We want our dd’s Christmas to be entirely handmade gifts, so we’ve been busily working on certain things for awhile now.
DH built a simple dollhouse structure - four rooms of varying sizes and shapes with a slanted roof, and I’m painting and decorating it. I’ve gotten a little crazy with the details - all the furniture is hand-crafted, the wallpaper is all printed decoupage paper, the carpet is felt, everything from the bedspreads on the beds to the shower curtain are hand-sewn, there is real tiling in the entry way, real mirrors on the walls, etc. I might cave and order a few pre-made dollhouse furniture pieces, but I haven’t decided yet. Some of the dressers and kitchen cabinet pieces were tiny wooden structures I found somewhere and hand-painted myself, but they weren’t crafted by us. The outside has a white picket fence and little wooden flowers ‘growing.’
I’ll be making her dollhouse dollies by hand, too. They’re bendy dolls - two pipe cleaners twisted together to form a body, and then a wooden bead with yarn hair. Flesh-colored embroidery thread wrapped around the pipe cleaners helps create the bulk of the body, and then hand-sewn clothing. I also have materials to create all wooden dollies, too, and I might create a second family set out of those materials, with hand-sewn clothing too.
Dd looooooooves to dance, so I’ve made three no-sew tutus that are just darling and precious. I’ve sewn little bows and various appliques onto them and they’re too cute!
I’m in a playfood swap, and we’re all making felt and fabric and wooden food to exchange around the holidays - very similar to what Sancta is making.
I’m giving away mini-dollhouses made out of small cd holder ‘homes’ that literally look like tiny dollhouses - two rooms stacked, with a chimney and two windows built in. I got this idea off of a craft blog, it wasn’t my own. The cd holders can be purchased at Michaels in the wooden section. They’re easily painted and decorated on a smaller scale of the bigger dollhouse I’m creating.
I’m making stuffed animals out of woolen socks. A puppy and a monkey so far. They’re adorable.
She’s getting a wooden sensory table that we’ll use to keep outside in our new home that will hold fun things like rice, oats, beans and water to play in - like sand, but not sand. She already loves doing this in shoeboxes and such, but this will be a wooden table with a bigger space to play in while she stands next to it.
She needs a play kitchen, but that might be the only thing that isn’t handmade. We just don’t think we can do as cute a job as some of the stuff on the market. So, we might cave and buy a wooden one from somewhere else.
I’m taking freezer paper and using a razor to cut out a self-designed stencil and I’ll paint over a few different stencils onto a handful of plain winter and spring tees.
If I can get them done, I’m embroidering these insanely cute little girl scenes that are original patterns by a mother selling them on etsy - they’re just simply ADORABLE and I want to make a group of four and hang them in dd’s room. The blond/blue ones look kind of like her and I think they’re sweet.
I don’t know if I’ll do this, but dd is into puppets right now and a simple way to make these is to collect stuffed animals from a cheap resale place, wash them, then rip open the seams and take the stuffing out. Cut open the mouth if possible, add in a fleece or felt underpatch if needed and re-sew the back seam if necessary and voila! You can easily make some puppets that way. A friend did this.
I fear by the time we fly to the other side of the world the beer won’t be so cold anymore!
The silly thing is that sweets are still not settling that well with me, but I have a sweet tooth that is hard to deal with…anyways… so are these like smaller funnel cake?