undetectable!

I also have to separate her scalp from the dome to do the patching, and I can see that there is a bit of glue there, unlike my factory girls which just had the scalps sitting loose on the dome. I'm a bit worried I won't be able to get her all put back together without some kind of a gap. And also about cutting the patched pieces so they blend in with her hair. Last time I attempted a haircut it was a disaster! Perhaps I should just leave it alone for the time being...

Also on the to-do list is a new body - the flexion I've had sitting dainty and headless on the shelf for about 6 months. And possibly a new outfit. This one likes jeans, sneakers and hats. I like her, she's kinda cute :)

I am glad I decided to give this a shot - it's like getting a new girl without spending any money!

Off with her head!

I tried to love Vanilla, I really did. But in the end her shiny face and stock makeup just a little too much like Frankie the fake's got to me, so it was off with her head! I was a little bit nervous opening her up as I hadn't done an FBL before, but I needn't have worried as it was exactly the same an an RBL.

Possibly not the wisest decision to customise her, but I figured that I would have to sell her as bait anyway (even though she had no scratches or damage) as her scalp is so bad, so what the hell. I might even attempt my first boggle and gaze correction on her. I'm going to try to fill in the massive gap in her rooting with some saran as well. If it doesn't work out, I have a really beautiful Audrey scalp here as a backup plan and if I still don't like her then out she goes. As bait. It's ridiculous really. And yet another compelling reason to get your dolls from Junie Moon - I could have returned her then.

So here she is, a blank canvas - for the time being. Mwah hahahaha! Usually I find the sanded faceplates quite beautiful and delicate looking, but even with no makeup, I'm not liking the FBL so much. She looks a bit dour don't you think?

You know what though, I am really a bit miffed at Takara. I should have been able to sell her without any concern at all as she was NIB when I bought her - their quality control absolutely stinks of late! Just look at how bad this scalp is. I am so not impressed. Especially when I see the lovely thick ones that other people got.


Anyway, hopefully I will like her better with a new faceup. And perhaps a hat!

Bad Blogger!

I'm so sorry for my lack of posts of late - I've been such a bad blogger but don't worry, I'm still here!

The holidays were/are crazy busy and I haven't had a lot of time by myself to craft, do Blythe bits and pieces or blog which is why things have been so quiet on the blog front. Let me give you a quick catch up of what's been going in in Chez Dollybird of late.

I've been sewing people clothes - a long retro nightie for Miss B (which she loves!) and I'm partway though a skirt for me. I also need to start work on my practice version of my bridesmaid dress for my sister's wedding. I don't have any pics downloaded of the completed nightie yet, but it's from this pattern. The one on the left. I made it in a really pretty cotton lawn in a rosebud print.


Xmas came and went and a great time was had by all, even if our celebration was very small this year. Miss B received a tonne of pressies including the Sylvanian Families dollhouse and furniture. No Blythe under the tree for me, however I must have been a very good girl this year as I got a super-duper DSLR camera! It's a Nikon D5000 and very flash. It was my Xmas pressie and birthday pressie from just about everyone I know. Truth be told I am a bit scared of it. I think I need to do a course!

In Blythe related news, I sent Holly, my very first Blythe away to FrankieDarling to be customised - I'm kinda worried about her travelling so far. As you may know, I'm in Australia and Frankie is in Portland USA - that's a lot of time in the hands of postal workers. I'm wondering if maybe I should have sent Vanilla as I would not be quite so upset if she was to get lost/damaged and she really does need something done to her if she's going to stay here. Crossing my fingers and toes that Holly arrives safe and sound. Aside from the anxiety about her being in transit, I am very excited about the customisation. Here how she looked when I first got her just before Christmas last year.



I've only ever had girls that I customised myself unless you count Poe, who was kinda ruined when I got her really. I think that a number of my Blythes will be customised professionally this year as there are not have that many new ones that I am interested in buying and to be honest, stock girls just don't do it for me at all anymore. This year I would like to get a Simply Peppermint and maybe a Rosie Red. I still need to find an SBL and a BL for my collection as I really would like to have one of each mold.

