(Julia Kristal)

Highlighting the Miracle of Life

by Pam North

Julia Kristal has always loved dolls, and she collected them into adulthood. She mostly was into music, but during college she began learning how to draw, and she soon realized that she was good at visual art. She loved using colored pencils to draw realistic portraits. She also learned to knit and crochet, and she began making dolls using yarn. When she finally stumbled across reborn doll making and sculpting, she had found her niche. Since her love of dolls had never ended, it probably was inevitable that she eventually became a doll artist. Besides art, she has a passion for children and babies. She strives to capture the innocence and beauty of a baby in the reborn baby dolls and silicone baby dolls that she creates. “My desire is to create realistic baby dolls that are a joy to bring to your home,” she said. “I strive to capture the innocence and beauty of a baby in my reborn and silicone baby. When someone adopts one of my lifelike dolls, that person is purchasing a doll that is created with careful thought and creative planning. I take my time with each creation to ensure happy box openings of cherished dolls that can be passed down from generation to generation.”
Besides creating reborn baby dolls and silicone baby dolls, her professional background also includes  bachelor and masters degrees in education. She has performed and taught music for over twenty years to thousands of youth in her hometown of Phoenix, AZ. She also is a mother of four beautiful children.
Kristal paints reborn baby dolls, sculpts dolls and makes her own silicone baby dolls. She makes her own molds for the dolls, pours the dolls, paints them, and finishes them into babies that look astonishingly real. She sells her products on her website and sometimes at doll shows.
She started sculpting in 2011, without any formal training, but rather was self-taught, learning her craft through trial and error. Her learning process for creating molds began in 2015 and took until 2019. She evolved over that time-frame, from reborn doll-making to sculpting, because that had always been her ultimate goal - to make her own original silicone dolls, sculpting the faces that she envisioned and bringing them to life. She always was inspired by other women who made a career out of doll-making, but she had never known that it could be possible for herself until she actually did it.
“I think the most challenging part of my craft was when I was learning. I failed so many times when I was learning to create molds and paint silicone. I still find that some things can go wrong from time to time. It is a very sensitive and unforgiving medium to work with - a mixture of science and art. It takes a lot of focus, patience, and determination.” 
Working with vinyl kits has become mostly a past endeavor for her, and her all-original silicon sculpts are now the focus of her work. For her silicone dolls she uses Smooth-On silicone and epoxies, and Brick in the Yard molding and casting products to create and paint them. She has a vacuum chamber and pressure pot for degassing the silicone, and she uses a convection oven for baking the clay sculptures.
Asked what gives her the most satisfaction about what she does, Kristal replied, “I love seeing my creations when they are complete; it is so satisfying when they ‘come to life’. I also love feedback from my customers. My dolls are loved all over the world, and on social media some people leave me messages that I have made a positive impact on their life, or that they grew up watching my videos and that I made their childhood great. That always makes me so happy and warms my heart.” 
One of her dolls was purchased by a nurse as an instructional aid for a video to teach new mothers how to nurse their infants during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kristal has a fan base on social media of over 400k followers. She became mostly known on YouTube when several of her skit videos featuring Silicone Baby Winter went viral. Her YouTube channel has over 130 million views, and has helped to grow the community of reborn and silicone baby doll lovers by educating people about the art form and hobby, and showing people that they are never too old to collect dolls.
Kristal has her own studio in her home, with all of her art supplies, shelves for displaying her finished dolls, a work area by two windows overlooking her backyard so that she has plenty of sunlight. She also has an area for taking photos of the dolls that she has created and recording videos. She is amenable to teaching others about reborning. She has taught a workshop, and she also has online tutorial videos, both on social media and on her website. Inspiration comes to her “from life and nature,” she says. 
The future or direction of artist-made collectibles is viewed positively by Kristal. “I love where things are headed. I have seen a growth in diversity in artists, as well as in dolls being made in recent years. I feel that is very important and a welcome change. I think that this makes artist-made collectibles more appreciated and desired by people from all backgrounds and cultures. I also think that social media helps people to find artists’ work, and to know more about this art form.” 
As for whether collectors are becoming fewer in numbers, or if they are buying less, her outlook on that also was positive. “I have seen growth and more exposure through social media. I also see more new artists emerging as they are inspired by older artists. The growth of online tutorials and workshops helps to make this possible.” 
Kristal’s plans for the future include continuing to create more original silicone baby dolls, and to release silicone doll kits in the future. She also would like to sculpt resin figurines.

Contact Information:
Name: Julia Kristal
Business name if any: All4Reborns LLC
Email: all4reborns@gmail.com
Website: all4reborns.com
Address: PO Box 7504, Phoenix, AZ 85011
Telephone:  (602) 699-4884