Evette "Evie" Monetti (a.k.a. "The Wednesday We Have at Home") - Custom Lila Monetti, Girl of the Year 2024
- Jul 12
- 5 min read
I enjoy lurking around on r/americangirl from time to time. Sometimes I learn really useful and obscure tips about American Girl dolls, like how to tell if a doll's vinyl is leeching plasticizer. Sometimes I marvel at amazing restorations or incredible secondhand finds. And sometimes, I see astute observations that make me go, "Oh snap! Yeah, I see it!" That's exactly what happened when I saw this thread by Reddit user, "callmeselinakyle." They noticed that Wednesday kind of looks like Lila's "goth sister."
Seeing the two side by side, I began to wonder if you could take a Lila doll and turn her into a Wednesday doll. While I do love Wednesday the series and grew up enjoying the '90's Addams Family movies and reruns of the original series, I've never been a huge fan of Wednesday the character. I'm more of a Morticia or Enid fan. That said, I've always thought the American Girl Wednesday doll was so pretty... just not pretty enough to justify the nearly $300 price tag.
But seeing some of her similarities to Lila got me thinking... I still had unused AG gift cards (I'd anticipated the 40th anniversary of American Girl having better offerings), and there was a 4th of July sale going on. Lila was also conveniently one of the dolls on sale. But what set me over the tipping point was the fact that I was really craving more fun things to look forward to. The situation with my beloved cat is really hard, and it's nice to have things that take my mind off of everything temporarily.
I decided to go for it. Lila was ordered, the rest of my gift cards and rewards points were spent, and next it was time to start looking for a wig. I made mockups of Lila wearing a couple different third party wigs, but none of them were just right. One would've needed bangs somehow cut in, and two others had bangs but would likely need to be thinned out. My mom suggested I look for a Truly Me #130 wig, but after a few searches on eBay and Mercari, I realized that was easier said than done. Still, I decided to keep checking daily to see if one might show up.
One morning, just as I thought I'd made up my mind to get one of the third party wigs, a TM130 wig finally appeared on eBay! I grabbed it immediately! It and Lila arrived just a few days later. The situation kind of reminded me of when I made my Ariel custom. Both the doll and the wig arrived on the same day then, too.
The last time I removed a wig, I used a little too much brute force and strained my hand so badly, it took over a month to fully heal. This time, I tried a different method I'd seen some customizers use -- pliers. What a gamechanger! I started by using my trusty flat spoon to help me pry up some of the loose edges of the Lila wig. Then, I used the pliers to grab and twist slightly, pulling the glue beyond its breaking point. Not only did this method make the wig removal go much faster, the next day, my hand was completely fine! I wish I'd tried this way sooner!
Before putting Not!Wednesday's new wig on, I decided to tackle her lips. The crazy thing about lip repainting is that sometimes it goes incredibly smoothly, and sometimes it takes the wackiest turns. I've written all about my past lip repainting adventures here. This time I felt weirdly confident. I'd accidentally made some of the past lip colors too purple, so surely I'd have an easier time recreating Wednesday's plum lip color, right?
Nope! As it turns out, even Wednesday's lips can be too purple. The color I'd mixed looked great wet, but as it dried, it became a little more blue and a little darker. Taking that into consideration, I used a magic eraser to remove all of the paint, then mixed a new color that was a little lighter and more red.
I'd also noticed that on the first attempt, adding water was making the mixture more streaky, even after doing multiple coats. For the second attempt, I decided to use more of the floating medium and absolutely no water. That worked incredibly well. Even if there were noticeable brushstrokes as I applied the paint, as the paint dried, it flattened into a beautiful, uniform finish. Why didn't I do this sooner?!
The new color took several mixing attempts to get right, but as I began to paint it on, I knew it would turn out just the right shade I was looking for. On the plate, it looked like more of a brick red, but as it dried on the doll, it became the plum color I was hoping for -- very close to the actual Wednesday doll's shade. I decided to add a protective clear coat once the lip color was fully dried as well. The gloss coat was a little tricky, because for whatever reason, the formula likes to try to take up the color under it, no matter how long I wait for the paint to dry. I think I managed to minimize any smearing pretty well.
Once the doll's lips were dry, I pulled her new Truly Me #130 wig on. Truly Me #130 is a Jess mold, so the wig is a very tight fit on a larger Josefina mold head. I decided to pull it as close to the rough remnants of the Lila wig as possible and let it sit overnight to hopefully stretch out a bit.
The next morning, I made a few tweaks to its position, then carefully began adding superglue around all of the edges to set it into place. Usually, I like to use tacky glue on the crown of the head and then add more tacky glue or superglue to the edges, but it was so difficult to get the wig on correctly, I didn't want to add another layer of difficulty. Besides, the wig was already staying pretty well with no glue, so I figured just superglue around the edges would be plenty. The wig is currently curing for 24 hours, and then I plan to try out a few hairstyles and see if she needs the Wednesday-like braids, too.
Overall, I am so incredibly happy with how she turned out! She's such a beautiful doll, and I think I might actually like her look better than the real Wednesday! I always prefer the black/brown mix wigs to the almost blue-black ones. And I think Lila's freckle pattern looks a little nicer than Wednesday's more sparse look.
I decided to name my not-a-Wednesday "Evette 'Evie' Monetti." Keeping "Monetti" as her last name was a given for me. She'll be Marina (Lila)'s cousin. I liked the sound of "Evette" and "Evie" as a nickname -- probably because I like the character, Evie, from The Mummy. I also really like that "Evette" is derived from the French version, "Yvette," which is connected to the "resilient, strong, and long-living yew tree." Right now, with everything going on with my sweet cat, I feel like I've had to be pretty resilient and strong (and he definitely has, too). Maybe when life is feeling extra life-y, I can look over at Evie and think of her cheering Darcy, my husband, and me on. "You've got this. You're strong and resilient. Be like the yew tree." Right now, every little bit helps. ♥
Welcome, Evie! Thanks for adding a little happiness to my weekend.
