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!