Altered match box accessory box for 18 inch dolls

Altered Match box art is a very popular thing these days, and many of them made are traded on craft trading sites like Swap-bot. They always have a theme and it was suggested to me by a wonderful friend I have made in my Adventures in American Girl swap group that we should have an accessory altered match box swap, so here is the one I have come up with, it is two single small match boxes taped end to end and covered with American Girl Paper, you can use anything to cover yours from paper to oven baked polymer clay, for the "knobs" I have used simple brads from the dollar store, I actually bought a package of matches from the Dollar store that came with 8 boxes, so now I have lots matches should we ever need them. You can down load templates from Google to make your own out of card stock which I have done with great success but for this one I went with store bought. Then I filled it with accessories I have made, bracelets, earrings (the stick on kind) two necklaces and some silly bands. I am going to keep this one I made for myself and make a new one for who ever gets to be my partner but I did this one for show.  I thought I would share it with you, easy to make in under 10 minutes and a ton of fun to fill, you can stack them on top of each other and make a dresser of them if you want, also you can use the bigger 250 count match boxes to create much larger storage drawers, you are only limited by your imagination. Enjoy!

18 inch doll shoes shelf

Well it is Saturday here and raining, so I just spent a very productive craft hour of creating a Shoe Shelf for 18 inch dolls, like American Girl Doll's, Mapelea Dolls, Our Generation or the 18 inch Spring Fields Dolls you can find at Michael's the craft store.
I found this idea on www.Doll Diaries.com (one of my favorite doll websites, who got the idea from www.makingfriends.com another great website I have used in the past, I made the one from the directions on the making friends.com web site but found that the shelf was not actually deep enough for the shoes so here are my directions on the one I made.)

You will need one empty cereal box
1 pair of scissors
A ruler
A pen
tape
one 8.5 inch x 11inch  scrap cardboard for structure (you will cut it down to fit the back of your doll shoe shelf)
and I love to use Peel and Stick shelf paper which I bought at the dollar store for $1.25

First Measure 3 3.5 inch wide sections start at the bottom of the box using your ruler and make a cutting line by drawing a straight line at 3.5 inches all the way around the box, repeat three times and cut out your three shelves. Use the still closed "bottom of the box" piece you have cut as the base and using scotch tape tape the two remaining shelves to the the top creating three separate shelves now trace the shape on your scrap cardboard and cut out. If you are using the peel and stick shelf paper cover the cardboard you have just cut out and attach it to the shelf (making sure all three shelves are visible when it is attached) with scotch tape. Then begin covering the insides of the shelves top bottom and inside, once the three shelves are covered cover the sides or the entire shelf , back, top and bottom. Then place your doll shoes inside. This entire craft took me one hour to complete because I had not done this before but I know when I make my next one it will go much faster! take a look at my photos from this and all my projects . If you do not have peel and stick shelf paper you can use wrapping paper with tape or glue and get the same effect!
I would love to have your feed back on this and all my posts!
Enjoy!

Super Easy Chocolate Souffles

 What a nice afternoon treat these are the easiest Chocolate Souffles I have ever made!

http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/recipes/chocolate-souffles-for-two-121420.aspx?cm_mmc=eml-_-rbecaen-_-20110126-_-1123

 Chocolate Soufflés for Two

I just made these from the Kraft website and they are divine! I totally recommend making them so easy and so yummy a great afternoon treat or special dessert!  See my photo at the right below is the one from the website.

prep time

15 min

total time

47 min

makes

2 servings, 2/3 cup (150 mL) each

photo by:

kraft

recipe by: kraft

What You Need

1 egg, separated

2 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. butter

1 Tbsp. flour

1/4 cup milk

1 square Baker's Semi-Sweet Chocolate, finely chopped

Make It

HEAT oven to 325ºF.
BEAT egg white and sugar in small bowl with mixer on high speed 1 to 2 min. or until stiff peaks form; set aside.
MELT butter in small saucepan on medium heat. Stir in flour until well blended. Add milk; cook and stir 30 sec. or until thickened. Remove from heat. Add chocolate; stir until melted. Add egg yolk to mixture; mix well. Gently stir in egg white just until blended.
POUR into 2 (150-mL) ramekins; place on baking sheet,
BAKE 30 to 32 min. or until soufflés are puffed and centres are set. Serve immediately.

