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Jill’s stitching up celebrity lookalike dolls

Material Girl! The Dunedin teacher’s sew happy with how her hobby has taken off
Jill Armstrong holding a few of her dolls in front of a bush
Jill with her likeness, and Wilma and baby Pebbles Flintstone.
Photos: Rachael McKenna.

Thanks to Dunedin resident Jill Armstrong, Sir Elton John fans were able to get up close to the celebrity at his Forsyth Barr Stadium concert. She’d smuggled him in under her jacket. When others later spotted the star in the crowd, he understandably drew some attention.

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And as Jill soaked in the pre-concert atmosphere, clutching her Elton – a lookalike doll she’d spent time painstakingly making – admirers said how much they loved the likeness to the real-life celebrity.

“I’d dressed him as Rocket Man,” says Jill, who’s also made many other celebrity lookalike dolls. “People really liked him and took photos with him.”

Jill, a teacher and head of commerce at Trinity Catholic College in Dunedin, discovered a love of making dolls 10 years ago when she couldn’t think what to get her sister Julie for her birthday. Explains the grandmother of two, “She had everything she wanted and I loved sewing. That’s when the idea came to me.”

Jill sitting at a desk covered in her dolls
Jill with the Elton doll that stopped punters at his Dunedin show.
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Already a keen hobby seamstress – having been taught as a child by her mother and grandmothers – Jill signed up for a doll-making course. It gave her the confidence to create a lookalike of Julie.

“I worked really hard to get her features and sculpted her face with little stitches by hand,” she recalls. “Then I later drew on the other features with a combination of gel pens and powdered make-up, including her eye colour, and added false eyelashes. When she got it, she was thrilled.”

Jill’s gone on to make 120 creations, including one for her other sister Jane-Anne’s dental surgery – of a patient in a chair.

Many of the lookalikes are of artists whose concerts she has attended, like Sir Rod Stewart, Cyndi Lauper, Pink and Shania Twain.

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“Shania’s doll was stressful. On the morning of the concert, I was taking photos outside the stadium and she fell into a puddle.

The Ed Sheeran doll laying in a pile of autumn leaves
Tiny Ed Sheeran’s even been inked!

“Each doll usually takes between 20 to 30 hours. I had to create a new one in quick time to take to Shania that evening.

“I found out later it went in her private jet!”

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One of her favourites has been her Ed Sheeran doll.

“That was the first one I took to a concert. I especially loved doing the tattoos because they were so tiny!”

Jill loves to photograph and film the characters she makes at different locations. She then adds music and uploads the videos on her Instagram.

“When I take them out to film, I go into my own world. I don’t care who’s watching – it’s just such fun.”

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Jill laying with her dolls at a beach
Doll-lightful! Jill makes tiny sets for her creations.

She has even made a lookalike doll with strawberry blonde hair of herself, called Jilly. The doll has also been with her on many adventures, including a number of trips to Australia.

“This year, I’m going to Europe and America, and Jilly’s coming too,” she tells.

They’ll be accompanied by her Mona Lisa lookalike to visit the painting in the Louvre in Paris. The trip also includes travelling to the UK. So, Jill’s also taking along her Hilda Ogden doll to visit the Coronation Street set.

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During lockdown, she used a number of the lookalikes in her work. They were a fun way to engage the students at the start of online classes.

“My Year 7 social studies students had to guess which famous person each one was and then research their background.”

Those included Florence Nightingale, Kate Sheppard, Marilyn Monroe and a Princess Kate she’d modelled on a Weekly cover photo from May 2018, with the royal carrying baby Prince Louis in her arms.

“It was a great way to get people talking,” recalls Jill, who as a child loved the Muppets and was fascinated by the puppet characters.

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The Weekly inspired Jill’s royal Kate doll!

To fabricate her tiny treasues, Jill uses doll velour for the body, carefully sewing with a 40-year-old Globe machine her sister gifted her.

“I love doing the fine-feature stuff like sculpting the face freehand with needles and thread to help make the expressions. I look at lots of pictures to get it right for each individual.”

Jill creates nails using drops of a 3D gel, and inside the tiny fingers she puts chenille sticks so they bend into shape to hold items.

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“That means for the videos I can position them doing activities,” she says.

To help create the sets for the photos and videos, she’s gathered accessories in doll furniture and clothing sales, which she keeps locked in a shipping container on her driveway.

“Family and friends tease me that I’m studying people’s faces to make a doll, but I don’t mind. I enjoy sharing what I do with others. It’s fun and I love that it brings a smile to people’s faces.”

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