I also find myself toying with the idea of getting a Kenner - something I never thought would interest me at all! There's just something about their skin that really appeals to me. I think I would get a Raven girl.... I blame it all on Angel~Lily. She does the most amazing Kenner restorations rerooted in Alpaca.

Reroot progress report

Yesterday I ignored the large pile of laundry sitting grumpily in the bathroom and instead spent a pleasant few hours working on Poe's reroot. I know people complain about how much slower mohair is in comparison to saran, but I am finding that it seems to be coming along quite quickly. Maybe I'm doing something desperately wrong! I have nobody to show it to, so I'll just have to cross my fingers and hope that it will work out ok!





I am using a method I saw on Flickr a while ago. There used to be a tutorial on how to do it, but it has since been removed, so I am kind of just combining the info I have gleaned from all over. It is a knot method, but instead of tying the knot at the very end of the plug, it's tied in the middle and the two ends are fed through adjacent holes. It leaves a really neat finish on the inside imo, and seems to be very secure. It's only suitable for long length fibre, but it's a nice compromise between lock and loop and the usual knot method. I use a large headed needle to feed the mohair through the holes. It isn't terribly fast, but then I have yet to find a method I can successfully use that is! Having the mohair all nicely combed is a huge time saver, and I just make the plugs up as I go.

I am glad that I did that disastrous reroot on the Basaak - even though it didn't work out terribly well I did learn a lot from doing it (mostly, what NOT to do!) and I feel a lot more confident this time, even though I haven't worked with mohair before. The Blythe scalp is sooo much softer and easier to work with in comparison!





I have given Poe a thatched side part - as you can see her scalp was very damaged along the centre part and although I have repaired it (that's the big white strip), I don't feel comfortable having the closely rooted rows in the torn plastic. I've just started the upper fields which are also very closely rooted - once I've done the first couple of spirals I'll start skipping holes. Poe's Disco Boogie scalp seems to be have the holes more closely spaced than a normal scalp, so I'll probably just do every third hole and see how that looks. One thing I do know, it's going to be poofy - which isn't the look I was going for. I think that perhaps those lovely wispy straight reroots tend to use lots and lots of extremely fine plugs and take a bit more skill than I posess right now. Maybe next time.

All this fussing about with Poe is giving me a lot more of a feel for her identity. I am kind of excited to be sending her away for her faceup. I have decided that I am going to get her lips carved rather than leaving them stock and I think she might be a lashless girl. I have found an amazing Australian customiser and although I am on the list to send her overseas for a free faceup, I am thinking that maybe one of the other girls might go there in her stead and I'll just have the work done locally - the list is very long and I am really looking forward to seeing her completed now. I'm pleased that I didn't end up selling her - she has real character, even if she is still a trainwreck!

A fun distraction

After the success of my pink mohair I was itching to have a go at processing some more, and remembered that a while ago I bought some red wensleydale locks but didn't end up using them because they came like this.


I made a few plugs, but that's as far as I got. Yesterday I tied a couple of curls together and washed and conditioned them and they came out looking like this.



Much better! And I must say that it was nice to have lovely clean fibre to work with - it brushed out so much more easily. The photo doesn't really do them justice - I don't think it could handle the colour too well. They have a really nice pearly lustre to them and I quite like the way they are like little ringlets. It's a shame that I don't really need them for anything. I suspect that I enjoy processing and combing the fibre more than I do the reroots!

I admit to procrastinating a little about starting Poe's. Last night I repaired her scalp and painted it with acrylic paint so I could begin today, but the paint dried a little bit tacky, so rather than get to the end of the reroot and have paint flaking off, I think it would be best to sand the stock brown colour off and just use it flesh coloured. I did read that non-acetone nail polish remover is good to get the stock paint off, but I rubbed and rubbed at it and it didn't budge for me. At this rate I feel like I'll never get started, much less finish the job!

Processing Mohair - part 2 - Success!

I just wasn't satisfied with how my mohair turned out. So I did some more research and then thought I'd throw caution to the wind and just dye the stuff with food colouring for fun as it seriously could not have looked worse than before and in any case, I didn't want to throw any more money at it. And here is the end result.