Handsewn 18 inch doll skirt and hair band

Wow it has now been a month of blogging and I am thrilled that there are more then 500 views of my blog, I am truly humbled.
This post is for those readers who may not have a sewing machine or are looking for an easy, rainy day, cost effective craft. This skirt will fit an 18 inch doll like the American Girl doll

To make this hand sewn doll skirt you will need:

2 pieces of felt (3 for $1.25 at my dollar store)
1 package or 1/2 inch or 1/4 inch elastic (2 in a pack $1.25 at my dollar store)
1 needle
thread
pair of scissors
1 piece of paper
1 ruler
2 safety pins
a pencil

First take your paper and measure 6.5 inches up the paper, make a mark.From that mark measure 3.5 inches and draw a line this is the top of the skirt. At the bottom of your paper measure 4.5 inches and draw a line this is the bottom of the skirt. Next using your ruler connect the top and bottom with a diagonal line this line should measure 6.5 inches. Cut out this shape from your paper . Fold over one of your felt pieces and place the straight edge of your pattern on the fold, trace on to the felt and cut out. Do this to the second piece so you have two pieces of the skirt. Next take your ruler and the elastic and measure out 10 inches of elastic. Cut the elastic and put a safety pin on either end of the cut elastic, place aside and thread the needle. Lay the skirt pieces on top of each other and sew up one side using a basting stitch. When you get to the top tie it off and fold the top over about one inch to create a casing for the elastic. Sew the casing closed using the same basting stitch. Once the casing is closed, use the safety pin elastic and snake it through. Once through to the other side match the safety pins together so that a bit of elastic is sticking out each side and stitch the elastic together so that it will not come apart. match sides together and using the basting stitch close the other side, then turn right side out and you have a skirt.

For the hair band cut 4 inches of elastic, then cut 6 inches in length and double the width out of the left over felt. Place the elastic on one end of the felt and fold the felt around it sewing it too the elastic, then repeat on the other end. Once attached at both ends stitch the remaining felt closed. You can cut a shape such as a heart out of a different piece of felt and attach it to the hair band with a simple stitch or you can add a button as I did.
I hope this makes sense, message me with any questions and happy skirt making!

Mouth watering Cheese Scones

I am asked at least once a week for my cheese scone recipe, if you make it you will soon know why. These are easy and fun, best part they are delicious. The secret to impressing your friends lies in how you form your scones, want them to think you are a gourmet baker, simply cut them in triangles and brush them with a bit of milk, or simply spoon them on to the cookie sheet and bake them that way.
Here is the recipe, now the secret ingredient is lard but YOU CAN USE MARGARINE OR BUTTER, but I tell you if you use the LARD you will notice a difference.

Karen's Cheese scones
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees

1 cup of white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour (if you do not have you can just use more white flour)
1/4 cup of sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup of Lard (or margarine or butter)
1 cup of grated cheese
1 egg
2/3 cup of milk

* if making the triangle scones brush the tops with a little bit more milk before baking.
Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, cut the lard into small chunks and add to the flour mixture and combine, add cheese and egg and milk. When mixture forms a sticky ball choose if you are going to spoon on to a cookie sheet as "drop Scones" or if you are going to cut triangles. If doing the triangles flatten the ball and slice as you would pizza and place on a cookie sheet brush tops of the triangles and bake.I bake mine until they are golden brown about 15 minutes but you may need to adjust the time with your own ovens, I like mine a bit over done.
I hope you enjoy them, I can smell mine now coming out of the oven in the next minute or two.
Let me know if you have any questions.

