My mom’s all wound up, cleaning out the stuff stored away in her basement. She surprised me with a box in the mail containing 3 Barbie cases full of vintage Barbie stuff, circa 1960s and 1970s. Boy was it a ragged mess. My sister, cousin and I played HARD with those girls.

I dug right in to see if there was anything even worth saving. First, I needed to dig out all of the wadded up clothes that obscured everything else. I ran those through the washer not expecting much, but pleasantly surprised when they spiffed right up and didn’t look so bad after all. Then I started to assess the girls, inspecting each one. I checked if they were still intact and tried to get a comb through their crazy mass of hair.

It was at this stage that I found poor Casey crammed in the bottom of a case with three other dolls, completely naked and with a pathetic black cast tied around her leg. It was tragic. It was wrong. And so I decided to patch her up and make things right again. This is a pictorial story of her rehab. I’ll post some more in the near future, maybe doing a fashion show. I’m thinking these girls could give me some great inspiration for future paintings – they have so much history and some wild stories to tell.

Casey with Black Leg Cast

Black Cast Unwrapped

Please note the piece of paper clip jabbed in there to try to hold her knee together. Ouch, that must have hurt! I had to pry that out with pliers and was hugely relieved when the leg didn’t fall apart.

Tools for the Repair

Yes, that’s duct tape. Duct tape can fix anything! Next to it is some washi tape to pretty up the repair. Casey wants to be stylin’ when this is done.

The Repaired Leg

Disclaimer: I didn’t know which doll she was when I first found her, and had to look her up online.

It was surprising to me how much I enjoyed fiddling with those girls again after all of these years. It brought back the inner child! Woohoo!