Amazing dolls look like real babies

[tribulant_slideshow gallery_id="61"]

AN EXPO this weekend in Port Elizabeth will showcase a range of dolls that look uncannily like real-life babies when it opens at St Alban’s in aid of children born with cleft lips and palates.

Event organiser Chantell de Kock makes “reborn” dolls. She says the Baby Steps doll and teddy bear expo would be the first of its kind in South Africa.

The Rowallan Park artist said the term was used to describe dolls made to look like real-life babies.

She said most people were amazed by how closely the dolls resembled the real thing.

Although De Kock has a day job as a credit controller, she is also a teacher in “reborn artistry”.

She buys reborn doll kits from Johannesburg and Cape Town suppliers, but much of the art lies in the painting, which may require up to 50 layers.

She also adds hair, strand by strand, and other unique elements to each of her babies, so they sometimes take six to eight weeks to complete.

Lynne de Villiers, who joined De Kock’s reborn art class last year, said they chose the Port Elizabeth-based Cleft Friends Foundation, founded by Helena Cullis, as their charity beneficiary as her own grandchild was born with a cleft palate and lip.