Wednesday 30 January 2013

Pipe cleaner crafts - Dolly Dress Up

The other day I took part in my first Google + Hangout - crikey mikey!

Not to worry, the lovely Maggy from Red Ted Art was there to hold our hands, and along with Kelly; Chris; Anna; Cerys and Anthea, we talked about kid's crafting with pipe cleaners.

You can watch the whole thing here.  It was lovely to have so many different ideas and suggestions covering such a wide age range.

Being the ever disorganised me, I was unable to do any more than 'talk' about my craft since Ruby insisted on taking it to school, leaving me looking a bit of a numpty.

I'm going to try and rectify that now.  What I had wanted to demonstrate was making simple dolls clothes with fabric scraps and pipe cleaners.

It's really simple, no cutting or sewing required so littlies can do it themselves, and best of all the fabric is undamaged so you can use it again.

With the exorbitant cost of Barbie outfits in the shops, this is a really thrifty way to get lots of different looks and let your child play at being Coco Chanel/Ralph Lauren to their heart's content.



We had a pile of fabric offcuts; remnants and left overs and a stack of pipe cleaners.  There's no rules really, just mould the fabric to the doll using the pipe cleaners to hold in place.  You can twist to create waists, necklines and cuffs.

Have a play and experiment!

Erm didn't I say no cutting? And I'm pretty sure I've told you 100 times not to sit on the table?!!

If you want a more finished look, roll the edge of your fabric around the pipe cleaner to hide it, rather than having it on show.  but as we had some sparkly ones, Ruby wanted to show them off.  She made hairbands and accessories, belts and bangles too.


She played at this for ages, mixing and matching, stripping off and starting again.

Then she lined then up, did catwalks and papped them!


We had such fun, right up until we had meltdown because her dolls didn't have matching shoes for their new outfits.  *big sigh*.  I can't THINK where she gets that from.

What creative ideas do you have for pipe cleaners?  Do you fancy following me over on Google +?  Maybe you could watch our next hangout. x

5 comments:

  1. Those are soooo sweet. I LOVE the golden ball gown. Wowee. Pipecleaners sure rock!!!

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  2. Wouldn't it be great if we could knock up adult sized clothes this way? Think of the possibilities! Thanks for the Hangout x

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  5. Wonderful, I loved creating outfits for my dolls as a kid, and I remember using pipe cleaners/felt etc!

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