Tinkerbell Nursery
Helen Jalland is a top recognised reborn artist from the UK who has been working with dolls for the past 20 years. She has been involved with many aspects of doll making, reborning being the most recent. She created her own online shop, Tinkerbell Nursery, in 2003, where she shares and sells all of her artworks.
The art of reborning consumes an incredible amount of time and the process requires great skills, dedication and patience. This art is only for those who have a real passion and are ready to devote themselves to it. For Helen, becoming a reborn artist is one of the most engrossing and rewarding experiences she has ever had. She was highly inspired by the experiences of bringing up her own three daughters.
With Tinkerbell Nursery, all of the babies are created from the heart. Helen Jalland uses Genesis Heat Set Paint for her hand-painting, as they produce the most amazingly realistic skin effects. She applies many layers on the different body parts to produce the depth of skin tone and colour.ach layer is carefully heat-set, so that the layers “build” on top of each other. To make the skin look extremely realistic, she also details the skin with fine veins and tiny pores. Helen also applies these paints to define the finger and toenails to ensure colour matching from tip to toe. The baking process helps the colouring to completely set into the vinyl, forming a layer on top that will not rub off with time. All nails are then sealed with a satin look varnish that closely resembles the slightly delicate shine of real baby nails.
Helen pays high attention to the hair rooting process in order to achieve incredible realism. Her babies’ heads can be gently washed and brushed just like in real life. This phase of the reborning process requires patience and a meticulous technique, as the artist has to insert thousands of hair follicles into the scalp, following the pattern of natural hair growth. Helen always uses the finest needles and the best Angora mohair, which perfectly resembles real baby hair. She uses the same technique to root the eyelashes for the sleeping babies and glue them from inside to prevent shedding. For open eyed babies, she uses delicate real eyelash hair.
Helen uses the finest quality cloth body, often doe suede, and a special variety of filling that gives the baby the perfect balance and weight. Elastomer pellets are used in the cloth body parts, which feels just like “baby-fat”, making the baby more cuddly. She also uses glass granules for correctly weighting the vinyl parts, as sand is rejected in some countries when the baby is being imported.
Her reborn dolls always receive a professional hair trim and are nicely dressed with the perfect outfit , matching their size and personality, before being sent to their new families. Aside from the fact that all babies have their own Certificate of Authenticity and Birth Certificate, Tinkerbell Babies are all truly unique, with their very own special characteristics.
We invite you to visit her website to understand more about this talented artist.
