I’ve been racking my brain for a cool valentine’s project for the kids for awhile. I’ve also recently been a little obsessed with the idea of homemade dolls; I AM NOT a doll person but I love the wooden mid-century Alexander Girard dolls that go for a whopping $100+ each, and have been trying to figure out a DIY version. I’ll let you know when I tackle THAT project.

A recent trip to the store to survey wooden parts and I found these!

Suddenly the valentine project and doll fascination came together.

Clothespin Doll Valentines, duh.

So on Saturday my kids and I went to work! Of course this ended up being one of those projects that my husband says is clearly beyond my children’s skill set and attention span. They LOVED the idea for about 5 minutes but when the details started they scrambled to the living room. After showing them a  few finished samples they did come back and help with a few  dolls but my husband was right, this would be a great project for 6-8 year old girls. But sometimes you gotta try right?

Here how we did it.

Clothespin Doll Valentines

Supplies:

• Old Fashioned clothespins (available at craft stores)
• Fabric scraps
• Hot glue and gun
• White glue
• Beads
• Pipe cleaners
• Paint and small paintbrushes
• Pencil

Steps:

• Gather the goods!

• Faces  Paint on the faces. I got the best results when dipping a pencil into paint and using it to make the eyes and mouths. Paintbrushes are harder to control and pens bleed. The pencil/paint dip worked really well. The faces dry pretty quick too.

• Hair  I then painted on the hair with a paintbrush. For long hair I used pipe cleaners glued to the head with hot glue.

• Arms  For the arms I cut pieces of pipe cleaner, threaded them through a small fabric scrap twice to form a u- shape then pulled that onto the doll. Using hot glue, I glued the back of the scrap together to secure the arms. There are clothespins with a pre-drilled arm holes so if you buy those use the hole to thread the pipe cleaners.
• Clothes  Sky’s the limit! Take all those fabric and notions scraps and get creative! Beads work well for sleeves and hair bows. Use white glue to adhere the fabric onto the dolls, hot glue is too uncontrollable.

• Heart  Finally add a heart! I used heart shaped beads but you could easily use heart candies, paper hearts, etc to make the valentines.

I’m still not sure how we will present these to each child. I’m thinking of putting them in small cellophane bags with a piece of paper and the child’s name on it. Originally I thought I would clip the dolls to a tag but once decorated that would mean the doll is straddling something and I just don’t want to go there :)!

Create away!