Barbie Sized Creations

Twas a very merry Barbie Christmas over here. My four year old enjoys playing with Barbie sized princesses and also Barbie. She received a Barbie camper, a Barbie sized house and a few new dolls. The house came furnished, but with only one bed. I could see this might be an issue. Also, sadly lacking any blankets.

My first creation was to cut some fleece as blankets. This took no time at all.  I cut fleece in a rectangle and a couple larger rectangles to be folded as sleeping bags or just larger blankets. 

I looked at Barbie beds other people had made and that is still on our list to do. Maybe even some bunks for the smaller Chelsea sized dolls. I did find these little cots.

I thought it was really quite ingenious. On a trip to JoAnns, I found a 10 pack of 12" 1/4" dowel for the frames and Popsicle sticks for the ends. Dipping into my fabric stash, I quickly put together the fabric parts of four cots and small matching pillows. It was nearly dinner time and I figured it would be easier to enlist my husband's help for the woodworking.

Together we spent about two hours, much long than I expected, finding the right bolts and nuts, drilling holes for aforementioned bolts, and drilling pilot holes. As we assembled the first cot with wood glue, it appeared quite wobbly. We decided to just add the Popsicle sticks to the ends of each dowel first and made sure it could lay flat.  After the glue dried, we inserted the bolts to complete the cots. 

I still think the cots are very cute and nice that they fold flat. But I think it's a bigger project than it seems and one wrong step or leaning breaks the Popsicle sticks. We have had two cots need repair already from misplaced body parts. Fortunately, they can be glued. New rule for the cots is that they can only be in or on the house, not on the floor.

 After receiving money for Christmas, my daughter bought herself a Ken doll. Apparently, Ken likes to take baths in the Barbie house and would really like a bathrobe. Sewing for Barbie and Ken is not really pleasant, but I also accept that these tiny things do not need to be perfect or have perfectly finished seams.

For the robe, I decided to forgo proper sleeve construction and simply traced around Ken's open armed body for a pattern.  There was a back piece and two front pieces.  After hemming up the sleeves, I sewed them up and considered being done.  But then I found some lycra binding intended for fleece (that matched!) and bound the whole robe.  Finally I sewed more binding together to make a tie and attached it along the whole back part of robe for security.  Due to it being out of thin fleece, it worked very well.

The Barbie camper included a swimming pool, yet no one had their swimsuits on.  I made a couple swim suits which didn't work very well.  The best one is a one piece I cut around a doll out of a four way stretch material.  No edges are finished and it is easy to get on and off.  Ken got a multipurpose gym shorts/swim suit by tracing his pants as a pattern.  That worked well.

Some of the smaller girls needed new dresses.  The lack of footwear for flatfooted Skipper and Stacy is disappointing for us too.  The dressing, undressing and hair styling is what my daughter enjoys.  It's hard to have many choices if they don't exist.  But two new dresses I could make.  The Skipper and Barbie dresses are very easy to make.  I had made Barbie dresses a few years ago and followed the same method.

 Finally, every evening the dolls need to sleep.  The house sometimes is a hotel and there's only so much space.  It's very sweet how my daughter gets them all into bed with their shoes under the beds or cots and tucks them in. Because of the camper idea too, I made sleeping bags.  I followed the basic instructions from here with my own dimensions.  My first bag was out of two layers of flannel and was rather bulkly.  Then I used one layer of flannel and one layer of quilting cotton.  I liked these the most.  I did tuck in some batting as a pillow, but the pillow got negative reviews from one daughter.  Finally I made two mini bags for the Chelsea sized dolls out of two layers of quilting cotton with no pillow.  They are all pretty cute and roll up nicely.

Doll Pajamas

I remember another daughter requesting pajamas for her dolls and at that time I made them too. This request was pretty easy to fulfill. There was a set she wanted to match.  So I used the top and bottoms as patterns and a short time later we had a new set of pjs for the doll.

The purple set is what I made, the green set had been purchased and I used as my pattern.

Naked Barbies No More!

