Excerpted from
Pioneer Press
Thursday, May 20, 1993

Couple creates custom dolls
By Mike Isaacs, Staff Writer

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In the corner of Cary and Marie Green’s living room are the faces.
   They are faces with eyes that bear witness to the couple’s newest business. The dolls that the Greens create in the basement of their Skokie home are not just any dolls. They are customized and personalized with pictures of real faces and the memories that go along with them.
   “I enjoy this because we’re providing love for people,” Marie says. “I imagine someone opening up a gift and finding that doll and I know the joy that that brings. That’s why this is so special."
   Both Marie and Cary agree that the personalized dolls hold a special place in their hearts. Their original T-shirt business continues.    Customers bring in photographs and the couple transfers them to T-shirts.
While several mall stores have offered similar services, the work that the Greens do is of higher technical quality. The photographs on the shirts are clear and sharp and they fade very little after repeated washings		   That same technical quality is used in creating the dolls.
   Cary Green originally worked in his family’s screen printing business until it was sold seven years ago. He found his way in the T-shirt business, and two years ago, he started the personalized doll business.
   The original idea for the dolls came from Cary and his sister, Carol.
   A participant in an encounter group, Cary’s sister was given the assignment to bring in a doll that would be used as her “inner child.” She asked her brother to make it a personalized doll that included her own face, and the new business was born.
   Customers send their photographs to the Greens, who turn them into the faces of personalized dolls. The miniature bodies are dressed in one of several outfits, including jogging suits, bunnies, dresses, jeans, bride and groom, or teddy bear form.
   Customers buy the dolls for therapeutic reasons, to “heal the		  

inner child”, as novelty gifts, or for special occasions, such as births,weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, and of course, holidays such as Mother’s Day and Christmas.
   "I’m someone who believes that their work should do some good and more than just make money,” Cary says. “These dolls make people feel good.”
   The dolls are child-safe, handcrafted and soft. The Greens will tell you that they take about an hour to create. But what they will not tell you is exactly how the dolls are created. And they will not show you their basement, which is filled with equipment and material.
   “When people see our equipment, we make them sign a form to assure that they will not disclose the process,” Cary says.
   Instead, their living room has become a showroom of these dolls – dolls of all sizes and shapes.
   The Greens are cooking up some new marketing plans for the dolls, and will attend more craft fairs this summer to promote them.

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