Skin Color

When I was shopping at Michaels before Christmas, a woman stopped me in the paint aisle and asked me if I could help her, No one in the store had the answer to her problem and she was desperate, so I said I’d try to help her. She explained that her daughter was getting married Christmas Eve and was insisting on a bride and groom decoration to go on top of her wedding cake.
Then the woman opened her handbag and pulled out the ornament. She looked at me and I looked at her, and we both burst out laughing. The plastic bride and groom had bubble gum pink skin and impossibly blond hair—and the mother of the bride? She was black! Because she didn’t have enough time to order an ornament online, she’d picked this one up and decided to paint it.
I immediately thought of my doll Selina (see the ATC above). I’d used Lumieres for her skin, but Michaels doesn’t seem to carry them anymore. So we poked around looking at different things until I realized that the paints used on model cars might work. I matched the mother of the bride’s skin to a nice bronze color and then we got some black for the hair.
I’d love to see how it turned out…i.e. I really hope it worked! I’ll tell you one thing though. It’s started me thinking about couples and ungeneric they actually are. Why wasn’t that woman in Michaels able to buy what she wanted? After all, couples come in all sizes, shapes, colors, ages and sexual persuasions. In my experience, I can only think of one bride and groom who both had blond hair—and they’re now divorced!