Black Apple Dolls

While visiting dear friends over Thanksgiving, I was shown THESE cute handmade dolls and wanted to make some for my girls. Christmas was filled with sewing/craft projects for everyone but Maddie and Abbie. And then their birthdays came and went with no new dolls.

The dreamy idea of handmade dolls kept creeping into my imagination, so for an early Valentine's gift, I finally got them started and finished (in the same week!).

As you can see, they were a big hit. The girls instantly fell in love and named them Pinky Dinky Doo (Maddie) and Tyler (Abbie...which is Pinky Dinky Doo's brother's name). There's a pattern of them naming things after the characters from whatever book we read last.

Madeline and Abigail promptly made a house for them under the computer desk complete with a radio, nightlight and beds.

They were fairly easy to make and I've already been charged with making pajamas and raincoats for them. Also, the dolls' dresses were made from remnants from each girl's baby binder, which I'll discuss in a future post. Lovies for my loves...perfect!

Make vs. Buy: I'll definitely be making these over buying them for $40 each! MAKE!!

The Lifecycle of a Pinata

I know you've all been frothing at the bit (really, who says that?! yuck!) to see our pinata, so this one's for you! Remember we started with THIS...


About an hour and one really thick layer of newspaper later. I was advised to have multiple layers, but I figured one would do the trick.

After it dried for a day, we started on the pink primer. It's just poster paint, nothing too fancy here.

Now we have a pink factory.

Time for the details. The girls used glittery paint and glittery foam stickers to decorate. They had so much fun making it their own creation.

A few paper cones and some flags and voila, it's done!

A view from the back. Of course every surface except the bottom had something sparkly.

Everyone at the girls' birthday party took a turn at thumping the pinata... to no avail. The older boys got some extra turns to try and open it up.

They got some good whacks in, but it still wouldn't pour out the sweet treasures. It eventually took Jeremy to rip the bottom open...I guess one layer of paper mache was enough!

The End.

I'd like to thank all the helpers big and little at helping this pinata to have a wonderful life.

And yes, I'd do it all again to save $20 and give the girls some fun memories.

Make vs. Buy: The winner is MAKE!

Pinata

Madeline and Abigail have birthdays 4 days apart from another. And Jeremy's birthday is on Abbie's...or the other way around, really. The girls will have a combined party this year, which is unprecedented as far as having an actual party goes. It's usually just cake and ice cream with family. But Maddie turns the big 5 this year, so I thought it would be nice to have friends over too.

They've decided on a fairy princess theme (sorry boys) and as we browsed Walmart the other week, they spotted the perfect pinata: Cinderella's castle. For $20. I figured we've got resources to build one ourselves, so why not?


So we're making our own pinata instead. The girls LOVE the idea of a custom designed castle! We worked on the bones today, now we just need some newspaper and lots of "glue". More to come...and I'm sure that it'll end up looking more like a princess castle and less like a factory in the end.