Hazel fell in love with American Girl's Girl of the Year 2010, Lanie Holland. She of course is retired since she was only available in 2010. However we found her on ebay. I had gotten Hazel Lanie's meet outfit, computer and pet rabbit to use with one of her other dolls, but we couldn't get the doll's hair to curl like Lanie's, so she used some money her grandmother had given her to get her own. The Lanie doll we found on ebay and won was naked, so Hazel could not wait to get her dressed. The dress I had bought did not come with her headband or shoes. I decided to make Lanie a headband since the headbands on ebay were running around $15 plus shipping.
With the warm weather Hazel likes to wear her hair up. With the school uniforms, I wanted to have something nice to put in it that would match the uniforms. Her school colors and uniforms are navy, yellow and white. I bought a package of hair elastics and some ribbons of those colors. Joann Fabrics has the ribbons for fifty cents a spool. I started making what I am calling hair streamers. I bought her ones similar to this to match a dress at Gymboree. They were literally a bunch of ribbons folded over the elastic and sewn into place. I knew I could do this.
I cut two of each color and folded them in half and sewed them together on my machine. Very easy!! Hazel loves them and has been getting many compliments on them.
For the bows, I took the three colors and wound them several times around my hand. Then I took a piece of one (I chose navy) and wrapped it around the center of the other ribbons and the elastic. I sewed the ends of this ribbon and then I sewed down the center of it so the bow could not pull out on either side.
Again she loves them and has been getting compliments on them!!
Now putting up her hair is easy each morning and I am not searching for matching elastics and if I put ribbons in they are not falling out before we get to school. A perfect and cheap solution!
A few weeks ago I bought Hazel some sandals for her 18-inch dolls. A couple of weeks ago we went to a birthday party at the American Doll Store and now we are going back next week to celebrate my birthday with my mother-in-law. Hazel has been getting into dressing her dolls a bit more, so we decided to try to make our own sandals. The owner of the store where I bought the sandals told me his sister-in-law made them after looking up how to on-line, so I began looking. There are many different tutorials out there. Here is what we did.
Somewhat following the tutorials I saw on line and playing around, I made three pairs (somewhat successfully) of sandals in different styles. I also had one disaster, but learned a lot from it. To get a pattern it is best to trace the dolls feet. Our dolls are not American Girl dolls, but here is the pattern I came up with. (Click on picture for the pdf form of it.)
I found it helpful to label the top of the feet not to mix them up or make reversed cuts. I wrote the name of the doll whose feet I traced. I happened to use Hazel's Hazel doll. Now you cut this pattern out of craft foam. I wanted to find thicker craft foam, but had trouble. I did however find some thick foam white ghosts and black spiders at A.C. Moore. I bought two of each. If you do not have the thicker foam, you can use more thinner layers (I would use a total of five or six after my experiences). With the thicker foam you will have three layers--one of the thicker foam and two regular craft foam thickness (a top and bottom). I mostly used sparkly foam for the top layer, but it does not matter. After cutting the foam, you glue the top to the thick layer or if not using thick layer, glue the top and two or three of the middle layers. If using only thin layers you want a few layers on top before gluing the ribbons to the bottom (or the ribbons can rip the top layer and yes, I had it happen). Then all the sandals or at least most I saw have some form of stretchy ankle ring to make sure the shoe is not lost if it falls off. You can add beads to it or not. A thin piece of ribbon holds the ankle ring onto the shoe. You glue this ribbon--both ends with the loop strung onto it-- onto the bottom of your glued layers. Next you measure the ribbon for the top part of the shoe and glue it on. I also remeasure after I have glued it on to make sure it will fit correctly.
Depending on the style you are doing, you may want to adjust this step. To do what I call the crisscross sandals, you first glue a ribbon folded in half and linked onto the ankle ring the length of the shoe and then put the crosses through it.
Or if you are using a wider ribbon and want to shape it or shape any ribbon more bow like, you can tie the ribbon with the ankle ring and use beads if you want.
My tutorial pictures are however for the simpler form of just having a ribbon going across the top. Hazel and I each made more pairs for the tutorial which are drying now.
After the ribbon layer is glued on and attached if it is going to be to the ankle ring, I put a piece of tape over the glued areas just to hold it until it dries. Next glue on the bottom layer and clamp it with clothespins. Let it sit for a few hours or overnight for the glue to dry. If you want to hide your layers you can glue a ribbon of equal or less width around the edge of the shoes. You need to pin or hold until the glue sticks. You can buy special foam glue. I did not and used my regular Aleene's Original Tacky Glue. I will share our other two pairs after they are dry and finished. If you have questions about my tutorial, let me know.
Her dolls seem happy with the new sandals and playing my models.
If you are looking for more doll clothes and craft ideas check out:
Sharing Saturday is still open for you to share your child-oriented crafts and activities or to be inspired by the amazing ones already shared!
