American Girl Crafts Extravaganza

These pics are from a couple of years ago. See, G wanted to have her birthday party at the paint your own pottery place. So I reserved it. Then she decided she wanted an American Girl party. To which I had to say no, the other has already been paid for. My compromise was she could have one friend stay the night of her actual birthday (we'd put her party off a few weeks so her Daddy could come) and we'd do some crafts for her dolls. She picked a friend who loves crafting and dolls and we invited her. Then we hit the craft store for ideas and small dolly things. Above is a sample of the crafts the girls (and I) did that night.

 We found the guitars at Micheal's. They were simply paint your own wood all-hangings. The girls used markers instead of paints to decorate them. The ribbon hanger was already attached for the strap. The butterfly hairclips came from Claire's in the baby section.

We got some knee socks and cut them to make dresses as shown here. (Please, I saw this idea somewhere but cannot find it for the life of me now. If you know where it is, please let me know so I can update and give credit. That was my intent. Ah, what did we do before Pinterest?) We discovered the toe part of the sock makes a great hat. Small cuts of the socks make great headbands, too. I also made the sandals from sticky back fun foam and ribbon. I made these for the girls while they were working on other things, letting them pick their ribbons and foam colors. We used the glittery foam because, well, we like it. We found the small baskets and decorated them for Easter baskets.

 Sock toe hats are good for Honey, too. He also got a finger-knitted scarf and a pipe cleaner leash.

 We found these hair bands with flowers that make great doll bracelets at Claire's in the little girl section. We also found some Silly Bandz rings for bracelets for the dolls.

 We made an attempt at a campfire using a real stick I trimmed from a tree and some fun foam. We have modified this project over the years. I'll have to post a more recent pic. We also took small sticks and stuck packing styrofoam from AG boxes on the end for marshmallows. I believe I saw that idea in the Doll Play book once.

 We made tutus using a sturdy adult hairband for the waist and some blue tulle we had for the tutu. We just tied tons of the tulle around the hairband. It got a little wild with all that tulle.

 G taught her friend how to finger knit and they made these doll scarves while they watched a movie.

Our s'mores kit. The girls made food with polymer clay. One project was completed s'mores (right) and chocolate bars (middle) to go with our roasting marshmallows.

This evening was the beginning of our American Girl crafting bug. More to follow.