Seriously, I could not be prouder of this bit of fluff if I had grown it on my own back! It's shiny and luscious and perfect (even if it is pink)! As it turns out, the secret to gorgeous mohair is all in the combing.

When I was preparing to dye it, I thought I had better brush it as the locks were so tight that there was no way that the dye would have penetrated to the centre. So I divided it into lots of little locks - about 12 for the ounce of fibre I had, brushed each lock into a big fuzzy cloud and tied it together at the top with string. All of the little bits of VM and dirt came out in the brushing process so it looked much cleaner. The floor did not. It's a pretty messy business and not for the squeamish. I am reasonably certain that a lot of the little bits of "stuff" in there was goat poo and it was obvious that my previous attempt to wash it had not been all that effective as my hands were still getting oily from the lanolin.

There was quite a lot of mohair caught up in the brush - I wasted heaps, but from what I have read this seems to be pretty normal. Then dyed it with the food colouring. I chose pink because I thought there was less chance of it being completely unacceptable if I made the colour too strong or too weak as I was not sure how well the fibre would take the dye. For the record, it really grabs it! I was aiming for palest pink and it turned out much darker than I had anticipated, but it's still ok.

I wet the brushed locks with hot water and laid them neatly in a glass dish. I used a lasagne dish - as I was using food colouring it was perfectly safe to use regular cookware - obviously if I had bought the acid dye I could not have done this. Then I made up my dye bath using a few drops of pink food colouring, hot water, a glug of vinegar and a squirt of dish soap - very scientific. I didn't measure anything! Then I just poured the dye mix over the top of the mohair and "baked" it in the oven for about an hour. This method works well because the water stays nice and hot without violently boiling, which can cause felting. Water + agitation is bad news for mohair or wool, so don't stir it.

When I pulled it out the water was clear as all the dye had gone into the mohair. Then I rinsed it in hot water and conditioned it (just put some conditioner in your hand and run it down the length of the lock from the top - don't scrunch it up like you would your own hair or it will felt!), and left it to sit (ie...I went out!). When I returned 3 or 4 hours later I combed the mohair with the conditioner still in it (lost quite a bit more hair), rinsed it and left it to dry. And that's all there is to it!

Things I've learned for next time:

Separate into lots of small bunches as it's easier to comb.
Brush before washing to remove all the VM & make it easier to remove lanolin.
Comb again with conditioner still in the hair, then rinse thoroughly.

A lot of people dye their fibre "in the grease" - ie unwashed, but I think that I would probably wash it first as the mohair I had was quite greasy. I really want to do this again and experiment with some different colours. I wonder if it would take parisienne essence or tea/coffee for a natural brown?

My only concern now is that there is a LOT less fibre than I started with. I just hope that I have enough to give poor Poe a decent looking head of hair. It is a good thing that the mohair I bought is long so I can use a technique where I double it over, thereby getting double the thickness.

Now I just have to remove the paint from her scalp and repair her torn partline.

Mohair processing - not for the impatient or inflexible!

As some of you might know, I've been in the process of trying to find some fibre the right length (and price) to reroot poor Poe with for a while now. A few days ago my fibre arrived and I've began processing it so I can begin the reroot.

The mohair I ended up buying is from an Aussie seller, and as I mentioned, pretty much straight off the goat's back. I will admit that I was expecting it to be kinda gross and stinky, but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. While it was absolutely not perfectly clean and lovely, it wasn't too bad and even better, the seller kept the locks all nice and together so I don't have the nightmare of untangling a big messy wad of fibre. Here's how it looked straight out of the bag.


In it's unwashed state it is kind of greasy, and there's a bit of "VM" (that's vegetable matter - hay and possibly...goat poo!). It does smell a little bit goaty, but not terribly so. All the same, if you are finicky about such things, then attempting to process your own mohair is possibly not for you. Looking at the fibre in its raw state it is difficult to imagine it gracing the head of one of my Blythes!

Most of the info out there on processing mohair is geared towards spinners rather than doll makers, who need that lock kept nice and intact through the cleaning process and if you follow their methods you will end up with nice clean mohair that has ended up in a tangled clump, rather than the nicely combed locks we need. Luckily I found this excellent guide to washing mohair by Mohairhouse. Quite possibly what I did is not the best way to wash mohair, but here's the method I used.