When my youngest first discovered the one Barbie and multiple princess Barbie dolls we have in the house, she was quite taken with them. Especially their sparkly dresses. Then one day it was as if a switch flipped and they all needed their clothes off all the time.

Sometimes we would be heading out and Jasmine or Cinderella would tag along, in the nude. The naked dolls didn't phase me much, but we did seem to get regular comments about them.

It seemed that they had been naked so long, we had a hard time finding all their pretty dresses. One by one we dressed most of them. A couple were still missing.

With naked Barbies on my mind heading into a naptime, I searched around for easy Barbie sewing patterns. I found two that looked perfect. Jessica's tutorial at Craftiness is Not Optional is clear and simple.  I also liked the bodice idea from Nancy at My Cotton Creations.

A few days later we tried the patterns out. I used the sleeve idea from one, the bodice from another and a nice full skirt. I figured it should take about 15 minutes. Well I forgot how challenging it sometimes is to sew tiny seams and tiny clothes. The sleeves were getting all kinds of caught in the machine and then my sewing opportunity for the day was over.

I was able to come back to the little pink dress today along with my mini helper and it all went smoothly, not taking much time at all to finish. Why not make another! This time I tried just the simple straight bodice and less full skirt. It probably took 15 minutes as predicted. I did put the bodice on Barbie to figure out the darts as the tutorial shows. It all worked well. And the delight on my daughter's face as the dresses neared completion made it an even more satisfying project.

Princess clothes for dolls

As I was preparing to post about a princess dress for a doll I made back in 2006, I was searching Google for images. I guess if I needed a pattern for a doll now, I'd be all set! But I still think my doll dress matched the girl dress better.

Girl Scout vests for American Girl Dolls

It was Christmas break and I kind of remembered I would be exchanging gifts with a family later in the week, but kind of forgot. The day before I decided I really needed to think about some gifts.

I considered doll clothes, but a lot are pretty involved and whatever I was doing would be times three. Then the idea came to me, I would make little Girl Scout vests in the appropriate colors.

The vests were pretty easy to figure out. I decided making them reversible would be the easiest. Then somehow I ended up with a little extra time. Must have been a napping baby again...

I decided I must also decorate them with badges. I researched how each level vest should look and cut out tiny embellishments. I should state for the record that I cannot draw well at all, but I can cut things out very well. So that is how these little vests came to be. Everything got glued on and off to a new home.

Fancy Nancy Nightie

While shopping at JoAnns one day, I spotted some Fancy Nancy fabric that would be perfect for a little girl nightie. Fortunately I have a little girl and she would love a new nightie.

I did not know that the Christmas dolls would need new pjs too!

For the nightie I took a nightie that fit my daughter and designed a pattern from that. Because it is Fancy Nancy we are talking about, we would need extra ruffles too.

My daughter loved it and said her doll needed one too. So off to design a doll nightie. I had some doll clothes patterns, but also used other doll clothes as a guide.

Then apparently the boy doll couldn't sleep without pjs either. I used a button down shirt as a guide for the top and a pants pattern for the bottoms. Fortunately I had enough fabric on hand.

Princess and King Portraits

My nieces' birthdays were in the fall and new princess dresses had been requested. One was to be Cinderella and one was Aurora. They were also getting new American Girl Dolls.

My daughter was going to get an American Girl Bitty Baby for Christmas, also from the same grandma.

Grandma's birthday was coming up in March. I thought a cousin portrait would be a fine present and maybe a themed portrait would make it extra fun. And wouldn't it be neat if the dolls could match too?!

I found a great company called My Dress Up Trunk who makes princess dresses for girls, adults and dolls! Perfect! My daughter had received a princess outfit for her doll at Christmas. It was purple. I found a dress for her that matched pretty well at My Dress Up Trunk.

Of course a matching Cinderella dress was easy to find there as well. Aurora was proving to be difficult.

Maybe I could make a doll dress. I studied the picture of Aurora and took a trip to JoAnns. I found satin, roses, and trim that I thought would make the perfect dress. Creating the pattern was a fun challenge and I was very excited about the finished product.

We did get together for a cousin portrait. We had four smiling children, three dolls in matching dresses with their little mommies and a King dressed in velveteen.