Native American Clothespin Dolls

Welcome to the Winter Bazaar, if you've missed any of the previous weeks you can click on the "crafts" link at the bottom of this post and you can view previous editions. This month's theme is Thanksgiving and fall. Crafts, activities, games, tips, recipes, ANYTHING that remotely fits in with celebrating or teaching the season is welcome!

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If you're having dinner guests over during the holidays, especially if there are children involved, this is a fun craft to use as a place setting, propping up a name card, or as a craft for busy hands while dinner is cooking. These Native American clothespin dolls aren't fancy but they're cute and they go together quickly.

If you just don't have time to make some of your own, I have the ones I made here for sale in my Etsy shop, I'll ship them right to your door.

For each doll you'll need:
1 old-fashioned wooden clothespin (body)
1 circular wooden clothespin stand
1 large wooden bead (head)
2 small wooden beads (hands)
1 pipe cleaner
black acrylic craft paint
straight pin with a large head
q-tip
blush
9 yards brown yarn
wood glue
craft glue

For each girl doll you'll need:
5X7-inch piece of felt for dress

For each boy doll you'll need:
5X5-inch piece of felt for shirt
2 1 1/2 X 2-inch pieces of felt for pants
1/2 X 5-inch piece of felt for headband
small feathers

1. Cut the top off of the clothespin, glue the bottom of the clothespin into the stand and glue the large bead in place as the head. Dip the head of the straight pin in black paint and touch to the spots where the eyes should be, making two small dots. Using the q-tip, apply two spots of blush where the cheeks should be (see the picture at left). *Note, if you are making boy dolls make sure that the slit in the clothespin faces forward (so the two halves of the pin look like his legs) as that's where you're going to form his pants. I forgot to do this for the dolls you see pictured there at right and it caused me some trouble later on.

2. Fold the pipe cleaner in half then measure about 2 and 3/4 inches from each end and fold the ends toward the middle. Twist the ends around the pipe cleaner to make the arms then string the small beads on the end as hands (see the picture at left).

3. Once the heads are dry, lay the arms over the dolls neck in the front and wrap the arms around to the back, twisting once to secure. Bend the arms downward so that they appear to come more from the body than from the neck.

4. For the boys, cut fringe along the short edges of each rectangular pant piece then slide both pieces through the large clothespin slit, gluing each piece in place along the outside of the "leg" where the fringe is, to close the legs and form his pants.

5. Using the pattern for the shirt and dress at left (click to enlarge it and print it out) cut out each shirt or dress by placing the shoulders along the fold and cutting it out so that the shirt or dress looks rather like a large "plus" sound when you've unfolded it. Cut the neck opening. Cut the fringe along the sleeve openings and around the bottom then squeeze it over the dolls' head, it will be open all along the bottom. Tie securely around the waist with a piece of yard or jute or rafia to make a belt.

6. Using the brown yarn make the hair by wrapping it around your hands then tying it securely in the middle. Glue it on the dolls head, add the headband and feather for the boys, and you're done.

If you wanted to you could make pretty little beaded necklaces for the girls, or put tiny flowers in their hair.

You could also make some Pilgrim dolls to accompany these if you wanted to, little black and white hats would be pretty cute!

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Have you entered this month's Write-Away Contest yet? The theme is about making a difference . . .



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