As we approach the holiday season, I found out that we need to supply some things for the amazing holiday fair at Hazel's school, Cape Ann Waldorf School. At the fair they have a Wee Folk Shop where the young children (through second grade) can "shop" for a certain number of tickets they get to go into a room that is set up with silks hanging from the ceiling making it more their size and wonderful gifts to "buy" and then have an elf wrap for them. The idea is for them to get a gift for a family member, but in reality they get themselves a gift. Last year Hazel got a barrette (don't know why since she won't wear one) and a needle felted sheep. She went into it twice. Every family in the Early Childhood Program at the school is asked to donate at least 20 items to the Wee Folk Shop. There is also a Pocket Lady. Basically it is a person who wears a dress with pockets everywhere and a child can use one ticket to pick a gift from any pocket. These gifts are meant to be small and can be something like a marble or stone or shell or something small that is homemade. All are suppose to be Waldorf type of gifts and we were asked to wrap these in tissue paper. Every family in the school is asked to donate at least 20 Pocket Lady gifts as well.
With Hazel sick the last few days, I needed something to work on where I could sit next to her, so I made some of these gifts. I needle felted some acorns and used the acorn tops we have been finding. I also needle felted some lady bugs. Oh, and I needle felted a jack o' lantern for Hazel (see above). And of course I made extra acorns and an extra lady bug so Hazel could have some as well. I used the double and triple caps for Hazel.
We also used some stones, pine cones, and shells that Hazel has and Hazel helped me wrap them all.
In the end, we ended up with 40 Pocket Lady gifts and bagged them in groups of 20 (which we were asked to do).
For the Wee Folk Shop I needle felted some snowmen. I saw a cute one at Better Homes and Gardens. I made mine a bit more plain in that Waldorf way of using your imagination.
At the Pumpkin Patch Holiday Fair, I saw some of the cutest ribbon barrettes. Some were Disney princesses (I may try these for Hazel's birthday) and some were snails and animals. I googled, and checked Pinterest and found some tutorials and some ideas. I made a couple of simple bows. Then I tried some flowers. And I attempted the snails (which I fell in love with at the fair). I have more to make, but wanted to share these. They are so easy to do with glue, ribbon and barrettes. I also had two unused headbands sitting around from our teddy bear picnic and I had some wool felt flowers I bought awhile ago on clearance and just sewed them onto the headbands. They are cute as well.
So here are the first 10 of my Wee Folk Shop contributions. I will be making some more, but thought I would share what I have been up to. Enjoy!!
We have had pumpkin on the brain. Did you know pumpkins are a member of the vine crop family called cucurbits? How about the name pumpkin comes from the Greek word "pepon" meaning large melon? Or pumpkins are 90% water and their flowers are edible? Or pumpkins originated in Central America? Or in 1883 the US Supreme Court officially determined a tomato and a pumpkin are vegetables. Botanically speaking they are fruit because they have seeds. (Source: Pumpkin Fact Sheet from Topsfield Fair)
We baked the other two pumpkins after using the smallest one in our Harvest Soup for Michaelmas. Then we needed to find time to do some baking. Finally this weekend, we found some time. We started with pumpkin muffins. We started with this recipe from All Recipes. I cut the recipe in half since I did not want to make 36 muffins and made a few changes.
We did not have any raisins so we skipped those. We used 2 cups of whole wheat flour and 3/4 cup of oatmeal. We were low on sugar, so we used 2 cups of brown sugar very lightly packed. We used a teaspoon of all the powders that called for 1 1/2 and used 15 ounces of pumpkin puree from our pumpkins. Otherwise we followed the recipe by cutting in half. They came out delicious!
We also made some pumpkin crafts. Today I will share the ones we made out of ribbon and paper. We tried the paper ones last year and as I was looking at the ribbons this year, I thought how fun would those be, so I tried them.
You start with four equal in length piece of ribbon (I found the wired ones work best), two brass brads, some brown and green construction paper and some glue. To start find the approximate center of one ribbon and stick a brad through it and then add the other three ribbons in similar fashion and close the brad. Then bend the ribbons up and taking the outside ribbon first stick each end into the second brad until all the ribbon edges are secured. Close the brad and turn your pumpkin over. Now you can add your stem, leaves and tendrils. See below for that tutorial. For an easier version for kids, the paper works since you can punch the holes where the brads go (three holes in each strip). Otherwise the instructions are the same.
To make the stem, take a strip of brown construction paper and roll it. Put a little glue to secure the edge. Cut the leaves from the green construction paper. I cut mine on a fold so the two leaves would be one piece. Then take a very thin strip of the green paper and roll it around a pencil tightly to curl it for the tendril. A piece of curling ribbon could also be used.
Then you just glue the leaves and tendrils together and then onto your pumpkin and then glue the stem. Hold the stem for a bit for the glue to set and then leave it alone until it dries.
If you use ribbon without wire, you may need to add some support on the inside to get your pumpkin to stand up on its own. I used a rolled piece of orange construction paper in the top left one and the one directly underneath it shows you the pumpkin without it. Well that is enough pumpkin for tonight, but stay tuned. I will share more tomorrow!!
