DIY Doll Beds and Tiny Quilts

Ryan's nieces love their American Girl dolls, so I wanted to make them something for Christmas that their dolls could use. Their dolls already have millions of outfits. Why not furniture? I came across lots of ideas including this picnic table, which I'm also dying to make. Ultimately, I decided on these farmhouse beds from Ana White. 

For our first wood project together, I would say that Ryan and I did a pretty rockin' job. And we did it for only $20 each! I'll break down the cost at the end of the post. I also made my first quilt ever. Actually, two. They may have been mini, but that's two mini victories for me.

One niece likes pink and the other likes purple. I spent a long time in the fabric store choosing fabrics to go together. So long in fact, that some woman asked me for help, because she thought I worked there.

 The beds fit 18" dolls.

The reverse side of the quilts are awfully cute too.

We used step by step instructions for the farmhouse bed from Ana White's blog. If you've never been to her site, you have got to check it out! She is incredibly talented, a lumber goddess really. The best part of it all is that she makes it easy for you to build beautiful things too. Go to her site, you'll see.

A couple of things we did differently from Ana White's instructions. We only used four panels in the headboard and foot board (with five slots it was wider than we needed). Also, to save money, we used thick cardboard (instead of plywood) to support the mattress.

The beds coming together.

My man hard at work. We realized that we desperately need a larger work space if we're going to do more projects like this in the future. Somehow he made it work with just the top of his tool chest and two not-so-sturdy sawhorses.

Once Ryan finished putting the beds together, I used wood filler on the screw holes then sanded the whole bed down. I then primed and painted the beds with some paint I had leftover from the antique dresser and hutch.

Now for the bedding. Remember I'm no expert. But I'll try to explain how I made the doll quilts.

DIY: Vintage Dictionary Flowers

I bought a dictionary from the '50s at the flea market for $3. I bought it with the intent to rip out the pages. Some of you might think that's a crime, and normally I would feel bad about ripping up a book, especially a really old book, but the binding was falling apart and I already have more dictionaries than I need. So I decided to show it a little love and give it new life as these beautiful origami flowers.

I found the tutorial for these flowers over at Folding Trees.

A bonus when making these flowers, you learn new words or come across definitions that are just plain funny (at least to me).

winker n. 1. one who or that which winks 2. Colloq. an eyelash or an eye
(who refers to an eyelash as a winker? "Ouch, I have a winker in my eye!")

fop n. a man who is excessively concerned about his manners and appearance
(Was this the 50's version of a man who's "metro" ?)

foppery n. the manners, actions, dress of a fop

......................................................................................................................................

Now here's my attempt at an origami photo tutorial. I'll try to explain the steps, but if you just follow the pictures you should be good. All of the steps and folds may seem daunting, but once you get the hang of it, it goes fairly quickly.

Start with a book page cut down to a 5" square. 

Bring two corners together to form a triangle. Bring the bottom right corner up to the top corner.

Now bring the left corner up to the top corner, which will leave you with a small diamond.

Old Windows Make It Snow

I bought these old windows at a local garage sale. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with them right away, but I had to have them. When December rolled around I had a vision of a white Christmas. Unfortunately, I now live in Northern California. Chances of snow in my backyard...slim (unless I want to throw my butt in the car and drive up to the mountains). So to bring a little bit of that snowy feeling to my home, I decided to put my window finds to use.

I had the vision and my super stud executed it, while I was getting ready to prepare a "breakfast for dinner" feast for our friends. All that is needed is two distressed windows, some fishing line, a few small nails, and sparkly snowflake ornaments in various sizes (we got ours 4 for $1 at Target). Hammer the nails into the top of the window frame, every few inches (on the side that will be against the wall). Tie strings of fishing line to each snowflake, then hang at varied lengths on the nails. Finish by hanging windows on the wall. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Unfortunately, we are renting so we can't paint the walls. But just imagine how amazing the snowflakes would look on a wall painted something other than off-white: charcoal, teal, espresso, red...I could go on and on. When I find time, I will definitely be painting the frames a better color to pop off of the white walls, because white with white on white = no bueno.

5 Days of Felt : Ruffly Rosette Wreath

Ever since I made the felt dress up dolls, I have been so excited about felt! I hadn't used felt since I was a kid, but lately I've been searching for more adult ways to use it. With all of these great ideas, I've decided to do 5 Days of Felt. I can't promise that they will be five consecutive days, but there will be five days with five fun ways to use felt.

To kick off 5 Days of Felt, I'm sharing this ruffly rosette wreath that I made for my sister's house. I came across the tutorial for the rosette wreath at Domestifluff awhile ago and had been wanting to try it. I also wanted to decorate my sister's house for Christmas since my little nephew had just been born and she was a little busy with the whole newborn thing.

Please forgive the car seat backdrop. My car was the only place with good light. This is the wreath in route to my sister's house. You might be thinking pink?, that's not a traditional Christmas color. But my sister = not so traditional, just one of the many reasons I love her!

Now let me show you how to make it. You'll need: 

  - 12" styrofoam wreath

  - about 2 yards felt (maybe a little less)

  - a box of 200 straight pins

  - 3" circle template

  - pen

DIY Felt Dress Up Dolls

Ryan's twin nieces were turning six and I wanted to make them something special. I came across this idea for felt dress up dolls at Smile and Wave, which also led me to these extremely cute felt dresses by Olivia Mew. I absolutely love the way the dolls turned out! 

I couldn't wait to start cutting out the miniature fashionistas. I headed to Joann's and grabbed a bunch of felt. I hadn't done any crafts with felt in a loooong time. I was surprised to find they even had animal print felt. 

