Grandma Gets Grandpa

Mattel positioned a cardboard image of Happy Family Birthday Grandpa behind Grandma, who remains in her box.

My 2003 (box date) Mattel Happy Family Birthday Grandma had been living single because I have not been able to find the separately sold Grandpa at a price I am willing to pay.

The Candidate

Two years ago, I decided to purchase a rooted hair African American guy (Steven, Ken, whomever I could find on the secondary market at a price I was willing to pay).  The plan was to create a Grandpa for Grandma.  I chose Cali Guy Steven, shown above.  This poor guy has been lying around, literally, in the box since the July 2012 purchase.

Close-up of Cali Guy Steven before his aging process began.

This is the look I was shooting for, even though Cali Guy Steven is a few shades darker. 

 During a recent pending severe storm that had been forecast several days prior, my bottled up anxiety was released as I created Grandpa for Grandma after listening to a mini lecture from my husband on "Where's your faith?  If you are truly faithful, you would never get scared."  He laughs at me when we are in the midst of a tornadic-like storm because I get fully dressed with my shoes on and my purse and car keys nearby.  You'll never see me half-naked on the evening news with hair all over my head, reliving a horrendous experience to a news reporter.  I wouldn't relive an experience to a reporter anyway, but if I did, I'd want to be fully dressed!


Anyway... the photos and associated captions illustrate how I released my anxiety about something that never happened.  We did receive some much needed rain, but nothing more (and oh yes, I was fully dressed while aging Steven).  You just never know.

The mustache was created using several strands of salt and pepper braiding hair made of kanekalon fibers.  I held these together between a paper clip, applied Mod Podge to the very ends, and allowed time for drying.  After drying, the ends were trimmed straight, Mod Podge applied to the back, and then pressed in place underneath Steven's nose. 

I left the ends long prior to trimming the mustache to the desired size, which was a bad move because the thickness of the scissor blades caused some of the mustache to peel off.  I removed it all from his face, trimmed it to size, then reglued the tiny pieces onto his face.  Prior to doing this, I used a gray metallic permanent marker to color Steven's hair, which had been trimmed prior to this.      

A dark brown eyebrow pencil was used to wrinkle Steven's forehead and shade the smile lines in his cheeks.  The wrinkles are temporary and can be wiped off, if desired.  I dressed him in a plaid shirt, denim jeans, and navy blue loafers, which look like something a Grandpa might wear.  The back view of his new gray hair and another close-up view follows.

 

 

Thanks to poorly predicted weather, Grandma now has her Grandpa and I didn't have to pay three figures to get him.

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Grandma and I like everything about Grandpa except his overbearing scent.  I am not sure if the smell is from the scent Mattel gave him (as indicated on the box:  Doll is scented), or the gray temporary hair color that I tested on his hair before using the metallic marker to color it gray.  I didn't have enough of the temporary hair color and only used a very small amount, so I think the unpleasant scent is from the manufacturer. 

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