I basically separated the mohair into three smaller bundles, tied at the top with a silicone hair tie and followed the method for washing locks using dish detergent and very hot water. If I was to do this over again, I would have picked out the bigger pieces of VM before I wet the mohair. As I discovered it doesn't come out in the wash, but the water does help to distribute all of those tiny pieces right through the entire lock, making your locks really dirty. Oh well, you live and learn...

The fibre was very dirty, and after three washes was still not looking lovely and white so I soaked it in some very hot water with dish soap for a good 20 minutes to see if I could get it any cleaner. Next time I'd pick out the VM first, then wash once to get most of the dirt out, soak in hot soapy water and then rinse and wash again. It is entirely possible that my mohair is stained or the goat that it came from isn't white but cream (actually I don't really know why I assumed that it was white as the goats come in several colours including blonde and a silvery colour) because even though it was much cleaner looking after the soak, it still wasn't really super white like other mohair that I have seen - more like white with blonde tips. So at that point I figured that that was as clean as it was going to get, rinsed off the dishsoap and conditioned the fibre using a generous amount of human hair conditioner (just squishing the conditioner into the tied locks, not agitating at all) and put it into ziplock bags for 20 minutes or so. I was pleased that at this stage I had barely lost any hair at all from the 3 bunches - yay for silicon hairbands!



After I rinsed, dried and brushed a section of it, (at which point it turned into a cloud of frizz that was only subdued by dampening it), I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed with the result. My mohair seems to be of the super crimpy variety rather than the loosely curling type that I wanted, not especially shiny and worst of all, it's a pale straw colour that I am not a fan of at all.



It is also apparent that I will have to dye it as the colour does not suit Poe's skintone. Ironically it looked pretty good against the paler Blythe-in-bits, but I have already got a scalp for her. I am looking at using Landscape Acid Dye to improve the colour in either Pacific or Tasman - both are shades of blue/green in different intensities. They are really pretty colours, I just hope that it dyes up nicely and doesn't end up going bright green on the cream mohair. I am also considering playing with food colouring to see if I can get a pretty pastel colour I can live with.

At this point after all the work and the less than satisfactory result I've achieved, I would not recommend trying to save a few dollars by processing the mohair yourself if you have a particular look in mind for the finished scalp. It's not the amount of work involved that I consider to be the issue, but rather the unpredictable (and in this case, somewhat disappointing) result. At the end of the day, the look of the combed mohair depends mostly on the animal it came from (age, genetics, colour, living conditions) and also the part of the fleece that the locks were taken from (some parts of the fleece are guaranteed to be stained or just very very dirty). Buying mohair fibre without knowing these things means that you can't be certain how the processed fibre will look.

I wanted to achieve white or cream shiny mohair with a gentle wave and so far, after several hours work have ended up with pale blonde mohair that is matt and crimpy. It's still quite nice, but it isn't what I wanted and will look very different to the way I had envisaged.

The fibre (including postage) cost me $14.00, and I also spent an extra $10 or so on a brush, conditioner and conditioning spray. On top of that, I now need to purchase the dye which will set me back another $14 or so. I think that all up it would not have cost me much more to have purchased the fibre I really wanted in the first place and I have had to accept that the look that I wanted for Poe's customisation will now have to change to accommodate the mohair that I have ended up with. If you are patient and flexible with your customisation than it is quite doable, but for specific results you are much better off buying your mohair already processed.

Poe's (temporary) new look

Had a fun day giving Poe a little tidy up today. Nothing too drastic, just a light sand to remove the surface scratches, a little pastel makeup, some temporary eyelashes (they are a little too short for her eyes) and until her hair is done, a wig. I even toyed with the idea of putting her on the Neemo body, but as soon as I tried it I knew it was completely wrong for her (not to mention that her head was horribly floppy!). This girly look is possibly not the way that she'll end up looking, but it's a definite improvement that street kid/lice ridden chimney sweep look she had when she arrived. The wig is really not what I would have chosen for her, but the two wigs in the house belong to Miss B - and the other one is a Lolita style one and is even prissier if that is possible. It does not fit at all well without hair underneath, but it will do the job for now - better that than bald! For those who don't normally follow my blog, here is what she looked like before.



