Custom Doll Up for Sale!

The cute custom doll I made recently is now up for sale on eBay! She is a brand new Truly Me #55 with used #53 wig. You can view the listing here.

The starting bid for her is $119.

She comes with denim shorts, a dance tee, and a matching bracelet. She also comes in her original #55 box.

I will be listing more American Girl items soon, including some retired JLY outfits :)

At last...

I finally decided on a name for my JLY #39!

Here name is Brooke Estelle! My other two American Girl dolls, Beth and Maggie, have names that are like those in Louisa May Alcott's book Little Women. The association was not intended, but I realized it and decided to continue the theme! Brooke gets her name from John Brooke, who marries Meg March.

And now for a short photo shoot of Brooke!

Thanks for reading!

Making a Doll Fireplace

With cold winter days approaching, I was inspired to create an American Girl Doll sized fireplace! I had been thinking about doing it for some time, and am super happy I finally got around to it.

I took progress pictures of how I constructed that may help you if you decide to make a fireplace for your dolls. I apologize for any poor quality photos, I usually do crafts at night time :)

 



For the basic structure of the fireplace, I used a Christmas lights box that measures 8 1/2" by almost 9 1/2". I turned it sideways, so the longer side of the box would be the bottom of the fireplace.

 



I then cut out a section of the front for the opening where the "fire" would be. The completed opening measured about 5" by 6 1/2".

 

For the inside of the fireplace, I printed out a brick pattern on some paper. The brick is a little small for American Girl Doll scale, but that's okay to me. A link to the brick template can be found in the description box of the video by Deena and Beena here. I printed four of these sheets, but only needed to use three.

 

I used scissors to cut the paper so that it would fit on the inside of the box, then used a glue stick to attach the paper to the cardboard of the box. Here it is so far!

 

 

The black part is craft foam cut to the right size. I attached it with a glue stick. One could also use black construction paper, but I didn't have any on hand.

 

 

I used my X-acto knife to cut pieces of craft foam board to cover the design of the Christmas lights box. I covered the front and both sides.

 

 

I wanted to add a little decoration to the front of the fireplace, but I didn't want it to be overwhelming. I took some white Sculpey and rolled it out so it was flat and even. I have a small box made of stone with horses and interesting designs carved into it (picture above). I took this box and decided to use the triangle design. I impressed the box into the clay. When I removed the box, the clay showed the same triangle design indented into it. The first couple times I attempted this, the clay stuck to the box, making a rough looking design. I fixed this by putting a small piece of plastic wrap over the clay. After that, I was able to remove the box, peel away the plastic wrap, and I had a nice design.

 

 

I cut the clay designs to the shape I needed before baking for fifteen minutes.

 

 

For the wood of the fire, I found some small branches of a lilac tree. I cut them to smaller pieces, in order to fit into the fireplace. To make them look burnt, I used soft charcoal and hard charcoal, which is typically used for drawings, to color the sticks darker. I smoothed it out with my fingers and a tortillion. If you would like to read more about charcoal drawing/tortillions/charcoal, see my previous post here. 

 

 

I cut the foam board for the mantelpiece a slight bit larger than the actual size, so it would over hang a bit.

 

Final pictures!!

 

 

It's got a basic look and design, but I plan on decorating it with stockings and Christmas trinkets.

 



 

I glued the clay design to the foam board with some Tacky Glue. I had never used Tacky Glue before. The clay seems to be held quite well into place.

 

 

 

For size comparison I have Maggie in her winter pajamas!

 

 

I think Maggie is wondering if Santa will be able to get through it :)

 

Hope you enjoyed!

Sculpey Adventures #2



Today we have another Sculpey adventure! The first items I made from the clay are these cute Christmas tree cookies. These will be great for December!

The 'dough' of the cookie is tan clay. The frosting is puffy paint, and the ornaments are dots of puffy paint. On one of the cookies the ornaments are tiny balls of green clay.

To cut out the shape of the cookies I used a small cookie cutter.

 

Red ornaments:

 

No ornaments:

 

Silver:

 

Green clay ornaments:

 

Size reference:

 

I also made a little pencil! It is made entirely of clay, although I intend to paint the point black or dark grey.