Mum makes thousands creating ‘Demented Darling’ horror dolls so terrifying people think they are haunted

A mother of one who has made thousands of pounds selling online homemade horror dolls which terrify her husband, has said she is “shocked” at how popular they are.

Angela Baldwin, 37, has bought hundreds of dolls from second-hand stores and turned them into the stuff of nightmares for fun through her “creepifying process” – which involves adding blemishes, stitches and even pouring hot glue on their faces.

She began making the frightening figures more than a decade ago, taking pictures of them in the woods around her rural home in Plain City, Ohio, and posting them online on Facebook under the name “Demented Darlings”.

Some of them are the size of her two-year-old daughter Merida and have animatronics, meaning they can move or talk ‘on their own’.

While Angela, who runs a baking business, said her daughter enjoys playing with her freaky dolls, her husband Justin, 39, is not convinced.

“When he first saw them, my husband joked that he was going to cover them with a bible at night just in case,” she said.

“I’ve had people ask if they are actually haunted or do they come with a spirit.

“I’m like ‘no, they are not haunted, they just look like it.'”

Angela’s creepy hobby started in 2012 when her mother-in-law Brenda Edwards, 63, decided to play a prank on their close friend Allen Hartley, a school bus driver with a fear of dolls.

“He is terrified of dolls so she asked if I could make a couple look a little creepier and then hide them on his school bus,” she said.

“It really scared the daylight out of him, so I guess I did a pretty good job.”

Her mother-in-law was so impressed by her creative talents, she encouraged her to make more and it soon became a full-blown hobby.

Angela has now created more than 200 dolls, some of which are displayed in her home, much to her husband’s dismay.

“We joke that they guard the room where I keep all of my baking supplies,” she said.

“I have to keep them in there because otherwise they freak out my family.”

She began posting pictures of her dolls online and selling them to collectors on eBay, who she describes as her “creepy doll friends”, for between £15 and £60 depending on their size.

“I really didn’t think they would sell but it turns out they are quite popular.

“I have people who send me dolls and ask me to fix them up and send them back.”

To date, Angela has sold around 180 of her demented dolls.

But some of them are not for sale, such as Angela’s favourite called Helena, which was a gift from one of her doll enthusiast friends, Bryan Isch.

“It was a porcelain doll which had been shattered into several pieces,” she said.

“It’s quite a bit larger, about the same size as my two-year-old.

“I glued her back together, then went about the creepifying process – added some little stiches and things like that, to make it look like she had been broken.

The dolls come in handy on Halloween when Angela displays them outside or places them so they are peering out the window.

“I had a couple of delivery guys go nuts over them,” she said.

“They kept looking over at them as if they were making sure that they weren’t moving.

Angela finds most of her dolls in local second-hand stores for just a few dollars, with the key criteria being their “personality” and “facial expression”.

She then scours the internet to find a suitable name before heading out to the woods in search of a “creepy spot” to photograph them.

Asked whether she is scared of her own creations, Angela said “the only ones that really scare me are the clowns.

“Everybody really loves them though, so I gave in and made a few, but they really freaked me out.

“I make sure to find them new homes as quick as possible.”

She has also “splurged” on dolls with animatronics, which can move their heads, speak a few words or light up.

While some children would jump out of their skins, her daughter is not afraid of her mother’s creepy doll collection.

“She thinks they are funny and likes playing with one them, but my husband jokes that he’s not sure she should be playing with that,” she said.

Angela’s creepy creations are not for everyone, however, with some people commenting “why would you do this?” or “this is going to give me nightmares”.

But she said her hobby is just “for fun” and that if her dad, Howard Downing, who was a church pastor, can find them amusing then surely it is harmless.

“Even my dad thought they were hilarious, so you just have to have a good sense of humour about it,” she said.

Part of the fun is pranking other people, such as Angela’s brother Nathan Downing who is scared of them.

“Every now and then I’ll leave one under his car to freak him out,” she said.

Each doll takes between three and four days to make as Angela follows a rigorous process which can involve using hot glue to make it look like they have melted, dying their hair and shredding their clothes.