The makeover all went reasonably smoothly apart from a short period of time that I believed I would never be able to prise her eye mech out. The older Blythes are definitely a lot harder to customise than the RBL's although that said, her eyechips came out incredibly easily. I was going to pull the pinks out at the same time in readiness for some new ones that I haven't even ordered yet but changed my mind at the last minute and now I'm glad I did. They kind of suit this sugary look don't you think?

The hair's here!

Today Miss Jones' hair arrived from Restore Doll. I was not expecting it for another week or so but it was a lovely surprise. It's absolutely beautiful and I can't stop admiring it. It's just the most heavenly colour! I'm so glad that I went with the blend as neither shade seemed quite right, but together they are perfect! I would have taken a photo, but I lost the light too early, and as I have discovered, it's impossible for me to take a good photo with my camera without some sunshine. I just hope that I have ordered enough hair to do the job well... I got 4 skeins of the regular format and it really doesn't look like that much hair - especially when I compare it to the amount that came off her head after Miss B took to it gleefully with the scissors.

Seriously, I don't think I've ever seen her have that much fun playing with a doll before! As soon as she got home from school she wanted to play hairdresser and Jonesy's hair grew shorter and shorter. I thought it looked quite cute short and if she wasn't going to be transformed into Coraline, I would have left it that way. Considering she's only 8...and has a brutal technique, I think Miss B did a great job!



Seeing as how it was Jonesy's last few moments as a blonde I thought I'd play around and take a few shots before her big transformation...be it for better or for worse! Yesterday I played around with the camera settings (and discovered that my camera is pretty much useless without natural light - grr!) and also learned a little bit more about paint.net. I think the shots I've taken are greatly improved and in my opinion, this is by far the best doll photo I've taken. For a girl with such a ghetto background, Jonesy photographs surprisingly well!

Sadly, she does not look nearly this nice at the moment. As I write this she is sporting a rather savage crew cut in preparation for her new hair..and once I've finished this post I will begin pulling out the plugs. I hope that I haven't made a big mistake in scalping her.

Stage one complete!

It is insanely late, but I wanted to put up a quick post. I've finished Frankie's face-up, and put in two new sets of eyechips - browns and buttons (because Miss B wasn't having it any other way...). Before and progress so far.



I'm not sure I like the freckles at all...but Coraline has freckles, so freckles it is. I know - she looks nothing at all like bloody buggery Coraline, but I did promise I'd have a go for Miss B and being 8 years old, she's not very good at compromise. She hasn't seen her yet as I've only just finished her and last Miss B saw she was still a collection of parts. I'm sure she'll like her anyway. I'm hoping that the blue hair will make her look more Coraline-esque, although the very thought of the re-root makes me feel a little ill. My very worst fear is that I'll spend ages re-rooting her and then completely destroy her hair when I cut it into a bob. I also worry that Miss B will see the button eyes and be terrified of her..personally I think they are a bit scary (and besides which, Coraline doesn't get the buttons in the movie - it's kind of the point!). They are there at her own insistence so she had better not be scared - they also came at great personal cost - I sanded off some of my nails in the process of getting them thin enough to put in!





Work done so far:

Sandmatt
Complete new face-up.
Carve lips...very very badly.
Gloss lips. I think I may attempt to re-do her lips - her mouth is too small.
Two new sets of chips - foiled brown and buttons (which I had to sand to fit - PITA!!)
New lashes
Freckles...also done very badly. There's an art to getting freckles cute, wish I knew it.
Rebodied on Takara body.

Still to do:

Reroot with blue hair.
Cut into bob (eep!!)
Make Coraline outfit.
Make tiny Coraline doll.

Out, damn eye!!!

I've been a bit slack with the updates of late - life's been getting busier and busier now that I'm studying and doing my industry placement.

Poor Frankie is now just a jumble of parts sitting on my dining room credenza. I'm careful to put her bits out of sight whenever anyone comes over so they don't think I'm too crazy!



