Magical Fairy Clothespin Dolls to Make with Kids
By freshlyplanted - 7:00 AM
This started as an afternoon project, then grew from there. Because why just paint some clothespins on a sunny afternoon when the baby is sleeping and Billy's digging tunnels in the woods- when you can paint All the clothespins? So that's just what my oldest daughter & I did. Later, when they were painted & dry, we knew we needed some for homeschool (more on that in the next post), but wondered what to do with the rest? We decided on fairies, and the search for wings and dresses began!
These sweet little faces and bodies were painted with acrylic. I love using acrylic with older kids. It's water-based, but dries quickly for easy layering. It's durable, and the colors stay true when they dry. If you want, you can paint a final coat of Mod Podge or acrylic gloss medium for even better weather-and-little-hand-proofing. Since they're already dressed, we won't with these fairies- but might in the future.
We used a variety of methods for their skirts. This fairy in red's skirt was made by pleating & hot-gluing a long rectangular fabric scrap around the middle of the clothespin. Then we used blossoms from a fake flower for her wings. We glued them together to make a wing before attaching them to her body.
My daughter, Isia, did this skirt all by herself, and was very proud of it. Doesn't it look a bit like a pencil skirt? The wings are leaves from a fake flower. Isia wanted her to have a braid, so here's my attempt (smile).
And a ponytail for this one! We wanted a twirly skirt so we traced the bottom of a glass onto our fabric, then cut out that circle. Then we traced the clothespin in the middle, and cut out the small circle (for the doll to fit into). For an extra-twirly skirt, we cut a line from the inner circle to the edge so we could wrap it tightly around the fairy, hot-gluing as we went.
Since Isia is already asking to make more, I think they were a success! I told her not to worry, we will make more. I can see giving them as birthday presents, or decorating the top of a present, or stocking stuffers, or even assembling a kit for a dear friend to make their own. Yes, there will definitely be more to come.
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