Kingsland artist Kristen Peel transforms darling dolls into hair-raising horrors
Kristen Peel displays some of her latest deadly dolls along with a 'mummified' skeleton she made from mass-produced plastic bones bought at an after-Halloween sale, her second favorite day of the year. Staff photo by Suzanne Freeman
Kingsland resident, artist, and crafter Kristen Peel’s newest creations are absolutely horrifying — and extremely popular.
“I’ve always made things and sold them, but this has really exploded,” she said, cradling in her palm a doll version of Chucky, the pint-size villain from the horror franchise “Child’s Play.” “I have a whole set of the ‘Beetlejuice’ characters shipping out to New York tomorrow.”
She calls them her “babies,” plastic, diapered dolls from dollar stores that she cuts, melts, bloodies, stabs, and dismembers to create the creepy cast of characters from her favorite horror movies.
Peel unleashed her obsession when she made the “big five” — slashers Jason, Michael, Pinhead, Freddy, and Leatherface — for friend and fellow horror movie buff Rusty Brown of Granite Shoals for his birthday last year.
“He’s the one who inspired me and told me to keep going,” she said. “I’ve sold almost all of my babies as fast as I make them.”
Some dolls she refuses to sell because she gets attached or they are so freaky they scare even her.
Peel made only one Regan MacNeil from the 1973 movie “The Exorcist.” She gave her to Brown and left it at that.
She also made only one Emily Rose from the 2005 film “The Exorcism of Emily Rose.” Brown has that one, too.
“That movie messed me up,” Peel said. “I played it in the DVD player, and then my DVD player wouldn’t play anything other than that one movie.”
She threw away the player but kept the DVD.
A major point of pride in production is that no doll ever looks the same, even if it is a repeat character. Each has its own appalling appeal and personality.
A series of Jason Voorhees dolls represents different scenes in the 12-film “Friday the 13th” franchise that began in 1980.
“All the babies I do I base on the ’80s and ’90s, except for Art the clown from the ‘Terrifier’ (2016),” Peel said. “I grew up with those movies, and I’ve seen all of them many times.”
As a child, her favorite TV shows were “Tales from the Crypt” and “Goosebumps.”
She especially loves terrifying clowns, which are among her bestsellers. Along with the slasher superstars, her many versions of Pennywise the clown from the Stephen King mini-series and movie “It” sell as soon as she posts them on her Facebook page. She also sells at weekend markets in Bertram, Burnet, and Llano.
“I sold out in Llano three times,” she said, adding that this was over the summer, with Halloween a seemingly endless heatwave away.
Speaking of Halloween, it should be no surprise that the hair-raising holiday has always been Peel’s favorite. Her daughters, Dakotah and Korina Saugstad, ages 11 and 10 respectively, share her passion for the spookier side of All Hallow’s Eve. Each year, the girls make two costumes: one for their annual Halloween party at home and one deemed appropriate for school.
Last year, Dakotah broke form and chose a purchased inflatable dinosaur for her non-frightening costume. The venture paid off. She won the dance contest at Wakepoint LBJ in Kingsland.
Korina’s “for-public-consumption” costume was her own creation, Tin Girl, a young female version of the Tin Man from “The Wizard of Oz.” She won best costume in the kids’ contest.
Peel’s husband, Cody, is a different story. He does not share in this love of all things ghostly and ghastly. He’s also the reason she started selling the dolls. He doesn’t like them around the house.
“He does not watch scary movies at all and he does not like my babies,” she said. “When I do my full bloody makeup for Halloween, he won’t even look at me. I’m like, ‘It’s just honey!’ but he freaks out.”
What he does appreciate is her cooking, another of her varied interests. Peel cooks like an artist. Her painterly platings are as delicious to see as they are to eat.
A longtime resident of Kingsland, Peel’s neighborhood reputation goes beyond her Halloween parties and the “dead bodies” she sometimes leaves at the end of her driveway. (The last one got its head and boots stolen!)
For several years she owned and operated Country Girl Hauling, contracting to haul trash to the dump in pink trailers. While picking up paying jobs, she also added roadside trash to her landfill loads.
“I have a passion for cleaning up Kingsland and fighting illegal dumping,” she said. “I was the only hauling company that loaded my trailers. That was a big help for older people who couldn’t do it themselves.”
Picking up illegally dumped trash got to be too expensive — she had to pay to take it to the dump.
“Also, it got to be a thing to leave trash at the end of my driveway once people figured out what I was doing,” she said. “One day, someone left three king-size mattresses.”
A leg injury that required surgery forced her out of the trash-hauling business and focused her attention on “making things I can sell,” she said.
She also loves dogs and has four that have the run of the place and her heart. Her call to the Llano County Sheriff’s Office in June 2019 when she came across a home with 10 emaciated dogs helped save the animals from starvation. Stories on the arrest of a Kingsland man for cruelty to animals ran on DailyTrib.com and KXAN news.
Peel has a second favorite time of year: the days after Halloween, when spooky decorations move to the bargain bins. Last year, she picked up 300 Jason masks for 35 cents each. She’s not yet sure what she’ll do with them, but they will not be resold as is. The masks are carefully stored in plastic bins with all of the orange, yellow, and black fabrics, yarns, ribbons, and knick-knacks she will eventually use for more Halloween decorations.
Plastic bones, figurines, and holiday candy dishes are wrapped in a top-secret material and painted to look like monstrous creatures. Storage bins of full-size skeletons await their turn to be made into mummies and monsters.
Many of her dolls come in sets, such as all 13 of the “Thirteen Ghosts” and the entire cast of “Beetlejuice,” which recently sold. When told that “Beetlejuice” the musical had just closed on Broadway but was now in production in Broadway Across America, she looked concerned.
“I hope the person who bought them doesn’t break up the set,” she said. “They belong together.”
Always the worried “Mother!” (2017).
For a deeper dive into baby-doll darkness, visit Facebook.com/Mrs.Kristen.Peel.