Twilight Brownies, Cake Toppers and Brownie Recipe

Today is my friend Paige's birthday, so for her birthday I made these Twilight themed cup cake toppers and instead of cup cakes I made her these brownies. With Cupcakes all the rage I found this great craft idea on Swap-bot.I have made many different types of toppers, character and holiday but for my friend Paige, I went to Google Images and typed Twilight Edward and picked the image I wanted, then I cut and pasted it to a word document and formatted it to the size I needed. Then copied the photo on the document 12 times and printed the document. Cut out the photos and glued them to black card stock. I then attached a toothpick with tape to the back of the card stock and covered it with another piece of card stock. Instant cup cake topper.  You can use any paper punches colors and images to make so many great toppers, so easy and fun.

For the Brownies here is the recipe I used, Once baked and cooled slightly I used a small heart shaped cookie cutter to cut the brownie shapes out arranged them on a plate placed the toppers in them (get it steak through the heart!) and added a strawberry garnish with a sparkler candle.

Twilight Brownies
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F
In to a medium sized pot over medium heat add 1 cup of butter, 3/4 cup of chocolate chips ( I used milk Chocolate) melt together stir with a spatula. Add 2 cups of granulated sugar and stir.Remove from heat, Add 3 eggs one at a time to the pot and then add 1 cup of flour. Once combined pour batter in a greased 9X13 pan. Place in the oven and bake for 25 minutes.

I did not ice mine but you can ice yours if you want.

Dear Aunty Karen...

Well earlier this week my niece Trinity, (now home in Montreal) asked me to make her the dress she saw in the new American Girl doll catalog she just got in the mail, the Zebra one.  Now I have to tell you this dress is adorable in the magazine and I would order it from them but I live in Canada and the shipping is more then I could afford and the closest store to me is a 24 hour straight drive from Canada to California, so I made my own version, for under $4.00. I thought I would share with you how and what I made.

I made a dress, hairband, bag/purse,shoes, bracelet all in under 90 minutes.

First I went to walmart and bought a fabric palette cotton, which was zebra print $2.00 I also bought some purple ribbon$1.00. I took one of the dresses my dolls currently have and traced it to create a pattern, cut out my pieces. You could also use any existing doll dress pattern you have. Then I sewed the dress and finished it with the purple ribbon and purple button I had on hand.
Next I made the head band using 4 inches of 1/2 inch elastic (which I had on hand or I can buy at the dollar store 4 for $1.25) and 6 inches of left over zebra pattern material, I also added a bow and a purple button I had on hand which matched the one on the dress. I then made a simple bag for the doll with left over ribbon and material, and moved on to the shoes. To make the shoes see my post about how to make doll shoes.I then made a bracelet using some dollar store beads I had in purple and elastic thread, see how to make doll bracelet post on how to make that.

I am now going to mail the outfit to my niece and hope she loves it as much as the one in the catalog!  I am posting the photo of both the dress American Girl Doll sells and the one I made. As always any questions or comments are appreciated!

Doll clothes Hangers, a recycling craft

Well another rainy day not wasted here in North Vancouver. I went on to the American Girl Doll website a few days ago to order some hangers and noticed they are on back order. So I thought I would make my own. Here is what I did, I took the hanger I did have from my last trip to the store, when I was in Texas, and I traced it on to some cardboard I was going to recycle, then I cut it out, but how to make it strong? you may ask? Well I used some decorative packing tape I had but you could use anything really to decorate these hangers, Tape it as I did to strengthen it or add ribbon. You could also use different color packing tape to cover the hangers with Just layer the tape over the cardboard cut out and cut around the tape, easy and fun.
So next time you have more outfits then hangers or have a rainy day in need of a craft make yourself, your doll or your daughters doll some new hangers. Need a doll closet? Me too, I am working on a cost effective one to show you soon.
Keep coming back for more fun crafts. As always see the photos for this craft posted to the right of this post!

