Now that the holidays are over, I can show off some of the toys I made for the kids. Here are the fairies I made, to go with these from last year.  All of them get played with a lot, by both The Boy and The Girl. I won’t show you how last year’s look now.  They have held up well, but they have been played with hard. Somehow I find that very satisfying.  I also love how I find these little fairies in odd places all over the house.  It’s a nice surprise.

I’m very pleased with how these came out, and now that I’ve made quite a few, they are getting much easier to make.  They are so cute, I am always tempted to keep them for myself.

I mean, they would look cute on my desk.

We had a simple and sweet party at home.  She invited two girl friends and the rest of us were family.

Here is the fairy set I made for her.

They are so cute, I could nearly explode.  And the boy fairy!  So cute!  Let me tell you that sewing a little pair of one inch trousers is not an easy task!

Purple fairy with her tiny braids.

Yellow fairy with her big puffy pigtails.

These are the same as the bendy doll family I made last year.  Thankfully they went together much faster this time!  The little acorn caps were found on our New York trip.  They are much bigger than my local southern acorn caps.  The hair is wool roving, the tops are wool felt, and the skirts and wings are silk flowers.

And here’s the house I made for them to live in. I purchased the plain wooden house very inexpensively at a large craft store, then hot glued twigs from our yard all over it.  There is a ton of glue on this thing.  Like about 30 sticks.  The roof shingles are from pinecones.

The little wooden furniture is from another playset we have, although I do want to make some more furniture.  This was totally a last minute gift, and I consider it a work in progress.  I knew there was no way I was going to get it done in time for her birthday if I tried to hide the work from her, so when she asked what I was making, I told her I was making a fairy house.

“For me?”

“No, for the fairies.”

“Mom, I think you are trying to surprise me,” she said.

The spring bunting became happy birthday bunting with the addition of a few new letters.

The bendy dolls I made for The Girl’s new dollhouse.  These took So. Long. To. Make.

Beautiful thrifted oak caddy for her art supplies.  When she wants to use it she says, “can I paint my heart?”  So sweet.

When I was pregnant with The Girl, I bought this wooden doll cradle at the Goodwill for $5, because I was so convinced that she was a girl.  This month, I finally pulled it out of storage and it was a mess.  It had nails sticking out of it, and it was spotted with paint and dirt.   I sanded and scrubbed it, then polished it with some nice beeswax polish.

I made a little mattress and quilt, and to my delight, this doll fit perfectly inside.  That is the doll I made for The Boy years ago, which he never played with.  I gave the baby a good bath and made a new little gown and diaper for it.

I love the little cloth diaper.  It’s details like that which made me totally fall in love with certain dollies when I was a little girl.

I put a lot of time and love into this gift.  It makes me so happy to see this old doll (and cradle) get a new life.

Since I shared The Girl’s Waldorf doll last week, I thought I’d share The Boy’s today.  I really love how he turned out.  I made him to match The Boy’s eye and hair color, and I even made the little hawaiian shirt and jeans just like The Boy used to wear.

I made him from a kit I bought from Joy’s.  I don’t think a kit is really necessary, but I simply could not get my head around getting all the supplies together and I couldn’t find a pattern for free.  Making the head is a little tricky and Joy’s instructions walk you through it step by step.  It was only after I made The Boy’s doll that I felt confident enough to make The Girl’s without a pattern.  So at least it was a learning experience.

I was so disappointed that The Boy utterly rejected this doll after I spent so much time and swore so much while making him.  But I think The Girl will get some use out of him.  I was planning on giving him a makeover, but when I dressed him up in his original outfit again, I couldn’t bear to change him one bit.

Here’s the Waldorf doll I made for The Girl for Christmas. I’m very proud of her because this is only the second Waldorf doll I’ve ever made, and she is from my very own pattern.  The first Waldorf doll I made was for The Boy’s second birthday and it was a very challenging project for me.  I swore I would never make another Waldorf doll again.  To make matters worse, he utterly rejected it.  Not only would he not play with it, he didn’t even want it in his room.

Making the first doll taught me several dollmaking techniques, and was very much a learning process.  This doll was much easier and faster going together, and it was a fun, happy project because I knew that one day she would actually get played with.

I actually started making her in the summer to give myself lots of time.  Good thing because I was up until 11 p.m. Christmas Eve finishing her up.  I had the doll body and head made for quite some time, but I couldn’t manage to get the hair right.  I tried many times to crochet a wig, but I just couldn’t figure it out.  Finally I decided to just make center-seamed hair.  Once I made up my mind to do it that way, it took all of about thirty minutes to do.  Then I just made a simple little dress and I was done.

I was a little anxious when she opened it.  Would she like it?  I mean, she wasn’t even a year old yet, but I was hoping she show at least a little interest in it.

She was seen Christmas morning clutching it to her chest.  I couldn’t have been happier.  Finally someone loves my dolls.

I did manage to get the doll finished in time for The Girl’s birthday.  Barely.  I was up until 11:30 p.m. the night before, but who’s counting?

It was not the easiest project I have ever done, and I found myself muttering, “I’m never making another one of these.”  But I said that when I made my first Waldorf doll, too.  I think the first time for anything is a little bumpy.  And for me, there’s always room for improvement.

I spent every free moment I could working on her.  I could have gotten her done in just a few hours if I’d had an established pattern on my hands.  For some reason I thought I could just whip it up and it would come together perfectly.  That was not the case.  Every part I did, I ended up changing.  I embroidered two faces.  The eyes on this one are still a bit too big, but her lips are my favorite part.  Then I didn’t like the shoes.  Then I didn’t like the legs.  Then the arms were too wide.  Finally, as the hours started ticking by on the day before her birthday, I realized I would just have to push forward as it was, and come to terms with the fact that she was not going to be perfect by any means.

She did not come out the way I had envisioned, but she came out pretty good for a first try.  I can see how much fun it would be to make one of these dolls and make lots of clothes and accesories for her.  When The Girl is ready for that, hopefully I will have perfected my dollmaking technique.  But what makes this doll so special, even with all her imperfections, is that I made her with love for my daughter on her first birthday.  There isn’t another doll in the whole world like her.

I was originally planning on making The Girl’s Big Girl Quilt for her first birthday, but let’s just say time got away from me.  I had been working on it a little bit, but I just wasn’t feeling the love for the way the wonky log cabin pattern was looking with the fabrics I had selected.  With twelve large squares already made, I decided to ditch the pattern for for something else.  Stacked coins, perhaps?  But by then, all of that messing around and experimenting had cost me precious time and I realized that I could not cut, piece, quilt and bind a quilt in less than two weeks.  Not if I wanted to sleep, anyway.

Lesson learned: when your daughter’s birthday is just after the holidays, get ready for it before the holidays take over.  I’m lucky that she won’t remember this birthday, and she doesn’t even know what a birthday is yet.

I really wanted to make her something special, though.  So I decided to make her a little rag doll.  It seems everyone is making these felt haired rag dolls these days.  Emily and Hillary both inspire me.  So last Sunday, when The Daddy Monkey had the babes at their grandparents’ house, I set to drafting my very own pattern.  I don’t know yet if it’s going to come together the way I want it to, but I’m hopeful.

My original thought was to use only materials from my stash.  I would have pulled it off, too, except I didn’t have the right color embroidery floss for the eyes.  And rather then settle for what I had, I went today and bought 66 cents worth of embroidery floss, because I want the eyes to be just the right color.

I’ve been stealing away a few minutes here and there to work on it.  I hope I can get it done by her birthday.