Matching Dresses

My daughter had been begging me to make a dress for her, so I let her pick out material and I made her a dress for her birthday.  I decided to use a shift dress pattern, because she complains if her dresses are too puffy or ruffly unless they are princess costumes.

(Can you find my belly?) This post would be better if she was wearing the dress.
Then I surprised her with matching dresses for two of her dolls. This was her birthday after all. This doll is an knock off American Girl Doll, so that size, and the internet gives a few free options for patterns. She is indeed a beloved doll.

This is Blythe, from Littlest Pet Shop, and was new for her birthday.  She is about four inches tall, and less than 2 inches wide. The dress has obvious flaws at that small of size.

Mayflower

My kids made boats at Home Depot in the beginning of the month. I commandeer one of the boats, and added some peg doll pilgrims and Indians I made.

The Indian princess ended up with a massive amount of hair. 

I really like my indian boy. 

And my pilgrim girl, I love her bonnet. 

Red Riding Hood Doll

When my daughter was  almost two we made her the most adorable red riding hood costume. Ever since I've wanted to make a matching doll with the scraps. Finally this summer my mom and I did it. It was an interesting experiment as my sister in law Brittany can attest to.

Nan was so excited she got out her old cape. She has never played with a handmade doll immediately normally they have to sit on a shelf for a month or two until she will love them. 

I'll be honest I hope to never make this child a homemade doll again, because how many handmade dolls does one child need?

Mod Kids

While my mom was here for the new baby, we stopped at the small quilt shop in my town and bought mod kid dolls on clearance. They had a finished dolly and my daughter asked to buy them. They were printed on the material and you had to sew them up.  It seemed like an easy job.  Not really I'm not quite sure when I'm going to learn that sewing dolls is never easy.  Then we made them little dresses from this pattern. We used fleece for their dresses so we wouldn't have to hem any seams. 

Hopefully one day she will play with them.  For some reason she doesn't play with homemade dolls until they have sat in her room for at least three months.  Today she did get jealous when a friend was over and wanted to play with them, I guess that is a good sign that one day my mom's work won't be in vain.

Mermaidens

My husband is a stellar man and suggested we visit my parents a few weeks ago, so five days later we were in the car.  While I was at my mom's we of course did a bit of sewing.  One of our projects was these mermaidens: 

It is easy to let my mom do all the creative work when doing a craft with her, but I was determined to pull my share of the weight.  I thought these little girls were intensive to make, my mom said as far as dolls go these were fairly easy.  Phew, good to know, for future reference.  Also I should point out I'm terrible at symmetrical free motion sewing, but I already knew this.  Also one of their fins got terrible messed up and my mom had to finish it for me, after me unpicking it three times, and a attempting it twice.
They are cute fun dolls, I'm glad I made them for my daughter, but even gladder my mom helped me.
And please no one look at my free motion sewing.

Dragon Hide Dolly Blanket

When my son was a baby, his Aunt Teresa made him a green silky blanket with the soft raised polka dots on the other side.  I have no idea what that material is called, and my husband told my son years ago that it was from a dragon, it is call the dragon hide blanket.  My daughter loves silky soft things, so she always wants the blanket, and yet my son refuses.  We had a brown scrap from my mom, and then we had a pink scrap of some sort of silky stuff, and tah tad, we have another dragon hide blanket, a little more girly this time. (Three pieces pieced together.)  After watching How to Train a Dragon we know that dragons are more colors than just green.  

This blanket is only big enough for a doll.

She is a very conscientious mother.

Mini Purse

I made a mini purse for my daughter's dolly dress, out of the pockets that I cut off the dress.  Nan loves the little purse, and yes, it looks that bad in real life.

The picture is out of focus, and she has water down her dress, but still she loves the purse.

And the dolly.

Black Apple Dolls

I've been wanting to make some Black Apple Dolls for a while now. I showed my mom the Martha tutorial, she said lets do it now.  I also showed her my favorite set on Inside a black apple blog, of a doll and her bear.  She said lets do it again, I hadn't thought about the possibility of making a bear myself, I just wished she had one for sale on her etsy site. But here are the finished dolls, of Nan dolly, and her bear.