Doll socks a review

Well I found this amazing blog a few days ago and after doing my sock matching laundry day I had a bunch of socks with not mates and some of my Christmas socks that did not make it through the holidays, so I thought I would give these a try. You can find the directions athttp://obsessivelystitching.blogspot.com/ this is a really fun, fast and great recycling swap that any one with a sewing machine can make, provided they can make a zig zag stitch! See the photo of the socks I made with all my non mate/non holiday surviving socks. Please check out the Obsessively stitching blog as this lady makes so many  amazing things. Finally My niece Laura who has wanted doll socks forever is very happy that her dolls no longer have cold feet and I am thrilled my favorite snow man and favorite penguin socks will live on in the doll world. A great quick rainy day craft , and it rains here often so my nieces will benefit from many pairs now to co-ordinate with the outfits I am making their dolls, as will all my swap partners on Swap-bot for our doll clothes swaps!

http://obsessivelystitching.blogspot.com/2009/12/easy-doll-pants-socks-hat-scarf.html

As with all my posts I would love to hear from you so please leave me a comment here or email me at karenmowen@gmail.com

Tiny Treats doll food Part two

Okay I have been asked how I made the Popsicle for the dolls as it is not on Family Fun.com. While I got the idea from Family Fun magazine/familyfun.com , it was my niece Trinity who wanted the Popsicle, so here is what I did for the Popsicle is I rolled the clay into a "snake" then folded it over to make the second Popsicle and cut the clay so that it was about two inches long which squared the corners using the back of a knife, then I inserted two tooth picks as handles, after baking then trimmed them.
Today I experimented with more see the photo at the side,  you can now see that I also made a bagel and cream cheese using tan and white clay, and a sandwich using, orange for cheese, red for tomato and green for lettuce, I used tan for the bread. I flattened the dough to make the bread, two pieces, then layered the rest on top and baked it . I also did a salad using 6 small balls of green and flattening them with my finger, adding small round red flattened tomato's and small orange carrots. I also did pretzels  and heart shapped Chocolate cookies layering a med size dark brown for the bottom of the cookie and tan for the icing and cut out a very small heart for the top out of pink, I also did it as a brownie.  To make the sugar cookies with the heart I recommend either using Playdough cutters or a very small heart cutter like I used, or make a ball and flatten of the sugar cookie and trace a heart on the cookie it's self, I really found this fun, once you have some colors to work with you are only limited in what you can make by your imagination!
Micheals the craft store had the clay on for $1.49 today and I was able to get all this food made for under $6.
I really had fun making it, I think it is even more fun sharing it!
If you ever have any questions on how to do something I have shown, email me at
karenmowen@gmail.com

How to make doll shoes for your doll

http://dolldiaries.com is  a website that my doll shoe directions were originally published I thought I would share with you. I highly recommend this site as they have fantastic news, crafts and give aways. Here is a cut and past copy of my directions from the site.
What you will need to make to make your doll a pair (or several pairs of shoes)

• 1 felt board (can be purchased at Michaels or other craft stores for about $1.29)
• Ribbons (I used ribbons I had left from Christmas and ribbon I bought at Michaels in the $1.29 bin)
• Glue  (I used a hot glue gun, if you are doing this as a party activity I recommend that you use craft glue or have a lot of adult supervision with the hot glue)
• paper (to trace your dolls foot or existing shoe)
• pencil
• scissors
• *optional small buttons, beads or accessories to decorate the shoes

How to make doll shoes to fit American Girl dolls
Step one – Trace your doll’s existing shoes or trace your doll’s feet on to a piece of paper.
Step two – cut out the tracing, this is your pattern for all the shoes you will ever need to make.

Step three - place the pattern on to your chosen color of felt board, trace two for each shoe and cut out.
Step four – cut 2 – 3.5 inch strips of ribbon, (I used ¾ inch wide ribbon)

Step five – using glue (I used hot glue as it is faster but white craft glue will also work) attach the ribbon approximately ½ inch from the toe, to the bottom side of the top part of the Shoe top. Then pull over the top and place shoe on dolls foot to measure tightness and angle of the ribbon, then attach with glue to the spot desired.
Step 6 – Once you have the ribbon in the spot you would like, apply glue all over the bottom and use the second felt piece to sandwich the ribbon. Hold and press down so that the felt pieces stick tight together.
Step 7 – make sure the shoe fits your doll and then if you wish to add more decoration then glue to the ribbon at this time.
Step 8 - repeat step 1-7 for the other shoe.
NOTES:

• For the sandals with two straps cut two pieces of ribbon for each shoe.
• The felt board will be enough to make about 12 pairs of shoes. With all the colors available the possibilities are endless. Fun and easy to make!

