Back in 2011 (I think!) I inquired with one of our local doll collectors about an old SoulDoll Aru she was selling, and was the recipient of amazing generosity!

At the time, I received a 2003 or 2004 (not 100% sure) SoulKid Aru from one of our local collectors – for FREE! Aru was discontinued prior to 2005, and was definitely showing some age. She was pretty yellowed and needed a new face up for sure.

You may recall my grand plans to do some heavy modding to make her into an automaton (this post). And while I would have loved to move forward with that plan, I had bigger plans for this girl instead.

My sister has been getting more and more interested in BJD over the past several years, but has never been able to pull the trigger to get one of her own.

When she would show me pictures of dolls she liked, I started to notice a trend of slightly pouty girls – not too sad, but definitely with a slight pout. I realized this was the same sort of look SoulKid Aru has.

It took a bit of courage to finally attack her with acetone to finish cleaning her up. Whatever sealant SoulDoll used back in the day was definitely meant to stay!

I then packed her up and took her with me to Minnesota when I went a couple of weeks ago.

In the meantime, I had ordered eyes and elastic so I could finish her. These items were due to arrive that same week I was in MN so the plan was to finish her up and give her to my sister when we met for lunch.

Yeah – the post office hates me. Kind of.

The items arrived the day I left to come back to Illinois. So my sister did not get her that week. She didn’t know about her, though, so no biggie. Just a bit of frustration on my end.

So I came back to Illinois, finished her up, and mailed her to my sister. It was so tempting to keep her! She turned out soo cute! But my sister deserves her more and I couldn’t wait for her to get her.

And, after all that, I can present Lalee!

And her faceup a bit closer up…

TL;DR: Got a doll for free (OMG). Abandoned my original plans to mod her and gave her to my sister instead. Sister loves her. 😀