When I last posted, Frankie's eyechips had been giving me grief. After I soaked her chips for 24 hours, I kind of expected that they'd give up the fight and just pop right out. I was greatly mistaken. For aparently the glue that the good people in the Basaak factory use is designed to last until the end of time. After 20 or so attempts using gluestick removal, freezing, swearing and pleading I realised that there was just no way those chips were coming out. So I chatted to my hubby...and out came the drill and within 10 minutes the orange and pinks were out...in several pieces, but out. This, my friends, is my method of removing stubbourn eyechips. It is not for the faint-hearted, but it does get results. Please not that the sausage fingers in the photos are not mine! Believe it or not, I am the better photographer so my hubby graciously volunteered to be the hand model :)



Equipment - electric drill, tiny drill bit, sturdy screw (long enough that you can easily grip it), pliers, old towel/rag to put the eyeball on so that you don't scratch up the other side.



Drill a tiny hole in the centre of the chip using the drill. Go veeeery slowly, drilling just a little at a time until the hole is just deep enough to start your screw. You might want to use a vice...my hubby just used me to hold it which is probably not advisable, and also why there isn't a photo of this process! When you are done it should look like the above pic.




Now screw in your screw, using the screwdriver to spare your hands. Once it's "bitten" in you'll hear some nasty cracking sounds and at this point, it may shatter (which is a right PITA). Beware - a shard came flying out at me during this process. I'd use protective eyewear next time.




Now, using as much brute force as is necessary, use the screw to lever the chip out. If the gods are smiling upon you, they'll come out nicely in one piece. The pink ones were tough and came out in bits :( We had to drill multiple holes and lever them out with a tiny screwdriver.



Now you just need to clean up any shards of chip left in the socket before you pop the new ones in. I'll let you know when I find an easy method for that.....



In addition to being hideous to remove, as I suspected the Basaak/Blybe chips are slightly different to the Blythe ones. The Basaak chip on the left (with the hole in the pupil!) has a markedly shorter post than the Blythe stock chip on the right. I've ordered some chips from Coolcat - I'm really hoping that they will fit with a little sanding.

Basaak and her indestructible eye chips...

After a long and boring day catching up on assignments, I decided that some me time was in order and spent a few hours this afternoon fussing about with Frankie and trying to track down some customising tools on the internet. As well as the sanding sponges and such, I need to order her some eye chips and as info on the subject is sketchy, I decided to pull out Frankies chips so that I could compare them to a Blythe's. And that is pretty much where I'm still at.

Well, her head might practically fall apart in your hands, but her eye chips will outlast the apocalypse. They are NOT coming out without a fight...and possibly not at all. I initially didn't want to pull her mech out as I was afraid that it might be flimsy and easily broken, but after attempting the glue-stick method of chip removal with her mech still in over and over and over, I decided that perhaps a good soak in hot soapy water might be just what the doctor ordered. The mech came out with a bit of prying with a masking tape wrapped screwdriver between the mech and the faceplate (with more force required than I imagined would have been necessary) and I managed not to damage her eyelids (yay!). But I think I may have misinterpreted the instructions for unclipping the arc and it looks as though I have done it on the opposite end to the way it's demonstrated on Puchi Collective. Hope that it all goes back together ok!!

So now her eyeballs are floating about in some warm soapy water, hopefully to be nicely loosened so that I can get the damned things out. I sincerely hope that this glue is water soluable - there is no way that those babies were coming out with the gluestick method alone. I spent some time researching to see if anyone else had documented their experiences customising these clones and while there were lots of pics of completed dolls on Flickr and a couple of in progress ones, there really wasn't much practical information...such as if the glue used is nice and water soluable or horrible and super-glue-like and what kind of eyechips other than the flat ones will fit her. Hopefully by the time I'm finished with Frankie, I will have compiled a nice little bank of knowledge that might help someone else out. It's so frustrating that this info isn't out there! For the record, her eyelashes came out with very little trouble. I didn't bother taping them out of the way when I was trying the gluestick method of chip changing and I ripped out half of one set that way. The rest came out easily after a brief soak in warm water.

I have a really busy day tomorrow so I might not get back to her before Thursday. Hopefully the chips will just fall right out (haha - right!). BTW - isn't the photo I took wierd? It looks like she has a light in her head!