This is such fun craft idea and would be perfect for Girl Scout meetings, birthday parties, slumber parties or rainy day fun.

When making a mistake hemming,there really can be a silver lining.

So after sewing 4 sleeping bags for my nieces American Girl Dolls, it was time to hem my Niece Trinity's pants. You know that old adage measure twice cut once well they tell you that for a reason. Some how I managed to cut the pants 7 inches shorter then they were supposed to be, YES 7 inches. I won't get into why it happened but it made me so upset. After I calmed down a bit and my sister said it was really not that big a deal (she had only just bought them) I figured out what to do. For Christmas you may have remembered I got the great book called All Dolled up by Joan Hinds. In it there are directions on how to make pants into a really cute skirt with ruffle for both girl and doll...well  it turned out better then I thought. Though my sister was not upset with me I was upset I wrecked the pants, but at least I was able to save it and turn it into a great outfit, I hope you like the photos and remember this if you have a hemming problem or a tear in the knee of your daughters favorite jeans.

Tiny Treats we made for American Girl Dolls a Review

Well this afternoon my Niece Trinity and I made tiny polymer clay treats for her American Girl doll. I got the idea years ago and downloaded and printed out the info from www.familyfun.com and Family Fun Magazine if you go to that website and in the search engine type TINY TREATS you will get all the directions for making these fantastic pretend play items.
We used multi-colored oven bake polymer clay  we made: 6 cookies, one oreo ice cream sandwich, two Popsicles, two chocolate doughnuts with Chocolate icing and two cupcakes. It took us about 30 mins to make and then we baked it according to the directions on the package of clay.

I highly recommend this craft as a fun rainy day craft (as it is here in North Vancouver, BC Canada today) or a great sleep over craft or lootbag party treat! I have wanted to try to make these for two years now and really enjoyed making them, I think even after Miss Trin and her sisters return to Montreal, I may find myself making and mailing more Doll treats to them! I would love to know if you try this craft and how it worked for you!

Bath time outfit For American Girl dolls (or any 18 inch doll)

Well I had a fun afternoon of crafting. For Christmas my niece Trinity gave me the My generation doll Bath Tub from Zellers, I love it! So does she and while she is visiting me here for the next few days she gets to use it with her doll Horsella. So I have made bath towels and hair wraps with a face cloth that doll can hold.

Here is how I made the Bath towel. First a trip to the Dollar Store, or you can use an old towel (with permission of course) My bath towel cost $1.25 at the dollar store and I can make two towels and two head wraps and two facecloths out of it! A great deal!
So you need a regular sized bath towel, matching thread, a sewing Machine, 1/2 elastic, a large safety pin (buttons for embellishment if you want).
*If you can sew a straight line with a sewing machine then you can make this too!

Fist measure 10 1/2 inches up from the bottom of the towel and cut a strait line. Next fold over the raw edge you just cut 2 inches. Machine ZIG ZAG stitch a straight line along the edge of your fold creating a "casing" for the elastic to go through. Next cut 12 inches of Elastic and poke the safety pin through and close. then thread the elastic through the casing until you get to the other side. Sew the elastic in to place on one end. Then gather the fabric and pull the elastic out the other end and sew the opening closed. Then take one edge and  lay it two inches over the out side of the towel and stitch down 2 inches. You can attach a button or other embellishments at this time, see the photo for clarification. Now you have a doll towel that will stay up on her!
For the Hair towel I used 12 inches of towel fabric that was left over and using already finished end as the front of the Doll towel I then sewed a "gnome shaped hat" (see photo) using the Zig Zag Stitch, then I turned it inside out put it on the Dolls head to measure. Then I took the top and positioned it  to look like it was a turban, and sewed the tip into place. You can embellish it at this time if you would like.
For the face cloth I used left over material and cut rectangle I finished the edges with the zig zag stitch and attached a small amount of elastic in a loop so it could stay on dolls and. Easy and Fun took less then one hour!

I would love to know what you think please leave me a comment!