Of course, I had to throw in a little felt wiener dog. We had fun coming up with the accessories. Ryan made the cupcakes and cut the parrots freehand! He never ceases to amaze me.

Rachel was sweet enough to share a template for the dolls in her post. Use this as a jumping off point and then channel your inner fashion designer and run with it.

A hunt through my craft room turned up flower-shaped brads, mini pearls, ribbon, buttons, and lots of little bling. So I went to town adding the finishing touches to the clothes.

Meow! My attempt above at felt cat-eye glasses. Maybe if I had done them in black, they would have looked more like cat-eye glasses and less like a superhero mask.

I would have loved to make even more clothes and accessories. Ryan had to pull me away when I was still cutting out little hairdos and handbags ten minutes before the party was supposed to start. He reminded me that I could make them more wardrobe pieces as a Christmas gift (which is the perfect idea since I'm sure a few pieces will have been sucked up into the vacuum by then). 

Now I know that it's lame to give a dual gift to twins. But with the sandwich board they can each have their own side to dress up dolls. I personalized them with their names. Plus they have twice the wardrobe options so they can swap clothes with each other, doll clothes that is (one of the twins is much taller than the other).

You can choose a different color for the board felt. But I ended up following Rachel's lead and choosing a light gray. No other color worked as well. It's neutral and it allows the brightly colored clothes to pop.

Here's how to make the felt board :

Harry Potter and a DIY Paper Wig

Now I am one of a rare and dying breed...those that have never read any of the Harry Potter books or seen any of the movies. Gasp, I know. And it just so happens that Ryan and I were invited to a Harry Potter-themed Halloween party. What's a girl (with no Harry Potter knowledge) to do? Google it.

We decided on Gilderoy Lockhart for Ryan. One rented 3-piece suit and a carefully styled wig later...

When it came to me the first suggestion was Madame Maxime. She's a French teacher...I'm a French teacher, she has a brunette bob...I have a brunette bob. My research revealed that she is mighty tall. Ryan's suggestion: "Just walk around on stilts." Um...I was definitely not committed enough to the character to risk a broken ankle.

Then we came across Sybill Trelawney, Professor of Divination. Big coke bottle glasses, hippy attire, and long wild hair. Now that's a costume I could put together.

Call me weird, but I refused to wear a wig from the costume rental store. The wigs I looked at had bobby pins and leaves still in them from the last customer. Scenarios ran through my mind of how someone ends up with leaves in their wig. No thank you. 

The used wig was out. Store-bought wigs were pricey. I had made a paper wig in the past while working at a summer camp for kids. Trelawney's crazy hair would be easy to make out of paper. It's really simple, let me show you...

All you need is a hot glue gun, scissors, paper of your choice, and a beanie. The first time I made a paper wig, I didn't use a beanie. I simply made a skull-cap by holding butcher paper over my head and wrapping masking tape around, then trimming it.

Since Trelawney's hair is sort of a brushed out perm, I wanted to give the paper texture. This paper crimper did just that.

After running sections of paper through the crimper, I cut them into strips. Next, I folded the strips accordion style.

The last step is to glue the pieces to your beanie (or paper cap). 

DIY Lady Owl Costume

I was determined to make my own costume this year...on the cheap. The materials for this little owl costume ended up costing less than twenty dollars! I'm so happy with how it turned out and it was so easy. Anybody could do it and it would be great adapted for kids or even babies (how cute would a Onesie with these little fabric feathers be?).

I was inspired by this really cute homemade owl costume by Chelsea over at Seablanket. She used a pillowcase, but my...girly figure (to put it nicely) wouldn't exactly fit in the pillowcase I tried. Easy solution: clearance dress from Ross. I was originally looking for a mod 60's boxier dress shape, but no luck. I did however find this sweater dress for $7.99. Here's the before :

I went to Joann's, 20% off coupon in hand, to gather fabrics for my costume. The fabric I decided on is actually lining. It's lightweight, cheap, and it has a pretty sheen. I originally bought the zebra fabric thinking it might look feathery  once cut in the right shape. But in the end, I decided against the zebra print.

I cut out large petal shapes from each fabric color. The only problem with the fabric I chose was that it frayed easily. So I ran a little Fray Check along the edges and problem solved. When it came to putting the petals on the dress, my little hot glue gun worked like a charm. Quick and easy.

I cut the turtleneck flap and the sleeves off of the dress. Not being able to pass up a little bling, I took the buttons from the sleeves and glued them on to the collar. 

Almost done...

Time for the final touches. I cut out some little wings from the extra fabric. Never mind the fact that they look more like bug wings than owl wings. Whoops. I ran some copper glitter glue around the wing edges (any excuse for extra sparkle) then hot glued them to the dress. To jazz up my face we found this face paint and these feather eyelashes on Amazon.

Luckily, I have Ryan and his great artistic ability around to help. We looked at some examples of owl make-up on Youtube. There are some incredible face painting tutorials! He "owlified" me in about ten minutes. I slapped on some glitter and my feather lashes and the budget-friendly transformation was complete.

Some of you might be thinking that you don't have the time to put this together. But there are quite a few ways to cut down on the time. The easiest way would be to make the "feathers," what I've been calling petals, much bigger cuts of fabric, like Chelsea did. Also, the wings can easily be left off the costume. The most time consuming step for me was running Fray Check along the edges of each petal. With different fabric or if you just don't mind a few dangling strings, skip that step completely = major time saver.

We had a lot of fun at the costume party! Ryan dressed up as a poacher and ran around shooting me with his Nerf shotgun. Who hunts polka-dotted owls? My guy. I was even given a tiny little trophy for "Best Costume." That tiny golden jack-o-lantern made it all worth it.


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