Jennifer Neal works to make a baby doll at her desk in her home business called Reborn Nursery in Elmore.
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Jennifer Neal, a 34-year-old mother of four, estimates she’s created more than 300 of the life-like baby dolls over the last four years – a business that got its start when her then-4-year-old daughter, Brooklyn, held her newborn cousin.
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Jennifer Neal set out to find a doll for her daughter that would be as life-like as that newborn baby and discovered amazing online photos of dolls that looked exactly like babies.
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Jennifer Neal did not take lessons, but taught herself how to create the skin shades and faint little eyelid veins newborns have, how to root baby goats’ hair with a sharp needle, how to add weight to them in just the right places.
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A finished baby doll made by Jennifer Neal at her home business.
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A finished baby doll made by Jennifer Neal at her Reborn Nursery business in Elmore.
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Prices for the dolls she creates at her rural Elmore home start at $250. She typically ships out three dolls per week – each wrapped snugly in a receiving blanket.
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Jennifer Neal paints veins on a baby doll.
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Life-like feet on a baby doll done by Jennifer Neal.
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Jennifer Neal paints a vein on a baby doll head.
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