Crafting With Kids- Jewellery Doll Project

Thought I'd show you a project that one of my daughters and I did together a while back. (She was 4 at the time and had a big attention span for seeing craft projects through to the finish- unlike my other daughter!)
I have a bit of a thing for buying vintage craft books from op shops. There's the odd surprising project in them that still looks good (with a bit of tweaking), or I get inspiration for coming up with my own projects. I also like reading instructions or methods in the old crafty books. They sure had a bit more faith in our abilities back in the day.
So she chose this kinda daggy jewellery doll..

She thought a pattern would help us and so she drew this plan for her doll (kids drawings never cease to amaze me):

I didn't follow their instructions, as I wanted to use what we had around the house. I like to start working on a project and solve the problem of how to do each step as I go using what we have. We used a plastic bottle filled with rocks for weighting it down, with the arms made of two rolled up pieces of cardboard. All that was stuck together with masking tape, then we had fun using paper mache to give it strength and bind it all together. After that it was just a matter of covering it with felt, wool, ribbon, beads and buttons; by sewing and glueing with non-toxic craft glue. The head is made from a cylinder of felt gathered in at the top and bottom and filled with polyfill. 

I like to help my kids achieve their crafty projects, even if the skill level seems out of their reach. There is always something they can do, such as choose the wool colours, or pick out the beads or buttons, or decide on what to use. I like to use their ideas and tweaks along the way too, and not tell them how things "should" be done. We were so proud of our efforts and now the doll sits proudly in the bedroom and can hold trinkets in her front pocket, as well as brooches and bracelets on her arms. In hindsight I would've made her arms a bit higher to hang necklaces on, but we think she's charming anyway and really suits our colourful home. 

The kids also spend a lot of time dressing her up and down with accessories (Bonus- yay for practical crafts!).. and you should see how many necklaces this little lady can rock ;)