Sure they aren't quite as great as the real thing, but she did the tutorial with Martha so you don't have to feel guilty at all about making them. Not to mention most of her things for sale is her art, not dolls.  I really love some of the art, like Red Riding Hood, do you think Nan will dress up in a red cape for Halloween one year?  I hope. It would be super great if I could get J in a wolf costume, but I won't hold my breath. 

She loves the dolls like all dolls. (These pictures are not posed.)

She loves them and its perfect, because she is in a Goldilocks stage of life.  (You know consuming everything anyone has to give.) Here is a close up of the Nan doll, with her short yellow/goldilock bob. Unfortunately her close up doesn't show her stripy legs/tights.

  

The bear's close up, if I were to do it again, I would use two layers of brown for her face, so the stuffing doesn't get poky.  But I love her crochet collar, we cut it of a handkerchief/doily.

She really loves the bear so much, my mom also made a set of dolls and while we were in Texas, Nan would carry both bears around.

Dolly Dolly

I made my daughter some peg dolls, because I knew she would love them, and she does, the minute I saw them on this blog. My favorite is the redhead on the far right, she has the best hair, and dress. I was surprised at how much the permanent markers bled in the wood grain. They were fun and easy to make. Just took permanent markers and material scraps and hot glue. Since we are on the topic, I love these peg dolls, so fun. I can tell I could have more fun if I painted instead of sharpieing.

Vee gifts

Long story, short, or not told at all. I decided it was high time to make my son the goldbug I've been planning to do for a year. You know goldbug, from Richard Scarry's Busytown.  I had no idea what I was doing when I started. I just randomly cut, and sewed. Then I unpicked, and sewed some more. His antennas have a pipe cleaner in them to give them shape. One leg is quite a bit longer than the other but that's what you get with homemade toys, made by me. Not to mention his head/face is lopsided. I was laughing about it to my husband, and he said that's ok that how he looks in the book.

I decided to give it to him as a Valentine present, because for one he already had enough birthday presents. And for two, I wanted to try my hand at making doll rattles for the girl. And I thought he would appreciate getting something handmade when she got something. She isn't quite old enough yet, but soon. They are kind of ugly, but it was a first attempt, without a pattern. Sadly enough I made the green one second, but yet its the worst. They match her baby quilt.

Then I felt bad, that my husband didn't have a valentines present and the kids did. Since he is quite literally my valentine (his birthday), I decided to just make something stupid and stuffed for him, like the kids got. Sadly, his present is made with scraps. But true nonetheless.

Lastly, I made myself a present, but I didn't wrap, mine up. A valentines apron. Once again, I didn't buy trim so I had to look at what I had, and what I had was left over pink satin quilt binding trim. So that's what won.

A holiday of homemade. I should take the handmade challenge for valentines I could accomplish that! J is going to think that February is just as excited as December. Cake, cookies, presents multiple days in a row. And snow! blah, that's the most depressing part of Valentine's Day. By the way, I do think Valentine's is a stupid holiday. But I do love the valentines candy, much better actually than Christmas candy. Other than the candy and cookies its good for nothing. I never once celebrated Valentine's Day with a boyfriend, I never even had a date on Valentines until I got married. But part of the fun of kids is doing fun things on all the holidays I think. Anyway. By the way, since my husband's birthday is on the 14th, we've always celebrated valentine's day on the 15th. Some may wonder why we even celebrate, after 4 years I do, seems like his birthday is the perfect excuse to ignore it. I think it has something to do with being newlyweds 4 years ago, and just be so excited to have a date on Valentine's Day. I really couldn't tell you why, I can't even remember why. Probably has to do, with I really wanted these kissing frogs from Hallmark, so my husband planned to buy them for me, but on Valentine's Day we got about 4 feet of snow, so even with skipping class, and only going to work, he spent the whole day other than work, and pie shoving the neighborhood. Ahh, to be young and in love, I doubt my husband would still go down to the hallmark store to pick up stuff animals, and I doubt I would even ask for them anymore.